3 ms·

There isn't a "split control issue," the split control setup is fundamental to the way the Airbus control schema works. Changing it would be a non-starter.

mholt 3y ago
According to the author, the split control design mitigated communication between pilots, since one cannot feel what the other is doing. That seems like a crucial functional omission.
ericbarrett 3y ago
It seems like an avionics warning—“conflicting control input” or the like—would go a long way here, and not change anything fundamental. Maybe Airbus implemented that since?
- cccbbbaaa 3y ago
  There is an audible “dual input”, which was triggered on this flight.
  - ericbarrett 3y ago
    Interesting, thanks! I’ve read a few accounts of this crash and never picked up on that.
    - Mawr 3y ago
      Note that hearing is one of the first things that stop working when a human is under stress [1]. [1]: https://youtu.be/Dl-Fl66Jfao?t=1674 https://youtu.be/Dl-Fl66Jfao?t=1674
cyberax 3y ago
Why? The split control never made any fucking sense. It resulted in several crashes where inputs were averaged.
nwallin 3y ago
You say this as if the split control setup is a feature and not a bug. Can you go into why this is the case? For me at least, it seems like the condition where both pilots are inputting control on the stick or rudder is always an error condition. Even if they're both inputting the same inputs. The scheme directly contributed to the crash for two reasons; obviously if the co-pilot wasn't pulling back on the stick, they would have been able to get out of the stall. But additionally, the two crew members were spending crew resources on redundant tasks: both of them thought that they were the ones aviating and the other was in charge of figuring out why the flight computer seemed to be behaving badly. Possibly if one of them did dedicate their attention to the flight computer, they'd have figured out what the actual flight parameters were.

mholt 3y ago

According to the author, the split control design mitigated communication between pilots, since one cannot feel what the other is doing. That seems like a crucial functional omission.

ericbarrett 3y ago

It seems like an avionics warning—“conflicting control input” or the like—would go a long way here, and not change anything fundamental. Maybe Airbus implemented that since?

cccbbbaaa 3y ago
There is an audible “dual input”, which was triggered on this flight.
- ericbarrett 3y ago
  Interesting, thanks! I’ve read a few accounts of this crash and never picked up on that.
  - Mawr 3y ago
    Note that hearing is one of the first things that stop working when a human is under stress [1]. [1]: https://youtu.be/Dl-Fl66Jfao?t=1674 https://youtu.be/Dl-Fl66Jfao?t=1674

cyberax 3y ago

Why? The split control never made any fucking sense. It resulted in several crashes where inputs were averaged.

nwallin 3y ago

You say this as if the split control setup is a feature and not a bug. Can you go into why this is the case? For me at least, it seems like the condition where both pilots are inputting control on the stick or rudder is always an error condition. Even if they're both inputting the same inputs. The scheme directly contributed to the crash for two reasons; obviously if the co-pilot wasn't pulling back on the stick, they would have been able to get out of the stall. But additionally, the two crew members were spending crew resources on redundant tasks: both of them thought that they were the ones aviating and the other was in charge of figuring out why the flight computer seemed to be behaving badly. Possibly if one of them did dedicate their attention to the flight computer, they'd have figured out what the actual flight parameters were.