5 ms·

I was just reading about the Air France flight that was lost over the Atlantic due to pilot panic, and a near-collision caused by confused pilots almost landing

by mholt 3y ago

I was just reading about the Air France flight that was lost over the Atlantic due to pilot panic, and a near-collision caused by confused pilots almost landing on a crowded taxiway, and a near-crash caused by pilot miscommunication about a flap setting just after takeoff that happened even more recently... In light of this, I'm practically relieved to read about incidents caused by software bugs where the pilots were able to handle it calmly and with ease. I don't know if that's a bad thing or a good thing.

MilStdJunkie 3y ago
Downside of this is when you get a panicked pilot and a software bug, which is actually sort of inevitable since the one rides on top of the other. Having worked both in aviation incident investigation and for Big Mama B at various times, every time I see a Boeing story my whole body involuntarily clenches for a moment. In . . delight! Of course! Delightful clenching.
- paulmd 3y ago
  Full-body kegels
Roark66 3y ago
I suppose for every situation where a pilot gets confused or panics that results in a serious incident there are dozens(hundreds?) situations that never progressed far enough, because a pilot calmly prevented it. Personally I consider autopilots etc, boredom relieving devices not an improvement or even replacement for pilots in future. I feel much safer in a plane a human lands by hand than if a computer program could do it. Also, the whole "software controlled fly by wire" still makes me uneasy. I feel much better when I know there are actual physical cables that let the pilot move control surfaces. In a huge plane I can understand the necessity of using a hydraulic system which can be made to be extremely reliable, but software? Perhaps it's because I got to see how software is usually developed? When a bridge or a building is built you get an architect (depending on country also the civil engineer) sign under his/hers responsibility this thing is not going to collapse and kill people. If it does and negligence is proven that person goes to jail for a long time. There is no equivalent in software. When responsibility is distributed over countless people you often get unreliable products. Why is it we don't build buildings like this? Probably, because people died in shoddy built buildings, also everyone can see cracks in the walls etc. If a software runs badly it's not so obvious. Sadly, I think more people will die before this 70+ year discipline will come even close to implementing the safety processes devised by millenia of expertise in fields like civil engineering. So what can a person do to lower the probability of getting hurt? Probably not much. If you have to fly, you usually don't get a choice of a plane (and even if you do it's usually an Airbus vs Boeing). But in other areas of life one has much more control. For example, I'll not drive a car that has a computer I can't disable that can slam the brakes any moment at highway speeds if it detects "something" in front.
- dlkf 3y ago
  I encourage you to research whether flying has gotten safer or more dangerous since 1970, and then consider why that is.
- FabHK 3y ago
  > Sadly, I think more people will die before this 70+ year discipline will come even close to implementing the safety processes devised by millenia of expertise in fields like civil engineering. With all due respect, the safety culture and processes in aviation are excellent and exemplary. Software in aviation is a bit more problematic (viz, MCAS in the MAX; though note that in the instances discussed here nobody came to harm, thanks to redundancy and pilots doing their job), but also subject to processes and rules that far exceed one or two people putting a signature to paper.
  - michael_vo 3y ago
    Yeah sometimes it’s easy to critique the air industry. But imagine if these same safety reviews were applied to the car industry. So many lives could be saved but we have become numb to car accidents.
    - Caligatio 3y ago
      Well, these problems do publicly rear their ugly head in cars intermittently. Telsa pushes out recall-worthy software updates, Toyota had its infamous stuck accelerator pedal issue in 2009, etc. The airline industry gets such a weird amount of public attention across the board ranging from passenger safety to massive investigations if a plane goes down. It's not necessarily a bad thing but you certainly do not hear federal regulation stopping people from driving a model of car (recalls yes, but nothing akin to grounding) if there's one unexplained crash.
      - userbinator 3y ago
        Toyota had its infamous stuck accelerator pedal issue in 2009, etc. AFAIK that was never proven to be a software problem.
mdavidn 3y ago
Arguably, the Air France incident was both a pilot and software problem. Although the software worked as designed, it contributed to the pilots' confusion. This was particularly true of the stall warning, which would reject angle of attack readings below about 60 knots forward airspeed but then sound again whenever the pilots did pitch down, the correct response to a high-altitude stall.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  I always wondered - weren't there a simple glass of water in the cockpit. It wouldn't tell them the angle of attack of course, but could have used it as a sanity check.
t0mas88 3y ago
The resulting flight path of this bug is a very common one. Going through the localizer and then turning back to re-intercept. And it's in the standard operating procedures for every airline/operator to monitor loc capture by the crew. This "oops it didn't capture" also happens when you forget to select the right autopilot mode, which isn't an uncommon mistake for pilots in training. It's actually so common that at airports with two runways close together they make aircraft capture the two localizers from different altitudes so there is no risk of collision when they fail to capture. (For example 18R and 18C in Amsterdam capture at 2000ft and 3000ft, this is done nearly every day) So I'm going to say: Not really a big deal in terms of safety, easy to handle for the crew. But absolutely worth a safety report since unexpected auto flight behaviour needs an investigation and correction.

by mholt 3y ago

MilStdJunkie 3y ago

Downside of this is when you get a panicked pilot and a software bug, which is actually sort of inevitable since the one rides on top of the other. Having worked both in aviation incident investigation and for Big Mama B at various times, every time I see a Boeing story my whole body involuntarily clenches for a moment. In . . delight! Of course! Delightful clenching.

paulmd 3y ago
Full-body kegels

Roark66 3y ago

I suppose for every situation where a pilot gets confused or panics that results in a serious incident there are dozens(hundreds?) situations that never progressed far enough, because a pilot calmly prevented it. Personally I consider autopilots etc, boredom relieving devices not an improvement or even replacement for pilots in future. I feel much safer in a plane a human lands by hand than if a computer program could do it. Also, the whole "software controlled fly by wire" still makes me uneasy. I feel much better when I know there are actual physical cables that let the pilot move control surfaces. In a huge plane I can understand the necessity of using a hydraulic system which can be made to be extremely reliable, but software? Perhaps it's because I got to see how software is usually developed? When a bridge or a building is built you get an architect (depending on country also the civil engineer) sign under his/hers responsibility this thing is not going to collapse and kill people. If it does and negligence is proven that person goes to jail for a long time. There is no equivalent in software. When responsibility is distributed over countless people you often get unreliable products. Why is it we don't build buildings like this? Probably, because people died in shoddy built buildings, also everyone can see cracks in the walls etc. If a software runs badly it's not so obvious. Sadly, I think more people will die before this 70+ year discipline will come even close to implementing the safety processes devised by millenia of expertise in fields like civil engineering. So what can a person do to lower the probability of getting hurt? Probably not much. If you have to fly, you usually don't get a choice of a plane (and even if you do it's usually an Airbus vs Boeing). But in other areas of life one has much more control. For example, I'll not drive a car that has a computer I can't disable that can slam the brakes any moment at highway speeds if it detects "something" in front.

dlkf 3y ago
I encourage you to research whether flying has gotten safer or more dangerous since 1970, and then consider why that is.
FabHK 3y ago
> Sadly, I think more people will die before this 70+ year discipline will come even close to implementing the safety processes devised by millenia of expertise in fields like civil engineering. With all due respect, the safety culture and processes in aviation are excellent and exemplary. Software in aviation is a bit more problematic (viz, MCAS in the MAX; though note that in the instances discussed here nobody came to harm, thanks to redundancy and pilots doing their job), but also subject to processes and rules that far exceed one or two people putting a signature to paper.
- michael_vo 3y ago
  Yeah sometimes it’s easy to critique the air industry. But imagine if these same safety reviews were applied to the car industry. So many lives could be saved but we have become numb to car accidents.
  - Caligatio 3y ago
    Well, these problems do publicly rear their ugly head in cars intermittently. Telsa pushes out recall-worthy software updates, Toyota had its infamous stuck accelerator pedal issue in 2009, etc. The airline industry gets such a weird amount of public attention across the board ranging from passenger safety to massive investigations if a plane goes down. It's not necessarily a bad thing but you certainly do not hear federal regulation stopping people from driving a model of car (recalls yes, but nothing akin to grounding) if there's one unexplained crash.
    - userbinator 3y ago
      Toyota had its infamous stuck accelerator pedal issue in 2009, etc. AFAIK that was never proven to be a software problem.

mdavidn 3y ago

Arguably, the Air France incident was both a pilot and software problem. Although the software worked as designed, it contributed to the pilots' confusion. This was particularly true of the stall warning, which would reject angle of attack readings below about 60 knots forward airspeed but then sound again whenever the pilots did pitch down, the correct response to a high-altitude stall.

ReptileMan 3y ago
I always wondered - weren't there a simple glass of water in the cockpit. It wouldn't tell them the angle of attack of course, but could have used it as a sanity check.

t0mas88 3y ago

The resulting flight path of this bug is a very common one. Going through the localizer and then turning back to re-intercept. And it's in the standard operating procedures for every airline/operator to monitor loc capture by the crew. This "oops it didn't capture" also happens when you forget to select the right autopilot mode, which isn't an uncommon mistake for pilots in training. It's actually so common that at airports with two runways close together they make aircraft capture the two localizers from different altitudes so there is no risk of collision when they fail to capture. (For example 18R and 18C in Amsterdam capture at 2000ft and 3000ft, this is done nearly every day) So I'm going to say: Not really a big deal in terms of safety, easy to handle for the crew. But absolutely worth a safety report since unexpected auto flight behaviour needs an investigation and correction.