4 ms·
In normal conditions, yes. But when things go wrong (your "or crashing", perhaps), the pilot is suddenly very much involved, and screwups can be fatal. Take,
by rst 14y ago
In normal conditions, yes. But when things go wrong (your "or crashing", perhaps), the pilot is suddenly very much involved, and screwups can be fatal.
Take, for example, Qantas flight 32, an A380 that was successfully landed after one of the engines more or less blew up, damaging several other systems. Truly pilotless operation would require automated systems that could do as well --- and hopefully better than the pilots of Air France 447, the transatlantic flight that was lost due to recoverable pilot error.
- tedunangst 14y agoYes. The failure/recovery mode for "speedometer is reporting inconsistent speeds" is stop the engine and coast to a stop. That doesn't work as well with planes. Then again, human pilots are fallible, and lots of crashes would be avoided if they paid more attention to instruments and less to instinct (where's that horizon again?), so maybe programming planes to just blindly follow the instruments would result in a net reduction in crashes.