7 ms·

It goes without saying that my qualifications in aviation matters are only as an aviation enthusiast and for the full cause of the accident, we'll have to wait

It goes without saying that my qualifications in aviation matters are only as an aviation enthusiast and for the full cause of the accident, we'll have to wait for the NTSB report (which has access to vital black box data and cockpit recordings). However, I did give this accident some thought as well given the circumstances of the accident and came the pretty much the same final conclusion as the OP. An airline pilot I once spoke to told me once that all the big jetliners use automated ILS with autopilot to automate the landings. The system is pretty accurate and reliable and can deliver landings as good as a well-trained and experienced pilot can. When I saw the rather steep final approach the aircraft was making, I had suspected that the pilots were doing a manual landing. Now that we have information that the ILS was temporarily inoperational this appears to be what transpired and the pilots manually flew the final approach. The precise reasons for why the manual approach ended up in this accident are still to be determined. One thing that I will point out though is that pilots for modern jetliners do relatively little actual manual flying of the plane. Modern airplanes have advanced FMS (Flight Management System) that allow for automatic flying from lift-off until landing with pilots overseeing the system. Given this lack of manual flying, there is a greater potential for human error when a pilot is required to actually do manual flying.

cjrp 13y ago
Pilots will actually very rarely use the autoland functionality (apart from when weather, e.g. low visibility, requires it, and also to ensure that they're current with the procedure). They'll use the autopilot for the initial part of the approach, but then when visual with the runway will often disconnect it in order to fly the actual landing manually (still following the indications on the flight director, which are provided by the localiser/glidescope signals).
- simpleigh 13y ago
  Relevant link: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/12/12/cockpit-confidential-the-autopilot-myth/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/12/12/cockpit-confidential-... "The touchdown had been a fully manual one, as the vast majority of touchdowns are."
- jevinskie 13y ago
  Why is this? Can they do a better (in terms of passenger comfort) job landing manually?
  - cjrp 13y ago
    I couldn't say in terms of comfort, but they need to be able to perform a manual landing (for example if certain equipment on board is not functioning correctly, or the airport is not equipped for autolanding) so it makes sense that they would take every opportunity to keep their skills current. There's probably also a sense of pride in wanting to carry out a smooth landing by hand - especially given that most of the climb/cruise/descent will likely have been controlled by the autopilot.
  - lisper 13y ago
    No, autoland is pretty good. But there are two factors that cause pilots to land manually most of the time: 1) pilots think they are better at handling last-minute unexpected contingencies like wind sheer or bird strikes (and they may well be right about that) and 2) pilots don't want to give the Powers that Be any additional data to suggest that they aren't actually needed to fly a plane at all. The fact of the matter is that there are no technological barriers to making aircraft completely autonomous, but pilots want the world to remain in denial about this for as long as possible for the sake of their job security. (FWIW, I'm an instrument-rated private pilot.)
    - aghull 13y ago
      I can't imagine anyone stepping onto an autonomous passenger aircraft for a long time, not until long after cars and smaller commercial aircraft are regularly driven using computers only. And even that seems like a stretch. I don't see how pilots use or non-use of some automated systems is going to influence popular opinion on that one way or another. But maybe there's a perception among pilots that it will.
      - lisper 13y ago
        The fact of the matter is that most commercial jetliners today are fully automated. It is only takeoff and landing that are still done by hand. No one ever hand-flies a jetliner during cruise except in dire emergencies. In fact, at high altitudes, where the plane is flying in the "coffin corner" of the flight envelope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_corner_(aviation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_corner_(aviation)) hand flying can be extremely dangerous.
- jevinskie 13y ago
  Why is this? Can they do a better (in terms of passenger comfort) job landing manually?
gcv 13y ago
So the price of automation is eternal vigilance? Reminds me of the old argument that overuse of calculators means people have lost the ability to do mental arithmetic.
dopamean 13y ago
My father is a commercial airline pilot. He flew Boeing aircraft for 15 years and for the last 10 has been on a variety of Airbuses. He tells me that pilots very, very rarely use the auto land features and that he has never used it himself.
will_asouka 13y ago
I'm a widebody captain, maybe I can add some insight. The handling of the aircraft is a small part of the job. Autoflight systems have been capable of flying and landing since the 1960s. It is a mature technology although it does need to be monitored by humans as equipment failures do occur. I am confident a system could be developed with sufficient fail safes to remove the requirement for monitoring, and a fully automatically flown aircraft could be built tomorrow although at a higher cost than the current monitored setup. Even if an unmonitored autoflown aircraft was developed, judgement decisions about the operation of the aircraft still need to be taken, and these are best done by a human. Examples of decisions I make: 1. The best fuel consumption maybe achieved at a higher flight level, but I elect to stay low and burn into contingency because I've heard reports of turbulence at the higher level. I judge that I probably won't need the contingency fuel later based on previous experience of the route and destination. So I give my passengers a smooth ride, which helps repeat custom for the airline. 2. I experience radio crackle whilst in cloud and elect to change my routing as I suspect we are near a developing thunderstorm that may soon become active. I have to balance the extra fuel burn of a non-optimal route versus the risks of being caught in a thunderstorm which could destroy the aircraft. I'm not an AI expert, but it seems to me these are value judgements that are best made by a human. So the fully autoflown aircraft will still need a human in the loop at some point. It is possible to remotely site this human, and maybe make efficiency savings by a single human controlling many aircraft but this would require a bulletproof, near realtime datalink. Again, I'm not an expert in the field, but I would suggest this is, if not technically impossible, then a lot more expensive than the cost of employing human pilots. I imagine this datalink would also be of interest to people with ill intent- no fun when you get the airborne equivalent of a rickroll. TL;DR: A human is required in the loop, not to handle the aircraft but to make decisions. It's cheaper to have them on-board than the cost of a datalink. It's cheaper to have them trained to take manual control than the cost of an autopilot sufficiently fail safe that it can be left unmonitored.

cjrp 13y ago

Pilots will actually very rarely use the autoland functionality (apart from when weather, e.g. low visibility, requires it, and also to ensure that they're current with the procedure). They'll use the autopilot for the initial part of the approach, but then when visual with the runway will often disconnect it in order to fly the actual landing manually (still following the indications on the flight director, which are provided by the localiser/glidescope signals).

simpleigh 13y ago
Relevant link: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/12/12/cockpit-confidential-the-autopilot-myth/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/12/12/cockpit-confidential-... "The touchdown had been a fully manual one, as the vast majority of touchdowns are."
jevinskie 13y ago
Why is this? Can they do a better (in terms of passenger comfort) job landing manually?
- cjrp 13y ago
  I couldn't say in terms of comfort, but they need to be able to perform a manual landing (for example if certain equipment on board is not functioning correctly, or the airport is not equipped for autolanding) so it makes sense that they would take every opportunity to keep their skills current. There's probably also a sense of pride in wanting to carry out a smooth landing by hand - especially given that most of the climb/cruise/descent will likely have been controlled by the autopilot.
- lisper 13y ago
  No, autoland is pretty good. But there are two factors that cause pilots to land manually most of the time: 1) pilots think they are better at handling last-minute unexpected contingencies like wind sheer or bird strikes (and they may well be right about that) and 2) pilots don't want to give the Powers that Be any additional data to suggest that they aren't actually needed to fly a plane at all. The fact of the matter is that there are no technological barriers to making aircraft completely autonomous, but pilots want the world to remain in denial about this for as long as possible for the sake of their job security. (FWIW, I'm an instrument-rated private pilot.)
  - aghull 13y ago
    I can't imagine anyone stepping onto an autonomous passenger aircraft for a long time, not until long after cars and smaller commercial aircraft are regularly driven using computers only. And even that seems like a stretch. I don't see how pilots use or non-use of some automated systems is going to influence popular opinion on that one way or another. But maybe there's a perception among pilots that it will.
    - lisper 13y ago
      The fact of the matter is that most commercial jetliners today are fully automated. It is only takeoff and landing that are still done by hand. No one ever hand-flies a jetliner during cruise except in dire emergencies. In fact, at high altitudes, where the plane is flying in the "coffin corner" of the flight envelope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_corner_(aviation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_corner_(aviation)) hand flying can be extremely dangerous.
jevinskie 13y ago
Why is this? Can they do a better (in terms of passenger comfort) job landing manually?

gcv 13y ago

So the price of automation is eternal vigilance? Reminds me of the old argument that overuse of calculators means people have lost the ability to do mental arithmetic.

dopamean 13y ago

My father is a commercial airline pilot. He flew Boeing aircraft for 15 years and for the last 10 has been on a variety of Airbuses. He tells me that pilots very, very rarely use the auto land features and that he has never used it himself.

will_asouka 13y ago

I'm a widebody captain, maybe I can add some insight. The handling of the aircraft is a small part of the job. Autoflight systems have been capable of flying and landing since the 1960s. It is a mature technology although it does need to be monitored by humans as equipment failures do occur. I am confident a system could be developed with sufficient fail safes to remove the requirement for monitoring, and a fully automatically flown aircraft could be built tomorrow although at a higher cost than the current monitored setup. Even if an unmonitored autoflown aircraft was developed, judgement decisions about the operation of the aircraft still need to be taken, and these are best done by a human. Examples of decisions I make: 1. The best fuel consumption maybe achieved at a higher flight level, but I elect to stay low and burn into contingency because I've heard reports of turbulence at the higher level. I judge that I probably won't need the contingency fuel later based on previous experience of the route and destination. So I give my passengers a smooth ride, which helps repeat custom for the airline. 2. I experience radio crackle whilst in cloud and elect to change my routing as I suspect we are near a developing thunderstorm that may soon become active. I have to balance the extra fuel burn of a non-optimal route versus the risks of being caught in a thunderstorm which could destroy the aircraft. I'm not an AI expert, but it seems to me these are value judgements that are best made by a human. So the fully autoflown aircraft will still need a human in the loop at some point. It is possible to remotely site this human, and maybe make efficiency savings by a single human controlling many aircraft but this would require a bulletproof, near realtime datalink. Again, I'm not an expert in the field, but I would suggest this is, if not technically impossible, then a lot more expensive than the cost of employing human pilots. I imagine this datalink would also be of interest to people with ill intent- no fun when you get the airborne equivalent of a rickroll. TL;DR: A human is required in the loop, not to handle the aircraft but to make decisions. It's cheaper to have them on-board than the cost of a datalink. It's cheaper to have them trained to take manual control than the cost of an autopilot sufficiently fail safe that it can be left unmonitored.