How Panic Doomed an Airliner

jeffwise.net ^ | December 7, 2011 | Jeff Wise

[BenLurkin]

On the evening of May 31, 2009, 216 passengers and 12 crew members boarded an Air France Airbus 330 at Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The flight, Air France 447, departed at 7.29pm local time for a scheduled 11-hour flight to Paris. It never arrived. At 7 o’clock the next morning, when the aircraft failed to appear on the radar screens of air traffic controllers in Europe, Air France began to worry, and contacted civil aviation authorities. By 11am, they concluded that their worst fears had been confirmed. AF447 had gone missing somewhere over the vast emptiness of the South Atlantic.

How, in the age of satellite navigation and instantaneous global communication, could a state-of-the art airliner simply vanish? It was a mystery that lasted for two years. Not until earlier this year, when autonomous submersibles located the airliner’s black boxes under more than two miles of water, were the last pieces of the puzzle put together. What doomed the 228 men, women and children aboard Air France 447 was neither weather nor technological failure, but simple human error. Under pressure, human beings can lose their ability to think clearly and to properly execute their training—a well-known failing that has proven all too difficult to eliminate.

[Reeses]

Ok, genius, how does 'conservative engineering' handle control inputs?

I can't speak for the French but in America two Boeing pilots are trained to have only one pilot in 100% command at one time. There is no 50/50 commune command option. A pilot taking control announces something to the effect "It's my plane" and the other lays off the inputs. If the second pilot does interfere, and especially if they are French or Muslim, the pilot in command has the legal authority, and responsibility, to punch their lights out. Any vehicle designed to operate by secretly averaging the inputs of two co-equal pilots is an accident waiting to happen, and in this case it happened.

[fini]

The metric system? Well, I always thought that the metric system was up to no good. I’m glad we found the culprit.

[wrench]

That plane can most certainly be flown with inop air-speed sensors. Many documented cases of that very make and model doing just that.

Over reliance on electronics is the fault here and inability to fly the aircraft buy the poorly trained crew.

[expat2]

Not in IMC conditions, including a TX.

[SamAdams76]

I wish I could remember where I saw this article but I read recently where the passenger airline industry has a long term goal of literally having the planes fly themselves from point A to point B and the cockpits will be sealed off and unmanned. Instead of pilots in the planes, they will be stationed on the ground where they will monitor multiple flights at once and have the ability to control the plane remotely if necessary.

Apparently the technology already exists to do this, the main obstacle is that most people in their right mind would never board a passenger plane without having live pilots in the cockpit. However, as we become more reliant on technology, the resistance to this will gradually get lowered.

There is already much research being done on having motor vehicles drive themselves and then we will have the same situation on the ground. During rare instances of equipment malfunction, the "driver" will find him/herself suddenly in control of the vehicle and panic/confusion will ensue.