a fun thing you learn about reading NTSB airline crash reports...

atax1a

atax1a

...is that there are a lot of fatal plane crashes caused by pilots who became so automation-dependent that they forgot how to actually, like, fly the plane.

this is a post about so-called "generative AI"
 
My dad used to bring home the detailed behind-the-scenes crash reports for me to read. You have no idea how often I asked "Who the everglowing F! greenlit this $EXPLETIVE??"
 
back when we would travel on plane we'd have a report open on our screen specifically to discourage people from looking over our shoulder. :)
 
Boeing vs Airbus; iirc AirBus is more a fan of software controlling flight surfaces (turn a dial, computer determines if safe while moving the controls) vs Boeing preferring traditional physical controls.

I think planes could be fully-automated (efficiency and price), but wonder why there'd be a need for a trained pilot still (job elimination), and wonder how pilots feel about different plane controls: What use is years of unique flight control training if the air line enforces autopilot use? Is there passion telling computers how to fly your plane?
 
Espionage724 said:
Boeing vs Airbus; iirc AirBus is more a fan of software controlling flight surfaces (turn a dial, computer determines if safe while moving the controls) vs Boeing preferring traditional physical controls.

I think planes could be fully-automated (efficiency and price), but wonder why there'd be a need for a trained pilot still (job elimination), and wonder how pilots feel about different plane controls: What use is years of unique flight control training if the air line enforces autopilot use? Is there passion telling computers how to fly your plane?
Click to expand...
the conclusion of all of these crash reports is clear: flight cannot be fully automated because there needs to be someone at the controls who knows how to fly the fucking plane.
 
I just read, astronauts on Artemis mission read stuff on screen like "miles per hour". Their brain is wired to it.
Below it all systems , design , programming , subcontractors , uses , one standard, "km / hour"
 
  • Like
Reactions: drr
Alain De Vos said:
I just read, astronauts on Artemis mission read stuff on screen like "miles per hour". Their brain is wired to it.
Below it all systems , design , programming , subcontractors , uses , one standard, "km / hour"
Click to expand...
Think they've had this problem before:

How NASA Lost Its Mars Climate Orbiter From a Metric Error

The Mars Climate Orbiter was launched by NASA in 1998 to study the Martian atmosphere and surface changes but was lost due to a metric error.
www.simscale.com www.simscale.com
 
the one that always stuck with us is United Airlines flight 232: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR-90-06.pdf

it took not just a pilot with his hands on the controls, but the entire flight crew, and an off-duty check-flight officer to keep that plane in the air and get it down with as little loss of life as possible. an autopilot might be able to handle the constrained task of a steady-state of a flight, but something like "all of the hydraulics are gone and one of the engines is shot" isn't a situation you can autopilot your way out of.
 
atax1a said:
the one that always stuck with us is United Airlines flight 232: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR-90-06.pdf

it took not just a pilot with his hands on the controls, but the entire flight crew, and an off-duty check-flight officer to keep that plane in the air and get it down with as little loss of life as possible. an autopilot might be able to handle the constrained task of a steady-state of a flight, but something like "all of the hydraulics are gone and one of the engines is shot" isn't a situation you can autopilot your way out of.
Click to expand...
I remember that one. A wild thing.

Even more interesting are the reports and stories of incidents which stopped short of an accident. Or the root cause of the root cause reports.
We had a professor for material science who also worked for the LBA, and he sometimes started his lectures with an image and the words "As you can see, that helicopter was not parked correctly". It was spread out over an 20x50m area. "And now to the quest of what fell appart when it was still in the air".
 
atax1a said:
...is that there are a lot of fatal plane crashes caused by pilots who became so automation-dependent that they forgot how to actually, like, fly the plane.

this is a post about so-called "generative AI"
Click to expand...
Sure, because pilot error never happened before all the automation :rolleyes:
 
atax1a said:
flight cannot be fully automated because there needs to be someone at the controls who knows how to fly the fucking plane.
Click to expand...

Actually, is there anyone on position of relevance that claims this?

You cannot land automatically in my city most of the time. There is a single corridor, incoming westward for hundred of miles+, to the vector of the runway. If there aren't side winds, maybe a full instrument landing can be achieved because the aircraft is able to steadily home to ILS while still relatively high and far away. All other corridors require tight maneuvers - when I say tight, I mean I can see what swimsuit are girls on the beach wearing through my window when it banks around the cape of an island.

The geography and weather conditions of a typical international airport simply do not allow computerized traffic.
 
It's kind of hard to fly a plane that uses fly-by-wire if all your electrical systems are dead. That said, it's also difficult to fly a 'normal' plane if the cables are severed.
 
SirDice said:
It's kind of hard to fly a plane that uses fly-by-wire if all your electrical systems are dead. That said, it's also difficult to fly a 'normal' plane if the cables are severed.
Click to expand...
that isn't the problem here. the problem is that if the autopilot becomes inoperational, the pilot does not understand how to operate the plane. you know how when github goes down nobody can do work because their builds won't run? it's like that but when claude goes down the programmer cannot think. how is this not existentially horrifying to you?
 
atax1a said:
the pilot does not understand how to operate the plane.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure they do. It's part of a pilot's training and certification. You don't get a pilot license not knowing how to fly a plane. That said, not all pilots are created equal. Just like everyone that's ever gotten a driver's license. Not all of them are good drivers. I encounter a fair number of bad drivers on a daily basis.
 
you really need to search "children of the magenta", then, because what was shown during the introduction of autopilot is that pilots became automation reliant and the skills they needed to fly the plane atrophied, and ever since, there's been a small flurry of crash reports whose conclusions are "the pilot became automation-reliant and forgot how to fly the plane. the airliner needs to ensure that their pilots manually fly the goddamn plane".
 
I dunno, I have not seen too many of reports of pilots being some losers, quite the opposite. The real problem seems to be that with modern aircraft the probability of something going awry is really low but if things do really get out of hand the chances of not crashing are very low no matter what you do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top