This is too nightmarish to write about at length, but it suggests yet another upside to taking the human out of the loop: avoiding a CFIT of the worst kind possible.
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Yet another reason to look forward to pilotless civil aviationMarch 26th, 2015 |
 31 comments to Yet another reason to look forward to pilotless civil aviation |
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As I understand it, at least in American aircraft their is a combination on the door – so a pilot who gone to the toilet (or whatever) can get back in, even if the other pilot (there must be a least two pilots on any flight) has collapsed.
Therefore it is likely that the pilot who was inside was actively pressing the button (which is how one prevents a terrorist who has gained the combination from getting in).
Otherwise the door opens after a set number of seconds.
Rather than taking the human out of the loop – this may be an argument for having at least two people up front at all times.
Although computer controlled aircraft would, at least in theory, be cheaper.
I am dubious of automatic control of everything.
For example the automated parking system at the local park here still does not work – even though it was installed in the middle of last year.
On Sunday it was taking over an hour to get cars out of the park (each car), screaming children, vomiting, and so on.
Sunday was also the date of the “Crazy Hats” event – so lots of women and children with cancer.
Not good that “Hal” (as I call the automated system) is such a problem.
“there their” problem – classic for me.
Unfortunately CFIT (albeit unintentional) is actually a primary cause of aviation fatalities. The unpalatable truth is that the less the pilot has to do, the safer we are.
I suspect intentional CFIT is statistically trivial, but I confess it fills me with more horror than I can easily express.
I am too, until it works. But eventually it will.
I believe this is the American aviation requirement for domestic flights, typically being a member of the cabin staff.
The introduction of automated door locks was one of the 9/11 safeguards and I genuinely believe that it has meant that a repetition of the 9/11 hijackings is much more difficult – more so than any of the TSA security theatre, but the problem of CFIT remains. I still suspect this is the reason why the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 went missing and remains missing, as the pilot or co-pilot took control of the plane and then deliberately flew it into the sea or at least until the fuel ran out.
The only genuine safeguard here for the foreseeable future is, as Paul says, to ensure that the cabin is never left unoccupied, but also that the door mechanism can be overridden to prevent any single person taking control of the plane.
In the meantime, I doubt pilotless aeroplanes will get past the ‘public fear’ test, but the ability for the airline manufacturers to build in the ability to seize and remotely control an aeroplane is achievable as long as this can be done under strict protocols and in a timely manner.
The responsiveness to aeroplanes ‘going dark’ is still too poor as the response to MH370 proved.
Let us not forget, that even with the latests incidents of apparent CFIT, the chances of you being involved in an air accident are about 1 billion-to-one for each leg (landing/take-off) and even then you’ve still got a 50% chance of walking away from it.
Airline fatalities continue to decline year-on-year and on a weighted-average basis are the lowest they’ve ever been and still trending steeply downwards.
Air Fatalities
The number of accidents are still marginal, so i think that if we fix things in one side we risk opened risks in another that might be higher.
It may be time to look seriously at a proposal of mine to furnish airline passengers with ‘courtesy cudgels’, neatly tucked into every seatback. Lock the cockpit door with an easily forced lock and rely on the passengers to brain anyone who tries to gain unauthorized entry.
If airlines removed the pilots from the plane, who would they blame for every accident? Almost every finding of pilot error has a technological failing behind it somewhere (e.g., AirFrance 296 or SilkAir 185).
Aside from that, putting 2 (or more) humans in the front seat of the bus gives them the incentive to bring the whole thing back in one piece. Without them, what would be the fail-safe position when the technology goes wrong? Control from the ground? I doubt we will ever get technology to the point where we can replace the human mind and our ability to reason — a critical component in flight, today or 100 years from now.
Just a nit: It’s not appropriate to use the term CFIT in this situation. CFIT is a category of accident. The more qualified intentional CFIT is better, but these are not really CFITs at all. Better to call them what they are: vehicular homicide. Vehicular mass homicide.
Speaking as an ex-comupter-programmer, I would say that I would rather have a human up front to make a manual override when the software was bugged, even at the risk of the pilot being suicidal.
In this case, O’Toole’s corollary to Murphy’s law applies: if you take precautions against a thing going wrong, the thing itself will not go wrong, but the precautions will.
The transport of millions of people by air in safety is one of the great accomplishments of the modern era. Yes, there are instances of insanity like this, but eradicating this human trait remains impossible. Pilotless aircraft will not help, as the systems involved will incorporate their own dangers.
Post 9/11 – In the United States, the rule now essentially states – If pilot or co-pilot leaves the flight deck
( cockpit ) for any reason, there must be another crew member ( flight attendant etc. ) on the flight deck, No single person is to be left alone on the flight deck for any reason.
Would that rule have prevented this latest suicide/murder if that’s what it, in fact, was ? Maybe, maybe not, we’ll probably never know for sure.
In any case, those of you who would be willing to get on an airliner without pilot(s) – you go right ahead. A lifetime with computers has taught me that they are NOWHERE NEAR reliable enough for me to do it. And I suspect they never will be ! A computer can only handle those tasks / situations it has been programmed to handle and there are FAR TOO MANY situational variables and combinations in flying an airliner to ‘hope’ that the programming has ‘covered all the bases’ and can handle all of the possibilities.
I haven’t read all there is to read about this. Too ghastly. However what I have read leads me to wonder if people aren’t being too quick to suggest deliberate murder. What happened might also be compatible with someone having an acid flashback or some sort of “sleepwalking while awake” episode.
Yeah this is also true for people unfortunately, which is why more automation is the way ahead. Sometimes there are far too many things for a human to deal with. I do not mind having a pilot, but under some condition it might be nice to have the automation over-ride them rather than the other way around 😉
Jerry beat me to it: that is the rule in the US but not, as I understand it, in all other countries. Perhaps it should be.
The sad fact is that not every accident is preventable, and there is no way to foresee and prevent every determined terrorist (which is undoubtedly what this was; we just don’t yet know in service to what ideology) from occasionally succeeding at his task. Nothing is infallible, including computer-controlled aircraft. I’ll continue to take my chances with human pilots (multiple) assisted by computers, as is now the case. That seems the best of all possible worlds.
Looks like Easyjet is already adopting the “two crewmembers on the flight deck at all times” policy: “easyJet can confirm that, with effect from tomorrow Friday 27 March, it will change its procedure which will mean that two crew members will be in the cockpit at all times. This decision has been taken in consultation with the Civil Aviation Authority.” Too late for this flight, but perhaps it will prevent a repeat performance by some other psycho.
As with the trains, there is probably a powerful Airline Pilots Union fighting against computer control and in favour of doubling up the crew.
We fly stuff to the ISS remotely, I pretty sure aircraft are within scope.
Laird, thus:
Very well said and absolutely right, as are the others who have made similar observations.
One slight quibble: “Nothing is infallible” except YrsTrly, except of course when I am wrong. ;>)
Jerry,
You are attacking software reliability unfairly. I have have worked on medical equipment that can kill the patient if it malfunctions. Correct operation is certified by the FDA and is a non-trivial process. The test includes crazy operator is trying to kill the patient. By comparison, commercial software is shit.
Just a note–some of the “CFIT” and “pilot error” crashes may have been deliberate suicides (whose aim was the ending of self). Possibly this crash was one of those, and not done from terroristic motives at all.
What Natalie said. Can anyone convincingly show that some sort of mental “black out” on the part of the co-pilot could not have caused this?
How does someone black out and also override the access code from inside designed to prevent coerced access during a hijack? No, currently the official theory of suicide + mass murder does look the most plausible sadly.
The locking of the door by the co-pilot required a deliberate action after the pilot had left the cockpit, the only purpose this switch setting has is to prevent terrorists who have taken control of the passenger cabin from gaining entry to the cockpit.
Can’t be both a deliberate act and a mental “black out” can it?
I’m with Jeff Evans above.
If you make it possible to override a passenger plane remotely from the ground, you’ve just made it possible to override a passenger plane remotely from the ground.
It’s always possible there’s someone cleverer than you doing the overriding.
Oh, I wasn’t aware of that.
Psychomotor epilepsy? Think ‘demonic possession’ without the demon.
Well when it comes to recruitment in the UK, it is unlawful to ask a candidate for work any questions about the candidate’s health (or disability):
unless the questions relate to a relevant ‘function test’ relevant to the job in question, e.g. manual dexterity for a packer.
Therefore, putting aside aviation law requirements, if a candidate for a pilot job in the UK had a history of suicide attempts, self-harming etc. it would be unlawful to ask about it, but you can ask once you have made a job offer or after recruitment.
And if you die pursuant to this legislation, at least you would have done so in the furtherance of Equality.
Another side note–it has happened to me that I have suddenly found myself standing in the kitchen floor, utterly unaware of where I am or why I’m there, but possessed of a sense or belief that I am at some other specific place and time, with only an accompanying sense of vagueness, slight confusion, and definite spaciness to alert me that I am not “all there” at the moment. I think it comes from a sudden blood-pressure drop, or else sudden abrupt O2 starvation (I’m on permanent, 24/7 O2), but in any case this is different from the moments of disorientation that seem to be quite common (I’ve been subject to those too–they’re completely different, usually a case of “highway hypnosis”).
Probably not germane to this particular instance, but the brain will do some very funny things at times.
By the way–as a confirmed anti-Freudian, are so-called “fugue states” either something like what I described at first, or a possibility in the crash, or both?
All just intellectual curiosity. Agreed that terrorism is the most likely reason, on the face of it.
Julie, that sounds like classic alien abduction!
I was cabin crew from late 70’s to 2006. Navigators had gone but Flight engineers were still around – and very useful they were too. They were a different breed from pilots, being more practical and less ego-driven. They could fix systems that went wrong in the cabin; were a useful presence when there was a troublesome passenger; were often the ones that saved the day when things went seriously wrong on the flight-deck, (though the skipper would take the glory); Had the best jokes and always knew the cheapest place to eat; were a useful intermediary between pilots and the cabin/ground crews; And of course were there should one of the pilots needed a break or a quick snooze.
I wonder if 9/11 would have been made more difficult if they had still been around?
So I am inclined to think the opposite direction to pilotless airplanes.
As I have flown planes, albiet small ones, I tend towards automation that helps the pilot, so long as it does not do so much that the pilot loses basic airmanship skills. When the programs suddenly get unexpected inputs and start to do something really stupid, it helps if the pilot knows that a stall warning horn really does mean put the nose down and get some air speed… something the Air France flight deck crew had long forgotten, assuming they had ever been trained to be anything more than systems managers. Same with the Korean flight. The flight deck crew lacked basic airmanship skills because the automation did everything for them.
When you put your faith into the machine, you will find it is a marvelous thing… until the unexpected happens.
And btw, yes there is an Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) over here, and the woman who runs it is an old friend of mine. I am quite sure they would opt for keeping two on the flight deck and I would agree with them for decades to come.
Some day, perhaps. But not today.