Originally Posted by
fotoguzzi
(Not a pilot)Will they be forced to make a more "foolproof" 'plane?
Absolutely. Transport category airplane became more complex over time with reducing their fuel consumption. As more complex system automation goes in, as more complex the trouble shooting algorithm become. Within the few minutes left to ground if something goes south after take off there is no realistic time to go through all sorts of manuals. A good part that saved Sullys plane into the Hudson was, that the APU kept running. That kept the alpha floor protection in place. Most likely the APU was running to try restarting the engines but that was an extra which was not in the manuals.
How can you assume that two pilots figure a solution for a complex problem within minutes, while the aircraft designers did not come up with a fast diagnosis scratching their heads for years.
There are ways to produce complex highly reliable systems, but that’s not easy. They are in place in different industries and every “corner cutting” will make at some time the news. Fail safe systems with multiple redundancies and cross checking are possible with a low remaining failure rate. Havaries of those systems come out from either cutting corners in the design like Tesla’s camera only “autopilot”, or deliberately switching off safety systems like Chernobyl.