Jim Lovell's contribution
This just appeared on the online version of the Daily Telegraph
Apollo 13 should be a lasting reminder to astronauts and airline pilots of the dangers of relying on automated systems, the commander of the ill-fated mission has claimed.
Capt Jim Lovell said it was basic flying skills that allowed him and his crew to navigate their way back to Earth after an oxygen tank exploded during their voyage to the moon in 1970.
Recent air disasters such as Air France flight 447, lost over the Atlantic in 2009, and the Asiana Airlines plane which crash landed in San Francisco this summer indicate that pilots have become too reliant on autopilot, he added.
Capt Lovell's return to Earth on Apollo 13 was perhaps the most dramatic and courageous episode in the Apollo era of the 1960s and 70s.
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Stranded in space with limited power and oxygen, The US team embarked on a daring escape manoeuvre that involved catapulting themselves around the moon and using their lunar module as a lifeboat to carry them home.
At a crucial point before they re-entered Earth's atmosphere, the crew had to adjust their craft's trajectory manually, using no more than a wristwatch and the position of the Earth in their window for navigation.
Astonishingly, Capt Lovell and his colleagues Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were able to steer the module in the right direction and splashed into the Pacific Ocean on April 17.
"I had a lot of automatic things on Apollo 13," Capt Lovell said before receiving the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators’ award of honour at a ceremony in London last week.
"I had a guidance system, I had a computer - even though it was rudimentary at that time, it was a good computer. I lost all that. Didn't have the power to keep it going."
He told The Telegraph that recent air disasters had convinced him that automation has "taken (away) part of the ability of the pilot to control the aeroplane".
"I think that aviators these days have to go back and to and do a lot of hand flying really to be the final judge of controlling the aeroplane," he said.
"There was the example of the Air France plane that was lost. They were on autopilot and the autopilot stalled the aeroplane."
He also highlighted the examples of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 which slammed into tarmac at San Francisco International Airport on July 6 this year, killing three passengers and injuring more than 180.
An official hearing is due in December but some reports suggested an automated device which controlled the plane's speed may have malfunctioned.
(Any complaints about copyright and I'll pull this reply.)
One might observe that had the pilots concerned in these incidents and possibly many more fully understood their AP systems then maybe they would not have suffered in the way they did.
G.
Last edited by Geoffersincornwall; 27th Oct 2013 at 16:18.