Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair,
describes the article:
...Vanity Fair International Correspondent William Langewiesche’s “The Human Factor,” on page 256—a gripping minute-by-minute account of the loss of Air France 447, which inexplicably plunged into the Atlantic in 2009, claiming the lives of all 228 people on board. You probably remember the event: a routine flight from Rio to Paris, no calls of distress, and then the plane just goes missing. It was a disappearance that bedeviled the aviation business. As Langewiesche discovered, the pilots had become confused and then frantic after a momentary loss of airspeed indications—this in a fully automated, state-of-the-art airplane that was otherwise flying straight and level, and experiencing no mechanical problems. What happened? The explanation has to do with the enormous advances in aircraft automation and what this has done to pilots. In this case, when the autopilot disengaged, the pilots essentially forgot how to fly.