"Pilotless airliners safer" - London Times article

[slast]

from thread starter

The Times letters page lead with my response to Ridley's article this morning, and there were several others on the same lines. They edited out the remarks about bankers and about product liability.

I have just found a paper I gave at the Flight Safety Foundation Safety Seminar in Tokyo in October 1987 (27 years ago!). The conference subject was "Human/Computer Technology: Who's in control?" , and my paper was "Should Technology Assist or Replace the Pilot". This was prior to delivery of the first 747-400. Re-reading it for the first time in probably 2 decades I am frankly amazed by how little I would change.

E.g. early on, "Many aspects of the design of current transports indicate a desire to automate as many "routine" elements as possible, leaving the crew with the task of "managing" the flight and resolving anomalies. Is the next stage to automate response to anomalies (emergencies), whilst "management" is transferred to the ground via data-link?

The basic argument appears to be that we should welcome this as it makes the aeroplane safer, and in essence prevents the crews from making the blunders which are the primary cause of accidents to serviceable aeroplanes. The theme is "prevent the pilot from interfering and everything will be OK" - leading to "and if you can prevent him from ever having a role in it then you will eliminate accidents altogether".

Arguably, ALL accidents in a technical endeavour are caused by human error. Usually when an accident occurs there seems to be some failure by the crew. The crew are the last line of defence: when there has been a failure of design, construction, maintenance, or environmental control agencies, the pilot is usually able to rectify the situation to the extent of preventing a catastrophe; however none of the other parties can normally intervene after the pilot has made an error of similar magnitude. Hence there may be a false belief in the inherent fallibility of crews, compared with a sometimes unspoken belief in the infallibility of engineering and other judgements.

This potentially leads to a serious misapplication of technology, illustrating that when it comes to this conference's question: "Human/Computer Technology: Who's in Control?", the answer might be "People with some Wrong Ideas about what civil transport aviation needs."


Can make it available if anyone wants it - reply or PM me.


Also PS: re infallibility of other parties: just read in today's Times about the NTSB criticism of Boeing / FAA errors in design - manufacture - test - certification of 787 battery system.....