Originally Posted by grounded27
The vast majority of aircraft crashes are a direct result of PILOT ERROR. It would be simple to take every other event and compile the data utilizing unconventional methods used to save or mitigate loss creating a database of logic based response to an event. Loss will always factor in, it will just be less when we remove pilot error.
If for a second we go to a what if scenario... say if five years from now, all airliners became fully automated with HAL running the show...
Your above quote would likely read "The vast majority of aircraft crashes are a direct result of COMPUTER ERROR" ...or at least would say programmer error for not anticipating whatever event was the probable cause. What I am saying is crashes are often pilot error because they are the ones there to blame the crash on. Even if you take a gross example of error like AF447, sure those pilots could have done 10 things differently to save things, but you say could some of the same things about the automation, such as.... Why wasn't there a degraded auto pilot mode, why wasn't there a different sensor mode to estimate the plane's airspeed, etc, etc.
In any case, I'm waiting to see how automated cars turn out first before I become worrried about HAL taking all the pilot jobs away.