San fran 777 crash a more likely candidate for equivalence.

Really..? The crash was investigated by the Aeronautica Civil of Colombia with assistance from the US NTSB who reported that the number one cause of the accident was most likely..

"The flight crew's failure to adequately plan and execute the approach to runway 19 at SKCL and their inadequate use of automation."

Yes, really. The Cali crash doesn't in any way support a case about over-reliance on automation. Quite the reverse in fact. Indeed back when aircraft were less automated, accidents like this, sadly, were far more common.

Not the view of the Colombian CAA and NTSB... but hey, what do they know?

Try actually reading the report rather than just plucking out the word "automation"

Re. "Better to cite The Air France crash off Brazil". The trouble with that is so much went wrong it's hard to come to any meaningful conclusion. The CM2(co pilot) action in pulling back the stick was clearly terribly wrong, but I don't see how you can possibly know he did so because "he didn't understand the sidestick logic". I suggest it's far more likely that in the pitch-black turbulence and hail of the tropical storm cell he was simply overwhelmed by a mass of contradictory information, crucial parts of which(airspeed) were wrong and a cacophony of alarms and warnings.

Lockstock, the automation didn't confuse them. What confused them was the fact that they didn't plan their initial approach, they then accepted the offer of a shorter approach without giving adequate time to consider whether it was a good option or not. The PNF(Capt) entered a new (incorrect)waypoint in the FMS without checking it's Lat/Long or asking the PF to confirm his selection. The new course line, which gave them a sharp left turn, wasn't checked and confirmed. They didn't pick up on this turn initially, but when they did and turn back towards the airport, they didn't realise that they'd crossed into a different valley. They didn't follow the approach plate. They asked to cut short the published approach. They didn't recognise the ident of a beacon, because they hadn't briefed the approach. They started their descent without passing over a specific beacon.

Yes, they were confused, but not by any automation.

And that was part of the problem, the beacon that they wanted the aircraft to steer towards had the same frequency and identifier as another beacon 132nm away and in another valley. If they had 'recognised the ident of a beacon' it would have been the same anyway. The logic of the FMS made the aircraft turn towards the nearer (wrong) beacon. As you say, the new course wasn't checked and confirmed as it should have been but subsequently the FO asked 'where are we?' and 'where we heading?' and the Captain's reply was that he didn't know.

The aircraft on autopilot, following the FMS had put them in a place where they had lost situational awareness. The report says that over-reliance on automation was a factor.

Shotone - no, the misunderstanding of the logic occurred when the other pilot finally tried forward stick on his side - this didn't work because the co was still pulling back on his and hadn't actually relinquished control. The control logic wouldn't allow one sidestick to override the other as it doesn't know which is the valid input.

?? That's not quite how it works, crab. Theres no such thing as a "valid input" as far as the aircraft is concerned. If the side sticks are moved in opposite directions they will be algebraically summed, I.e. Full fwd/full back inputs would cancel each other out. The only way one would be overridden is if the takeover push button was pressed (which it wasn't at any point as far as I know)

And the other side of computerising everything and the pitfalls.

App fail on iPad grounds 'a few dozen' American Airlines flights | Technology | The Guardian

Lockstock: As others have pointed out to you, you are missing the point of my post. There is no simplistic "military v civvy" argument - I was merely pointing out that there seems to be an increasing capability gap between automatism and hand-flying skills in all aspects of aviation.

Shotone - I get that, so full fwd and full aft would not effect a recovery from a deep stall. And they didn't operate the takeover button so they clearly didn't understand the system.

www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2014/10/air-france-flight-447-crash


Very good article.

It's one thing to make the obvious observation that there was confusion on the flight deck, but quite a stretch to single out one particular action and state it was carried out because they misunderstood the function of a specific system."They didn't operate the takeover button":who's "they"? Which one should have been pressed? Your statement pre-supposes one pilot had accurately diagnosed the problem. I don't believe they did -and for much of the fatal descent were trying to make sense of conflicting alarms and information(the stall warning only sounded for a relatively short period but, confusingly for them, recurred when the stick was pushed forward). While we can agree that many things went terribly wrong, where does that leave us in respect of the OP's question? One could pluck aspects of this tragedy to support or refute many opinions. Certainly I'm not aware of any operator, military or civil,which practices stall recovery for large transport aircraft.

I am surprised no one has mentioned the RAF Tristar Autoland incident where the crew sat and watched it autocrash.

There are folk, like shotone, who operate highly automated aircraft and understand them and their limitations. There are others who operate and don't understand them, they would be as inept on steam driven machines as on highly automated ones.

And then, of course, there are those who don't operate them and consequently don't understand them.

We tend to forget that an inept pilot (and they do exist) will be inept whatever type he/she flies. Which goes back to the idea of good training, good assessment and a willingness not to accept low standards of airmanship in ourselves and in our colleagues.

NutLoose wrote: SEngO 101, sitting in his office, felt the impact through his chair!

The first words on the CVR after the crash-and-go were "It shouldn't have done that....."

They then flew round the circuit losing about 8 tonnes of fuel - a welder in the industrial estate near Witney was rather concerned at the kerosene rain he was experiencing. After it landed, there was much consternation as to whether it could be towed in. Having seen the photos of daylight through the massive crack in the main wing spar, I think that they were very lucky to have survived. I'm not sure whether it was that DeathStar, or the one the ground crew tried to set on fire by holding in a reluctant CB, destroying most of the wiring, but one of them had evidence of a previous heavy landing which the vendor hadn't disclosed.

Nothing wrong with highly automated aircraft provided that the crews have been adequately trained and have remembered how to apply basic flying skills.....:hmm:

Assuming they have those basic flying skills...

Shotone - I agree there were, as ever in such accidents, a plethora of factors contributing to the crash; but, as that excellent article highlights, simply using the controls correctly (they both pressed their takeover buttons in rapid succession increasing the confusion about what control they had over the aircraft) would, at pretty much every stage, have recovered the aircraft to unstalled flight.

It would appear that the problems were correctly diagnosed, both the loss of airspeed info and the subsequent stall - the pilots just did not take the required corrective action.

Stall recovery is about the most basic FW technique taught (I still remember it from Chipmunk and JP 30 plus years ago) so the only explanation of why the pilots in this case didn't perform the recovery is that the level of automation, its complexity and its behaviour in degraded modes overwhelmed them.

Now is that due to poor training, poor quality pilots, CRM breakdown or poor design and display? I don't know.

All 4 I should say.
I feel just about every form of education has been nibbled to death by ducks. The causes are:
A 'bite-size' approach to instruction, with not enough holistic work.
Emphasis on passing the student, not on attaining a standard.
Training syllabi which are easy to deliver and examine, not easier for the student to learn from or recall.
A minimisation of ongoing training by companies on cost grounds.

Part of the problem is financing. Students all over the World in many industries are now obliged to self-finance. Inevitably, this means weaker students are attracted to educational establishments which will pass them, whatever. For-profit educational establishments make higher profits if they have more students (and if they cut instructor salaries, which is easier when they need less qualified/experienced instructors, which is easier with 'canned' courses), so a race to the bottom has ensued.

Furthermore, everybody has a vested (i.e. financial) interest in keeping quiet about dropping standards.

Now and again, a few with standards make a stand,e.g.
A&M-Galveston prof says flunking entire class was the right thing to do | Dallas Morning News

There remain a few beacons of excellence, but the standard of the majority has been declining gradually for 20 years.

I have instructed/taught at Uni, high school, flying, offshore sailing, scuba diving,and a bunch of others, on 3 continents, and I have seen this situation developing pretty much universally.