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Equally troubling to this old-school aviator is how reliant upon technology everyone is these days... cars and trucks with backup cameras, map displays, and data screens, as well as the distraction of handheld or dashmounted GPS. Ask a teenager where the Maldives are, and they'll whip out a smartphone, tablet or go to the nearest desktop and Google or Wikipedia it. Look it up in an encyclopedia or go to the library to read a book about it? Chuckle, chuckle, snort. Find it on a map? You fahhnny, Pee-tah-sahn. (A nod to "The Green Berets") A recent Thanksgiving storm trashed a cell tower near my nephew's college in Kansas and he said there were catatonic zombies wandering around campus staring at their non-functional smartphones as if the end of the world was near.
As a staffer I taught Army students about Air Force doctrine and did field work with them; it was disconcerting how many young fires observers could not read a map properly. The guys who excelled knew not only how to use their targeting tools such as LLDR but also could read an old-fashioned paper TLM (1:50K map) which neither requires batteries nor an active GPS signal. A few of my F-16 students were so reliant on technology that when I would ask them to deviate off-route to an alternate steerpoint using just their map they could not. Additionally, we used to refer to some F-16 pilots as "HUD cripples", because they could not function without the heads-up display. Not a partiularly "busy" display compared to the EFIS of some GA aircraft these days, but their over-reliance on the HUD meant they often had a hard time landing without it. Worse, the HUD taught some students to overly trust the "green stuff" as the symbology was called... once one of my students went through dry [did not drop weapons] because his target designator (TD) box was in the way of the small SAM site he was attacking. The technology designed to help him find and ID the target actually obscurred it so he could not see it.
Recently airlines started allowing pilots to use tablets to display their approach plates in lieu of paper charts. So, what happens if the display fails or the battery dies? "Folks, this is the captain speaking, uh, does anyone have a spare iPad battery so we can land?" Or, "Uh, folks, your captain here, because we don't have a functioning tablet up here we're going to have to divert to Minot, North Dakota since their weather's good and no one else's is." Yes, there's going to be redundancy but you get the idea...
The outcomes of various incidents that involve aircraft cannot always be predictable, one such example was the hijacking of Ethiopian Airlines flight 961, a Boeing 767-200ER, which occurred in November of 1996. The aircraft ran out of fuel and the captain and the first officer did their best to glide the aircraft and ditch it about 500 yards off the shoreline by the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. It looked like the attempt went well, even though they ditched at 175 knots, and no flaps deployed. However, the aircraft hit an unseen coral reef, which broke apart the 767. 125 people, including the 3 hijackers perished, only 50 survived. Most of the fatalities were caused by premature inflation of their life vests when the passengers wearing them drowned because they were still in the cabin that was rapidly flooding and sinking.
"Commercial airline pilots have become so dependent on automation that poor manual flying skills and failure to master the latest changes in cockpit technology pose the greatest hazards to passengers, an international panel of air-safety experts warns."
True, and it scares me to think of other ways in which they may be distracted. Why bother to look at the instrument panel, for example, when the auto pilot can do the flying while you're surfing the web.
I remember a plane crash (with many fatalities) not that long ago in which the investigators were mortified to learn that the pilot and co-pilot, instead of completing the usual (and required) takeoff/landing check-offs (the only conversation allowed in the cockpit at those crucial times), were engrossed in chatter about the attractiveness and physical attributes of.....the flight attendants.
Apparently, there are any number of ways in which pilots can become distracted, and the results are devastating.
I've been saying this for years. The write-ups I see from pilots on a daily basis show a rapidly declining knowledge about the aircraft than ever before. I remember "old school" pilots who I could debate with on what was causing the problem with the aircraft and they KNEW their stuff. Now I prefer not to even debrief them as they leave the plane for fear of finding out how little they actually know.
"Commercial airline pilots have become so dependent on automation that poor manual flying skills and failure to master the latest changes in cockpit technology pose the greatest hazards to passengers, an international panel of air-safety experts warns."
These days, a pilot actually operates a plane (takeoff and landing) for about 4-5 minutes, outside of that, the aircraft is on automatic pilot.
Thing is, no. 1, it's more efficient for the aircraft to fly itself, and no.2, planes such as Airbus don't even design the flight controls in the way of the old design. Airbus has a joystick type of design that's off to the left side of the pilot.
Automation complacency is the biggest danger in the airline industry. Pilot spend hours disengaged in the cockpit often mentally amusing themselves on laptops and ipads while the autopilot is engaged. This is a bigger danger than terrorism.
Examples of automation complacency resulting in fatalities in recent years are
Continental express @ Buffalo
Asiana @ SFO
UPS @ Birmingham
The new FAR 117 rules were a response to the Colgan crash but they entirely miss the mark. These rules will give the pilots even more rest and more time to disengage from their job. The real issue of automation complacency is not being addressed and I suspect more fatalities will follow in the near future as the quality of airmenship degrades.
But I thought systems were put in place to keep the pilots forcefully engaged with the computer over periodic intervals?
That said, I feel there are far greater dangers in the aviation industry other then the deterioration of airmenship. For example, what about all the old cracked wires that are too costly to replace that could start fires? What about the increasing number of aircraft in the sky, and at the airports, but not enough air traffic controllers to keep up with the demand?
True, and it scares me to think of other ways in which they may be distracted. Why bother to look at the instrument panel, for example, when the auto pilot can do the flying while you're surfing the web.
I remember a plane crash (with many fatalities) not that long ago in which the investigators were mortified to learn that the pilot and co-pilot, instead of completing the usual (and required) takeoff/landing check-offs (the only conversation allowed in the cockpit at those crucial times), were engrossed in chatter about the attractiveness and physical attributes of.....the flight attendants.
Apparently, there are any number of ways in which pilots can become distracted, and the results are devastating.
The solution is rather obvious and virtually guaranteed over the next decades. Cut the humans out of the 5 minutes and the emergency landing procedure.
Remember AF 447? Could any computer have done it worse?
The critical time on CAT III is already all machine.
And as has been pointed out elsewhere the last fighter pilot has likely been born.
Saw the latest report. Just gives me one more reason NOT to fly. I hope I never need to fly again, at least in a commercial jet.
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