Boeing 737 Max: Fatal crashes revive fears about automation in planes - Business Insider

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The Boeing 737 Max crashes have revived decades-old fears about what happens when airplane computers become more powerful than pilots

Boeing's updates to the system include it taking information from more than one sensor, only letting it activate once during a flight, and — crucially — giving pilots more control but changing MCAS so it will "will never provide more input than the pilot can counteract using the control column alone."

Some experts say they have been warning since the very introduction of the technology that automation could cause incidents like the Max crashes. Undelivered Boeing 737 Max planes sit idle at a Boeing property in Seattle, Washington, in August 2019."We're in the air transportation business, we should be operating 10 years at a minimum behind the leading edge of technology."

This interface is one that often works smoothly — computers on the plane listen to pilots, or work away seamlessly in the background while pilots do other things.An Ethiopian police officer walks past debris of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash in March 2019.Meshkati said that "automated systems are often based on the known scenarios which you can program by the operators in the emergency operating systems.

He said that the response to the plane's nose going down is the same, regardless of whether it was caused by MCAS or something else. Boeing had maintained that the system is built into the plane so fundamentally that it did not require any other training.More broadly, Meshkati warned that increasing reliance on automation could actually erode pilot skills in the long term.

"Look at your home computer. How many times do you have a problem with software not running properly? How many times do you have to reboot to fix the problem and how many times does this not work? Could it be that we have 'teched' ourselves to a point where safety has suffered?Goodrich said that, as an aeronautical engineer who has been working for more than five decades, he still has to read pilot manuals "five times through to actually figure out exactly what's going on.

Dennis Muilenburg, then the president and CEO of Boeing, responds to questioning from the US House Transportation Committee at a hearing on the Boeing 737 Max in October 2019."Further," she said, "the pilots were not aware of or trained on MCAS, and it was not included in their flight manuals, leaving them confused as to why the plane was behaving erratically.

The plane's automation, Langewiesche wrote, left Sullenberger free to decide what to do as the plane executed his actions.Chris Clearfield, founder of risk management consulting firm System Logic, a licensed pilot, and co-author of "Meltdown," a book about handling catastrophes, noted that both Boeing and Airbus planes have "an incredible amount of automation."

 

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98% of the entire flight is already done by computers. They make far less mistakes than humans. And if they do make a mistake, its because it wasn't programmed correctly by a human...

So who is the chief in the cockpit? It sounds as if there is no way a trained, certified and proficient pilot is able to override automated flight control systems when circumstances warrant. I don't believe it - but if true, we have forgotten who is indeed the chief.

Technology over ridding man is the worlds greatest danger

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