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Airbus Plans to Expand Cockpit Automation
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Airbus plans computerized systems that could automatically maneuver jetliners to avoid midair collisions, without pilot input, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'For the first time, flight crews of Airbus planes will be instructed and trained to rely on autopilots in most cases to escape an impending crash with another airborne aircraft. Currently, all commercial pilots are required to instantly disconnect the autopilot when they get an alert of such an emergency, and manually put their plane into a climb or descent to avoid the other aircraft. The change, which hasn't been announced yet, comes after lengthy internal Airbus debates and despite skepticism from pilot groups and even some aircraft-equipment suppliers.'"
After all the crash of one of the first fly by wire A320 aircraft at a French air show in 1998 there were numerous questions raised about the suitability of its control software. The investigation claimed pilot error but there is considerable evidence that the data in the flight recorders was falsified. The thought of a pilot being advised to leave it to software is very worrying.
The flight computer wasn't downing vodka martinis in the bar before it got on the plane. I don't have a problem with this, but some of my friends who are pilots probably will.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
The downside of this faith in technology soon becomes apparent, however. The following five examples graphically illustrate this.
a. When my brother was assigned captain to the then newly introduced Airbus A 310 - a plane which in the 1980s was considered a high-tech aircraft but today already appears antiquated - he told me about an incident that gave me pause: During the last stage of the final approach, a bolt of lightning struck the nose of the aircraft, damaging the plane's electronic equipment in the process. The confused on-board computer still had a suggestion to make, however, and flashed it on the screen: "Shut down engines."
Now no sensible pilot in the world would do that during this stage of flight, so "Colleague Computer's" suggestion was ignored. The incident itself makes one stop and think, however: Isn't there the danger that at some point in the future the on-board computer will not merely make a suggestion but go ahead and take action itself? Isn't there perhaps even a danger that one day, in keeping with the new philosophy I mentioned earlier, the pilot will only be able to intervene to the extent permitted by the computer? No matter how enthusiastically one may basically embrace technical progress, anyone who has retained any critical perspective at all will find it impossible to answer this question with an unequivocal "no". The following additional examples make it clear that a healthy dose of scepticism is by no means unwarranted.
b. On 26 June 1988, a brand-new Air France A 320 that was participating in an air show crashed in a wooded area in the Alsatian town of Habsheim near Mulhouse while performing an extremely low altitude fly by. When the pilot reached the end of the runway and wanted to power up the engines from minimum thrust to the thrust required for climb, the aircraft failed to react to his signal to commence the climb: Since the plane had been flying over the airfield at minimum speed (VLs) on the verge of a stall, the on-board computer refused to obey the command to lift the nose, for if the low thrust had remained unchanged, lifting the nose would have caused the plane to stall and then crash. The plane had not yet attained the higher speed necessary to avert a stall, however, because a jet engine needs several seconds to accelerate. Thus the A 320, controlled by computer logic and unresponsive to the pilot's will, flew into the adjoining woods.
c. On 14 September 1993, a Lufthansa A 320 crashed in Warsaw while landing on a wet runway in the rain. Due to the strong crosswind, the pilot tilted the plane slightly to the right just before touchdown; it thus touched down first on the right main landing gear and then on the left. As a consequence of the A 320's construction at the time, the spoilers (which changes the airflow round the wings, modifying the lift and thus bringing the plane down to the ground) did not work because the main landing gear on both sides were not fully weighted and the wheels - due in no small part to the aquaplaning effect - were not turning at the programmed speed. In short: According to the logic of the computer, the plane had not yet landed but was still turning. Thus the spoilers, which would create a braking effect, were not to be activated. At that time neither the thrust reversers nor the spoilers of an Airbus A 320 - in contrast to a Boeing 737, for instance - could be manually activated. As a result, the aircraft - braked too slowly and too late - raced towards the end of the runway. The human being (pilot) was helpless.
As if that were not enough, the on-board computer did one more thing: The pilot could not fully activate the thrust reversers to brake the plane because the engine performance had been reduced to a maximum of 71 percent of full reverse thrust in order to protect the engines. A captain friend of mine remarked: "That would not have happened with my B 737."
Conclusion: "The pilot, who in a crisis decides against protecting the engine
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I'd be very skeptical this program given the history Airbus aircraft have had with their control systems and their general managerial attitudes for safety.
For instance, the crash of Flight 587, an Airbus A300 in November 2001 was caused by a "delamination" of the vertical stabilizer's composite structure - moisture got in between the layers of composite material and caused them to pull apart. Subsequent inspections found other aircraft with signs of vertical stabilizer delamination. The Canadian Transportation Safety Board has recommended detailed checks of Airbus A3000 rudder assemblies because of the issue.
The problem is that manual inspections can't always reveal signs of delamination - it often requires ultrasound inspection - something Airbus has refused to support, and there has even been accusations that Airbus has tried to inappropriately lobby the NTSB against such a recommendation.
Airbus' overreliance on technology and dysfunctional managerial culture continues to put passengers at risk - and this new automated system ensures that the pilot has even less control than he or she did before. Trusting that system to do the right thing in a crisis is always a risky proposition - trusting a manufacturer with such a generally shoddy attitude towards safety makes it even riskier.
Currently, all commercial pilots are required to instantly disconnect the autopilot when they get an alert of such an emergency
This is just outright not true.
While it IS true that a pilot is required to obey a traffic resolution solution provided by a TCAS system (Traffic Collision Avoidance System), he's by no means required to disconnect the autopilot before doing so. In an emergency (and a TCAS yelp is an emergency), you just grab the controls and do what you have to. The autopilot will either a) disengage on its own or b) live with your control inputs.
The Airbus may be special since the newer ones are all fly-by-wire, meaning the pilot's inputs go to a computer that then decides what control surfaces to move. It may very well be that on the fly-by-wire stuff the autopilot overrides the pilot, but that's downright scary. I've seen autopilots happily chase a wandering VOR needle due to some sort of course roughness that a pilot would just simply ignore.
I'm all for cockpit automation as it makes flying significantly safer, but taking the pilot more and more out of the equation frightens me in some ways... equipment isn't 100% reliable, even when triply redundant, and the automation isn't always right. Every pilot that's spent any significant amount of time with glass panels has at least once scratched his head and asked, "why the hell did it do that?"
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
To put it a little more verbosely than the other posters.
A system to avoid mid-air collisiosn exists. It's called TCAS, and it works well. But when TCAS issues a Resolution Advisor (aka a loud voice in the cockpit booming "CLIMB CLIMB" or "DIVE DIVE"), it means that Air Traffic Control has already failed to do its job, and, given the refresh rates of ATC radar, ATC isn't likely to be of much help any more. In such a case, you have two pieces of information:
A) ATC has failed.
B) You better do what the box says, or you something bad will happen.
In this case, the failsafe triggered, one crew did what the box told them to do (DIVE); the other followed ATC and ignored the box.
When a system fails, and the backup kicks in, you follow the backup.
Yes, there are problems with the Boeing philosophy: pilots make plenty of mistakes. But there are serious concerns with Airbus. Getting code to perform flawlessly isn't cheap, nor does it happen (as an Airbus that came darn close to running out of fuel over The Netherlands proved a few months ago); in addition, every airliner has interface problems, and a great number of accidents in both Boeing and Airbus involve the crew not understanding what the aircraft is saying. Airbus adds in the bonus of the aircraft not understanding what the crew is trying to do (A300 crash in Nagoya was it?), and in the mix, automates enough procedures to cause a real mess when then automation fails/cannot be used (a rainy missed approach over the Baltic Sea, perhaps).
And all that comes down to liability. Pilot error settlements may not be cheap, but the manufacturer isn't liable to the same degree as a software design flaw.