Too Much Technology?
by John Lawrence, November 30, 2018
The Lion Air plane crash that killed 189 people was caused by a tug of war between the plane's two pilots and a computer. Due to faulty readings from one of the plane's sensors, the computer pointed the plane's nose downward while the pilots tried to keep the plane either level or ascending. Before planes were so highly computerized this never would have happened. Even with computers onboard, the pilots taking manual control of the plane should have overridden the computers. This is a design flaw incorporating too much technology. Evidently, there was a procedure to override the computers, but it was far from intuitive.
I got my private pilot's license many years ago, but haven't flown recently. However, I know enough about the essentials of flying an airplane to know that this accident never would have happened on a plane that the pilots actually were responsible for flying and not the computers.
Think of a car's cruise control system. When you put a car on cruise control, it is essentially being run by a computer at least as far as the car's speed is concerned. The computer keeps the car at a constant speed. However, the driver at any time can put his foot on the brakes or accelerator and immediately override the cruise control. This should have been the case on the Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane as well. As soon as the pilot took the wheel, the plane's automated system should have been overridden. Since it was not, this is a design flaw in the plane.
CNN reported:
Former US National Transportation Safety Board air crash investigator and CNN aviation analyst Peter Goelz told CNN the data clearly showed issues with both the speed and altitude of the plane.
"There is something obviously wrong in both the air speed and the altitude which would point to the flight control systems," he said. "These are fly-by-wire systems -- highly automated -- and pilots may not be able to troubleshoot failures in a timely manner."
This is exactly the problem: the planes are too highly automated. There's no reason why a human pilot relying on simple instruments like an altimeter, airspeed indicator and attitude indicator shouldn't be able to take off and land a plane. These basic instruments are fail safe. Even if these instruments did fail, the pilot should be able to take a look out the window in "normal weather" as was the case that day and control his attitude with the "stick". Since the weather was normal that day, the pilots could have done everything manually.
Boeing is putting too much technology into planes making the pilots not only redundant, but unable to take over flying the plane when the technology fails. Of course, this penchant for too much technology makes it possible for Boeing to charge a lot more for the plane. The more technology, the more the price goes up. Sometimes, the simpler, the better. A plane's computers should be easily disabled the same way a car's cruise control is disabled - by a slight pressure on the control wheel.
The pilot's control wheel is called a yoke. The pilot uses the yoke to control the attitude of the plane, usually in both pitch and roll. Rotating the control wheel controls the ailerons and the roll axis. Fore and aft movement of the control column controls the elevator and the pitch axis. When the yoke is pulled back the nose of the aircraft rises. When the yoke is pushed forward the nose is lowered. When the yoke is turned left the plane rolls to the left and when it is turned to the right the plane rolls to the right.
The plane's automated systems - also called "fly-by-wire" - need to be automatically disabled as soon as the pilot touches the yoke. If they had been, this horrific accident could have been averted.
