Come fly with me (Image: Nasowas/Getty Images)
Who鈥檚 flying your plane? Pilots鈥� manual flying skills have become dangerously eroded because they rely too much on automated systems. That鈥檚 one conclusion of a .
Based on voluntary incident reports from concerned pilots, crash data and evidence from cockpit observers on more than 9000 flights, the report found that some pilots were 鈥渞eluctant to intervene鈥� with automated systems or to switch them off in risky situations. Poor training and lack of manual flight experience, it says, meant some pilots had neither the knowledge to keep up to date with changes to automated systems nor the manual skills to take over when flight computers malfunction.
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The findings may help explain a spate of recent accidents in which Colgan Air, Air France and Asiana Airlines planes crashed after crews failed to maintain a basic aerodynamic requirement: adequate airspeed to stay airborne.
Technology dependence
The automated systems at issue span the whole gamut of computerised flight aids, including autopilot and automatic control of speed and landing, which save the pilot work that computers are supposedly better at.
Cockpit computers also run safety checks that ensure, for instance, that the plane鈥檚 wing always bites into the airflow at the right lift-producing angle.
But the FAA report found that pilots can get 鈥渁ddicted鈥� to the automation 鈥� and that that dependence must be combated with fresh training. One reason is that trouble can arise when pilots believe flight parameters are being automatically maintained when, for some reason, they are not.
Fatal stall
In the Asiana crash in San Francisco in July, for instance, the pilots thought the autothrottle was engaged when it wasn鈥檛 鈥� so airspeed decreased, leading to a fatal stall.
Reverting to manual flight decks would be unwise, says , a former US navy pilot who researches aircraft and drone automation engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 鈥淭he take-home message for passengers is that advanced automation has made flying significantly safer so we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater,鈥� she says.
鈥淧ilot training programmes can be improved, but probably the biggest practical change that needs to be made is ensuring that the automation itself is highly reliable.鈥�
