The Other Recent Deadly Boeing Crash No One Is Talking About (nymag.com) 80
New York magazine's Intelligencer remembers last month's crash of a Boeing 767 carrying cargo for Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service -- and shares a new theory that its cause wasn't a suicidal pilot or an autopilot malfunction:
In online pilot discussion forums, a third idea has been gaining adherents: that the pilots succumbed to a phenomenon called somatogravic illusion, in which lateral acceleration due to engine thrust creates the sensation that one is tipping backward in one's seat. The effect is particularly strong when a plane is lightly loaded, as it would be at the end of a long flight when the fuel tanks are mostly empty, and in conditions of poor visibility, as Atlas Air 3591 was as it worked its way through bands of bad weather. The idea is that perhaps one of the pilots accidentally or in response to wind shear set the engines to full power, and then believed that the plane had become dangerously nose-high and so pushed forward on the controls. This would cause a low-g sensation that might have been so disorienting that by the time the plane came barreling out of the bottom of the clouds there wasn't enough time to pull out of the dive.
It has been speculated that this might have been the cause of another bizarre and officially unsolved accident from three years ago: Flydubai Flight 981, which crashed 2016 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.... While it's still too early to draw any kind of conclusions about Atlas Air 3591, the possibility exists that a firm conclusion will never be drawn -- and if it is, the cause could turn out not to be a design flaw or software malfunction that can be rectified, but a basic shortcoming in human perception and psychology that cannot be fixed as long as humans are entrusted with the control of airplanes.
It has been speculated that this might have been the cause of another bizarre and officially unsolved accident from three years ago: Flydubai Flight 981, which crashed 2016 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.... While it's still too early to draw any kind of conclusions about Atlas Air 3591, the possibility exists that a firm conclusion will never be drawn -- and if it is, the cause could turn out not to be a design flaw or software malfunction that can be rectified, but a basic shortcoming in human perception and psychology that cannot be fixed as long as humans are entrusted with the control of airplanes.
Flying by Instruments? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Flying by Instruments? (Score:4, Insightful)
Beat me to it. Was going to ask about looking at the artificial horizon to see what it said. That should have told the pilots whether they were climbing or descending regardless of what they may have felt.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
From a real Voice recorder transcript:
Pilot: "What is the MOCA altitude around here?"
Co-Pilot: "Its about Four Thou...."
Re: (Score:2)
They should have gotten a warning from the altimiter.
It's been a while since I've been in a jet cockpit, but I don't remember seeing a dresser, and thus I'm not sure mitered corners on drawers would help.
Re: (Score:2)
They are. Yet, people being people, they sometimes do stupid things.
Re:Flying by Instruments? (Score:5, Funny)
It's said that the A380 comes with the best instruments on Earth and a dog. The instruments are there to fly the plane and the dog is there to bite the pilot if he tries to.
Re: Flying by Instruments? (Score:1)
Close, punchline goes like this: Pilot and a dog. Pilot is there to feed the dog. Dog is there to bite the pilot if they touch anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you aren't supposed to be pushing the nose down if the artificial horizon is where it should be.
This article is ludicrous, for the most part. There is no question that the physiological effect described exists, but it's absurd to think that this is a problem with anything other than pilot competence.
Of course, the underlying theme is that "we need to get the pilots out of the loop"/"software is better". Which just gets you more single-string MCAS contr
Re: (Score:2)
https://arstechnica.com/inform... [arstechnica.com]
Re:Flying by Instruments? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, commercial pilots are taught to "fly their instruments". General aviation pilots may enjoy more "seat-of-the-pants" flying, but even they are taught to trust instruments over human perceptions, which are easily fooled, as even simple demos will show.
I used to work for an aircraft instrument maker, and our user interfaces, everything the pilot interacts with, got more care and attention than the rest of the instrument. Of course we had to display nothing but totally accurate data, and do so promptly, but we also had to do so in ways that were obvious and clear, so the pilot can take in the most important information with a quick glance.
The pilot's standard "scan" is perhaps the most-trained skill. To look at everything on the instrument panels and outside the windows often enough to not miss anything, yet slow enough to take in all vital information.
When things get hectic, the pilot still does this scan, interrupting it as needed to deal with situations, but still doing it. Because, as the saying goes, "trouble often comes in threes": Stopping everything to handle an initial situation may mask what's really going on, and lead to a cascade of failures.
With ever more data being aimed at the pilot, there is a distinct risk of information overload, especially when tired, or during tense but otherwise normal situations, such as take-off, landing, or flying through turbulence. This overload often encourages the pilot to rely more on signals from the body, which need less conscious processing, rather than focus on all that data.
Here, again, is where commercial pilots receive extra training, but perhaps not often enough. This is one of the factors that keep commercial pilot mandatory retirement ages so low: The risk of overload increases with age, even when all other factors match those of a younger person.
Plus, staying in peak training for decades is fatiguing, and relatively few can do so "naturally". Which is one of the reasons we're running out of commercial aircraft pilots.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but this overload risk is often handled by adding more automation, more automatic systems to "help" the pilot. So much so that actually manually "driving" a commercial aircraft, with hands on the controls, is an increasingly rare part of a normal flight.
Our instruments also tried to take pilot fatigue into account, saving our brightest and loudest alarms only for the most desperate situations, to punch-through that overload to help ensure prompt and correct reactions.
One product I worked on was a TAWS (Terrain Awareness and Warning System) instrument, which basically stayed quiet unless there was a risk of the pilot flying into the ground, to help prevent "CFIT" accidents (Controlled Flight Into the Ground). It has special modes for take-off and landing, though our instrument was designed to actually *avoid* making the pilot depend on it's display: Useful for information as part of the scan, but not to be used to navigate the aircraft. Our main function was to provide visual and audible alerts only when needed.
I believe 100% of US commercial aircraft (and perhaps now even biz-jets) are required to have TAWS on-board and active. Any TAWS-equipped plane approaching the ground outside of an approved approach path for a know airport will give the pilot "Terrain ahead. Pull up! Pull up!" alerts until the hazard no longer exists.
Unfortunately, if a stall is also immanent, the pilot will simultaneously receive an alert to push the nose down. And increase power. And other things as well. An overload of alerts, which a skilled and calm pilot will respond to with the most correct action. But which can overload a stressed or tired pilot, or one with the beginnings of a cold or flu.
The thing is, every alert can be silenced, to reduce the confusion and distractions. But an overloaded pilot can forget even this simple aid to keeping full awareness and control.
This is a big part of why pilots are so often blamed for crashes:
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Can't mod this higher, so... Thank you very much for the comment.
Re: (Score:3)
The Boeing 737 Max 8s crashes were originally presented as possibly/probably due to pilot error. Now that the world has a completely different take, this pops up.
According to the story on /., the 767 and 3591 crashes might have been due to the pilots succumbing to "somatogravic illusion"; a shortcoming in human perception. In other words, pilot error.
Possibly, but why bring this
Re:Flying by Instruments? (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget the fact that during the 1990s Boeing blamed several crashes of the 737 on pilots, when mounting evidence showed that the 737 had a rudder control issue which caused hard over or rudder reversal events in certain circumstances, such as on approach to landing.
Design errors in the 737 MAX-guidance system (Score:2)
Flight control and it's not a design error (Score:2, Interesting)
First, I'm not trying to justify Boeing or what they did. Every indication is that they f**ked up royally.
However, the reporting on this by the non-technical media has gotten out of control and is nothing short of "Boeing built and sold a deathtrap". They did not and it was not just Boeing's failures (though Boeing could have done a lot more to eliminate the failures by others... or even the possibility of them).
The 737 MAX MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) improves the flight handlin
And this is why more automation saves lifes (Score:2)
https://www.flightglobal.com/n... [flightglobal.com]
Re:And this is why more automation saves lifes (Score:4, Informative)
Except a 737 is not a fly by wire airplane with envelope protection.
GPS breadcrumbs to calculate speed vector (Score:3)
GPS can also calculate altitude so couldn't they integrate the 3 speed vectors (normally we just see 2 ignoring altitude, no?) and present the ascent/decent data as another input (maybe weighted down). The same can be done with the air speed indicator. I am not saying I want to primarily rely on GPS but it does present some data that may be of use. Indeed when there is a highlighted anomaly it may even help indicate GPS spoofing if nothing else.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
No, it is not. ...
It is just more relevant for air flow etc.
Barometric you can perhaps measure your altitude close to 100m precision (hint: you need to know the pressure on ground, and you don't know that one), GPS can measure your altitude close to a few cm, and needs no further information to do that.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh... Are we back to t"pilot error" excuses again? (Score:2)
On the other hand, we have two recent examples of what can happen when a flight computer is given control of the plane and it is unable to avoid doing something stupid like--as the old euphemism goes--`make inadvertent contact with the terrain'. Until we know more
Re: (Score:2)
Going around the world in June. I'll rely on relative statistical safety to get me through.
Re: (Score:2)
5% type II error with a 20 sided dice. You better use three.
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, we have two recent examples of what can happen when a flight computer is given control of the plane and it is unable to avoid doing something stupid like--as the old euphemism goes--`make inadvertent contact with the terrain'. Until we know more about how this was supposed work and exactly why it didn't, I think I'll trust the human with his hands on the controls more than the flight computer. (Thankfully, the occasions for my needing to fly are few and far between.)
Pilot error never stopped being the most common cause of aircraft crashes.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a very common human bias. You're much safer with a computer at the controls. You're *safest* with a computer at the controls and a well-trained human ready to override if necessary. A major part of that training is knowing when not to do so.
Artificial horizon? (Score:3)
If you look at it and you are headed down (and you have good airspeed), you don't need to keep trying to nose down - regardless of what your senses are telling you.
What about looking at how the altimeter is changing?
The artificial horizon gives you a lot of information when your sense of direction is playing tricks on you (in the clouds and feeling like you are going up,down, rolling, etc.)
Was there a barn near the crash scene? (Score:2)
If watching old silent movie clips has taught me anything, it’s that airplanes have a predisposition to crash into barns.
Air Cargo Crashes.... (Score:2)
Crashes of freight carrying aircraft are often caused when something in the cargo bay becomes "adrift" and isn't strapped down properly. My first impression was that this crash happened when part of the load came free and slid forward, causing the plane to become dangerously unbalanced and nose-heavy.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Air Cargo Crashes.... (Score:3)
The article follows that âoelightly loadedâ by talking about near the end of the flight having less fuel in the tanks. I donâ(TM)t think the article is necessarily saying the plane was lightly loaded with cargo.
May we wait for the Black Box interpretation (Score:5, Insightful)
please? Speculation as to the cause isn't helpful to anyone, especially by non-pilots (Read: Most comments and yes, I am one) Wait for the Black Box interpretation before you go running off at the mouth about stuff you know nothing about.
Re: (Score:2)
Where would be the fun in that?