A Question about Automated Flight-It’s all in the Touch

Back in the days, cars all had manual transmissions. Fast forward through technology and voila, automated transmissions. Like Airbuses and Boeings, the degree of automation—the amount of kick in the stick—affects how one drives. The steering sensitivity of the Aston Martin DB9 varies from the Ford Focus which varies from the Maserati GranTurismo, and on and on.

Is the car operating with a manual transmission, souped up power steering or somewhere in between? If you drive a car, you know the answer by feel. It is through touch, experience and handling that car that you learn how it stops and starts, how it corners, how it takes a hill, or if it is sputtering under pressure and why. The vehicle is unique. Your hands on operation informs you, deliberates with you, engages your senses as part of a machine so you know its paces–the height and depth and breadth it will reach. But even in a car you know backwards and forwards, if you’re on the road with the autopilot on, distant, not communinicating, letting the machine turn over on its own, when you take control again, it can take a measurable length of time for your response to kick in from passive to active. And that’s just braking on a highway.

I believe that stands true for a lot of our daily gizmos.

I believe this autopilot/manual distance between car and driver stands true for plane and pilot.

Take the infamous Air France Flight 447, when the Airbus A330 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, lost in international waters, and eventually after Herculean effort, found. The ill-trained pilots lost track of what was going on, exacerbating what should have been a minor hiccup into disaster. We know there was an investigation, and hopefully it is still ongoing. I really hope it is ongoing because problems are ongoing. In July, an Air France Bordeaux to Paris flight in July nearly stalled. The near stall makes me wonder about Air France pilots, maybe all post eighties pilots. I’ll let pilots talk about the details of the stall, if they want to discuss it; but I am trying to focus on the bigger picture.

My pilots tell me that these days, their primary cockpit activity is monitoring instrumentation.

I would postulate that drivers drive hands-on, and so should pilots. Flying requires reflexes. Too much automation insulates the pilot from developing and practicing “pilotry”. We all know that sports stars become the best in their field because of the doctrine of practice practice practice makes perfect perfect perfect. But pilots do a lot of sitting back and monitoring when they could be practicing.

Are pilots losing touch? Is there a wholesale lack of connection between plane and pilot caused by automation?

I fear passive monitoring rather than active flying is guilty of dulling the reflexes which make a pilot a superstar. Are all pilots actually learning how to fly? or just how to monitor?

Is there a solution? You tell me.

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    All In The Family

    George’s Point of View

    Maintenance abroad, no matter how good the mechanics are; monitoring; who does it; how good is it?

    • If something terrible should happen, our hands are tied in the courts.
    • If the person at fault is in, subject to, and adjudicated in a foreign country, the laws may be antiquated, inadequate, indefensible or unenforceable.
    • In the U.S., suing a company from a foreign country does not guarantee that a court here will hear the case. The injured or the victim families suffer unrequited consequences.

    Let’s keep our U.S. planes serviced right here in the U.S.

    Scene: Back to the future


    Doc Brown
    No wonder this circuit failed.
    It says “Made in China”.
    Marty McFly
    What do you mean, Doc?
    All the best stuff is made in Japan.
    Doc Brown
    Unbelievable.

    What is the quality of imported products? It all depends on the decade. The appetite, desire and need for imported spices impelled the development of trade, forced Columbus to hop in the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and go looking for a trade route, and we all know that he found, instead, the American continent.

    Spices, fruits and veggies out of season, products are all imported.

    So should airlines based in the US be exporting their maintenance outside of the country? Aside from ridiculous logistics, I think the problem here is regulation. How can standards of regulation be upgraded to optimum levels if our maintenance is shipped out of the country? Aside from that, it is impractical and somewhat silly. Think about it–when our bathroom faucet springs a leak, do we send the house to China? Do we uproot the bathroom and send it to China? Do we even send the part? No, we have maintenance–the plumber, ubiquitous panty line notwithstanding–comes IN and with his expensive clock ticking away, replaces the part and saves the day.

    That’s not to say that Mohammed must always come to the mountain. But in the wake of proliferating engine shutdowns, defective parts, structural design issues and hull failure, maybe we need to rethink sending our maintenance out of the country. Maybe it is cheaper, but is it better?

    Let’s look at the big picture, where relying on non-US standards takes us: Look at the fiasco of Chinese drywall–where families across the country are suffering with degrading, stinking, sulphur infested drywall as their home values and quality of life plummets. Look at the ongoing stream toy recalls, as warnings of children’s toys covered by lead paint, or lead components are broadcast daily. Look at the massive pet food recall of 2007, where 17,000 complaints and over 2000 pet deaths were related to melamine in dog food with chinese rice components containing melamine.

    Until every outside resource is going to have the quality rating of Quantas, do we really want to export our maintenance? Not only does it not make sense…well face it, it just does not make sense. Maintenance and the maintainers should reside under the umbrella–and the sharp teeth–of our legal system. Under our own US regulatory system, we need to hone the edge of our own country’s in-house maintenance, exercise the craft that once made “Made in the USA” the top of the line INTERNATIONAL standard, and frankly, let our corporate dollars feed—not bleed—our own job-hungry nation.

    SEE: http://www.wbur.org/news/npr/113942431

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    Airborne Cell Phones In Legal Eye

    To phone or not to phone, that is the question. Or to update it a little:
    Do radio signals from cell phones disrupt key airplane functions?

    OR

    Are current U.S. cell phone bans outdated and useless at promoting air safety?
    That is today’s question.

    In U.S. air space, cell phones are banned, but all European carriers do not ban cell phone use.

    The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says cell phones may emit signals that can affect aircraft communications, navigation, and flight control.

    There’s some piggyback legislation in the FAA reauthorization bill that would prohibit cell phone use on planes by anyone other than flight crews or law enforcement. Currently once planes reaches 10,000 feet it is up to the carrier to allow or disallow passengers to turn on most portable electronic devices except cell phones.

    Boeing, for example, prohibits the use.

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    India: Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council

    Air India Airlines did not single-handedly inspire the newly formed Indian separate body to investigate air accidents, but as the committee was formed immediately after the Air India Express crash in Mangalore that claimed 158 lives, it certainly was a major catalyst. It remains to be seen if the new investigatory committee will be as efficient or reliable as the US’s NTSB/FAA which investigates all major air events in the US and some outside of the US (when requested by foreign agencies or when American pilots, citizens, service or goods are involved).

    Certainly the DGCA needs help. We have already pointed out in a prior editorial that the DGCA’s report on the Mangalore crash is overdue. The Times of India quoted the DGCA’s own statutes:

    According to Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) Section 5 (Air Safety), Series C, Part I issued on 13 October 2006, “preliminary report by the inspector of accidents/inquiry officer should be finalized within 10 days of the accident.”

    We have also located a source that claims that * all of Air India Express managerial positions are “part-time.” Does this mean that the company was deliberately set up to have no key personnel who can be targeted as decision-makers? Though why should that matter? Air India Express is the budget branch of a larger company; Air India Express is a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India which is now part of National Aviation Company of India Limited (a merger between Air India and Indian Airlines.) Someone is in control.

    Those who fly India and have high expectations of the new safety committee being effective may be in for a let down while the newly formed body finds its footing. The new, separate Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council which has been set up to handle air crashes has no experts from Air Traffic Control (ATC) nor expert pilots. Along with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) chief, Dr Nasim Zaidi, the 28 member body includes Aviation CEOs including Air India Chairman Arvind Jadav, Spicejet CEO Sanjay Aggarwal, managing editor of Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, Kapil Kaul.

    If you take a look at how the NTSB handles an investigation, you will see that a team of experts are engaged and all interested parties, including pilots, are represented, including some you might not expect. Without such input, investigation is a waste of time.

    The NTSB team of investigators handle individual aspects of the individual investigation, allocated by expertise. Each expert is responsible for a specific and sometimes overlapping portion of the investigation. Specialization like this helps develop and apply expertise in each area and prevents key points from being overlooked. Also, bear in mind that the experts involved in investigating each crash will differ, depending on the parties involved; and most of these parties are on site within hours of the crash.

    SomeAreas of investigation/investigators

    • Structures investigators (who also usually takes responsibility for the crash site, ensuring that all the wreckage (e.g. wings, fuselage, and undercarriage) is accounted for and that proper trails of evidence are followed)
    • Engines investigators
    • Systems investigators such as flight controls
    • Airline’s Operations investigators (also studying crews’ training and suitability)
    • Black box investigators
    • Accident flight’s relationship with air traffic controllers
    • Meteorologists who analyze the weather at the time of the crash to determine if it had a bearing on the accident.
    • Metallurgists who analyze the condition of the plane’s metal and the forces on it
    • Sound specialists (for eg, identifying sounds on black box tapes)
    • Fire and Explosions experts
    • Simulation experts who reproduce the events
    • Flight survival experts who analyze the forces the passengers were subjected to. (These are the people who can tell you the safest place to sit on a plane.)
    • Maintenance experts who analyze the plane’s condition–and how it got that way
    • Psychologists may examine procedures to determine if airline practices exist that cause the pilot to make mistakes, like flying different types of planes. (e.g. Different types of cockpit controls make switching planes an unsafe practice.)
    • Manufacturers representatives who study and analyze their product’s performance
    • Pilots (representatives from the pilots’ union) may be attached to many or all groups; just as…
    • Labor Unions such as the International Association of Aircraft Machinists may attach representatives to multiple groups.
    • Cooperating “foreign specialists” in wreckage reconstruction, black box decoding or interpretation. (Countries who develop special expertise in various fields are often called to join the investigation, just as the NTSB is frequently asked to join foreign investigations.)

      Plane manufacturers have their own investigative teams experienced in this type of analysis, and they stand ready to work on any event that needs their expertise. And the investigation is networked so that if and when they need additional specialists, they can tap into their own company resources.

      One should note that in the case of the Mangalore Crash investigation, the wreckage sat out in the elements for 50+ days before being collected and warehoused. In my opinion, this is carelessness; and furthermore, this carelessness is just one visible aspect demonstrating where the existing procedures are obviously not up to par. While I am sure that experts combed the wreckage, including Boeing, (they always dispatch a team when one of their planes is in a crash,) leaving the wreckage out in the elements is not a best practice for conservation/preservation of evidence. One can only wonder how all other aspects of procedure including those behind closed doors-stand up to Aviation Industry’s internationally expected best practices.

      The industry calls this massive joint investigation the “party system.”

      The parties involved include all parties affected. The more parties involved, the faster the investigation may go.

      Chairmen of each group make their report; and any groups who discover any failures or unusual effects of machinery make note in the final report given to the primary investigator. The investigator invites the individual groups to provide their angle on what caused the crash and how it might be prevented.

      If all the probable causes line up neatly, then it is a simple thing to complete the final report. When theories conflict, the final report takes longer, and tension develops.

      All of this information is supposed to remain confidential until the final report is published.

      In this “party system,” the various opposing parties tend to keep each other “honest”. Unfounded attempts at blame by one party will be met with rebuttal by another–so it is obvious that if there is no pilot representation in this new committee, pilots may end up the “dumping ground.” Let’s say, for example, that a pilot in a crash went in with bad input like an outdated map. Is this committee set up to pursue the investigation to the source of the bad input? A pilot’s association representative would be instrumental in getting to the cause, whether it might be inadequate training, or materials.

      The international community and the people of India are waiting to see how this new committee manages to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in India, and whether it helps keep India’s DGCA and the safety of India’s aviation systems on track.

      * Need separate body to probe air crashes: Patel; Economic Times, The (India), May 25, 2010

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  • Advice from Good “Friends”

    So I’m drinking my coffee this morning in London, and look what Bloomberg’s headline says that Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy said…

    Boeing 747-8 Needs Passenger Evacuation Tests, Airbus Says
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-16/boeing-747-8-should-run-passenger-evacuation-tests-airbus-says.html

    So it is news that Boeing should do more tests on the basis of a rival’s comment that “I intend to fly in that airplane one of these days and I’d like to know you can get out of it.” Well. I guess it is news. Who knew. If I were Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy, I wouldn’t want to fly Airbus either, but I don’t know that I’d tell a newspaper reporter that.

    Certainly Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy’s advice in the article is kindly meant. Surely Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy would not be wishing problems on a rival company, especially looking back on Airbus’s own evacuation problems: “They evacuated 873 people from its A380 in 80 seconds, 10 seconds faster than its goal. One person broke a leg in the exercise, which was carried out in a dark hangar at an Airbus factory in Hamburg.”

    Let’s get real.

    As if Airbus doesn’t have a vested interest in causing Boeing further delay.

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    About Close Calls

    After making note of the Oct 31 near miss in Oslo, I remembered this 100 foot close call of two Boeing 747’s over Scotland. This occurred in late June, when a Lufthansa pilot was climbing, and a British Airways flight were 24.3nm apart on converging courses. A STCA (Short Germ Conflict Alert)

    The Oslo near miss could have been prevented if the repetition protocol have been observed.

    The Scotland near miss had two planes
    (DLH418 Lufthansa Boeing 747-830, D-ABYC Frankfurt (FRA) – Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD))

    and

    (BAW87 British Airways Boeing 747-436, G-BNLM London-Heathrow (LHR) – Vancouver (YVR))

    on a collision course 100 feet Vertical/3.9 nm Horizontal and 1100 feet Vertical/2.8nm from impact. The study of the event concluded that actions of both the pilots and the controller contributed but that the pilots avoiding ATC instructions caused the proximity issue.

    The added pressure of reporting incidents such as these should help pilots and air traffic control to avoid similar events in the future. It will do so ONLY if adequate attention is paid to the mistakes, if alternative/better responses are deter mend, if the resulting studies are closely attended, and if protocol is adjusted to reduce the possibility of such problems re-occurring. On some level, the protocol worked, because these incidents were not collisions. However, they were closer than they should be. All I can say about this event is that it is a good thing that mistakes are reported.

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    The Ironic Tragedy of Germanwings Flight 9525

    mountain

    Cockpit door designed to lock trouble out locks in Suicidal Pilot

    Pasadena, CA — (ReleaseWire) — 04/02/2015 — As an advocate (not a lawyer) of fair compensation for the victims of plane crashes, I have been closely following the story behind the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 and the now notorious 27-year-old co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz. As is always the case, a team of expert investigators will dig out the facts to determine the most likely scenario behind the crash. That careful investigation will take a year at the very least. In this Germanwings accident, the one factor that stands out already is the role played by the pilot’s state of mind in what appears now to be his deliberate collision course with the French Alps. It is now common knowledge that the plane disintegrated on impact with the Massif des Trois-Évêchés. Imagine how horrified the families were when the transcript of the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) was quickly leaked by tabloids. Journalists have been shouldering each other out of the way to get to the front of the line, “scooping” each with another “leaked” nugget. A girlfriend’s interview. A medical report here. A video there. TV commentators and newspapers from CNN and the venerable New York Times to the most scurrilous tabloids are spouting “the facts” faster than investigators can have gotten to the information. Tweeting the news as I do results in loads of source-checking, and plenty of on-going head-scratching moments while weeding out wild supposition masquerading as news in sources one would normally consider impeccable. When one source says “the plane is blue,” another says “the plane is red.” Sometimes I can determine which is the truth, but sometimes I have to leave it to readers to puzzle out.

    I have been working Wrongful Death cases for some forty-seven years now. I am a consultant to attorneys across the globe who represent the families of Wrongful Death victims. Each investigation is exactly the same in terms of the emotional impact of the accident. Devastating. Whether the case may or may not end up in court, whether or not the accident catches the media’s attention, every aspect is always impossibly difficult for the families. Some accidents seem similar because they share a factor, whether it be similar weather conditions, mechanical difficulties, or a particular flaw in a particular model of plane.

    Some aviation accidents personify extremes. Consider that while there is always some degree of speculation as to an accident’s cause, MH370 brought as many conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork in this past twelve months as Amelia Earhart’s disappearance has in the past 87 years. Everything seems plausible when people are desperate for an explanation. Because in this age of cell phones and satellites, there is simply no explanation for a plane to vanish, MH370 has become the “poster child” for speculation. I expect MH370 will continue to spawn new theories and will endure as a mystery until, at some point, the wreckage will be found and examined.

    If I were comparing MH370 and Germanwings 9525, I could write a whole piece examining the conflict of government transparency vs. individual confidentiality, but that was not my intent today. I was just thinking of aviation safety, and how 9/11 became the catalyst for upgraded multifaceted flight deck security. One outcome of 9/11 is the impregnable, indestructible cockpit door, the brain child of countless engineering hours, security and scientific research. Passengers since 9/11 have flown safe in the knowledge that no intruder could again gain entry to the cockpit and overpower the pilot thanks to redundant enhanced security precautions and a door designed to keep the dangerous people out. Now there’s a cockpit voice recording that appears to show that same safe cockpit door is the barrier that kept the PIC from being able to save everyone aboard. Captain Patrick Sondenheimer died trying to get that door open.

    The impregnable cockpit door, the terrible irony of Germanwings Flight 9525.

    About Air Crash Consultants

    A division of Wrongful Death Consultants, Air Crash Consultants was established to network between lawyers and their clients, bridging the gaps, especially in regard to International clients, freeing and enabling the lawyer to concentrate on higher priority commitments. Air Crash Consultant services might also be designated as an umbrella, because the company’s functions encompass a variety of problem-solving areas in support of the lawyer-client relationship as needed. Services are not limited to finding experts, developing translation teams, client support, document handling, drafting demand letters, client interviews, etc. Visit the company websites at”
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