![]() Loss of AF447ĪF447 was three and a half hours into a night flight over the Atlantic. But they also had to deal with certain “automation surprises,” such as technology behaving in ways that they did not understand or expect. This was the challenge that the crew of AF447 faced. What if you were asked, without warning, to do this under stressful and time-critical conditions? The risk of error would be considerable. Most of us could do this in our heads if we had to, but because we typically rely on technology like calculators and spreadsheets to do this, it might take us a while to call up the relevant mental processes and do it on our own. Imagine having to do some moderately complex arithmetic. This erosion may lie hidden until human intervention is required, for example when technology malfunctions or encounters conditions it doesn’t recognize and can’t process. ![]() If it results in less active monitoring and hands-on engagement, pilots’ situational awareness and capacity to improvise when faced with unexpected, unfamiliar events may decrease. However, it can also interfere with pilots’ basic cycle of planning, doing, checking, and acting, which is fundamental to control and learning. This reduces the risk of human errors due to overload, fatigue, and fallibility, and prevents manoeuvers that might stress the airframe and endanger the aircraft.Īutomation provides massive data-processing capacity and consistency of response. Through “fly-by-wire,” in which pilot actions serve as inputs to a flight control system that in turn determines the movements of the aircraft’s control surfaces, technology mediates the relationship between pilot action and aircraft response. They gather information, process it, integrate it, and present it to pilots, often in simplified, stylized, and intuitive ways. Pilots spend much of their time managing and monitoring, rather than actively flying, their aircraft.Ĭockpit automation, sometimes called the “glass cockpit”, comprises an ensemble of technologies that perform multiple functions. For most pilots, automation usually ensures that operations stay well within safe, predictable limits. Automation on the Flight DeckĬommercial aircraft fly on autopilot for much of the time. By reviewing expert analyses of the disaster and analyzing data from AF447’s cockpit and flight data recorders, we found that AF447, and commercial aviation more generally, reveal how automation may have unanticipated, catastrophic consequences that, while unlikely, can emerge in extreme conditions. Our research, recently published in Organization Science, examines how automation can limit pilots’ abilities to respond to such incidents, as becoming more dependent on technology can erode basic cognitive skills. These incidents require rapid interpretation and responses, and it is here that things can go wrong. Safety scientists describe this as the “ Swiss cheese” model of failure, when the holes in organizational defenses line up in ways that had not been foreseen. For example, this might be a combination of unusual meteorological conditions, ambiguous readings or behavior from the technology, and pilot inexperience – any one or two of which might be okay, but altogether they can overwhelm a crew. ![]() Such incidents are typically triggered by unexpected, unusual events – often comprising multiple conditions that rarely occur together – that fall outside of the normal repertoire of pilot experience. Loss of control typically occurs when pilots fail to recognize and correct a potentially dangerous situation, causing an aircraft to enter an unstable condition. In fact, they are the most prevalent cause of fatalities in commercial aviation today, accounting for 43% of fatalities in 37 separate incidents between 20. But while overall air safety is improving, loss of control incidents are not. In 2016 the accident rate for major jets was just one major accident for every 2.56 million flights. As technology has become more sophisticated, it has taken over more and more functions previously performed by pilots, bringing huge improvements in aviation safety. How could a well-trained crew flying a modern airliner so abruptly lose control of their aircraft during a routine flight?ĪF447 precipitated the aviation industry’s growing concern about such “loss of control” incidents, and whether they’re linked to greater automation in the cockpit. ![]() The loss was difficult to understand given the remarkable safety record of commercial aviation. The tragic crash of Air France 447 (AF447) in 2009 sent shock waves around the world.
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