[C19fan]

There is also the Korean airliner that crashed at SFO because the pilots screwed up doing a manual unassisted landing.

[knarf]

The tower of Babel ....

I think we sometimes (?) get too big for our britches.

All I need is a flip phone ...

What ? .. milk and eggs ? .. OK ... love you

[wrench]

It will be determined that the weather exceeded the max severity parameters programmed into the flight control software.

And this unexpected weather severity will be blamed on global warming.

I wish I was kidding, but bet on this happening.

[NYer]

Posted this yesterday to another thread. Here is the full report on the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447, which killed 228 people.

Should Airplanes Be Flying Themselves

[GreyFriar]

Perhaps the question is: Are today’s pilots actually qualified to fly airplanes where they can let automation do basic functions that they should have learned to do themselves. For example, practicing scenarios of ‘when the automation fails.’

[ex91B10]

I read somewhere a quote from a pilot calling flying newer planes as “Die by Wire”.

[Don Corleone]

Flight 8501 Poses Question: Are Modern Jets Too Automated to Fly?

As a retired professional pilot with 40 years and 30,000 plus hours in the air I can say NO! However, that being said the people flying the a/c and the management directing their actions..YES! The work environment today, in a word, sucks! As far as the FAA is concerned 'hours' mean experience. That is not always the case. Where and how did the pilot get those hours? Military, or some flight school diploma mill where a student never learns the basics of spins, stalls, inverted flight and such things as acrobatics on instruments. All the computer stuff is nifty but unlike your car when the chips fail you can't just pull over and call AAA. Someone up there has to know what to do and in most cases that is to hand fly the beast to a safe landing. There is an old saw that there are two special days in a pilots life, one that he knows this will be the day of his last flight and the other one is that he doesn't know it. Always be prepared for the latter.

[Erik Latranyi]

A lot of stupidity on display from FReepers.

First, we do not know what happened to Flight 8501. Speculation is as irresponsible as that after Ferguson

Wait for facts.

Second, plenty of misinformation on pilot training on display. I will refrain from saying lies and allow ignorance to be bliss.

If pilots are not getting enough simulator time, that is the fault of the FAA primarily, who sets the minimums.

But one only has to look and see that when pilots had more manual control, more people died.

Stories like this feed the fear of those who are not intelligent enough to understand how automation makes systems better or feed the nostalgia of the ill-informed.

Flying is safer today than ever in our history and flight automation has made it so.

[Retired Chemist]

I’ve read that American pilots rely less on the automation than pilots from other countries.

[tophat9000]

Look the pilot’s last transmission was a request for clearance to a higher altitude due to bad weather and was denied that permission... that doesn’t sound like problem with automation or the pilot, sounds like air traffic control being a problem

[Koracan]

....Are Modern Jets Too Automated to Fly?

This seems not be confined to complex flying machines, The gap between the 'dumb' Operator of a fully automated system and the technician/specialists who works, troubleshoots, repairs, tests these system, is widening.
The computerized 'Control Strategies' are hard to understand. but the people (e.g. in Maintenance), via their daily involvement are very familiar with it.
The Operator is just a temporary host to that machine, he has the proper state and federal licenses to run it, but not the full knowledge of how it works.
Most troubles within a working complex system are caused by false operator input/intervention,
The next level is unavoidable, eliminate the Man in the Machine all together and let the Beast fly or run itself.