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Computer failure?

Someone that knows more fill me in onf “fly by wire”. Is that where everything is controlled by computer/electronics or is that where there is a physical connection (so you can still fly the plane even if the electronics fail)?

I heard some concerns years ago about computer/electronics failures, but don’t know what came of it.

“Fly by wire” (new) means electric wire, not manual control which connects the yoke and rudder controls by steel wire (old). In most new airplanes, there is no manual reversion back-up. However, the built in redundancy of electric power supply is considered safe and is FAA certified so.

Yes, there are flight control computers galore with multiple back-ups but No, you can't fly the airplane if you lose ALL electronics.

”. Is that where everything is controlled by computer/electronics or is that where there is a physical connection (so you can still fly the plane even if the electronics fail)?

Some aircraft still have physical connections and some don't. With the redundancy and robustness of the systems it takes a whole lot more than just an electronics failure to take things down. For example, the chance of your PC locking up is pretty good, right? But what is the chance of your PC locking up and the same time as the oven burns out and the light switch catches on fire? Not so good. For lots of different electrical systems to fail at the same time it takes some seriously bad things to happen. But it is then the 'seriously bad things' that are the cause and not the electronics failure. If your car hits a train chances are the power stearing goes out. But it is not a failure of the power stearing that kills you. This is article is an example of reporters guessing at what happened based on a radio message saying your power stearing failed. Chances are they are way off track. In fact by the quality of the writing I think whoever wrote it knows less than you about aircraft (no I don't mean that as an insult.)