Posted on 06/04/2009 9:46:02 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
As the French team leading the investigation into the Air France Flight 447 crash works through the multitude of likely and less likely disaster scenarios — from the repercussions of stormy conditions to an act of terrorism — perhaps among the most difficult to assess will be possible flight computer malfunctions. Air France CEO Pierre-Henry Gourgeon noted on Monday that immediately preceding AF447's disappearance, automatic messages sent by the plane indicated "multiple technical failures." As details emerge regarding these messages, experts will struggle to understand whether they were the inevitable result of the plane's breaking up or indicators of the failures that led to the accident.
Gourgeon said the "succession of a dozen technical messages" sent by AF447 showed that "several electrical systems had broken down" immediately prior to the crash. A chronology of these messages acquired by the São Paolo daily Jornal da Tarde show that moments before the plane is believed to have plunged into the ocean, its autopilot became disengaged and the plane sustained damage to its stabilizing controls and flight systems, as well as a failure of the systems that were monitoring the aircraft's speed, altitude and direction: the ADIRU (Air Data Inertial Reference Units) and the ISIS (Integrated Standby Instruments System). These are key components in fly-by-wire systems, which use computers and wires instead of mechanics and hydraulics to control a plane's flight.
On Wednesday, TIME revisited an October 2008 incident in which a Qantas Airbus 330 — the same model as AF447 — unexpectedly went into a brief yet harrowing 20-second nosedive, causing multiple injuries and requiring an emergency landing. The investigation that followed blamed an ADIRU failure for the 330's uncommanded dive...It was later learned that the same plane had experienced a similar occurrence in September 2006, as had three other flights...
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
A hydraulic servo is merely the muscle end of fly-by-wire.
Once again, tell the mechanically-challenged journalism major that wrote this:
...key components in fly-by-wire systems, which use computers and wires instead of mechanics and hydraulics to control a plane's flight.
The statement speaks for itself.
A literal “Blue Screen of Death.”
I would call him an intellectually challenged journo. He’s not entirely wrong, but he’s also not entirely right.
I’d have slapped him down if he wrote that in a system cert plan! (I’m in system certification for the aerospace industry).
There’s a reason why I refuse to work on medical software or anything that moves metal. I sleep a lot more at night knowing nobody’s life will ever depend on the software I QA, bugs in my software might make them go bankrupt, but they’ll live.
Yes, just referring to cables and pulleys as “mechanics” suggests tech phobia, aside from suggesting hydraulics are not part of the control system.
Here, here. I develop software in the financial industry and it performs critical functions, but lives do not directly hang in the balance.
Scary thought.
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