Originally Posted by Threy
Beside that human mistakes are still the main reason for airplane crashes, the newer Airbus cannot be flown into tragedy anymore, cause the computer will not allow the pilot to do so, it is a widely discussed topic, but would have saved 270 people on an American A 300-600 in Queens, NY in 2001 in an accident where the co pilot was simply doing a tragic mistake, an instruction which would have been rejected by the computer on the newer Airbus aircraft...
True that human factors are cited as a contributing cause to the majority of accidents. But automation is also deadly. It was the FMC of an ATR-72 (another heavily computerised aircraft made by an Italian company called Alenia that also builds parts for the A300, 310, 320 family and the new 380)that blocked the pilots from performing manuevers that would have given a chance of recovery from a fatal, inverted dive. In this case the rudder actuator was limited by an airspeed constraint - making recovery from an unusual attitide impossible to execute after the autopilot disconnected; unable to hold altitude due to ice accumulation behind the deicing boots.