Ask the Pilot: Germanwings Conversation Out of Control
Mar 29, 2015, 6:20 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Boston
Posts: 467
Ask the Pilot: Germanwings Conversation Out of Control
NOT TO DIMINISH the raw tragedy of the Germanwings crash, but the incident has spawned a sideshow of ill-informed and just plain aggravating conversations across the media.
And so my latest post at Ask the Pilot is titled: From Network News to the New Yorker, the Conversation Spins Out of Control
Here are some excerpts:
Whether it's on the human factors side of things or on the technical part of flying, much of the talk is misleading. As if air travel weren't misunderstood enough already.
For starters, the whole "pilot" and "copilot" thing is getting out of hand. I was letting it go in deference to the more serious and tragic aspects of this crash, but my patience has expired. People: there are two pilots in the cockpit, the captain and the first officer. The latter is also known as the copilot. Copilots are not apprentices; they take off, land, and otherwise fly the airplane just as much as captains do. Sometimes, even, they are senior to and more experienced than the captain. They do not, as the BBC described it, "steer the plane during the pilot's breaks, or if he or she became ill." That a line like that made it into print ought to be really embarrassing for an organization as highly respected as the BBC. And as a copilot myself, it offends me.
The crash has also touched off a good deal of talk about automation and a pilot's role in the cockpit. Perhaps one solution to the problem of pilot sabotage, we're hearing, is to get rid of the pilot altogether. Why not? After all, planes can pretty much fly themselves already, right?
Except, of course, they can't. As my regular readers are well aware, one of my longest-standing pet peeves has been the mythology of cockpit automation: the exaggerated understanding people have of what cockpit technology is actually capable of, and how pilots interact with that technology. Well apparently the problem is worse than I thought. If I only had a dollar for every time in the past week that I've been asked, "How come the control tower didn't just take over the Germanwings plane by remote control?" Faced with a question like that, which is so absurd, and so not within the realm of commercial aviation reality, it's all I can do not to stare straight ahead and begin to hum "Amazing Grace," just to keep from losing my cool. When I explained one person how totally impossible such a thing was, he clearly thought I was lying.
The op-ed pages, meanwhile, are humming with similar claptrap: Flying magazine's Peter Garrison, for example, writing in the Los Angeles Times. "From shortly after takeoff to shortly before touchdown," explains Garrison, "airplanes fly themselves while pilots talk with controllers and one another and punch data into flight management systems."
That's up there among the most insulting and misleading characterization of how commercial airplanes are flown ever to appear in print. Garrison is an experienced pilot and should know better than to reinforce this pervasive mythology through such flip and deceptive descriptions. Pilots become their own worst enemies sometimes, not realizing how statements like this are interpreted by the public.
Not to be outdone, there's John Cassidy on the New Yorker website. “In some ways, human pilots have become systems managers," Cassidy says. "They prepare the aircraft to depart, execute the takeoff and landing, and take the controls in an emergency. But for much of the time that a routine flight is in the air, a computer flies the plane.”
That was good of him to remind us that pilots indeed “execute the takeoff and landing,” which is to say they perform them by hand, but the rest of it is the usual nonsense. A computer is not flying your plane. Pilots are flying it. Automation is merely a tool, and it needs to be told what to do, how to do it, when to do it and where. Contrary to popular assumption, flying remains a very organic, hands-on operation subject to almost limitless contingencies that require human input. And though a pilot's hands aren't gripping the steering column for hours at a time, as was the case decades ago, they are manipulating, operating, and commanding the various systems and subsystems that carry you to your destination.
Then we have Miles O'Brien writing for PBS.com. Says Mr. O'Brien: "Flight 9525 offers yet another example of how the layers of safety in aviation have been peeled away since deregulation 35 years ago." Never mind that the Deregulation Act was passed in America, not in Germany. On both continents -- indeed all of the continents -- flying is much, much safer than it was 35 years ago. The number of aircraft in the sky has tripled, while the fatality rate per miles flown has plummeted. Go back some time and look at the accident records from the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s. The past ten years have been the safest, statistically, in the history of modern civil aviation, and there hasn't been a large-scale crash involving a major U.S. passenger carrier in fourteen years -- the longest such streak ever. How does that square with layers of safety supposedly being peeled away? Have we just been lucky?
The full article, including a discussion of pilots and mental health, is here:
http://www.askthepilot.com/germanwings-crash/
-- Patrick
And so my latest post at Ask the Pilot is titled: From Network News to the New Yorker, the Conversation Spins Out of Control
Here are some excerpts:
Whether it's on the human factors side of things or on the technical part of flying, much of the talk is misleading. As if air travel weren't misunderstood enough already.
For starters, the whole "pilot" and "copilot" thing is getting out of hand. I was letting it go in deference to the more serious and tragic aspects of this crash, but my patience has expired. People: there are two pilots in the cockpit, the captain and the first officer. The latter is also known as the copilot. Copilots are not apprentices; they take off, land, and otherwise fly the airplane just as much as captains do. Sometimes, even, they are senior to and more experienced than the captain. They do not, as the BBC described it, "steer the plane during the pilot's breaks, or if he or she became ill." That a line like that made it into print ought to be really embarrassing for an organization as highly respected as the BBC. And as a copilot myself, it offends me.
The crash has also touched off a good deal of talk about automation and a pilot's role in the cockpit. Perhaps one solution to the problem of pilot sabotage, we're hearing, is to get rid of the pilot altogether. Why not? After all, planes can pretty much fly themselves already, right?
Except, of course, they can't. As my regular readers are well aware, one of my longest-standing pet peeves has been the mythology of cockpit automation: the exaggerated understanding people have of what cockpit technology is actually capable of, and how pilots interact with that technology. Well apparently the problem is worse than I thought. If I only had a dollar for every time in the past week that I've been asked, "How come the control tower didn't just take over the Germanwings plane by remote control?" Faced with a question like that, which is so absurd, and so not within the realm of commercial aviation reality, it's all I can do not to stare straight ahead and begin to hum "Amazing Grace," just to keep from losing my cool. When I explained one person how totally impossible such a thing was, he clearly thought I was lying.
The op-ed pages, meanwhile, are humming with similar claptrap: Flying magazine's Peter Garrison, for example, writing in the Los Angeles Times. "From shortly after takeoff to shortly before touchdown," explains Garrison, "airplanes fly themselves while pilots talk with controllers and one another and punch data into flight management systems."
That's up there among the most insulting and misleading characterization of how commercial airplanes are flown ever to appear in print. Garrison is an experienced pilot and should know better than to reinforce this pervasive mythology through such flip and deceptive descriptions. Pilots become their own worst enemies sometimes, not realizing how statements like this are interpreted by the public.
Not to be outdone, there's John Cassidy on the New Yorker website. “In some ways, human pilots have become systems managers," Cassidy says. "They prepare the aircraft to depart, execute the takeoff and landing, and take the controls in an emergency. But for much of the time that a routine flight is in the air, a computer flies the plane.”
That was good of him to remind us that pilots indeed “execute the takeoff and landing,” which is to say they perform them by hand, but the rest of it is the usual nonsense. A computer is not flying your plane. Pilots are flying it. Automation is merely a tool, and it needs to be told what to do, how to do it, when to do it and where. Contrary to popular assumption, flying remains a very organic, hands-on operation subject to almost limitless contingencies that require human input. And though a pilot's hands aren't gripping the steering column for hours at a time, as was the case decades ago, they are manipulating, operating, and commanding the various systems and subsystems that carry you to your destination.
Then we have Miles O'Brien writing for PBS.com. Says Mr. O'Brien: "Flight 9525 offers yet another example of how the layers of safety in aviation have been peeled away since deregulation 35 years ago." Never mind that the Deregulation Act was passed in America, not in Germany. On both continents -- indeed all of the continents -- flying is much, much safer than it was 35 years ago. The number of aircraft in the sky has tripled, while the fatality rate per miles flown has plummeted. Go back some time and look at the accident records from the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s. The past ten years have been the safest, statistically, in the history of modern civil aviation, and there hasn't been a large-scale crash involving a major U.S. passenger carrier in fourteen years -- the longest such streak ever. How does that square with layers of safety supposedly being peeled away? Have we just been lucky?
The full article, including a discussion of pilots and mental health, is here:
http://www.askthepilot.com/germanwings-crash/
-- Patrick
Last edited by GateHold; Mar 30, 2015 at 8:25 am
Mar 29, 2015, 10:43 pm
#2
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Rockin' the Bakken
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Posts: 978
Great post. I would think that most of the FT community is better versed in the nuances of commercial aviation than the general population, but there have been a few posts that contradict that.
Either way, I think the problem you stated will never go away. Most of the traveling public (at least in the US) don't care to know the details of how their flight lands safely, they only care when somethings goes wrong and must upload a picture/video to a social media outlet immediately to share their 'near death' experience during a go-around.
Remember that US Airways flight that landed without the nose gear recently? Takes a lot of pilot skill to pull that one off safely but there wasn't much national media attention on that. The media and public will only focus on the bad things, rarely the good. And when it's good, there's rarely as much detail in the report in my opinion.
It's only when something tragic happens that people feel they need to make a change even if the system is not broken.
Either way, I think the problem you stated will never go away. Most of the traveling public (at least in the US) don't care to know the details of how their flight lands safely, they only care when somethings goes wrong and must upload a picture/video to a social media outlet immediately to share their 'near death' experience during a go-around.
Remember that US Airways flight that landed without the nose gear recently? Takes a lot of pilot skill to pull that one off safely but there wasn't much national media attention on that. The media and public will only focus on the bad things, rarely the good. And when it's good, there's rarely as much detail in the report in my opinion.
It's only when something tragic happens that people feel they need to make a change even if the system is not broken.
Mar 30, 2015, 4:16 am
#4
Suspended
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 8,460
Remember that US Airways flight that landed without the nose gear recently? Takes a lot of pilot skill to pull that one off safely but there wasn't much national media attention on that. The media and public will only focus on the bad things, rarely the good. And when it's good, there's rarely as much detail in the report in my opinion.
It's only when something tragic happens that people feel they need to make a change even if the system is not broken.
It's only when something tragic happens that people feel they need to make a change even if the system is not broken.
And I disagree with you that the good doesn't get highlighted. It certainly does. Remember the "miracle on the hudson?" That was discussed ad nauseum for a long time and even today people throw parades for Sully.
The system isn't broken? If you're ever on a plane with a suicidal co-pilot locked in the cockpit solo, you should sign on to FT real quick and explain why you think the system isn't broken.
Mar 30, 2015, 10:07 am
#5
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 26,287
I agree that the industry needs continually to seek to improve safety, along with other performance metrics. But expecting zero accident rate is not now, nor can it ever be, realistic.
Mar 30, 2015, 10:51 am
#6
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: NCL
Programs: BAEC and Hilton mostly
Posts: 652
Some of the public misapprehension is due to the reporting in the last few years of military drones (sorry, UCAVs 
). If they can be remotely controlled from a continent away, why not airliners?
Well, has anyone seen the stats for crashed ('hard landing') drones/ UCAVs? Would they be prepared for those odds?
). If they can be remotely controlled from a continent away, why not airliners?Well, has anyone seen the stats for crashed ('hard landing') drones/ UCAVs? Would they be prepared for those odds?
Mar 30, 2015, 12:36 pm
#7
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Mar 30, 2015, 2:10 pm
#8
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Posts: 4,423
NOT TO DIMINISH the raw tragedy of the Germanwings crash, but the incident has spawned a sideshow of ill-informed and just plain aggravating conversations across the media.
And so my latest post at Ask the Pilot is titled: From Network News to the New Yorker, the Conversation Spins Out of Control
Here are some excerpts:
Whether it's on the human factors side of things or on the technical part of flying, much of the talk is misleading. As if air travel weren't misunderstood enough already.
For starters, the whole "pilot" and "copilot" thing is getting out of hand. I was letting it go in deference to the more serious and tragic aspects of this crash, but my patience has expired. People: there are two pilots in the cockpit, the captain and the first officer. The latter is also known as the copilot. Copilots are not apprentices; they take off, land, and otherwise fly the airplane just as much as captains do. Sometimes, even, they are senior to and more experienced than the captain. They do not, as the BBC described it, "steer the plane during the pilot's breaks, or if he or she became ill." That a line like that made it into print ought to be really embarrassing for an organization as highly respected as the BBC. And as a copilot myself, it offends me.
The crash has also touched off a good deal of talk about automation and a pilot's role in the cockpit. Perhaps one solution to the problem of pilot sabotage, we're hearing, is to get rid of the pilot altogether. Why not? After all, planes can pretty much fly themselves already, right?
Except, of course, they can't. As my regular readers are well aware, one of my longest-standing pet peeves has been the mythology of cockpit automation: the exaggerated understanding people have of what cockpit technology is actually capable of, and how pilots interact with that technology. Well apparently the problem is worse than I thought. If I only had a dollar for every time in the past week that I've been asked, "How come the control tower didn't just take over the Germanwings plane by remote control?" Faced with a question like that, which is so absurd, and so not within the realm of commercial aviation reality, it's all I can do not to stare straight ahead and begin to hum "Amazing Grace," just to keep from losing my cool. When I explained one person how totally impossible such a thing was, he clearly thought I was lying.
The op-ed pages, meanwhile, are humming with similar claptrap: Flying magazine's Peter Garrison, for example, writing in the Los Angeles Times. "From shortly after takeoff to shortly before touchdown," explains Garrison, "airplanes fly themselves while pilots talk with controllers and one another and punch data into flight management systems."
That's up there among the most insulting and misleading characterization of how commercial airplanes are flown ever to appear in print. Garrison is an experienced pilot and should know better than to reinforce this pervasive mythology through such flip and deceptive descriptions. Pilots become their own worst enemies sometimes, not realizing how statements like this are interpreted by the public.
Not to be outdone, there's John Cassidy on the New Yorker website. “In some ways, human pilots have become systems managers," Cassidy says. "They prepare the aircraft to depart, execute the takeoff and landing, and take the controls in an emergency. But for much of the time that a routine flight is in the air, a computer flies the plane.”
That was good of him to remind us that pilots indeed “execute the takeoff and landing,” which is to say they perform them by hand, but the rest of it is the usual nonsense. A computer is not flying your plane. Pilots are flying it. Automation is merely a tool, and it needs to be told what to do, how to do it, when to do it and where. Contrary to popular assumption, flying remains a very organic, hands-on operation subject to almost limitless contingencies that require human input. And though a pilot's hands aren't gripping the steering column for hours at a time, as was the case decades ago, they are manipulating, operating, and commanding the various systems and subsystems that carry you to your destination.
Then we have Miles O'Brien writing for PBS.com. Says Mr. O'Brien: "Flight 9525 offers yet another example of how the layers of safety in aviation have been peeled away since deregulation 35 years ago." Never mind that the Deregulation Act was passed in America, not in Germany. On both continents -- indeed all of the continents -- flying is much, much safer than it was 35 years ago. The number of aircraft in the sky has tripled, while the fatality rate per miles flown has plummeted. Go back some time and look at the accident records from the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s. The past ten years have been the safest, statistically, in the history of modern civil aviation, and there hasn't been a large-scale crash involving a major U.S. passenger carrier in fourteen years -- the longest such streak ever. How does that square with layers of safety supposedly being peeled away? Have we just been lucky?
The full article, including a discussion of pilots and mental health, is here:
http://www.askthepilot.com/germanwings-crash/
-- Patrick
And so my latest post at Ask the Pilot is titled: From Network News to the New Yorker, the Conversation Spins Out of Control
Here are some excerpts:
Whether it's on the human factors side of things or on the technical part of flying, much of the talk is misleading. As if air travel weren't misunderstood enough already.
For starters, the whole "pilot" and "copilot" thing is getting out of hand. I was letting it go in deference to the more serious and tragic aspects of this crash, but my patience has expired. People: there are two pilots in the cockpit, the captain and the first officer. The latter is also known as the copilot. Copilots are not apprentices; they take off, land, and otherwise fly the airplane just as much as captains do. Sometimes, even, they are senior to and more experienced than the captain. They do not, as the BBC described it, "steer the plane during the pilot's breaks, or if he or she became ill." That a line like that made it into print ought to be really embarrassing for an organization as highly respected as the BBC. And as a copilot myself, it offends me.
The crash has also touched off a good deal of talk about automation and a pilot's role in the cockpit. Perhaps one solution to the problem of pilot sabotage, we're hearing, is to get rid of the pilot altogether. Why not? After all, planes can pretty much fly themselves already, right?
Except, of course, they can't. As my regular readers are well aware, one of my longest-standing pet peeves has been the mythology of cockpit automation: the exaggerated understanding people have of what cockpit technology is actually capable of, and how pilots interact with that technology. Well apparently the problem is worse than I thought. If I only had a dollar for every time in the past week that I've been asked, "How come the control tower didn't just take over the Germanwings plane by remote control?" Faced with a question like that, which is so absurd, and so not within the realm of commercial aviation reality, it's all I can do not to stare straight ahead and begin to hum "Amazing Grace," just to keep from losing my cool. When I explained one person how totally impossible such a thing was, he clearly thought I was lying.
The op-ed pages, meanwhile, are humming with similar claptrap: Flying magazine's Peter Garrison, for example, writing in the Los Angeles Times. "From shortly after takeoff to shortly before touchdown," explains Garrison, "airplanes fly themselves while pilots talk with controllers and one another and punch data into flight management systems."
That's up there among the most insulting and misleading characterization of how commercial airplanes are flown ever to appear in print. Garrison is an experienced pilot and should know better than to reinforce this pervasive mythology through such flip and deceptive descriptions. Pilots become their own worst enemies sometimes, not realizing how statements like this are interpreted by the public.
Not to be outdone, there's John Cassidy on the New Yorker website. “In some ways, human pilots have become systems managers," Cassidy says. "They prepare the aircraft to depart, execute the takeoff and landing, and take the controls in an emergency. But for much of the time that a routine flight is in the air, a computer flies the plane.”
That was good of him to remind us that pilots indeed “execute the takeoff and landing,” which is to say they perform them by hand, but the rest of it is the usual nonsense. A computer is not flying your plane. Pilots are flying it. Automation is merely a tool, and it needs to be told what to do, how to do it, when to do it and where. Contrary to popular assumption, flying remains a very organic, hands-on operation subject to almost limitless contingencies that require human input. And though a pilot's hands aren't gripping the steering column for hours at a time, as was the case decades ago, they are manipulating, operating, and commanding the various systems and subsystems that carry you to your destination.
Then we have Miles O'Brien writing for PBS.com. Says Mr. O'Brien: "Flight 9525 offers yet another example of how the layers of safety in aviation have been peeled away since deregulation 35 years ago." Never mind that the Deregulation Act was passed in America, not in Germany. On both continents -- indeed all of the continents -- flying is much, much safer than it was 35 years ago. The number of aircraft in the sky has tripled, while the fatality rate per miles flown has plummeted. Go back some time and look at the accident records from the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s. The past ten years have been the safest, statistically, in the history of modern civil aviation, and there hasn't been a large-scale crash involving a major U.S. passenger carrier in fourteen years -- the longest such streak ever. How does that square with layers of safety supposedly being peeled away? Have we just been lucky?
The full article, including a discussion of pilots and mental health, is here:
http://www.askthepilot.com/germanwings-crash/
-- Patrick
Mar 30, 2015, 3:23 pm
#9
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Posts: 8,460
I don't necessarily think anyone expects 0 accidents ever. But a plane going down because it got swept up in a monsoon is a little easier to swallow than a co-pilot waking up one morning and deciding that he's going to murder 164 people by crashing a plane. That can't happen. People should be outraged. And I hope aviation leaders aren't simply saying "Welp we gave it our best. Can't win em' all."
Apr 3, 2015, 12:51 pm
#10
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Rockin' the Bakken
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Have to disagree with you. This is one of those professions where a 99.9% simply isn't good enough. It needs to be 100% and until it is, people are always going to look at the negative and try to figure out ways to improve performance.
And I disagree with you that the good doesn't get highlighted. It certainly does. Remember the "miracle on the hudson?" That was discussed ad nauseum for a long time and even today people throw parades for Sully.
The system isn't broken? If you're ever on a plane with a suicidal co-pilot locked in the cockpit solo, you should sign on to FT real quick and explain why you think the system isn't broken.
And I disagree with you that the good doesn't get highlighted. It certainly does. Remember the "miracle on the hudson?" That was discussed ad nauseum for a long time and even today people throw parades for Sully.
The system isn't broken? If you're ever on a plane with a suicidal co-pilot locked in the cockpit solo, you should sign on to FT real quick and explain why you think the system isn't broken.
I doubt you'll see any system ever get to 100%. Close, but there's nothing that will be perfect in my opinion. I totally agree though, and aviation is one of those industries where until something goes wrong, it's not likely to change. However, when any incident does occur, aviation is usually one of the best in preventing the same occurrence from happening again. Many of the accidents in the past have led to it being one of the safest ways to travel, but it usually took a tragedy in order for change to be made.
The Miracle on the Hudson was a very publicized incident, but there are countless others that never get any recognition. The JetBlue incident with the stuck nose gear was another highly publicized event, however since there have been numerous events that haven't gotten the same amount of attention.
Now that more information has come out about the first officer, I really think it was more a fail on an administrative part rather than cockpit procedure. Plus, most other countries (and even airlines within countries that don't require it) have adopted two crew member in the cockpit rules. The system was broken, and going forward, these issues will be addressed.
Apr 6, 2015, 7:37 pm
#11
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has anyone seen the stats for crashed ('hard landing') drones?
