Jim Smith

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20...704309846/1010

Jim Smith

The results of preliminary investigation of the Emirates tail scrape in Ozz!

Jeeper

In aviation...particularly aircraft design (both structual and systems design) they have this thing called redundancy where if something fails it is covered / backed up by some other feature.....no failure of a part or system should bring down an aircraft.

Quoting that article..."It is important to emphasise that, correctly followed, the existing procedures – approved by the manufacturer and our regulatory authority – are very safe indeed,” the spokesman said.".....it appears the system is entirely safe IF the procedures are followed.

Someone enters the wrong weight by 100ton? and it's not picked up? Is something so critical double checked? It's not right that someone (who is only human - or dancer - who knows) can enter the wrong weight accidentaly and 300 people can die as a result.


Surely they could have sensors in the landing gear that measure the weight prior to take -off (as a cross check to calculations) or somat.

Jim Smith

From what I know,and I am only an Electronics Engineer, not an Avionics guy, I agree most actions are cross checked and queried if not within expected parameters. It does seem that this data entry error escaped that kind of check. And as you say a 100 ton error should of raised some kind of query within the flightdeck? Should all the flight data entered before take off by one pilot be checked by the second pilot for errors?

Also there does seem to have been a number of cases over the last few years where the PIC has noticed something is wrong, the Turkish plane in Amsterdam comes to mind, where it takes a few seconds perhaps to respond and override the automated or computer aided flying apparatus and take control manually. When you are roaring down the runway, you travel a long way in one second!

I sometimes wonder just how much manual hands on flying time the modern airline pilot actully has. I know todays simulators are fantastic bits of kit, perhaps used too much to save costs, at the cost of being a real aviator?

Jeeper

http://www.freshgasflow.com/flight401.htm

If you can be naffed - the above was an interesting incident.

To sum up: pilot set autopilot for 2000feet flight while trying to sort out the landing gear prior to approach (one of the green lights was showing - turned out the light was faulty but they couldn't know that).

anyway - in the mess that was the inflight management the pilot accidently bumped the control column.

It was a feature then that when a pilot puts in any control input the autopilot is automatically de-activated - a good system you would think so pilot can override computer at any point.

But in this case the pilot didn't know he had bumped the control column and therefore de-activated the autopilot and while they were pis.sing around with this landing gear issue they slowing descended and crashed - only realising seconds before impact. All 103 perished.

It was dead of night with no moonlight - therefore the horizon wasn't visible.


Unbelievable to think that there was no warning system - a beep or something - when autopilot is deactivated.

Presume there is these days.





Sometimes I think it should be all human - or all computers - it's the mix of both that causes issues.

Jim Smith

[QUOTE=Jeeper;7534614]http://www.freshgasflow.com/flight401.htm

If you can be naffed - the above was an interesting incident.

To sum up: pilot set autopilot for 2000feet flight while trying to sort out the landing gear prior to approach (one of the green lights was showing - turned out the light was faulty but they couldn't know that).

Interesting read..................thanks!