Quote:
Originally Posted by otatop
Just as long as we put the split second decision making back where it should be: in the hands of tired, dumb pilots and not some complex computer system.
Depends.
Complex system failures are, well, complex. As I understand it, one of the main cornerstones of the theory is that generally speaking a single "error" rarely is enough to crash the system - it generally takes a sequence of improbably occurrences to cause system failure. Any change to a complex system introduces potential for new forms of failure - which seems to be likely involved here with new software introduced that the pilots either weren't trained enough in - or worse yet were incorrectly trained in to deal with whatever happened. Pilots aren't dumb - or at least aren't dumb about flying. They may be dumb about something they haven't been exposed to.
Way too soon to know what happened on these two flights - but it's concerning that weather doesn't seem to be an issue and that AFAIK no one is suggesting that these were controlled flights into terrain types of accidents, and there are no credible reports of structural failure prior to the crashes - the planes just more or less fell out of the sky. Some sort of software **** up seems most likely. We'll see....
MM MD