Airbus Plans to Expand Cockpit Automation

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Airbus plans computerized systems that could automatically maneuver jetliners to avoid midair collisions, without pilot input, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'For the first time, flight crews of Airbus planes will be instructed and trained to rely on autopilots in most cases to escape an impending crash with another airborne aircraft. Currently, all commercial pilots are required to instantly disconnect the autopilot when they get an alert of such an emergency, and manually put their plane into a climb or descent to avoid the other aircraft. The change, which hasn't been announced yet, comes after lengthy internal Airbus debates and despite skepticism from pilot groups and even some aircraft-equipment suppliers.'"

Old school

[packetmon]

This isn't new news...

"Autopilot computer systems on Boeing 737s have been hit by a problem which has caused aircraft to change height without warning. It is believed that full details of the problem have been requested by the investigators into the crash of the British Midland 737 on the M1 motorway in January. One theory is that the crew were misled by cockpit instruments.

Six incidents have been recorded by British Airways on its aircraft but the company says there has never been any danger because the crews have always checked the autopilot actions against other cockpit instruments.

The problem occurs after a pilot enters a new height to the autopilot. The system displays the instruction, but under certain circumstances the aircraft moves to a different height and the autopilot then displays the new reading.

One senior British Airways captain says the autopilot seems to use instructions entered earlier, even as long ago as the previous flight.

British Airways has called the problem "random memory initiation" and says it is caused by unexpected electromagnetic conditions such as lightning, strong radar signals, or an electrical power surge. Boeing says it has no evidence of any accidents occurring because of the problems.(source: Risks Digest [ncl.ac.uk]

I recall reading about these dangers during the 9/11 investigation. Supposedly there were arguments leaning towards an automatic autopilot override for authorities to use in the event of something like 9/11 occurring again, the problem was just that... Too many problems and glitches with these systems. Airbus themselves have had these issues on a crash...

China Airlines A300 Disaster

China Airlines A300 crashed at Japan's Nagoya airport, killing 264 of 271 people on board. The most likely cause of the crash was not solely the fault of software, but the confused interactions between software and human, in this case between the 26-year old copilot of the plane who was attempting to land the plane and the autopilot of the plane.

Two minutes before the plane was about to land, the autopilot of the plane went into take-off/go-around for reasons the investigation could not determine. In effect, this caused the autopilot to attempt to control the plane in a way that was directly opposite to what the human pilot was attempting to control.

(Source [stanford.edu])

Mind you this accident was a while back, there were other issues with the systems overriding at the wrong time...

Re:If it stops accidents...

[DSP_Geek]

Nope. That was a Swiss air controller who gave instructions counter to the in-cockpit collision avoidance system.

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=455&id=738 632002 [scotsman.com]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2082331.st m [bbc.co.uk]

On the other hand, I've worked with Aerospatiale software engineers, and I wouldn't trust them to organise a piss-up in a brewery. Comp.risks is rife with their fuckups, so I expect Great Things from this proposal.

Re:If it stops accidents...

[Martin Foster]

They covered this on the Discovery Channel up in Canada a few months back. The problem was not the technology, it was related to how the procedures differed between airlines and countries. In one instance the pilots of the cargo plane followed the computers directions, while the Russian pilots listened to the air control tower.

Had both listened to the air control tower or the onboard warning systems everything would have worked. This was not the case and a midair collision ensued.

Re:More noteworthy...

[packetmon]

Well the article was about Airbus however if you take note of my previous post in this thread, Boeing isn't in the clear on this either...

BOEING 737 PROBLEMS REACH FRESH HEIGHTS

Autopilot computer systems on Boeing 737s have been hit by a problem which has caused aircraft to change height without warning. It is believed that full details of the problem have been requested by the investigators into the crash of the British Midland 737 on the M1 motorway in January. One theory is that the crew were misled by cockpit instruments. Risks Digest [ncl.ac.uk]

It seems to be a combination of software vendors not necessarily the airline manufacture, but both. Doesn't make a difference if its Airbus, Boeing, etc., they're all likely following industry standards that probably need some major revisions.

Re:More noteworthy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the plane had been flying over the airfield at minimum speed (VLs) on the verge of a stall, the on-board computer refused to obey the command to lift the nose, for if the low thrust had remained unchanged, lifting the nose would have caused the plane to stall and then crash. The plane had not yet attained the higher speed necessary to avert a stall, however, because a jet engine needs several seconds to accelerate. Thus the A 320, controlled by computer logic and unresponsive to the pilot's will, flew into the adjoining woods.

I dont get it. The way you describe it was in fact a pilot error. Let me quote again:

because a jet engine needs several seconds to accelerate

So it seems the pilot failed to accelerate in time, isnt it? What should the software do, switch to warpdrive?

Re:Or if it causes them...

[Impotent_Emperor]

I thought the Aloha incident was more of a maintenance issue. The plane was old and performed many take off and landing cycles (about 89,000 instead of the 75,000 the plane was designed to handle), leading to metal fatigue. Additionally, the salt water environment in which it primarily operated caused additional corrosion to cracks and whatnot. There were/are maintenance packages available to check for this problems.

Re:Or if it causes them...Ooops

[sinan]

Sorry , here it is again...

http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm [airsafe.com]

Re:If it stops accidents...

[Emetophobe]

That accident was due to human error, I saw a show on Discovery about that accident a couple weeks ago. Here is the story link [aeronautics.ru].

Here is a copy-pasted blurb from the above link:

Considering that all the 'black boxes' from both aircraft have been located in working order there is a surprising lack of factual information available in the media regarding this extraordinary collision. It has been confirmed that both the Boeing 757-200 and the Tupolev Tu-154M were equipped with the TCAS II air collision avoidance system.

Both aircraft were relatively new (the Tu-154M was, in fact, newer - manufactured in 1995 - than the Boeing cargo jet it collided with) and no reports of any technical problems aboard have surfaced so far. In fact, it has been confirmed by the German investigators that the navigation, flight control and communication equipment aboard both aircraft has been functioning properly.

Available information suggests that both aircraft were piloted by crews with substantial experience flying on international routes and well-familiar with their aircraft. Furthermore, there was no information suggesting that either aircraft has departed from its pre-planned flight path until just second before the collision.

The collision occured at 10.5 km ( 35,000 ft ) altitude with the aircraft approaching each other at a rate of about 240 meters per second ( 793 ft/s ) and a closing angle of 90-deg. The collision occured in the dark and both planes were flying with the headlights turned off, as required by the regulations at this altitude.

Some 45 seconds prior to the collision pilots of the Boeing and Tupolev, still almost 11 km apart, both received commands from their collision avoidance systems to change their altitude: Boeing was to descent and the Tupolev was to gain altitude. However, at the same instant the pilot of the Tupolev received a contradictory order from the air traffic controller (ATC) to descent.

After a few seconds of executing the ascent maneuver, as ordered by the TCAS II, and the second order from the ATC to descent Tu-154M crew decided to follow the ATC instructions instead and begun dropping altitude. At the time of the collision both aircraft were in descent: the Boeing was following TCAS II commands and the Tupolev was following ATC orders.

In the end everything boils down to two questions: why the ATC ordered Tupolev to descent and whether or not the pilot of the Tupolev was obligated to follow the TCAS II instructions instead. There is a significant 'white spot' remaining in this case: almost nothing was released by the investigation regarding the actions of the Boeing pilot and his communications with the ATC.

So, the onboard avoidance system on both planes was functioning properly, one plane was told to descend, one plane was told to gain altitude. The ATC (air traffic controller) made the error.

Re:Airbus doesn't have the best record on this

[SSCGWLB]

Well, you are welcome to. I asked my friend Mr. Google about your biased and obviously informed 'facts', he seems to think differently. I found several places that had accident statistics, including one [boeing.com] from Boeing. You might not believe the numbers they have, but some research on my part tells me the numbers are reasonable. If you can find reputable numbers that say otherwise please let me know.

The net result is that Airbus most certainly does not make the safest commercial airlines (I only included the lowest numbers):
Hull Loss Accidents 1959-2004 (loss per million departures)
767: 0.34
757: 0.34
737-400/400-500: 0.36
A320/319/321: 0.42
747-400: 0.75
A300-600: 1.06
727: 1.1
737-100/200: 1.31
A310: 1.60
A300: 1.68

So, Airbus certainly makes good dependable airframes, but 10-20% better then Boeing or other US made? Please, keep your FUD and rhetoric under control.

~nate

About "fly-by-wire"...

[TabsAZ]

Just so no one gets the wrong idea here, the term "fly-by-wire" does NOT necessarily refer to a computer overriding the pilots. In a lot of the Airbus discussion I see online, it gets used in this way. FBW is, very simply put, a flight control system that uses electrical impulses over wires to send commands to the servos that move the control surfaces on the wings, tail and stabilizer as opposed to hydraulic lines or manual cable linkages. Nothing about computers overriding pilots is directly implied by the term. The Boeing 777 is a FBW aircraft and has no such system for overriding pilot inputs.

Airbus basically places something called an FCC (Flight Control Computer) as a middle man between the pilot's sidestick and the control surfaces. This computer accepts the pilots commands as input, modifies then according to what Airbus calls "flight law regimes" and then sends a modified signal on to the computers - this is where all the unique "Airbus stuff" comes from such as the pitch and roll limiters where the pilot can't exceed 33 degrees nose up or down or 66 degrees of bank. The FCC also eliminates any concept of elevator trimming for cosntant pitch, such as what you'd find on virtually any other airplane. The FCC simply continues to command the elevator to maintain whatever pitch (it's technically G-load, but that's beside the point) and bank angles that were present when the pilot lets go of the stick. Most aircraft do not hold their attitude like this, if you release the yoke, the plane will have a tendency to return to wings level and to climb or descend depending on the trim setting.

Re:If it stops accidents...

[Anonymous Coward]

To repeat what an A320 FO said in a discussion on airdisaster.com - the Airbus system is incredible since if you (as you should) enter the missed approach procedure into the computer prior to landing and then get any problem you just press "GA" (go-around) any time and then don't do shit since they plane sorts it out all by itself. Neat!