> Pilots were so used to "the plane won't make a mistake" that they were not aware
replyOf course there have also been crashes where pilots wrongly dismissed sensor data.
In the Kegworth air disaster [1] the pilots had sensor data telling them the left-hand engine was at fault - but a previous model of the plane had a reputation for unreliability in that sensor, and the pilots shut down the right-hand engine on the basis of other evidence.
So we don't want pilots blindly trusting broken sensors - but we also don't want them to dismiss working sensors as broken.
[1] https://www.faa.gov/lessons_learned/transport_airplane/accid...
They didn't know their air speed (because of the pitot tubes being frozen). I think the report says that there was a path to safety if they had kept focused but it wasn't as easy as just flying the plane via 'the basics'.
replyI don't know what the definitions of "basic" is, but even PPL students are trained to recognize the effects of a frozen pitot tube.
replyIt was, and one of the pilots was doing the right thing and would have saved the plane no problem if they had been the only one flying the plane. The problem was that the other pilot insisted on doing exactly the wrong thing, didn’t say what he was doing, and the plane didn’t give nearly enough indication that it was receiving contradictory inputs from the two sets of controls.
replyIf it’s true that other navigation systems are as safe and capable as GPS, then GPS navigation should be randomly disabled in every aircraft occasionally to ensure that pilots remain fluent in using them.
replyIf it isn’t true, then the military is partially responsible for the crash of this aircraft.
No, pilots should ensure they're current at navigating without GPS because it can fail, just like pilots practice engine failure procedures and every other emergency / non-normal procedure. That doesn't mean it should be "randomly disabled" for the same reason that you don't test software in production or randomly turn off the engine of the plane. Obviously.
replyWe don't know how it failed. Maybe it displayed their lat/long perfectly but at the wrong altitude. We think of failure as obvious, but it is often nearly impossible to tell unless you are looking for it.
replyAltitude is the least accurate dimension for GPS, and it's also the one dimension that's provided with great accuracy by a really simple mechanical gauge present in every aircraft. There should never be a situation where an incorrect altitude figure from GPS causes a problem.
replyGPS is a 3D measurement.
replyErrors can be along any axis, random, infrequent, drifting, and nonobvious.
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