Germanwings Flight Carrying at Least 148 Crashes in Southern France

[garbon]

With recent media coverage, it looks like people are right to not openly talk about mental conditions they may have suffered from at one point. I just saw an article that noted confusion as to why he was ever allowed to be a pilot when he told them he had once suffered a severe depressive episode.

Not everyone is cut out to be a pilot. Better to weed them out early before they mass murder people.

Yes because that is what depression is.

[Iormlund]

Self-flying planes may actually be a thing of the future.  Airplanes can mostly fly themselves already.

I kind of doubt it, actually. I think we will see more and more automation, of course, but it is going to be a long time before a auto pilot can handle the emergencies as well as a well trained human.

Yeah, you'd have to completely rewire the flux capacitor and probably employ protomatter in the Genesis matrix to create an autopilot capable of flying a plane.  What are you basing this on?  Gut feeling?

Anyway, could passenger planes be flown like drones are?  If passenger flights were drones, you get rid of the risk of terrorist takeover as well as mass-murder by pilot pique.  Furthermore, it would eliminate fatigue-induced accidents, to whatever extent those exist.  (Now, I'll add the caveat I do not know how viable this is.  But drones seem to work for military applications.)

Military drones are flown by pilots. They are simply not inside.

Trains are, I think, a much better example. They are perfectly capable of working on their own, yet we still put a dude in command for whatever the reason (peace of mind, insurance, etc).

[Tamas]

Self-flying planes may actually be a thing of the future.  Airplanes can mostly fly themselves already.

I kind of doubt it, actually. I think we will see more and more automation, of course, but it is going to be a long time before a auto pilot can handle the emergencies as well as a well trained human.

Yeah, you'd have to completely rewire the flux capacitor and probably employ protomatter in the Genesis matrix to create an autopilot capable of flying a plane.  What are you basing this on?  Gut feeling?

Anyway, could passenger planes be flown like drones are?  If passenger flights were drones, you get rid of the risk of terrorist takeover as well as mass-murder by pilot pique.  Furthermore, it would eliminate fatigue-induced accidents, to whatever extent those exist.  (Now, I'll add the caveat I do not know how viable this is.  But drones seem to work for military applications.)

Until somebody builds a radio transmitter capable of taking over remote control of the plane and smash it to the ground or into a building. There is no fail safe method.

[Martinus]

Military drones are flown by pilots. They are simply not inside.

Trains are, I think, a much better example. They are perfectly capable of working on their own, yet we still put a dude in command for whatever the reason (peace of mind, insurance, etc).

I blame Stephen King.

Btw, crop for the love of Hod.

[Zanza]

Until somebody builds a radio transmitter capable of taking over remote control of the plane and smash it to the ground or into a building. There is no fail safe method.

A much more likely scenario is that the pilot loses connection to the plane for technical reasons (satellite failure, antenna broken, solar storm etc.) and can't reestablish the connection before the plane crashes somewhere. That's not a huge deal with unmanned drones, but it would be a disaster with people on board the plane.

[DGuller]

He could have reprogrammed the autopilot to descend to 'x' feet.  You can also program the descent rate and the aircraft will hold that as well.  You can cancel that at any time and take control, but of course you can't do that while unconscious.

...or insane.

My initial posts in this thread were pretty great, I must say.  I should be an expert witness in aviation trials.

I think I did okay as well.  While it turned out that the pilots weren't unconscious, one was fully conscious and one was completely absent, so on average I was right.  And while it turned out that none of the planes are equipped with autopilot programming that I thought they were equipped it, some of that programming would in fact be practical to implement at some time in the future. 

[Eddie Teach]

Caliga loses points for posting a news story without commentary beyond a single emoticon. 

[Berkut]

Self-flying planes may actually be a thing of the future.  Airplanes can mostly fly themselves already.

I kind of doubt it, actually. I think we will see more and more automation, of course, but it is going to be a long time before a auto pilot can handle the emergencies as well as a well trained human.

Yeah, you'd have to completely rewire the flux capacitor and probably employ protomatter in the Genesis matrix to create an autopilot capable of flying a plane.  What are you basing this on?  Gut feeling?

Anyway, could passenger planes be flown like drones are?  If passenger flights were drones, you get rid of the risk of terrorist takeover as well as mass-murder by pilot pique.  Furthermore, it would eliminate fatigue-induced accidents, to whatever extent those exist.  (Now, I'll add the caveat I do not know how viable this is.  But drones seem to work for military applications.)

Drones work for military applications in large part because the very concept of the drone includes the idea that they are mostly dispensable. That is the entire fucking point of a drone - there isn't a person in it, so if the pilot oopsie crashes it, it isn't nearly as big a deal, or if it gets shot down or whatever.

A commercial airliner is exactly the *opposite* of a drone when it comes to tolerance for error on the part of the operator, or the system not having the same level of fidelity as an actual pilot sitting in the plane itself.

[Razgovory]

It has actually been quite an uphill fight to get mental disorders properly classified as disabilities. 

It helps if in you bite people.

[grumbler]

Drones work for military applications in large part because the very concept of the drone includes the idea that they are mostly dispensable. That is the entire fucking point of a drone - there isn't a person in it, so if the pilot oopsie crashes it, it isn't nearly as big a deal, or if it gets shot down or whatever.

A commercial airliner is exactly the *opposite* of a drone when it comes to tolerance for error on the part of the operator, or the system not having the same level of fidelity as an actual pilot sitting in the plane itself.

Agreed. The pilot is the last person you will take out of any given type of flying.

[The Brain]

With recent media coverage, it looks like people are right to not openly talk about mental conditions they may have suffered from at one point. I just saw an article that noted confusion as to why he was ever allowed to be a pilot when he told them he had once suffered a severe depressive episode.

Not everyone is cut out to be a pilot. Better to weed them out early before they mass murder people.

Yes because that is what depression is.

This is a safety issue. Safety first. Period.

[Caliga]

Caliga loses points for posting a news story without commentary beyond a single emoticon. 

What was I going to say at that point?  I guess I could have pulled a Tim and said "Monstrous."

[Tonitrus]

Drones work for military applications in large part because the very concept of the drone includes the idea that they are mostly dispensable. That is the entire fucking point of a drone - there isn't a person in it, so if the pilot oopsie crashes it, it isn't nearly as big a deal, or if it gets shot down or whatever.

A commercial airliner is exactly the *opposite* of a drone when it comes to tolerance for error on the part of the operator, or the system not having the same level of fidelity as an actual pilot sitting in the plane itself.

Agreed. The pilot is the last person you will take out of any given type of flying.

Indeed.  It might get more and more automated, perhaps even to the point where the pilot is there almost only as a backup for emergencies, but it's hard to imagine any time in the near future that 100-200+ humans will entrust their lives entirely to automated control.

Just like even self-driving cars will likely always maintain manual controls for override purposes.

This attitude might change after several generations of flawless automated operation...but that's too far off yet.

[Ideologue]

Self-flying planes may actually be a thing of the future.  Airplanes can mostly fly themselves already.

I kind of doubt it, actually. I think we will see more and more automation, of course, but it is going to be a long time before a auto pilot can handle the emergencies as well as a well trained human.

Yeah, you'd have to completely rewire the flux capacitor and probably employ protomatter in the Genesis matrix to create an autopilot capable of flying a plane.  What are you basing this on?  Gut feeling?

Anyway, could passenger planes be flown like drones are?  If passenger flights were drones, you get rid of the risk of terrorist takeover as well as mass-murder by pilot pique.  Furthermore, it would eliminate fatigue-induced accidents, to whatever extent those exist.  (Now, I'll add the caveat I do not know how viable this is.  But drones seem to work for military applications.)

Military drones are flown by pilots. They are simply not inside.

No, I know.  Anyway, it was just an idea.

[Iormlund]

Just like even self-driving cars will likely always maintain manual controls for override purposes.

This attitude might change after several generations of flawless automated operation...but that's too far off yet.

It won't be that long. As soon as automated systems are safer than humans on average, we won't be able to engage manual override without losing insurance coverage.