Word: autopilot
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...both of the Northwest pilots might have nodded off. Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group working to lower aviation accidents, says modern aircraft give flight crews very little to do during the straight-and-level portions of flight. "The aircraft is on autopilot, the flight plan's programmed in, one pilot says hello and goodbye to a controller every 10 to 15 minutes, and there's not a lot else going on," says Voss, who added that the crew's claim to be talking as they overflew Minneapolis "doesn't seem very credible." U.S. airlines...
...forced ending in which many of the loose ends are tied up just a bit too cleanly, and Pierre helpfully offers the moral of the story in a voiceover for those who haven’t figured it out by that point. Klapisch seems to be directing on autopilot, producing a mildly engaging trifle until he can return to the characters from “L’Auberge,” a less ambitious but far more satisfying film. But “Paris” does suggest a more serious, polished direction for Klapisch. If this...
...might Flight 447 have been flying at the wrong speed? The latest theory is that one of its three Pitot tubes - external sensors used to measure airspeed - iced up, leading to an inaccurate reading. That would have shut down the aircraft's autopilot - one of those 24 messages indicated that had occurred - and compelled the flight-control computer to shift more responsibility to the pilots. Turbulence would have further whittled away at their safe-speed range. "They might have slowed down inadvertently and flown into a stall," says Hans Weber, an aviation-safety expert at Tecop International...
...technical messages" sent by AF447 showed that "several electrical systems had broken down" immediately prior to the crash. A chronology of these messages acquired by the São Paolo daily Jornal da Tarde show that moments before the plane is believed to have plunged into the ocean, its autopilot became disengaged and the plane sustained damage to its stabilizing controls and flight systems, as well as a failure of the systems that were monitoring the aircraft's speed, altitude and direction: the ADIRU (Air Data Inertial Reference Units) and the ISIS (Integrated Standby Instruments System). These are key components...
Qantas Flight 72 had been airborne for three hours, flying uneventfully on autopilot from Singapore to Perth, Australia. But as the in-flight dinner service wrapped up, the aircraft's flight-control computer went crazy. The plane abruptly entered a smooth 650-ft. dive (which the crew sensed was not being caused by turbulence) that sent dozens of people smashing into the airplane's luggage bins and ceiling. More than 100 of the 300 people on board were hurt, with broken bones, neck and spinal injuries, and severe lacerations splattering blood throughout the cabin. (Read...