The Air France Flight 447 Crash
The Air France Flight 447 was a commercial airplane that carried passengers from Brazil’s Rio to France’s Paris. The aircraft lost control on the air as it crossed the Atlantic Ocean and crashed. It was confirmed that faulty sensors, lack of adequate oversight, inadequate training, and pilot error were the causes of the accident (Maurino, Reason, Johnston & Lee, 2017). Most of these factors are computer interaction and human issues that can be controlled by pinpointing the problems and solving them accordingly.
Problem Statement
The report about the crash had its conclusions, and research findings revealed that pilots experienced severe challenges relating to technical issues that staggered them in the middle of the air. The action that followed was a de-structured decision that made the pilots lose their mental control of the situation (Maurino, Reason, Johnston & Lee, 2017). The research study is meant to solve the issue of human errors that pilots faced at high altitudes. These individuals could not react rationally to technical challenges and Air, France Flight 447 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.
The Significance of the Problem
The problem that requires address is a vital issue since it brings about a variety of challenges that face the contemporary aviation sector and its safety. Firstly, we can learn more about the automation levels of the current commercial airplanes. Aircraft have today been highly automated that the roles of a pilot have become minimal during the flight. Secondly, we can talk about a pilot’s technical know-how and whether he/she can resolve these technical challenges during the air flight.
Alternative Actions
The first alternative is to reduce the automation level that engineers build in airplanes and enable pilots to operate the aircraft manually. The advantage of this is that there shall be minimal confusion that flight sensors might cause during the flight (Wiegmann & Shappell, 2017). The setback of this alternative is that automation helps in enhancing accuracy and safety. This means that when we divert to the manual approach, pilots will no longer manage to have access to accurate information, hence there might be no reliability during the flight.
The second alternative is to increase training of pilots so that they get acquainted with technical skills to the highest level. The benefit of this alternative is that the pilots will acquire essential skills that they deserve so that they can make a personal judgment without relying too much on the automated system (Wiegmann & Shappell, 2017). The disadvantage of this action is that it is highly expensive and wastes time. The process starts by pilots getting the necessary syllabus initially developed for them. The global international training system then follows. The training system must be comprehensive since aviation is a global industry that requires high costs and labor.
Recommendations
This study recommends that pilots should pass through technical training so that they get equipped with additional skills that they need during their job. We need to realize that technology only exists to facilitate our actions and never to control us. Pilots should know that technology is not allowed to substitute their roles in any way, especially when making vital decisions. The aviation industry should not stop automating aircraft but enable their pilots to realize that they must make rational decisions and they must not let technology help them do so. The technical skills that these pilots acquire should help them find out system malfunctions and rectify them in time. They can easily override the automated system and then resort to manual control. The training process wastes time and is costly, but it cannot beat the value of life.
References
Maurino, D. E., Reason, J., Johnston, N., & Lee, R. B. (2017). Beyond aviation human factors: Safety in high technology systems. Routledge.
Wiegmann, D. A., & Shappell, S. A. (2017). A human error approach to aviation accident analysis: The human factors analysis and classification system. Routledge.
