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The New Cockpit Threat
by Clive Irving
Clive Irving is senior consulting editor at Conde Nast Traveler, specializing in aviation—find his blog, Clive Alive, at CliveAlive.Truth.Travel.
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Forget Canada geese. Pilots have a new menace: boredom. Clive Irving on why today’s automated cockpits could cause more incidents like the Northwest flight that overshot its target by 120 miles.
At first sight, it seems like a bad joke: Northwest Airlines flight 188 from L.A. to Minneapolis-St. Paul forgets to land at St. Paul. In fact, the Airbus A320 flies on for another hour and 20 minutes, no less, before turning around.
What happened in that cockpit? The pilots say they “lost situational awareness” while arguing about airline policy. The immediate suspicion is that they fell asleep. And from that the issue of fatigue follows.
But it’s not so simple—we could be dealing with something new.
The cockpit voice recorders should quickly expose what happened on Northwest 188. Protracted silence would be the most telling thing. Were they just bored out of their minds?
For a long while now, the piloting community has been concerned about the undemanding workload of highly automated cockpits. Even a fully rested and awake pilot has little to do during the cruise phase of a flight in an airplane as sophisticated as the Airbus A320. If there are no weather alerts to worry about, flying can be left to the autopilot, which is part of a computerized flight-management system.
For sure, cockpit automation has greatly improved safety. These days most pilots have never faced a situation where the old-fashioned, seat-of-the-pants skills are needed to get out of trouble.
The problem is that the physical part of the art of flying has atrophied. I’ve talked to experts on this, and they have a phrase for it: “Proficiency failure.”
When pilots are being tested for the sharpness of their responses, they do so without leaving the ground, in simulators that are as sophisticated as the airplane itself. Emergencies are thrown at them and, since they know that’s what they are facing, they are ready.
But in the real world, flying legs between cities several times a day, it all becomes very routine. And I wonder if what we are looking at with the “fly by” of Minneapolis might not be a form of miasma—called boredom. The kind of boredom that becomes soporific.
The euphemism of losing “situational awareness” could be an evasive way of describing just this altered state.
• Clive Irving: What to Know About Airline Safety Records
• Clive Irving: How Turbulence Can Turn DeadlyFatigue itself is certainly an increasing concern. There are caps on the hours a crew can spend in the sky—on domestic U.S. flights, regionals, and majors, pilots can fly for only eight hours in any 24-hour period. But that leaves a whole invisible world away from the cockpit that can’t be regulated. The rule is that after a flight the pilots should have at least nine hours of consecutive rest. But who’s watching?
The often harsh reality of crew rest times was exposed by the crash of Continental Flight 3407 in Buffalo early this year. The co-pilot, 24-year-old Rebecca Shaw, had hitched flights on FedEx planes, involving a cross-country “red-eye” from her home in Seattle, before reaching Newark, the departure point of Flight 3407. The pilot, Marvin Renslow, had had a full day’s rest the day before but had slept in the Newark crew lounge before departure, against the regulations of the company operating the flight for Continental, Colgan Air.
Then there is micro-sleep, the kind that causes road accidents when a fatigued driver slips involuntarily into a few seconds of sleep, but that’s enough to be fatal. Research carried out for the U.S. military found that 80 percent of regional pilots admitted to nodding off during a flight.
The cockpit voice recorders should quickly expose to the National Transportation Safety Board what happened on Northwest 188. Protracted silence would be the most telling thing. Were they just bored out of their minds?
Clive Irving is senior consulting editor at Condé Nast Traveler, specializing in aviation.
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fred88
Come on, guys. The plane took an hour and 20 minutes to go 120 miles? It goes 100 MPH? Did they leave the parking brake on?
Assuming a cruise speed of 500 MPH, it would only have been about 10-15 minutes of confusion. It's not hard to imagine getting distracted for that long, although it's certainly unacceptable.
nosocialize
Good point fred88. Humans make mistakes so it's not surprising. I just think it's a big deal due to 9/11 and that 10 minutes of the ground control going, "huh?" But then, weren't they radioing the pilots in that 10 minutes? Did they have their radios off?
studentoflaw
having zero experience flying airplanes, that is the first thing that came to my mind, as well. it wouldn't have taken much longer to go that distance in a car!
so which is it? did the plane go 150 miles past its destination, or did it fly for an hour and 20 minutes past its destination?
legonzalez
the plane flew 150 miles past it's destination at a cruising speed of about 550 mph which is only about 10-15 minutes.
and this guy calls himself an aviation expert?
whipmawhopma
Perhaps if such planes were flown 1,000 feet above ground the pilots would have much more going on to keep their attention and the passengers would be much more entertained.
johnstafford
==And friends laugh at me when i say i don't use "cruise control" on my car because i think it encourages my attention to wander from the road!
==New, scarier version: people who use "cruise control" so they can more easily twitter or talk on their cell.
GPatton
Cockpit threat?!! Is this an article about the clap? George Patton
drekonja
Glad I'm not the only one confused by the math- 120 miles/1.333 hours = 90 miles/hr. I'm no pilot, but I'm not sure an airliner can stay in the air at that speed...
topdocjim
I hear the new Airbus is going to replace the crew with one pilot and a dog.
The pilot's job is to monitor the instruments.
The dog's job is to bite the pilot if he touches anything.
legonzalez
no no no...soon airplanes will be like trams you get on and off no pilot
Caseyman100
Actually the new crew coming for the next generation Airbus is not a dog and pilot it is a pilot and a monkey. The ever alert monkey will comb the cockpit indicators to check that all systems are indeed working as the computer says they are; another layer of fault tolerance is achieved. The pilot stands by the perform his sole flight function when a light flashes on the new control panel. Below this flashing indicator light it reads 'Feed The Monkey'.
Dillon
Northwest is now under suspicion
Of hiding its pilot condition;
With its jet on approach
Only saps flying coach
Had to be in the upright position.
News Short n' Sweet by JFD8
http://twitter.com/JFD8
kbutler
What a bunch or whack-off comments. Boredom in a plane, with the steady noise and steady vibration is a real problem. How do you prevent it in the auto-craft flying today? You do not. How do you bring the pilots out of induced trance? Good Luck with that one as well.
The best way I can think of is a 3rd body to relieve the two pilots alternately so those pilots can walk the aircraft, interact with the passengers, and then go back to their post. Same reasoning applies to truck drivers: stop, get out of the vehicle and stretch (although the pilots certainly cannot do exactly that).
Oh yeah, and the time distance thingy that has some of you puzzled. Figure this next one out and that problem goes away too. If a cat & a half can eat a rat & a half in a day & a half how many time can a dog pee on a tree before the tree slaps hip back?
whipmawhopma
kbutler - Or better yet, let one of the adult passengers fly the plane while the alternate pilot is on break. That will keep everyone awake.
BioProf
Shouldn't the auto pilot at least go "Beep, Beep. You have arrived at your destination."?
ectophile
Let me try to correct some inaccuracies. NW 188 flew from San Diego International Airport (SAN) to Minneapolis (MSP), not from LAX. The flight arrived 79 minutes late in MSP. It flew past its destination by 150 miles. That means that it traveled at least 300 miles further than its original flight plan. There was additional time lost for vectoring the aircraft back to MSP. Also, the aircraft blocked out of SAN at 3:00 P.M., instead of the scheduled 2:33 P.M. departure, a delay of 27 minutes. When you do these calculations, make sure that you convert all of the times to the same time zone. Various accounts gave the times in PDT (for San Diego), MDT (for Denver FAA Control Center), CDT (for MSP), and EDT (for New York). Admittedly, it is confusing, but the numbers do work out. The bigger questions still remain as to what the heck was going on.
Joel Siegfried
San Diego Airport Examiner
http://www.examiner.com/x-18134-San-Diego-Airport-Examiner
PatrickSmith
We hear this all the time -- how the downside of the high-tech flight deck is the propensity for pilots to grow bored.
Bollocks. Boredom was a factor 60 years ago, when planes had rudimentary autopilots and propellers spun by pistons. It's going to be a factor in any profession where the bulk of tasks becomes repetitive and routine. We don't know exactly what happened over Minneapolis, but the fancy electronics of the Airbus A320 weren't the problem.
Patrick Smith
http://www.askthepilot.com
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