Air France Flight 447—Catastrophe from Confusion

SCANALYZER Tracking with Closeups
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The A/I might actually have done the right thing in the case of AF447, because the autopilot disconnected once it lost the airspeed input from the frozen pitot tubes.

My vote is still with proper recurrent training of human pilots. I don’t think we will have another AF447 accident – pilots (and simulator operators) are dialed into that scenario. And that is the problem with programming an A/I – it cannot anticipate scenarios that have not occurred before. Well-trained and alert humans are able to think their way out of such scenarios. An A/I can always think its way out of the previous mistake, but I have my doubts that it will be able to do so with new mistakes. (Like the ones that humans make so well!)

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This is deeply symbolic of the effects over reliance on flight automation, when it permits loss of basic piloting skills. It was neither Airbus nor Air France which kept the elevator controls in full nose up attitude for almost the full four minutes it took the stalled aircraft to fall almost 40,000 feet to the water. Basic piloting skills could easily saved everyone. That would have required merely neutralizing the flight controls, maintaining cruise power and waiting.

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