Flight simulation was recreated to test a crisis situation similar to what investigators suspect went wrong in the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last October.
In the tests, a single sensor failed, triggering software designed to help prevent a stall. Pilots discovered that they had less than 40 seconds to override an automated system on Boeing’s new jets and avert disaster.
SBS News reported that although the investigations are continuing, the automated system, MCAS, is a focus of authorities trying to determine what went wrong in the Lion Air disaster and the Ethiopian Airlines crash of the same Boeing model last month.
Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, which activated without the pilot’s input has led to some frustration among pilots of the 737 Max jet.
There is a pilot's report quoted by The Verge mentioning that it is "unconscionable that a manufacturer, the FAA, and the airlines would have pilots flying an airplane without adequately training, or even providing available resources and sufficient documentation to understand the highly complex systems that differentiate this aircraft from prior models".
The Verge also writes that rather than doing hours-long training sessions in multimillion-dollar simulators, many pilots have learned about the 737’s new features on an iPad.
So is automation technology more important than the pilot's prowess itself?
Pilot and safety advocate Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger says that automation does not eliminate errors.
"The more layers are piled into increasingly complex systems, the more failure paths we introduce," read his writing in an LinkedIn article.
"We’ve learned that automation does not eliminate errors. Rather, it changes the nature of the errors that are made, and it makes possible new kinds of errors."
Captain Sully has come to be known as a pilot who successfully landed an Airbus A320-214 in New York's Hudson River following a bird strike-induced loss of both its engines. All 155 passengers and crew on board US Airways Flight 1549 on 15 January 2009 survived.
Boeing 737 MAX is the latest derivative of the highly-successful narrow-body airliner called the Boeing 737. This modern airliner is designed to become more efficient whilst maintaining comfort and safety for the passengers.
Sydney-based aviation enthusiast Arlan Santos said that he believes that airplane manufacturers can only make an airplane safe as much as they could.
"Airplane can only get safer by learning from all the mistakes and circumstances that led to these crashes – whether it be a design flaw, cockpit resource management, or an act of nature – and making sure they will not happen again," he said to SBS Indonesian.
Captain Sully says that systems integrating the best of human abilities and technology are the safest for all concerned.
"So when we design our systems, we need to assign appropriate roles to the human and technological components," his writing read. "It is best for humans to be the doers and technology to be the monitors, providing decision aids and safeguards."
Boeing mentions on their website that they continue to work with the FAA and other regulatory agencies on the certification of the MCAS software update.
