COMPUTERS AND AIRPLANE  DISASTERS?

In the last issue of Anarchy's Unlimited,  I asked my readers if they thought it possible that computers could replace pilots in the Aviation industry.  My belief (and you may disagree) is that they can,  but for this issue,  I'd like to throw another issue for you to ponder:  have computers been the cause of crashes or could computers cause a crash?  Well,  I believe that if computers have been the cause of crashes,  it was due to a human error such as a programming error or design.

This whole question of computers being the cause factor when something goes wrong doesn't sit well with me for a couple of reasons:  1) computers are easily blamed when failures occur and it is readily accepted by us that they are the cause,  and,  2) I am a firm believer that computers only perform what you tell them to do (as I said in my previous article).

Statistically speaking, human error accounts for two thirds of air disasters, leaving the remaining third to technical failure, nature, (lightning strikes, bird strikes, ice), terrorist activities and of course computers. 

The first case I'd like to examine, is of an F-18 Hornet Fighter Plane that crashed on-takeoff at the end of the runway as the computer wouldn't let the jet take off.  In this instance, even though the computer didn't allow the plane to take off, it was due to it being entered the wrong aircraft weight (critical in aviation) causing it to override the pilots imput as it recognized the condition as to be to heavy for the aircraft to take off.

In it's early days Airbus 320 aircraft had a history of "uncontrolled excursions" where the aircraft computers for a moment overtakes the aircrew's actions again caused by erroneous commands having being imputed into it's flight computers.  The F117 Stealth aircraft computers are capable of flying whole missions on their own and just the other day I was listening to a show on TV about the new F-22 Rapter where it said that it's computer could make 450,000 decisions a second!  In a world where seconds can make a difference between life and death, I would lean towards the computer to 'think fast," it is some of the guys imputing the commands I tend not to trust! In it's early days Airbus 320 aircraft had a history of "uncontrolled excursions" where the aircraft computers for a moment overtakes the aircrew's actions again caused by erroneous commands having being imputed into it's flight computers.  The F117 Stealth aircraft computers are capable of flying whole missions on their own and just the other day I was listening to a show on TV about the new F-22 Rapter where it said that it's computer could make 450,000 decisions a second!  In a world where seconds can make a difference between life and death, I would lean towards the computer to 'think fast," it is some of the guys imputing the commands I tend not to trust!  

Sasquatch