For this activity, you will upload your presentation and research paper from Module 8.

To foster collaboration with your peers, you will review and critique three of your peers' projects as well as provide an additional resource. For example, add a URL in your critique related to their topic. Consider their problem and how they arrived at a solution. Do you agree with their approach? Is there a different way to tackle the problem? Perhaps you learned something that can be applied to a similar problem you are facing.

These elements must be included in each review post:

• What were the strengths of the research paper?
• What were the weaknesses or areas that could have been improved?
• What did you learn from their research?
• What can you contribute to their research? This can be an additional resource for the literature review, support for their recommendation, or another element that they could have considered during the research process.

You must include a properly formatted APA in-text citation and reference to support your contribution to your peers' research. The Peer Review rubric is assigned to this activity to grade you on your review of your peer(s).

 

 After the Wright brothers made their first flight in the early 1900s, research, development, and introduction of flight automation began. Although automation was primitive and passive in the beginning, it has evolved for more than a century, and over the past 50 years, it has developed from autopilot to fully integrated automation systems, which has changed the relationship between pilots and aircrafts. Flight automation performed complex and repetitive tasks, reducing pilot workload, human error, and increasing efficiency. However, there have been several accidents caused by flight automation, and the automation system has shown various issues.The study will look at what potential risks flight automation has and how it affects aviation safety. 

Keywords: flight automation, safety, accidents, training

Flight Automation and Safety Issues

This paper will examine flight automation and the resulting safety aspects and issues. The flight automation was originally designed to reduce workload, create efficiencies (Lau, 2021). But the problem is that flight automation also may cause unexpected and obscured situations and develop undesirable accidents. The purpose of research is finding out what flight automation is, reviewing accidents caused by flight automation and causes of accidents, presenting potential risks that may arise, and providing recommendations for flight automation.

Background

Flight automation was an essential function to make better and bigger airplanes. The history of flight automation began nine years after the Wright brothers made their first flight. Lawrence Sperries created the "gyroscopic automatic pilot," an automatically balanced device, which was successful and popular (Little, 2019a). Since then, more automation has been needed and developed as the demand for aviation and travel has increased. In the 1950s, the development of flight automation led to the change in the number of members needed for the cockpit, and in the 1970s, the development of flight automation technology using digital technology began. These flight automation technologies were considered a safer way in flight until several automation-caused accidents occurred.

Air France Flight 447 in 2009, Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2018 and 2019 were all accidents caused by flight automation. The problem with these accidents is that when a malfunction occurs in the flight automation function, the pilots failed to convert it to manual flight. These accidents have raised concerns that pilots do not have sufficient experience in flight automation. The former pilot William Langewiesche mentioned that "automation has made it more and more unlikely that ordinary airline pilots will ever have to face a raw crisis in flightbut also more and more unlikely that they will be able to cope with such a crisis if one arises" (Little, 2019b, para 11).

This study will examine automation-related accidents and find out the characteristics of automation, whether automation actually has a positive effect on the safety of the aviation industry, the problems and weaknesses of automation. This will raise awareness of flight automation and aviation safety and provide recommendations to improve aviation safety in relation to automation.

Literature Review

Flight automation is designed to reduce pilot workload and improve efficiency and safety. This frees pilots from tedious, repetitive tasks, allows them to see the big picture of the entire flight, and allows more time to look into other tasks(Casner & Schooler, 2014a). But at the same time, there may be unexpected accidents or consequences when the flight automation is mishandled or in the event of errors. As such, flight automation has distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage of Automation

The most prominent advantage of flight automation is that, as flight automation progresses and develops, automation system replaces repetitive and non-rewarding tasks, pilot's workload and human error are reduced (SKYbrary, n.d.). Thus, pilots are able to plan the big picture of the whole flight including weather, monitoring aircraft's system, and air traffic control better.

Disadvantage of Automation

The disadvantages are also clear. While pilots rely heavily on automation for much of their flight, they lack the knowledge, understanding, and experience of automation systems. Automation eliminates a large number of human errors because it takes over what pilots need to do, but automation is not entirely error-free. If the automation system fails, the pilot must off the system, switch to manual flight, and continue the flight safely. However, in some accidents we will look at later, we can find that accidents eventually occur when pilots fail to handle the automation system properly. Also, pilots have the final authority to decide what happens in flight, but there are concerns that automation is taking place large part of the flight and that pilots may have lost the actual decision-making authority if they are incapable of taking action in the event of a related emergency (Holford, 2022).

Accidents regarding Automation

There are some examples of accidents caused by flight automation. The first case is Air France Flight 447 in 2009. The plane was a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, and the accident occurred about three hours after the flight. During the flight, the meteorological situation affects pitot tube and the autopilot and auto-throttle turned off (Surette, 2023).The pilot had to fly the aircraft manually, and the co-pilot misjudged the error caused by the pitot tube and continuously raised the nose. Eventually, the airspeed of the aircraft decreased and fell into a stall, causing an accident that killed 228 people. It can be said that the pilot was insufficient in understanding their situation and responding to emergency situations when the autopilot was turned off. Although better situational awareness is mentioned as the advantage of flight automation, it also showed that it is not necessarily the case in actual flights.

The following accidents were Ryan Air Flight 610 in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopian Air Flight 302 In 2019. Both aircraft were Boeing 737 Max 8, and after the accident investigation, the cause of the accident was found to be Boeing's system fault. The Boeing 737 Max 8 is equipped with an anti-stall device called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) (Hawkins, 2019). This automatically operates when the angle of attack is excessively high in situations where the angle of attack is high, such as takeoff. However, in both accidents, the system automatically operated under abnormal conditions. In the case of the Ryanair accident, pilots were unable to cope because Boeing did not announce the new system. After the accident, Boeing announced emergency procedures for MCAS, and the pilots of the second accident were aware of the abnormal situation. However, the given emergency procedures did not work properly and eventually an accident occurred. Boeing is obviously responsible for these two accidents. However, while automation technology for flight safety continues to develop, accidents have occurred due to a lack of training or procedures to make pilots able to handle it properly. Also, those were accidents that showed that automation systems also cause errors. It is true that the accident rate is lower than before due to the development of various flight automation systems for safer flight. But this also leaves a challenge to be solved.

Results

We looked at the pros and cons of automation and the accidents associated with it and the causes. In Air France's accident, the pilot lacked the ability to respond skillfully to autopilot and autopilot when they were unexpectedly released automatically. This shows that there was a lack of proper education on automation. Unfortunately, the accidents involving Ryanair and Ethiopian Airlines occurred on Boeing 737 Max aircraft, which showed several problems. The first is that the airline was not informed of the newly applied automation system. The second is that emergency procedures distributed to prevent accidents such as the first accident were not properly carried out.

The above accidents showed some issues of automation. All three accidents were caused by inadequate training and education in automation. Also, it has also been cited as an advantage of automation as it reduces pilot workload and improves situational awareness, but over-reliance on automation has led to a lack of situational awareness. Varela, an instrument-grade civilian pilot with more than 900 hours of flight experience, said, "The more automation there is, the less pilots get to fly manually, making them less capable of dealing with emergencies" (Palmer, 2020, para 15). Another problem is aircraft manufacturers and airlines. In the second accident, Boeing did not provide information about the new automation software, and the information provided later was also problematic. They overlooked the errors that the new automation system could cause and the consequences it would bring. The airline did not confirm that the manuals or emergency procedures provided by the manufacturer were working properly.

Conclusion

Flight automation began a few years after the first aviation industry began. Flight automation has the advantage of reducing the workload of pilots and providing pilots with better situational awareness. And it is clear that the development of flight automation has reduced human factor mistakes and increased the safety of the aviation and travel industries.

However, the introduction of automation also has several challenges. Many accidents of flight automation have revealed that while reliance on flight automation has increased, there has been insufficient understanding and skills to use that properly, and training on manual flight without the automation system. In a survey of 1,000 pilots conducted by the International Air Transport Association, 92% of respondents said training should be conducted in case they unexpectedly switch from automatic flight to manual flight and from manual flight to automatic flight (Thomas, 2021). Pilot training is required to use an automated system desirably, but the various procedures for handling the system can lead to increased workload.

Recommendation

After looking into flight automation and various challenges through accidents, the first recommendation for that is training regarding automation system. It is true that the sophisticated flight automation system allows pilots to move away from manual flights and focus more on navigation, air traffic control, and aircraft conditions (Huang, 2021). However, the pilot should not rely solely on it, but should be ahead of the automation system. In order to do so, training on manual flight must be conducted. Pilots will need to be able to quickly recognize the flight situation and fly safely manually when they switch from automatic flight to manual flight. There should also be simulation training that assumes multiple emergencies so that they can respond in the event of an emergency on a real flight.

The second suggestion is to limit the automation capabilities. Pilots' excessive reliance on automation during flight has led to reduced situational awareness and concentration and has also led to accidents. Recommendation is to harmonize manual control and automation properly. The first assumption is that the pilot's manual flight is the main one, and the automation system assists it. If so, the automation system could detect and inform pilots of human errors in flight so that the errors do not produce negative results. Conversely, if the automation system is responsible for many things, pilots will be able to improve situational awareness and understand the big picture of flight through a more detailed and rigorous checklist. Proper distribution of automation systems and pilot tasks will greatly benefit aviation safety.