Shift Magazine - May 2021 - 24

LEARNING BY

DEADLY EXAMPLE
Aviation disasters offer valuable lessons for auto
industry about the dangers of 'automation complacency'
s Eastern Air Lines Flight 401
descended toward Miami International Airport on the night of
Dec. 29, 1972, the flight crew
noticed a light that should have confirmed
the nose gear's position failed to illuminate as expected.
Instead of proceeding with the approach, the three-person flight crew leveled the aircraft at 2,000 feet, activated
the new autopilot system installed in the
5-month-old jet and immersed itself in
troubleshooting the landing-gear problem.
Six minutes passed before they realized
something else was amiss.
" We did something to the altitude, "
said the first officer, according to cockpit
voice recorder transcripts. " We're still at
2,000, right? " Captain Robert Loft then
responded: " Hey, what's happening
here? "
Five seconds later, the L-1011 TriStar
jet crashed into the Everglades, killing
99 of the 176 people aboard. National
Transportation Safety Board investigators
cited the pilots' inattention and distraction
as the probable cause of the crash. But for
the first time, investigators also examined
the interplay between pilots and the autopilot system in commercial aviation.
Nearly a half-century later, the relationship is better understood as a complex
endeavor. Calibrating trust between the
two has become an important design
trait. Yet problems persist. First observed
in aviation, they're now occurring in car
crashes. In investigations into fatal Tesla
and Uber crashes, NTSB investigators
24

Investigators said pilots' inattention while having the autopilot
system active contributed to the 1972 crash in Florida of Eastern
Air Lines Flight 401, the wreckage of which is shown above.

BY PETE BIGELOW

" Automation
performs
remarkably well
most of the time,
and therein lies the
problem. "

paid for in blood, " said Frank Flemisch, a
professor of human systems integration at
Germany's RWTH Aachen University who
has worked in the automotive and aviation industries. " We have paid for them,
so why not use them as a society? The
trick will be, on one hand, to use those lessons but adapt them for this new domain.
That's not just copying the techniques, but
adapting and translating them. "

Bruce Landsberg, NTSB member

One key difference is that airline pilots
may have considerable time to respond
to a request for a takeover from an automated system. A highway environment
requires a faster reaction from a human
driver, who may face an imminent hazard.
Also, commercial pilots undergo far more
training than everyday vehicle drivers.
" It's not comparable, " said Antonello De
Galicia, a functional safety engineer at
Jaguar Land Rover who previously worked
at Airbus Group, where he participated in

found that human motorists responsible
for driving were lulled into a false sense
of security by driver-assist systems controlling the vehicle.
Experts warn that lessons learned
about guarding against this " automation
complacency " in aviation are not being
heeded in automotive applications.
" It has to be brought into the consciousness, because these lessons have been

EVEN PROFESSIONALS AT RISK

shift * may 2021

S024_AN_20210524.indd 24

5/14/21 2:34 PM

Shift Magazine - May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shift Magazine - May 2021