Automation Will Save Your Life, Until it Won't

Boeing is now under intense pressure after the crashes of an Ethiopian Airlines and a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX within months of each other. They need to answer if the 737 MAX 8 and 9's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System’s (MCAS) strongly suspected involvement in both crashes reveals a product defect, a pilot training defect, or if it's working just fine-- and something else is to blame for nearly 300 people dead.

 The crashes have thrust into the public conversation a debate that pilots and engineers have been having for years. How much is automation saving lives and how much is that same automation putting lives at risk by diminishing required pilot skills?

As the head of an air taxi company that flies what the industry calls a technologically-advanced aircraft (TAA)- and as someone who pilots the plane himself- I wouldn't trade in the automation on board the Cirrus aircraft for all the old-school technology on board a 1970s-era Piper-- which basically came down to analog “steam gauges,” a compass, and a paper map. And I don't think any other pilot would give up  the advanced aircraft technology now available, including GPS, autopilot, and on-board weather.

However, ask any designated pilot examiner (those are the people who give flight tests to student  and licensed pilots), and they'll tell you that basic aircraft handling - “stick and rudder” - skills are slipping. Press just a few buttons and most modern airplanes today will fly themselves from just after takeoff all the way to the destination, making turns as appropriate. It would be a very bad idea, but you could literally bring a book (on your iPad) to read and look up just long enough to land the thing. (And some planes can even land themselves.) When technology failed the pilot's of an Air Asiana flight into San Francisco a few years ago, their lack of current stick and rudder flying skills contributed to the plane landing short of the runway, resulting in one fatality.

We have now experienced at least three crashes where automation may have fallen short, and the crew was unable to diagnose and respond correctly to the problem before it became too late. It's been a decade since the pilots of Air France Flight 447 flew the plane into the ocean. Questions about that crash continue to surround that Airbus's automation, which was certainly a factor in confusing the pilots as to whether they were taking the proper action to save the plane- or, as tragically seems to have been the case, were actually making situation worse.

In general, airplanes are safer now than they have ever been, and automation has played a significant role in that progress. Now regulators and the public are demanding to know if the automation on the MAX is faulty-- or if  there is an automation-enabled reduction in pilot airmanship that is ironically pushing safety back in the wrong direction.

Andrew is the CEO of Hopscotch Air and VP of Marketing of VTOL start-up Transcend Air.