>because they were given an indication that it had faulted
I checked the accident report. The computer didn't fail. It was just getting inaccurate sensor information. This caused the control system to automatically switch to Alternate Law, which already removes a large number of the automatic protections. If the pilots had used circuit breakers to force a switch to Direct Law, this would most likely have decreased the safety of the remainder of the flight. Coffin Corner is a scary thing when you're flying without any automatic protections. Moreover, the injuries were all caused by the FIRST uncommanded pitch down. To avoid those injuries would have required the automatic protections to have been turned off from the beginning!
> then I think Air France 447 falls into the same category.
This was pilot error, as clearly explained in the accident report. All the stuff on reddit about linked control sticks is a red herring. See e.g. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/14045
>Also, in more general terms, if the correct response is always no response at all, what is the human pilot there for in the first place?
I meant the correct response to this incident in terms of making changes to aircraft systems and procedures, not that pilots should never do anything.
If we could get pilots to shut off the computer systems only when this would be likely to help, then sure, that would be great. But realistically, we would just have a spate of incidents where pilots shut down the computers for no good reason and then crashed the aircraft.
> This caused the control system to automatically switch to Alternate Law, which already removes a large number of the automatic protections.
But it apparently didn't remove the high AOA protection, which was what caused the uncommanded pitch down events when false AOA information was provided by the failed unit.
> If the pilots had used circuit breakers to force a switch to Direct Law, this would most likely have decreased the safety of the remainder of the flight.
It would have prevented the uncommanded pitch down events, which were what caused injuries to passengers and crew, and which were due to faulty automatic function even in Alternate Law. And it seems to me that the only reason there weren't more uncommanded events due to faulty automatic function was just luck.
- After further reading in the report, it looks like high AOA protection is supposed to be turned off in Alternate Law. But it seems clear that automatic high AOA protection was what caused the uncommanded pitch down events. So it could be that Alternate Law was not actually triggered until after those events happened.
> Coffin Corner is a scary thing when you're flying without any automatic protections.
Yes, and the solution to that is to get out of Coffin Corner as soon as you know you have faulty automatic controls--gradually reduce altitude and airspeed to give more margin of safety while you look for the nearest place to land. I see no reason why that couldn't be made a standard contingency plan for the rare cases like this one where the human pilots can see that the automatic controls are doing obviously wrong things.
> realistically, we would just have a spate of incidents where pilots shut down the computers for no good reason and then crashed the aircraft.
So you don't think it's possible to come up with a good narrow set of rules that pilots can use to determine when the automatic controls are doing obviously wrong things? Or that it's possible to improve the designs of the automatic systems so that they can give pilots better feedback on why they are doing what they are doing? In this case, AOA data was faulty, and accurate AOA data is critical for proper automatic control of the flight. So a big red light saying "Faulty AOA data" would be an obvious trigger to tell the pilots that they need to take action. Instead, the automatic system was apparently designed to go ahead and pitch the aircraft down based on faulty AOA data.
I checked the accident report. The computer didn't fail. It was just getting inaccurate sensor information. This caused the control system to automatically switch to Alternate Law, which already removes a large number of the automatic protections. If the pilots had used circuit breakers to force a switch to Direct Law, this would most likely have decreased the safety of the remainder of the flight. Coffin Corner is a scary thing when you're flying without any automatic protections. Moreover, the injuries were all caused by the FIRST uncommanded pitch down. To avoid those injuries would have required the automatic protections to have been turned off from the beginning!
> then I think Air France 447 falls into the same category.
This was pilot error, as clearly explained in the accident report. All the stuff on reddit about linked control sticks is a red herring. See e.g. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/14045
>Also, in more general terms, if the correct response is always no response at all, what is the human pilot there for in the first place?
I meant the correct response to this incident in terms of making changes to aircraft systems and procedures, not that pilots should never do anything.
If we could get pilots to shut off the computer systems only when this would be likely to help, then sure, that would be great. But realistically, we would just have a spate of incidents where pilots shut down the computers for no good reason and then crashed the aircraft.