f13.net

Can someone explain to me, in the year two-thousand fourteen of our lord Zeus, why we can't put an everlasting, always pinging GPS with an uninteruptable power supply and 48-72 hour battery backup on a goddamned plane, esp. after loosing the last two the way we did?

Can someone explain to me, in the year two-thousand fourteen of our lord Zeus, why we can't put an everlasting, always pinging GPS with an uninteruptable power supply and 48-72 hour battery backup on a goddamned plane, esp. after loosing the last two the way we did?

Doesn't increase profits, bad idea.

It is still mind boggling how shit like this happens, though.

I mean really, these aircraft systems are coded in ANSI 'C.'    The most unsafe, glitchy, prone to error programming language known to man.

You can post your long post, but this is not an argument you can win (cept to say my jargon sux, which it does).  I'd cite the source of what forms my opinion but I wont for privacy reasons.  He's pretty much "the guy" with regard to safety critical systems in aerospace.  He's had the highest possible clearance.  His wife?  a rockstar in her own right (cant say how).

I mean really, these aircraft systems are coded in ANSI 'C.'    The most unsafe, glitchy, prone to error programming language known to man.  

Things as silly as updated, power supplied, LED landing lights... can't install them, even if the certified one is a POS that'll get you killed at night.  Want to build a custom MFD nav system to go in your panel?  Should cost you $2000 to do (the price of a nice PC)... instead, it's gotta be Garmin and it's gonna cost you $40k.  

one side used metric and one side used Imperial measurements?  Neither was wrong,

Boeing is switching to Ada btw (they use it mostly in their military contracts).  

Fox News says it was the metric system

Airbus apparently too, at least for certain components. A quick Google shows the ADIRU code for the A350 is written in ADA 2005 with 'GNAT Pro High-Integrity Edition' serving as development environment/toolset. Different source says the A340 Flight Warning System is done in ADA as well (no version listed).

For the A320 (and A340) the FBW systems seems to be written in something in never heard of: Lustre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lustre_%28programming_language%29).

Last kid he referred after teaching Ada was employed as an undergrad w/o even looking over the resume.

So the kid's quality as a programmer didn't matter, just that he knew ADA.  Yep, that's the guy I want writing my life-critical software.

My problem isn't that you're trying to say one language is better than another for certain applications.  It's that you act like it's both orders of magnitude better and that personal competence doesn't play an important role.

So, anyone ready to get on a plane in Malayasia any time soon? I think I would rather coat myself in chum and swim for it at this point.

Well I was thinking about bidding on a position at the US Consulate in Surabaya (the place this plane took off from) after my happy fun time in Ebolastan.....

Yes, chicks.   :awesome_for_real:

(http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Malaysia-Muslim-Rally.jpg)

Leaked figures show the plane climbed at a virtually unprecedented rate of 6000 to 9000 feet per minute, and "you can't do that at altitude in an Airbus 320 with pilot action".

The most that could normally be expected would be 1000 to 1500 feet on a sustained basis, with up to 3000 feet in a burst, he said.

The plane then fell at an even more incredible rate: 11,000 feet per minute with bursts of up to 24,000 feet per minute.

(http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140923085914/bayonetta/images/7/75/Aliens.jpg)

I bet it's because the components were written with C.  That caused them to exceed spec and violate what's physically possible.

Can someone explain to me, in the year two-thousand fourteen of our lord Zeus, why we can't put an everlasting, always pinging GPS with an uninteruptable power supply and 48-72 hour battery backup on a goddamned plane, esp. after loosing the last two the way we did?

They just found the fuselage.

The AirAsia slogan is "now everyone can fly".

The fuselage, sitting there underwater, for real says "ow everyone".

:-(

A Germanwings Airbus A320-200, registration D-AIPX performing flight 4U-9525 from Barcelona,SP (Spain) to Dusseldorf (Germany) with 142 passengers and 6 crew, was enroute at FL380 about 30nm southeast of Marseille (France) when the aircraft initiated a rapid descent. Radar contact with the aircraft was lost at about 6800 feet at approx. 10:45L (09:45Z) about 12nm southwest of Barcelonnette (France), 75nm northwest of Marseille.

French Police reported two helicopter spotted the remains of the aircraft on the ground between Prads-Haute-Bleone and Barcelonnette (France) at about 2700 meters elevation (8800 feet), about half way between the two cities there is a mountain ridge rising up to 8900 feet.

The President of France reported, it does not appear there are any survivors. The crash site is very difficult to reach.

France's DGAC reported the crew transmitted an emergency call just prior to the aircraft disappearing from radar near Bassinet.

Lufthansa, parent company of Germanwings, reported they do not yet know what happened to flight 4U-9525.

Radar data suggest the aircraft had reached FL380 about 3 minutes prior to leaving FL380 and descended from FL380 through FL110 in 8 minutes (average rate of descent 3375 fpm). The aircraft appeared to have levelled off at FL068 for one minute while on a northeasterly heading of 26 degrees true, mountains rise up to 8900 feet about 1nm north of the last reported aircraft position.

Ugh.

And (as usual) I am a terrible person for being relieved that it wasn't a Boeing plane. We have enough problems.

Yeah...Boeing owns my employer  :ye_gods:

Caught a news headline on the same page as this today that mentioned that 2014 was the safest flying year on record.

Ugh.

And (as usual) I am a terrible person for being relieved that it wasn't a Boeing plane. We have enough problems.

News reports out now indicate they apparently have evidence from the flight recorder that the copilot locked the pilot out (inside the cockpit you can apparently jam whatever emergency access that someone outside might have via a keypad) and then began a deliberate descent with the intent to crash the plane. http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/mar/26/germanwings-plane-crash-investigation-press-conference-live-updates-4u9525

Fucking asshole. Just kill yourself and don't drag 150 innocent people into it.

28-year old German living in Montabaur, Germany, where he grew up. Had wanted to be a pilot ever since he was a boy. Had passed a psychological screening, passed rigorous training, had a solid flight record and at this point no evidence of any disorder, though his training had a mysterious interruption that the company so far has no explanation for.

Edit: One speculation I'm seeing in several places is that Lubitz was hoping that it might look like an accident so that the beneficiaries of his estate could receive insurance payouts, which would explain why he didn't just nosedive to the ground but continued instead on the flight path for ten minutes. I suppose if we find out that he was in serious financial difficulties that theory will gain credence.

Obviously his thought process wasn't normal, but it's hard to image how he could think he would get away with that. The FDR records "everything": stick inputs, position of the control surfaces, changes to the autopilot, etc... So even if there is only a single command initiating a dive, followed by no further pilot action for the next 8 minutes, it's already obvious what's going on. Add to that that the voice recording from the CVR, which as this accident shows are sensitive enough to pick up breathing (and a struggle, knocking on the door,...) thus ruling out pilot incapacitation. And a trained pilot is aware of this.

So it's hard to imagine he initiated a shallow dive with the purpose of fooling accident investigators or an insurance company.

Addendum: It's possible to deactivate both FDR and CVR via their circuit breakers, but a) seems this wasn't done in this case b) would be a red-flag in itself and spoil an attempt to have it appear like a simple accident.

No matter what, there's going to be something wrong/pathological in his reasoning process if they're right and he did it on purpose. It's really just going to be a question of which awful kind of brokenness they're going to find clues about.

He pretty much has to have done it on purpose at any rate if his pilot was banging on the door and frantically inputting the code for entry only to be overriden each time. The only scenarios that allow him to be wholly innocent are scenarios in which he was incapacitated physically, and if that was the case, he wouldn't have been overriding the code. The fact that they don't even hear him breathing heavily means he was very likely pretty methodical about it--this wasn't an impulsive kind of derangement.

I'm betting on the fact he was a psychopath and nobody put the pieces together.

Not like it even really matters. One reason or another, this kind of stuff is just going to keep happening until we eventually get around to replacing pilots with automated systems.

Right now though I'd say that the "psychopath/suicidal pilot who killed his passengers" is running at least even with "skilled pilot saved passengers by making smart decisions in tough situations that even the best automated systems couldn't have handled well."

Uh, without feeling like doing lots of research to compare numbers I am still pretty sure you are wrong on that. The only big incidents in recent times that are attributed (or reasonably suspected) to be 'psychopath pilot kills passengers' were SilkAir Flight 185 and Egypt Air 990. I guess MH 370 and 4U9525 now can be added to that list, but 4 planes in >30 years is easily dwarfed by the number of situations during the same timespan that fall into the category 'went beyond what automation could do but were handled fine by human pilot'.

While I think automation will increase and contribute to safer flights by avoiding human error it's not a solution against malevolent pilots. Even when we are at a point that everything from take-off to landing is handled by the autopilot and all the pilot does is sip coffee and watch the dials, the human pilot still needs the authority to take manual control and override.

And I don't want planes that can be controlled remotely. If I have to take my chance between the possibility of a homicidal pilot in the cockpit and trusting an 'un-hackable' remote control interface I'll go with the former...

Right, sorry--I meant to be politely skeptical about Goreschach saying that "robots must fly planes because humans keep crashing them in suicides". In fact it's quite clear that human pilots using their discretionary skills have saved many more lives than the miniscule number of suicide/murders by pilots have caused.

Are we not counting the 9/11 attacks as psychopaths?

Are we not counting the 9/11 attacks as psychopaths?

Not like it even really matters. One reason or another, this kind of stuff is just going to keep happening until we eventually get around to replacing pilots with automated systems.

Right, sorry--I meant to be politely skeptical about Goreschach saying that "robots must fly planes because humans keep crashing them in suicides". In fact it's quite clear that human pilots using their discretionary skills have saved many more lives than the miniscule number of suicide/murders by pilots have caused.

Your solution doesn't remove the people reliability issue, it just moves it to guys on the ground and IT systems dudes instead of pilots. Good luck screening sysadmins for crazy.

Yep now when planes crash it's because our servers went down. Whoops.

Also centrally locating things make the problem worse. A terrorist organization doesn't have to highjack planes then, they just have to hack servers and crash them remote.

I think that's the part that has a lot of people scratching their head. Why not just nosedive it if the plan was to suicide/murder?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/27/germanwings-lufthansa-plane-crash-andreas-lubitz/70530292/

Starting to look like maybe they found depression meds in his apartment.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/27/germanwings-lufthansa-plane-crash-andreas-lubitz/70530292/

Starting to look like maybe they found depression meds in his apartment.

At this point, I would wager a guess that at least 50% or people in first world country would have depression meds in their dwelling.

Just saying.

Recent reports are also saying they found a torn up note from his doctor for time off work. 

The pilot didn't technically even crash this one. The autopilot did.  Why an autopilot can be programmed to fly at 96 feet when the deck is 6000 feet is a bit of a mystery to me. He could still have crashed it, but just telling the plane "down" and then letting it happen seems odd and a bit of a way to dissociate himself from the act.

Yep, stay classy British press.

https://twitter.com/elenacresci/status/581233096495857664/photo/1

A Metrojet (former Kogalym Avia, Kolavia) Airbus A321-200, registration EI-ETJ performing flight 7K-9268 from Sharm el Sheikh (Egypt) to St. Petersburg (Russia) with 217 passengers and 7 crew, was climbing through FL307 out of Sharm el Sheikh over the Sinai Peninsula (Position N30.16 E34.17, 60nm south of Al-Arish) at 04:12Z when the aircraft disappeared from radar. Wreckage of the aircraft was later located in mountaineous terrain about 20nm south of Al-Arish (Sinai, Egypt).

Egyptian sources were reporting the aircraft was believed crashed, a search for the aircraft in Sinai was ongoing.

Egypt's Prime Minister confirmed the aircraft has crashed.

Egyptian Authorities reported first parts of the wreckage have been located. There is no evidence of hostile/missile activity around the flight path of the aircraft. 50 ambulances have been dispatched to the crash site, any injured would be flown to Cairo with helicopters. The flight data recorder has been recovered.

Reuters quotes an Egyptian Offical involved in the ongoing rescue operation, that the aircraft has broken up in two major parts, a small part being the tail plane caught fire, the other larger part impacted a rock. Bodies still belted to their seats are around the crash site, around 100 bodies have so far been recovered, the rest still inside the wreckage, however, there are also voices heard from inside a part of the wreckage. 50 ambulances have been dispatched to the crash site.

Russia's Rosaviatsia (Civil Aviation Authority) reported the A321 of Kogalym Avia carried 217 passengers and 7 crew.

Sources in Sharm el Sheik reported the captain of the flight reported technical problems and requested to return to Sharm el Sheikh.

A ground observer reported a large number of helicopters are departing their Cairo airbase in the direction of Sinai.

Egyptian media report with reference to an Egyptian government meeting that the crew reported engine (V2533) trouble, subsequently lost control of the aircraft and communication ceased.

Airbus confirmed the loss of EI-ETJ, that disappeared from radar while flying overhead Sinai, with 217 passengers and 7 crew. The aircraft, built in 1997 and powered by IAE V2533 engines, had accumulated approximately 55,772 flight hours in 21,175 flight cycles.

According to flightplan the aircraft was tracking between waypoints TBA (Egypt: N29.362420 E34.475080) and PASOS (Cyprus FIR, N32.216667 E33.100000) when it disappeared. Eurocontrol's Air Flow Traffic Management (CFMU) issued a note to all operators along the route TBA-PASOS and vice versa shortly after the aircraft disappeared, that due to technical problems all flights will be tactically rerouted via MELDO until further notice. The notice was removed a couple of minutes later.

Aerial overview of the area at the time of crash, aircraft position over Gulf of Suez viewing north from southern entry into Suez Canal towards Al-Arish and Mediterranean Sea at the top:

Given that it's being investigated by Egypt and Russia and Egypt has been leaning towards Russia since the revolution, I don't believe they'd ever announce it was a bomb even if it was.

ISIS claimed responsibility but most people aren't giving that too much credence as they don't have anything that can hit a target at 11,000m altitude. The MANPADS they are known to possess, have an effective ceiling of less than half of that. Unless they have a launcher system like the BUK (which no-one thinks that they do), they don't have the capability.

Tout est normal, absolument normal pendant le vol, et brutalement plus rien", a déclaré cette source. "Cela va dans le sens de la soudaineté, du caractère immédiat, de l'événement"

Cette source a par ailleurs souligné que, sur les photos, certains débris apparaissent criblés d'impacts allant de l'intérieur vers l'extérieur de l'appareil, "ce qui accrédite plutôt la thèse d'un engin pyrotechnique".

I've lost track and I'm lazy. How many 777's have caught fire in the past 12 months now? And why isn't Boeing's stock in the toilet, or is it?

This would be the only one.

The plane that had the battery fire issue was the 787 and that was resolved a couple years ago.

Your posting style vexes me.

In a good or bad way? And what is peculiar about it?