Page 5 - AAA MARCH - APRIL 2019 Online Magazine

[ ANALYSIS ]

Seattle and Toulouse, we have a serious
problem with pilot training, skill levels, and
automation. That is the emerging message
from the recent loss of two Boeing 737 MAX
aircraft along with AF447, an A330 in 2009;
Ethiopian ET409, a 737-800 in 2010, Asiana
OZ214 a Boeing 777 in 2012, Indonesia AirAsia
QZ8501, an A320 in 2014, and the Atlas Air
767F in February.

Growing Debate
While the debate rages about the pilot auto-
mation interface, that may not be the direct
issue. Potentially more important is what hap-
pens when humans interact with that interface
under intense pressure and the emerging prob-
lem of “automation paralysis”. Although we are
yet to find out what happened on ET302, it
appears pilots under intense pressure may not
have followed either basic airmanship funda-
mentals, core basic training or straightforward
instructions from their fellow pilots (AF447 and
QZ8501).

Professor Najmedin Meshkati, a Professor
of Engineering and Aviation Safety at the
University of Southern California (Meshkati
is also a fellow on the Project on Managing
the Atom at the Belfer Center for Science
and International Affairs at Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard University) believes
what Boeing and Airbus need to do is “first
acknowledge and second to address individual
differences in information processing and deci-
sion making both under routine and non-routine
situations”. He says they should also if possible,
design “adaptive” automation to cater to the
needs, limitations, and capabilities of different
Disturbing pilots regardless of their experience and varied
training standards.

“I am talking about their cognitive styles which
are totally different and independent from age,
Developments IQ, experiential knowledge or flying skills,” he
says. “I think it’s not simply making the aircraft
“idiot proof” as many suggest. During the time
of stress, some pilots are or may be “freezing
up”. Meshkati was commissioned to study the
phenomenon, called “decision making under
THE TWIN 737 MAX ACCIDENTS HAVE BROUGHT stress or overload” in the 1990s. He was given
OUT ISSUES IN THE COMMERCIAL AVIATION two grants from the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) and designed and con-
INDUSTRY RELATED TO PILOT TRAINING, SKILL ducted experiments at a small nuclear reactor
LEVELS, AND AUTOMATION INTO THE OPEN EBR II in Idaho Falls.

The study found that under extreme pressure,
operators (pilots) dominant decision style shifts
Geoffrey Thomas to their back up decision style during the over-

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