Peter Duniho wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Looking at major air accidents in the US over the past 5 years I'd say
humans are doing awfully well.
I'm not talking about restricting one's view to "major air accidents". In
any case, if you have actual statistics to refute my intuition, I'm all
ears. Otherwise, your intuitive view is no more compelling than my own (no
less either, granted).
I assumed Part 121 and did mention that it would clearly be an
improvement for GA. But, let's look at just 121 for a minute:
Searching for domestic accidents since 1/1/2000, Part 121, with
fatalities, I find 14 NTSB records, 4 of which are from 9/11. The other
10:
6/05: Belt loader truck crash kills driver
10/04: 13 pax killed on a regional crash during approach in IMC.
Awaiting final report.
8/04: Convair 580 (freight) crash on approach kills 1 of 2 crew,
awaiting final report
9/03: Tug driver crashes into DC-9, is killed
1/03: US Air Beech 1900 crashes in Charlotte, 21 dead, maintenance
error
11/01: AA Airbus 300 crash due to rudder failure, pilot error (insert
alt. theory here)
8/01: Ramp agent walks into propeller, 1 dead
11/00: 1 FA killed when cabin door opened on ground before
depressurizing during evacuation, FA opened door and was blown out and
fell to the ground
2/00: Emery DC-8 lost with all crew (3) due to "A loss of pitch control
resulting from the disconnection of the right elevator control tab. The
disconnection was caused by the failure to properly secure and inspect
the attachment bolt"
1/00: Alaska Airlines MD-83 lost with all on board (88) after
stabilizer trim problem caused by improper maintenance
This leaves us with 6 actual aviation accidents, 3 of which are due to
mechanical/maintenance issues. 2 are awaiting the final report, but
pilot error looks like a safe bet. The AA crash is open-and-shut except
that I recall some debate that the pilot was in fact following the book
as written by AA. Still, I'll give that one to the computer.
What this analysis doesn't include is how many non-accidents we had due
to humans acting intelligently and non-computerish. Also, others might
protest that restricting this to US accidents in the past 5 years (an
unprecedentedly safe period) is cherry-picking my data. Fair 'nuff.
Still, it suggests that human flight crews properly trained can achieve
extremely high levels of safety.
[...]
Look at this for an idea of the state-of-the-art in robot cars. It's
pretty pathetic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_DARPA_Grand_Challenge
The DARPA event is a completely different scenario from a general
autopiloted transportation infrastructure. For you to use it as a
comparison is laughable. Instead, try the many successful demonstrations of
computer-driven cars on paved roadways with appropriate guidance technology.
I gave a link for my argument. Now you try.
At best the things you speak of are capable of handling traffic flow on
the Interstate, and could make a difference. Preventing rear-endings,
lane drift, asleep at the wheel would be good. Of course, we could get
most of this benefit a lot more cheaply if we assumed the human was
still in control. Radar could be used to warn of cars slowing ahead,
and a guidance stripe painted on the highway could be used to provide
directional "assistance" and to alarm for instance if you started to
drift off the centerline without using your turn signal. (Ha! What
chaos that would cause in Boston...) This is something we could roughly
do with today's technology and automobiles and would not cost a
gogoobillion dollars to rewire our highways.
Once you get off the highway, the problem becomes pretty gnarly what
with pedestrians, interchanges of every kind, etc. Don't forget
generational problems where you have autopilot and non-autopilot
vehicles. We're having a hard enough time switching to HDTV so don't
try to tell me this would be straightforward. Actually, aerial
navigation is a much simpler problem. In any case, this just
underscores my point that "assistance" systems are a far cheaper and
more effective path to enhanced safety.
-cwk.