In article ,
"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

"Ron Garret" wrote in message
...

What about the following scenario:

The pilot is holding the handheld in his hand (imagine that) and drops
it. While he is bending down to retrieve it he enters an unusual
attitude from which he is unable to recover.

Would that not be an accident that is caused (at least in part) by use
of a handheld GPS?


No. The handheld GPS didn't cause the aircraft to enter an unrecoverable
unusual attitude.

If an aircraft enters an unusual attitude following an AI failure, most
pilots would say that that accident was caused (at least in part) by the
AI failure despite the fact that the AI didn't (directly) cause the
plane to enter an unusual attitude.

But OK, have it your way: the pilot drops the GPS. Being a competent
pilot he does not attempt to retrieve it. It bounces around in the
turbulence and, unbeknownst to the pilot, it gets wedged under one of
the rudder pedals. The airplane spins and crashes turning base to final
because the now limited travel on the rudder pedal makes it impossible
to adequately compensate for adverse yaw (and the pilot doesn't realize
it until it's too late).

It would not have occurred if the GPS were not being used.


It wouldn't have occurred if the pilot had been competent. The lesson there
is to be competent.

Most accidents, including this hypothetical one, are the result of long
causal chains of events, all of which are collectively necessary for the
accident to occur. It is true that the pilot in my first scenario was
incompetent, but in a way that would not have manifested itself but for
the need to retrieve the GPS from the floor of the plane. (And this, by
the way, is why it matters that it's a GPS that was dropped and not,
say, a granola bar. The perceived urgency of retrieving a granola bar
would probably be less than that of retrieving the GPS.)

It's a moot point since I have now provided a scenario involving a
competent pilot, but do you have a principled basis for assigning all of
the causality to one of many factors in the causal chain, or did you
simply choose to make this assignment arbitrarily in order to support
your untenable position?

rg