My airplane - NO MY airplane....

From today's edition of an electronic Aviation Newsletter (AvFlash):

Pilots Battle Computer For Control Of 777

Stanley Kubrick couldn't have scripted anything more eerie than the
real-life odyssey of a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 that seemed hell-bent
on crashing itself on a trip from Perth to Kuala Lumpur last Aug. 1.
According to The Australian newspaper, the Malaysian flight crew had to
literally battle for control of the aircraft after something went wonky with
the computerized controls. The plane was about an hour into the flight when
it suddenly climbed 3,000 feet and almost stalled. The Australian Transport
Safety Bureau
http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/occurs/occurs_detail.cfm?ID=767 report
said the pilot was able to disconnect the autopilot and lower the nose to
prevent the stall but the autothrottles refused to disengage and when the
nose pitched down they increased power. Even pushing the throttles to idle
didn't deter the silicon brains and the plane pitched up again and climbed
2,000 feet the second time. The pilot was able to fly manually back to Perth
but the autothrottles wouldn't turn off. As he was landing, the primary
flight display gave a false low airspeed warning and the throttles
firewalled again. The display also warned of a non-existent wind shear.
Boeing spokesman Ken Morton said it was the only such problem ever
experienced on the 777 but airlines have been told via an emergency AD
http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgad.nsf/0/25F9233FE09B613F8625706C005D0C53?OpenDocument
to load an earlier software version just in case. The investigation is
focusing on the air data inertial data reference unit (HAL for short?),
which apparently supplied false acceleration figures to the primary flight
computer.



Greg Dungan
Fixed Wing Academics
US Naval Test Pilot School
301.757.4145 (office)
301.994.0083 (residence)
240.925.0980 (cell)

"Casey Wilson" N2310D @ gmail.com wrote in message
news:J6YXe.1909$Az1.1071@trnddc07...
From today's edition of an electronic Aviation Newsletter (AvFlash):

Pilots Battle Computer For Control Of 777


Pilot: Lower the landing gear HAL...

HAL: I'm sorry Captain, I'm afraid I can't do that...

Jay B

("Jay Beckman" wrote)
Pilots Battle Computer For Control Of 777

Pilot: Lower the landing gear HAL...

HAL: I'm sorry Captain, I'm afraid I can't do that...


HAL: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do...

Interesting side note: HAL is one letter off from IBM.
Mid 60's coincidence? I think not. :-)


Montblack

It is (was) not...

It was a definate play on "IBM"



Dave


On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:32:26 -0500, "Montblack"
wrote:

("Jay Beckman" wrote)
Pilots Battle Computer For Control Of 777

Pilot: Lower the landing gear HAL...

HAL: I'm sorry Captain, I'm afraid I can't do that...


HAL: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do...

Interesting side note: HAL is one letter off from IBM.
Mid 60's coincidence? I think not. :-)


Montblack

Dave wrote:

It is (was) not...

It was a definate play on "IBM"

Sorry but Arthur Clarke(the author of a Space Odissey)told in an interview
that the name HAL was not meant to be related to IBM. Actually it was the
acronym for:

H(euristic) AL(gorithm)

"but the autothrottles wouldn't turn off"

Gee, why not just pull the mixture back???

(Yeah, I know, I know)



"Casey Wilson" N2310D @ gmail.com wrote in message
news:J6YXe.1909$Az1.1071@trnddc07...
From today's edition of an electronic Aviation Newsletter (AvFlash):

Pilots Battle Computer For Control Of 777

Stanley Kubrick couldn't have scripted anything more eerie than the
real-life odyssey of a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 that seemed hell-bent
on crashing itself on a trip from Perth to Kuala Lumpur last Aug. 1.
According to The Australian newspaper, the Malaysian flight crew had to
literally battle for control of the aircraft after something went wonky
with the computerized controls. The plane was about an hour into the
flight when it suddenly climbed 3,000 feet and almost stalled. The
Australian Transport Safety Bureau
http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/occurs/occurs_detail.cfm?ID=767 report
said the pilot was able to disconnect the autopilot and lower the nose to
prevent the stall but the autothrottles refused to disengage and when the
nose pitched down they increased power. Even pushing the throttles to idle
didn't deter the silicon brains and the plane pitched up again and climbed
2,000 feet the second time. The pilot was able to fly manually back to
Perth but the autothrottles wouldn't turn off. As he was landing, the
primary flight display gave a false low airspeed warning and the throttles
firewalled again. The display also warned of a non-existent wind shear.
Boeing spokesman Ken Morton said it was the only such problem ever
experienced on the 777 but airlines have been told via an emergency AD
http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgad.nsf/0/25F9233FE09B613F8625706C005D0C53?OpenDocument
to load an earlier software version just in case. The investigation is
focusing on the air data inertial data reference unit (HAL for short?),
which apparently supplied false acceleration figures to the primary flight
computer.



Greg Dungan
Fixed Wing Academics
US Naval Test Pilot School
301.757.4145 (office)
301.994.0083 (residence)
240.925.0980 (cell)