Artificial Intelligence Could Have Prevented The Germanwings Crash

The Times correctly asserts ”Air travel over all remains incredibly safe.” The plane in question, the Airbus A320, has among the world’s best safety records and was the first commercial airliner to have an all-digital fly-by-wire control system. Much of the criticism over the years of these fly-by-wire systems has focused on the problem of pilots becoming too dependent on technology, but these systems could also be a means of preventing future tragedies. In fly-by-wire planes, a story on a previous Airbus crash in Popular Mechanics reports, “The vast majority of the time, the computer operates within what’s known as normal law, which means that the computer will not enact any control movements that would cause the plane to leave its flight envelope. The flight control computer under normal law will not allow an aircraft to stall, aviation experts say.” If autopilot is disconnected or reset, as the New York Times reports it was on the Germanwings plane, it can be switched to alternate law, “a regime with far fewer restrictions on what a pilot can do.”