Premise
Sometimes I see a headline on an article, and I think it’s just too over-the-top stupid, or ridiculous, or funny, and that I have to learn more or read more about it. This is one of those instances, where the President tweeted (below) about the complexity of airplanes requiring “computer scientists from MIT”.
Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better.
Split second decisions are needed, and the complexity creates danger. All of this for great cost yet very little gain. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to easily and quickly take control of a plane!
History
This comes after the Boeing 737 Max crashes, necessitating a swath of countries grounding the planes or banning them from their airspace. Per wikipedia, attention was drawn to the new flight control system of the Boeing 737 Max.
You would think that modern aircraft, you know, being modern, tend to have more complex systems. Which is true – they’ve had computers operating the vast majority of systems for a while now. So this comment of needing “computer scientists from MIT” makes no sense, since pilots are the ones who are in control of their planes. If there’s an issue with the technology, then they should be grounded and the planes fixed (which is what is going on). So I found these tweets and comments uninformed at best and bizarre at worst.
After these fatal crashes on Ethiopian Airlines and Indonesia, it took a while until the FAA grounded the planes (on March 13th). Even on Monday, March 11th, the FAA said those planes were safe to fly. These comments from the President came out on the Tuesday between, on March 12th.
Conclusion
Sometimes, I wish our elected officials would do the research and think before speaking, rather than just spouting off unintelligent and uninformed opinions. Does he want to go back to a time with more uncertainty, accidents, and worse technology? Does he really think “old and simpler is far better”? History has shown that as technology and safety improves, fatalities and accidents decline – which the data below confirms.
Wikipedia safety data
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Many aviation experts have expressed similar views actually. I’d research this more if I were you. The line graph also does not establish the correlation between airplane technology improvement and air incident/accident reduction. You’re making a big assumption without considering other possible factors. For example, air travel started to commercialize for the masses around the 1940-50s (where the line peaks in your graph). For the pilots, flying planes with 100+ capacity is a different experience from flying the smaller planes which preceded them. The drop in air incidents could be attributed to better training (and regulation) from newly acquired experience.… Read more »
The graph jumped a lot for WWII.
As to the remarkably dumb statement, I’m once again impressed. I do wonder how Trump plans on taking the blame for aviation accidents since he took credit for the lack of them. Since he took credit for the no-accident year, that means that accidents are within his control.
WWII or not (you are probably correct that it is the spike), the graph still doesn’t support the author’s original premise.
Boeing via upcoming software fix (and accompanying pilot training revision) is indicating that the 737 MAX controls will be streamlined. Trump is not the only one who believes that its technology is overly complex. Even the efforts of the affected airlines to investigate the plane’s design run counter to the author’s opinion. In other words, the technological advances of the 737 MAX may have not made it safer to fly.