Automatons and Automations: Computers Continue to Perplex Pilots

Air Safety Week, Jan 24, 2005

The Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation report on Flash Airlines Flight 604, on pp. 22-26, informs that: "If certain required conditions are met, the selected autopilot will synchronize the roll channel autopilot servo to the current position of the ailerons" (emphasis added). At 02:43:58 after takeoff, the captain calls for autopilot but then says, "Not yet" -- most likely because he was still in (or rolling out of) a turn. Unfortunately, the F/O, possibly distracted by simultaneous transmissions from an inbound aircraft, goes ahead and engages it. It kicks back due to non-synchronization and the disconnect warbler sounds. It too may have been drowned out by a transmission, but someone (either pilot) reflexively cancels that cavalry charge warbler, and the situation becomes such that it had effectively never sounded at all.

The pilot and F/O both assume that the autopilot is engaged, but nobody is actually flying the aircraft. It's an infectious mindset. The captain is selecting turn directions via Control Wheel Steering (CWS) inputs to his yoke and quickly becomes confused when it fails to do what CWS-R does (limit bankangles to 30 degrees and roll out on selected headings). An indication that the number 1 slat stayed in "ext" (extended position) during flap retraction (as confirmed by the flight-data recorder) may have compounded the problems of engaging the autopilot and may explain the persistent right banking tendency of the airplane.

But it does not explain why the crew did not take over manual control when the autopilot disconnected, yet instead tried over and over again to find a solution by attempting to reengage the autopilot while outside of engagement parameters -- to no avail. Note how this situation develops over a period of 50 seconds in the timeline below. Try to understand the confusion of limited appreciation, consideration, cross-cockpit effective communication and a manifest inability to cope with the suddenly evident non-normal event. Ponder the crutch that the autopilot has become for those whose scan and ability to function under a high workload is otherwise deficient.

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