“Guardians of Light” is not a 737 Cockpit
CNN is reporting “A new flaw has been discovered in the computer system for the Boeing 737 Max that could push the plane downward, according to two sources familiar with the testing, an issue that is expected to further delay the aircraft’s return to service.” The latest versions of Boeing’s popular jet were grounded in March after two crashes — Lion Air flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 — that killed 346 people.
Boeing announced it could break the chain of events that led to both crashes by developing a software fix that would limit the potency of the stabilization system, however, in that statement Boeing is reflecting the fundamental problems that may have caused both disasters. It is and has placed too much reliance on automation for an extraordinarily complex piece of equipment that often encounters unforeseen, complex events. As someone who was responsible for building software for forty years I can almost guarantee it.
Decisions about the substitution between technology and labor, which is what Boeing does when it builds airplanes to respond automatically rather than at the command of a human pilot, depend on two general factors.
- Technology — Different combinations of labor and technology produce different levels of productivity. The results of different combinations of labor and technology constitute the economic tradeoffs available to a manufacturers customers. (e.g. airlines )
- Relative prices — The wages of workers ( i.e. pilots ) and the cost of technology help determine whether management wants to use more or less of either input. A higher wage rate will lead management to use less labor and more technology. A higher cost of technology will lead management to use less technology and more labor. The ratio of the cost of technology to the wage rate is called a “relative price”.
In the case of software economics these factors become even more appealing to airline manufacturers because software is an intellectual product and once an intellectual problem is solved, the unit cost of software declines rapidly as it is distributed among an increasing number of uses. In the case of airline software, once developed it can be installed on an unlimited number of airplanes at no additional cost, reducing it’s unit cost on each successive airplane on which it is installed.
However, in the case of airline software the substitution of technology for labor generally means a substitution of automated airplane controls for manual controls operated by a human pilot. Airplane manufactures can sell airplanes with automated controls to airlines because they reduce the number one labor cost of airlines, pilot wages.
This is not an apples to apples substitution, however, because experienced pilots can make judgements that software manufacturers likely never anticipated. In addition, software of any type is extraordinarily complex which means it has many component parts and those parts interoperate in many ways, some of which were never tested because they were never anticipated.
To put it bluntly the introduction of new software into any endeavor introduces risks. In the case of commercial aircraft, carrying hundreds of human beings, those risks are not worth the economic benefits that accrue to the airplane manufacturer and airline. The risks are disproportionately born by human passengers instead of sterile corporate balance sheets and shareholders.
When testing the potential failure of a microprocessor used in the 737 Max Boeing reported;
“it was difficult for the test pilots to recover in a matter of seconds,”
However pilots reported;
“If you can’t recover in a matter of seconds, that’s an unreasonable risk.”
Boeing engineers are trying to determine if the microprocessor issue can be fixed by reprogramming software or if replacing the physical microprocessors on each 737 Max aircraft may be required.
Boeing continues to demonstrate it’s favoring of software over pilot labor when it “proposed computer-based training which could be completed quickly and on an iPad”. Pilot unions, as well as “Miracle on the Hudson” hero Chelsey Sullenberger, have said such training cannot be adequately experienced on an iPad. Without having piloted any kind of commercial aircraft most of us just know aircraft safety should not rely on the same techniques as those used by our children playing “Guardians of Light”.
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