CHK ATT

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Human Interaction with Aircraft Cockpit Displays

Introduction

The computer interface and the information flow between the pilot of a modern civil aircraft and the cockpit display panel are a critical issue to assure flight safety and to make progress in civil aviation technology. To emphasize the meaning of the safety issue, which is dependent on the one hand from a technological standpoint and on the other hand from the capability, awareness, knowledge and experience of the pilot, I would like to give a preliminary example.

Human Interaction with Aircraft Cockpit Displays

Several years ago an aircraft with German passengers on board was about to depart from the Dominican islands and bring the passengers back to their home country from their Christmas vacation. On the runway, the aircraft was already accelerating; the pilot recognized a problem with his velocity display. In this case, the velocity of the aircraft was lower than the critical lift-off velocity, instead of bringing the aircraft to a full stop the pilot decided to go ahead. The aircraft had its lift-off and the autopilot, which itself received the wrong information, was engaged. During the climb the autopilot increased the pitch by using the trim ruder of the tale elevator, which caused the aircraft to decelerate. Finally, the pilot decided to take control of the aircraft by disconnecting the autopilot. However, he did exactly the same thing as the autopilot before. By putting too much attention on the information given by the erroneous velocity value, he further increased the flight pitch, which was a wrong decision. Additionally he reduced the throttle, which caused the aircraft to stall. He lost control of the aircraft and the plane crashed into the water, the result being the loss of roughly 200 lives.

Ironically, at all stages up to the phase where the aircraft engine went off, the accident could have been prevented. The displays and instrument within the aircraft are redundant. The displays on the co-pilot side worked well and showed the correct velocity. Beside a communication problem and hierarchical problems, it was a Turkish airline, presumably the pilot lost the awareness of his aircraft. He made the wrong decisions. What causes the loss of awareness? Could accidents like this be prevented if there was more information offered or in a better manner? Is there a lack of training? Does there exist a lack of information on what is behind the displays?

However, the story reflects the lack of flight situation awareness and wrong decision making of the pilot caused by an error in the velocity-measuring gauge, cognitive work overload and wrong information provided by the flight computer.

In aircrafts nowadays the pilot functions as an observer who monitors the displays and information from the flight computer, pays attention to the environment and has to concentrate on communication tasks. To facilitate the amount of work and tasks he has to accomplish, the aircraft becomes more and more computerized. Flight modes take over the actual pilot work and flight responsibility, but the highest authority remains with the ...