Fancy New Air Bus A350 Fail

[rbwhatever1]

Hilarious. I can hear the plane talking to itself now.....

Journalists and staff were among the passengers on the Airbus A350 for the chartered Qatar Airways flight that was supposed to travel 12 hours to Hamad International Airport. Instead, it was spectacularly terrifying and embarrassing fail. The high tech jet’s computer system aborted it’s own takeoff — because it deemed the runway too short.

The airplane even had screens on each seatback via which the passengers could watch the taxi and takeoff as it happened. Unfortunately, rather than watching the plane soar to 30,000 feet, it taxed, picked up speed — and then came to a startling and screeching halt.

https://www.yahoo.com/travel/fail-first ... 00857.html

[ELB]

Whoops.

[mcscanner]

I am wondering how much a set of flat spotted tires cost$$$$

[RoyGBiv]

Airbus no bueno. For exactly this reason. Computers trump pilots. Deadly.

[Jago668]

As soon as "the highest executive on the plane" came on and said that the computer decided to do something with no input from anyone. That's when I'd be wanting off. Who knows what else it might decide to do midflight. No thank you.

[Breny414]

I had no idea a plane could abort a takeoff on it's own. Airbus has had issues with automation before, including a fatal crash in which the plane flew itself into the ground even as the pilot was trying to do the opposite.

[powerboatr]

WOW that thing is LOUD

one would think the cabin would have been a bit less SCREAMY.....


cool how fast it stopped...

then to hear an ARAB sounding voice over the intercom.......i know its from qatar, but it never gets old

[G26ster]

I suspect that the author of the article has as much knowledge about modern aircraft systems, as the average media author has about guns - very little. "Someone" had to input the runway or runway info into the aircraft's computer system. The aircraft can't do that on it's own. Without all the facts of a full investigation, there's and excellent chance that human error played a part. No way to tell from the article, and no way to tell without an investigation. Somehow, GIGO comes to mind, but I'll wait further news. MHO.

BTW, if you think the pilots were actually hand flying the aircraft on the last flight you took, think again

[Redneck_Buddha]

Maybe they need to stick with their 777s and A380s.

[howdy]

I suspect that the author of the article has as much knowledge about modern aircraft systems, as the average media author has about guns - very little. "Someone" had to input the runway or runway info into the aircraft's computer system. The aircraft can't do that on it's own. Without all the facts of a full investigation, there's and excellent chance that human error played a part. No way to tell from the article, and no way to tell without an investigation. Somehow, GIGO comes to mind, but I'll wait further news. MHO.

BTW, if you think the pilots were actually hand flying the aircraft on the last flight you took, think again

As a retired Delta 777 Captain, I can tell you that U.S.Airline pilots hand fly 100% of the take-offs and 99.9% of landings. The only auto landings done are when required to keep the system certified or if the weather is CAT III and requires an auto-land. Most pilots hand fly to aircraft to at least 10,000 feet and some fly it to top of cruise. I never in my 30 years at Delta saw one pilot auto-land an aircraft unless it was requested by maintenance (to keep certified) or by the FAA for weather.

[RoyGBiv]

I suspect that the author of the article has as much knowledge about modern aircraft systems, as the average media author has about guns - very little. "Someone" had to input the runway or runway info into the aircraft's computer system. The aircraft can't do that on it's own. Without all the facts of a full investigation, there's and excellent chance that human error played a part. No way to tell from the article, and no way to tell without an investigation. Somehow, GIGO comes to mind, but I'll wait further news. MHO.

BTW, if you think the pilots were actually hand flying the aircraft on the last flight you took, think again

As a retired Delta 777 Captain, I can tell you that U.S.Airline pilots hand fly 100% of the take-offs and 99.9% of landings. The only auto landings done are when required to keep the system certified or if the weather is CAT III and requires an auto-land. Most pilots hand fly to aircraft to at least 10,000 feet and some fly it to top of cruise. I never in my 30 years at Delta saw one pilot auto-land an aircraft unless it was requested by maintenance (to keep certified) or by the FAA for weather.

Thanks. I've been told similar.

Now that Delta has adopted NWA, has that changed?

Ive chosen flights to avoid Airbus and will continue to do so, but how dissimilar are the new Boeing's, re. Automation?

[G26ster]

I suspect that the author of the article has as much knowledge about modern aircraft systems, as the average media author has about guns - very little. "Someone" had to input the runway or runway info into the aircraft's computer system. The aircraft can't do that on it's own. Without all the facts of a full investigation, there's and excellent chance that human error played a part. No way to tell from the article, and no way to tell without an investigation. Somehow, GIGO comes to mind, but I'll wait further news. MHO.

BTW, if you think the pilots were actually hand flying the aircraft on the last flight you took, think again

As a retired Delta 777 Captain, I can tell you that U.S.Airline pilots hand fly 100% of the take-offs and 99.9% of landings. The only auto landings done are when required to keep the system certified or if the weather is CAT III and requires an auto-land. Most pilots hand fly to aircraft to at least 10,000 feet and some fly it to top of cruise. I never in my 30 years at Delta saw one pilot auto-land an aircraft unless it was requested by maintenance (to keep certified) or by the FAA for weather.

Don't doubt you a bit Howdy, but I meant "for the entire flight," with no automation doing the flying. I should have been more clear.

[RoyGBiv]

I suspect that the author of the article has as much knowledge about modern aircraft systems, as the average media author has about guns - very little. "Someone" had to input the runway or runway info into the aircraft's computer system. The aircraft can't do that on it's own. Without all the facts of a full investigation, there's and excellent chance that human error played a part. No way to tell from the article, and no way to tell without an investigation. Somehow, GIGO comes to mind, but I'll wait further news. MHO.

BTW, if you think the pilots were actually hand flying the aircraft on the last flight you took, think again

As a retired Delta 777 Captain, I can tell you that U.S.Airline pilots hand fly 100% of the take-offs and 99.9% of landings. The only auto landings done are when required to keep the system certified or if the weather is CAT III and requires an auto-land. Most pilots hand fly to aircraft to at least 10,000 feet and some fly it to top of cruise. I never in my 30 years at Delta saw one pilot auto-land an aircraft unless it was requested by maintenance (to keep certified) or by the FAA for weather.

Don't doubt you a bit Howdy, but I meant "for the entire flight," with no automation doing the flying. I should have been more clear.

Here's the difference as I (admittedly not any kind of expert) understand it.
On a Boeing, when you turn off autopilot, it's all the way off.
On an Airbus, even when autopilot is off the plan can take control over the actions of the pilots if it doesn't like something about the way the aircraft is flying..... Like if the pitot tubes get iced up and the aircraft can't tell if it's ascending or headed for a stall.

Just my very uneducated understanding.

[SA_Steve]

Seems the protection software was running a little slow, slow to figure out take-off was in progress...

[Breny414]

In the case of the Air France (pitot tube) crash, the automated system handed control back to the pilots because it knew it had bad data. The pilots were not able to figure out what was wrong and thus did not follow the correct procedure to fly the aircraft with unknown airspeed.