This opinion-piece is a discussion of the article in the Los Angeles Times titled “Lion Air crash shows cockpit computers are no substitute for pilot skills”. The Article said: “When an altitude sensor failed on a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 flight to Amsterdam in 2009, the jetliner’s computerized flight controls erroneously cut the engine thrust. The pilots didn’t understand what happened in time to prevent a crash. The accident had striking similarities to the recent Lion Air tragedy in Indonesia, which took the lives of 189 people. A failed sensor led flight computers to put the 737 MAX jetliner into a series of dives, based on the erroneous calculation. The crew didn’t diagnose the problem, which could have been remedied with the flip of a switch, and the plane fell into the Java Sea.” This author, who has been flying airliners in the Microsoft Flight Simulator since 1999 in a very good simulation of real-flight, describes how that the common airliners that he flies in the simulator can be flown totally by using the autopilot – takeoff, cruise, approach and landing. This author argues that flying these airliners in the manner he does cannot possibly cause the accidents in the manner the LA Times describes above. Additionally, this author recommends in a design, a parallel computerized auto-flight system that should take over when the primary auto-flight system fails – and, pilot-skills training should be enhanced to make certain a greater understanding in the use of these systems.
