Sensors can lie, equipment can break. Your software may have no better idea of the true situation than the pilot.
In the end it is a judgment call and if you limit the ability of those judgment calls to a bunch of software then you are saying that those in a different time and place have a better idea of what to do than those with their feet in the dirt.
It looks like in this case someone made the wrong judgment call. False positives in warning systems in commercial aircraft are happening with some regularity, in the end the pilot has final say.
EDIT: You can down-vote, but this is already the direction that cars have gone. For example, there is no way to stop any Mercedes after 2009 from automatically applying full brakes in an impending collision.
http://www.daimler.com/dccom/0-5-1210220-1-1210348-1-0-0-121...
Studies in N-version programming (such as used in Airbus planes) show that software written by different teams often fail in the same corner cases (with differing outputs).
Eventually you might have software with "situational awareness" that can be trusted to make fewer mistakes than humans, but we're not there yet.
If you were to take this specific speed sensor issue, I'm more concerned there aren't different types of systems being used to try to cross-validate the numbers. The pitot-static system has its own backup on the plane, but if there is an inherent weakness of that particular system (e.g. ice), there is no other way to measure speed that is not susceptible to icing. Surely that particular problem is within our reach, no?
Perhaps GPS ground speed data with previous wind estimates could at least help with establishing that "something must be wrong with the airspeeds".
http://travel.usatoday.com/experts/cox/story/2011/05/Ask-the...
Something scary from a Boeing pilot in the comments:
Loss of all airspeed indications is not something we train
for. It's always assumed in transport category aircraft
that redundancies built in will always give us at least
attitude, heading, and airspeed.Which is sad.
From your link: [quote]Brake Assist PLUS uses two radar systems. Both of these radar systems are very good at not only registering objects up ahead but also calculating the distance from these objects and their relative speed. If the distance between the vehicle and the registered object is so small that there is a real danger of collision, Brake Assist PLUS issues a visual warning on the instrument cluster display and sounds an alarm over the car speakers. While this is happening, the electronic system calculates the braking deceleration necessary to avert the collision. If the driver then hits the brakes, the braking pressure needed to bring the vehicle to a stop before impact is immediately provided automatically. Ensuring that an appropriate braking force is not exceeded gives those driving behind more time to react.[/quote]
A human would be quick to notice that the reason for why the car in front is braking is because of the impeding concrete wall. The computer however doesn't know that and would only brake in order to not hit the car in front and thus ensuring that both cars hit the concrete wall at equal speeds, great! (I truly hope that it respects my choice if I really wan't full brakes).
What if there are slippery conditions? The collision might easily be avoided by changing lanes but changing lanes in muddy snow while braking could be suicide. What if I just started changing lanes when the computer feels like it needs to brake?
What if the reason for why the air-speed indicator is malfunctioning (reporting wrong, a complete loss of velocity is too easy to check for) is because the plane just flew into a flock of birds, it might be obvious for a pilot why the stall-warning was issued and the pilot might opt to to pull back the stick - just to avoid an collision...
Unless the sensors truly get the whole picture and the complete state of the aircraft/car (and I doubt we can do that before being able to implement a true AI) the pilot/driver must always have the last word. Assistance can be great, especially in cases where a human wouldn't have the time to react but you should always be able to override it.
The assistance should be clear and specific enough so that the pilot/driver really thinks twice before overriding anything (this requires that the pilot/driver respects the system). And if the pilot/driver can't handle the vehicle despite that then he/she shouldn't be allowed to drive it.
If your software is making the decisions, then the pilot can't make an educated response to unusual decisions. Big commercial aircraft are already largely run by software, but the pilot is there for unusual situations because there's often a lot of conflicting issues.
There's a lot I don't understand about AF447, like, why couldn't a simple GPS receiver have saved them? GPS does a relatively poor job at reporting altitude, and is obviously useless at reporting airspeed, but it's certainly capable of telling you that you've dropped 10,000 feet over the past minute or two. I can understand how pilots could become disoriented, such that they don't know "which end is up," but I can't fathom why they shouldn't even know whether they are climbing or descending, which apparently was part of the AF447 scenario.
Also:
The pilot may have no better idea of the true situation than your software.
All that matters in the and is not who is more awesome and versatile but who crashes less planes.
In a stall you want to recover your speed asap , you dive and apply full throttle till you are able to level off with normal speed. Windshear usually happens when you encounter heavy wind changes on approach or take off, usually caused by heavy thunderstorms. Your speed will increase and then sudenly decrease to stall levels. It can very easily throw you to the ground.
As you are very low, the stablished procedure is to apply full throttle ( as in a stall) but PULL your controlls full up ( the software limits the nose up position to around 25 deg nose up in airbus models). You flight at the minimum speed ( airbus airplanes will not allow you to fly below that speed at least if you are at low altitude, a plane using both engines at go around power will climb). The point is that as they entered the thunderstom ( that previously was avoided by preceding airliners) and had that pitot icing, they reacted with a windshear procedure when it was unnecessary ( there is a procedure to flight without reliable speed indications just trusting your artificial horizont and thrust position for a given speed, they should have applied it in a perfect world[it is very easy to say what is the solution afterwards of course]).
At those altitudes the engines have no power left to perfor a windshear, so the speed started falling till they entered a deep stall. That stall was recoverable( this is a supposition) for lets say 2 minutes, but they still were aplying full up controlls thinking :why is this procedure that I have practiced thousand times in the simulator not working?( not understanding they were in a common stall)
It seems that the other flight officer may have known what was happening but failed to take the controls.
All this is my supposition based on the preliminary documents pblished and my experience with A320 aircrafts wich have pretty similar flight controls logic ( I am an airline pilot with 12 years experience flying boeing, douglas and airbus). Something completely diferent could be the final cause.
Windshear is a primary maneuver to practice and master due to the extreme danger that it represents for any kind of plane ( maybe not for fighters). Stall is seen as a improbable danger due to the airplane software protections. Both are practised but the windshear is more enfaticed at least in europe, also the stall is seen as a basic flying skill, something not practical to practice in an expensive simulator with limited training time for all that complicated failures.
To reply your question, you can not induce a roll to an airbus airplane ( not past 45 deg with normal conditions) unless you have lost some flight computers. You could for example with MD 80 or 737 as there are no computer protections. I don't know about 777 or other fly by wire boeings, but I guess they got some kind of protection.
Sorry for all the typos and spelling! I am writting on a van on my way to the airport.
For example, in the case of Airbus airplanes, flying in normal law's flare mode provides protection against high angle of attack and bank angle protection.
However, when something bad happens, the plane is usually switched in alternate or direct law, based on the philosophy that the software can fail and the pilot is the only one able to see the big picture and compensate for possible faulty sensor data. It's all a question of who to trust in highly-tensed situations: is the pilot suffering from vertigo or it's just a matter of faulty sensor readings due to external ice build-up?
And if the software were to override pilot decisions, just think about liabilities in case something goes wrong, which is a Pandora's box for aircraft manufacturers.
A very similar phenomenon is how the USAF crashes more drones than the Army since they use pilots that insist on flying them in manual, vs the Army operators that do not consider themselves pilot. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/29/young_usaf_predator_...
Commercial flight will become much safer when the persons in the cockpit will considere themselves plane operators vs pilots.
Pilots (and airlines) seem more than happy to turn flying over to the computers, in fact FAA and Airbus are concerned that modern pilots lack hand-flying skills due to over-automation. The AF447 crew did not have training in high altitude hand-flying, for instance.
Until you have a situationally aware computer that consistently beats humans in accident scenarios, we still have to trust humans to do the job, for better or worse.
The kind of damages to take down all systems will probably structurally impair flyability.
I wonder what kind of hard limits do exist in the current avionics. For instance, is it possible to roll a Boeing/Airbus upside-down? If yes, why?