No pilot, no problem. Pilot-less planes are reportedly closer than you think, but do we have enough faith in technology to safely get us from one side of the planet to the other?
Talks of completely automatic aircraft comes after Germanwings flight 4U9525 was reportedly deliberately flown into the French Alps by the plane’s co-pilot.
All 150 passengers were killed on impact, including the Captain, who can be heard on the recovered Black Box trying to break into the bridge after his colleague locked him out by deploying a five-minute override.
Airline have responded to the incident by implementing a new ‘rule of two’, that requires a second air crew member to be in the cockpit at all times. Read on
However, techies are now looking at introducing pilot-less planes as an alternative to having humans in the cockpit.
Image: Tyler Olson/Shutterstock
Some commercial planes are already close to being completely automated, according to the New York Times, such as the Boeing 777 apparently, which sees pilots spending around seven minute manually piloting the plane.
The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is taking this one step further, by testing a robot co-pilot for military aircraft.
Part of an Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System or ALIAS, the robot uses voice recognition technology to speak and listen to commands and respond to them.
It can also manipulate flight controls and read instruments, in addition to knowing how to take off and land planes.
Over at NASA, they’re completely removing the co-pilot and appointing a remote, ground-based operator to control multiple aircraft from the one location.
As pilot-less technology continues to grow, some are wondering whether these systems would work in everyday air travel?
Human error may be responsible for some of bigger reported crashes, but more often than not pilots have been responsible for preventing accidents.
Remember Qantas’ A380 engine fail in 2010? It was thanks to Captain Richard Champion de Crespigny’s 35 years of flying experience that the double-decker jet arrived safely at Singapore Airport.
Or February’s TransAsia crash, which left over 30 dead, could have been much worse (the plane could have actually hit the busy bridge) if pilots hadn’t been ‘behind the wheel’ to steer the aircraft towards the sea.
Last week, we even saw a pilot and his co-pilot prevent a major crash at Canada’s Halifax Stanfield International Airport when the plane skidded and ran off the runway.
People have taken to social media to share their thoughts, here’s what they have to say:
Its a good thing pilotless planes still need manual hand controls #svengoolie
— mark gallagher (@MarkGallagher48) April 12, 2015
@olfashdeb Imagine if the airlines in this actual FlightRadar screenshot were pilotless drones and the system failed! pic.twitter.com/wI2QapzIW5
— 1newstracker (@1newstracker) April 11, 2015
@CNNVideo @CNN @Rene_MarshCNN I work with enough technology to know that pilotless aircrafts are a really bad idea.
— Joe Khasm (@JoeKhasm) April 11, 2015