How Today’s Aircraft Accidents Could Make Future Planes Safer
13:19 Share

Amazon q business is the generate A I assistant from A W S, because business can be slow, like waiting through mud, but amazon q helps streamline work, so tasks like some mary zing monthly results can be done in no time. Learn what amazon q business can do for you at aw 点 com。 Ash, learn more.

Modern air travel is safer than it's ever been. That's what the number show. But several high profile incidents involving passenger planes since the beginning of the year have highlighted that things can still go wrong and how scary IT can be.

And alasia airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing after a portion of the plane blue off in mid flight.

That panel ripped away at about sixteen thousand feet, which left a gapping hole in aircraft fit from hundred airport shows a japan airlines passenger airplane on fire IT the more remarkable .

than everyone's off the pycroft .

in one piece. But could future generations of airplanes make problems like this a thing of the past?

Commercial airliners are smart electronically today. Then they've been, they're constantly recording, they are constantly monitoring. They're constantly connected.

Anthony y. Breakout is an associate professor at embryo tal eron, odal university. He runs their airspace forensic laboratory, and he used to work at the national transportation safety board. He says all the data that planes generate today when they're running Normally, as well as from accidents, are helping engineers design Better systems and stronger materials to make future airplanes even safer.

IT may not be anything that passengers will notice, but the way the flight crew interact with the aircraft and and off of control is going to be definitely advanced.

From the wall street journal, this is the future of everything. I'm danny Lewis. I spoke with professor breakfast cast about what airplane engineers are learning when things go wrong and how new materials and even A I could help make flying safer in the years to come stay with us.

Amazon q business is the new generative A I assistant from A W S, because many tasks can make business slow, as if waiting through mud a help. Luckily, there's a faster, easier, less messy choice. Amazon q can securely understand your business data and use that knowledge to streamline tasks.

Now you can summarize quarterly results or do complex analysis in no time. Q got this. Learn what amazon q business can do for you at A W S dot com. Slash, learn more.

Since the beginning of the year, airplane safety has been top of mind for many travellers, especially after the recent alaska airlines incident where the door plug of an emergency exit on a boeing seven thirty seven max nine blew out mid flight. A preliminary report by the national transportation safety board found that four bolts that would have kept the door secured in place were missing. Professor, break out. Are there ways that emergency exits and their door plugs could be designed without the need for just a few critical components to secure them?

It's really our dances that question and safety were always trying to continuously improve. And the thing about this, the last airline accident that is an important to remember, is that as an industry, we can learn from this to hopefully get Better so that the same thing does not happen again. Women designing aircraft for a long time now, but designing an aircraft is a really complex proposition.

And engineers are constantly fighting the weight ratio. You want to keep aircraft as light as possible, but also make IT as strong as possible. So we're continually evolving designs and different features just to make aircraft h more our dynamic, more efficient and more comfortable for the passengers.

One thing is this happening. You know, we have new aircraft that are being made more and more out of composition materials. The airbus say fifty more than fifty percent composes in terms of their weight. But I think we're going to see more and more desires coming with composition materials.

What do you mean by composites?

Materials is basically a plastic tight material with a risen or glue to hold IT together. And like you tap on IT and IT sounds almost like a medal, but it's not a middle. We started using what we call lamina composite material, which is like a layer structure.

Sometimes we've been called IT a sandwich structure because that's pretty much what you're doing. You're adding layers to to get the proper level of this is. And the good thing about composes is they're really, really strong and they're really, really light. And you can do things with the composite design that you can do with the traditional .

matt boings seven thirty seven max line of airplanes has been plagued with problems for years in earlier model of the aircraft, the seven thirty seven max eight was involved in two fatal crashes, the lion air crash in indonesia in october twenty eighteen and an ethiopian airlines crash a few months later in march twenty nineteen. The water street journal reported at the time that a combination of a male functioning sensor and an automated flight control system were responsible. How might future aircraft baLances the benefits of automated systems like that with the need for pilots to be able to take charge quickly in an emergency?

Well, that's the thing about safety investigations and and why we do IT. We want to look at both fatal max eight accidents and really understand the circumstances of those and safety. We talk about a single causation theory versus of multiple causation theory.

And we know scientifically that no accident is specifically cause about one event is always multiple events. We from an aviation community are in what we call a data rich environment. Our commercial airliners are smarter electronically today than they've ever been.

They're constantly recording, they're constantly manager ing. They're constantly connected. And the whole intent of automation is to give the pilot tools to decrease their work load and allow the computers to do more.

But as a safety person, I always want my flight crew to know as much as they can about the system. I never want to see a day where a pilot gets in the carpet and just monitors the system. Know we want humans actively involved in the deep ation.

A. I is also getting a lot of hype as the solution to. Just about any problem you can think of. What are the parts of you piloting and Operating an airplane that you don't think should be left to automatic systems in the future?

I think of automation as an assist and at the end all in bill um but I just like to have the human in the equation and i'm a fan of automation and A I that doesn't do IT all but makes the workload less, which can minimize mistakes and just make the system flow smoother than IT would manually. Pilots used to Carry forty fifty pounds of charts and those of papers that they would actively use during the flight.

Well, now pilots welcome on on an aircraft with their luggage, but they don't have this massive flight bag. Everything is in upper because electronic flight bags. And that's not necessarily automation but definitely using technology to assist uh, the systems that we have board.

The plane now are a highly automated or even upgrade in the air traffic control system so that IT becomes more automated. So IT may not be anything the passengers will notice. I think the passenger experience, you know, from the gate to taxi to take off and landing will be the same, but the way the flight crew interacts with the aircraft and air traffic control is going to be definitely advenced.

And even from a maintain point of view, our plans today have always called help monitoring systems. So as the plane is fine, the engine could leally send information to a ground station and literally tell the mechanics this is was going on with the system. So the mechanic don't have to spend a lot of time, but trying to dig, know what's going on. But you, I can see aviation becoming even more automated and having even more advanced systems than what we see right now, which is pretty fascinating.

As we heard, airplanes are starting to use new materials in their construction. Just ahead will hear more about how they could help make flying paper stick around.

Amazon q business is the new generative A I assistant from A W S, because many tasks can make business slow, as if waiting through mud help. Luckily, there's a faster, easier, less messy choice. Amazon q can security understand your business data and use that knowledge to streamline task? Now you can summarize quarterly results or do complex analysis in no time.

Q, got this. Learn what amazon q business can do for you at A W S dot com flash. Learn more.

Just last week, a united airlines flight fro m 3 Francisco to boston was diverted after part of the plane's wing appeared to be damaged。 Midd flight, obviously, this is still under investigation. It's very early. But how might future airplanes be designed to prevent damage amid flight? Are there systems that could alert maintenances or flight crews to potential damage before IT happens?

The right now, I don't think we know whether the part that came off was purely cosmetic or whether IT was actually structural. Obviously, you don't want to see something like that occurring, but if something is just cosmetic, then is not really going to affect the safety, the era. But obviously, you know, as we look into the future, designs are going na be out there that are safer than what we have now. You know the way that we manufacture aircraft in different sections, we may see larger pieces being used and that could possibly enhance safety. Whenever you're building anything, you know the less connections you can have, the more structural role business you're going to get.

And before that, in january, there was the japan airlines incident where jet collided with another aircraft at tokyo s hunted airport and burst into flames. Three hundred and seven nine people on the jet and airbus a three fifty survived. You mentioned earlier that this craft is made of a lot of composition materials. How might that have changed the situation compared to an aluminum of airplane?

That's what we're interested in study. Traditionally, composition materials are stiffer than a limit of alloy materials, which tend to have some, some play and can actually give. So during that impact, speaking from an engineering perspective, we want to know exactly how that compose material behave so that we can compare IT to how the aluminum alloy material, so that we can speak to what we cost of our ability.

Compose is burn differently than a limit of Alice. Obviously, with this accident, there was a massive er that broke out. The F A says that, you know, you have about ninety seconds to evacuate an aircraft and obviously they took eighteen minutes, but that just speaks to how well evacuation i'm sure they are going to be looking at, you know, the number of emergency exits that were available on the aircraft they'll be looking in to how many of them were actually usable.

They're going to be looking into how exactly they performed. Engineers will will look into, you know, how old bus, the structure, the aircraft. So like how how did IT behave in that impact? And could anything have been done to make IT even more? I have a feeling we're going to learn a significant amount of information from this debate. Allies accident.

Anthony brocas is an associate professor at embry ritter eron odal university. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. The future of everything is a production of the wall street journal. The episode was produced by me, danny Lewis.

thanks for listening.

Amazon q business is the new generative A I assistant from A W S, because many tasks can make business slow as if waiting through help. Luckily, there's a faster, easier, less messy choice. Amazon q can security understand your business data and use that knowledge to streamline task? Now you can summarize quarterly results or do complex analysis in no time.

Q, got this. Learn what amazon q business can do for you at A W S dot com flash. Learn more.