A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues • Hacker News Board

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#31

Post by agumonkey » Tue, May 19, 2015, 12:51 PM UTC

alandarev wrote: post #18

Software contractor for Airbus and Rolls-royce here. All safety critical software (every piece of code ran on-board is safety critical the least) in aerospace needs to pass the DO-178 standard [1]. That is far more serious than standard unit tests you are used to in node.js applications. Generally speaking, to develop a piece of code under that standard it takes 20% of time to write the code, and 80% to testing, and…

I've seen this first hand, unfortunately this doesn't escape the hiring market reality. Many documents and source files are littered with (very) bad code from an 3 months employee that couldn't do better before leaving considering the extreme size of the project.

I wonder if someone can pull an #ElonMusk on the DO-178 to slim things down in order to have better control.

ps: planes fly with bugs, see the DreamLiner, Airbus ones aren't free from them either, employees know this. (I guess they travel by train)

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#32

Post by happyscrappy » Tue, May 19, 2015, 12:52 PM UTC

VMG wrote: post #14

hydrogen18 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that 'lowest bidder wins' was an American phenomenon? Certainly, Boeing and others have figured out how to game the system here in the states and abroad.

> I thought that 'lowest bidder wins' was an American phenomenon? Why should it be?

Because Europe cares about people not money, like in Greece.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#33

Post by mhandley » Tue, May 19, 2015, 12:57 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #13

mhandley wrote: post #11

Here's Airbus's statement on the Alert they sent to operators: Airbus Defence and Space has today (Tuesday 19 May) sent an Alert Operator Transmission (AOT) to all operators of the A400M informing them about specific checks to be performed on the fleet. To avoid potential risks in any future flights, Airbus Defence and Space has informed the operators about necessary actions to take. In addition, these results have i…

Or it seems like the problem may have been a known (or suspected) issue with an old firmware, and the check is to make sure the firmware is above a certain version (which would also explain why the check would be necessary on any replacement ECUs).

The A400M that crashed was on its first test flight, so unless they've done something very odd with versioning, it's unlikely that all its ECUs had older firmware than planes that already shipped. Besides, with aircraft, all changes are logged with a ton of paperwork, so they shouldn't need to check the aircraft to know what firmware they're running.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#34

Post by VLM » Tue, May 19, 2015, 12:58 PM UTC

lucaspiller wrote: post #8

bhaak wrote: post #4

There are not many details about why exactly the three engines stopped working and it's not yet officially announced. This article has been written with "information Spiegel Online received". Two translated quotes: "The investigation yield a clear result: Shortly after the lift-off of the test machine, the computers send conflicting commands to the three engines which then powered off." "Soon after the crash, experts…

> So, not much information why the computers sent conflicting commands and also why the engines power down in such a situation. I think shutting down the engines is probably the safest option when this sort of thing happens. You could argue they should stay in the present setting, but what would happen if one engine were at 0% and another 100%? Most aircraft are pretty good at gliding even without power, and I'd assu…

"but what would happen if one engine were at 0% and another 100%"

Part of earning your multi-engine cert is memorizing all manner of different airspeed limits for that kind of situation. If you want to maintain yaw control with one engine feathered (er, shutdown) and the other at full throttle you must be going faster than X knots or whatever. Below that indicated airspeed you pull back on the throttle or you're going into a turn at best or more likely a spin.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#35

Post by madez » Tue, May 19, 2015, 12:59 PM UTC

happyscrappy wrote: post #32

VMG wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought that 'lowest bidder wins' was an American phenomenon? Why should it be?

Because Europe cares about people not money, like in Greece.

Oh, the irony, bitter - just like medicine.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#36

Post by BuildTheRobots » Tue, May 19, 2015, 1:01 PM UTC

lexy0202 wrote: post #29

I have done a quick and rough translation of the German article into English. Hopefully this is better than the Google Translate version: https://gist.github.com/alexcoplan/0018e3320f99a612c737

Much more readable than the Glenglish version -thank you.

I still don't understand "The crash is the worst accident since the development of the A400M", though. To me that implies there was a pretty devastating accident during the development.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#37

Post by mrmondo » Tue, May 19, 2015, 1:02 PM UTC

I wonder if this is the time to argue that it may be worth open sourcing the controlling software for hackers to start criticising and contributing pull requests to. I'm willing to bet that the competence of the collective community far outweighs that of those specially trained to write the software at present.

What is there to lose by opening up the software to criticism other than better aviation safety? We know that obfuscating / hiding source code does not make applications / platforms safer or less at risk to malicious behaviour so I'd like to challenge the manufacturers to do so.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#38

Post by tim333 » Tue, May 19, 2015, 1:04 PM UTC

lucaspiller wrote: post #8

bhaak wrote: post #4

There are not many details about why exactly the three engines stopped working and it's not yet officially announced. This article has been written with "information Spiegel Online received". Two translated quotes: "The investigation yield a clear result: Shortly after the lift-off of the test machine, the computers send conflicting commands to the three engines which then powered off." "Soon after the crash, experts…

> So, not much information why the computers sent conflicting commands and also why the engines power down in such a situation. I think shutting down the engines is probably the safest option when this sort of thing happens. You could argue they should stay in the present setting, but what would happen if one engine were at 0% and another 100%? Most aircraft are pretty good at gliding even without power, and I'd assu…

>what would happen if one engine were at 0% and another 100%

Planes are designed to fly fine in that situation - it's what you get if one engine breaks down. Now landing the thing with one engine stuck on 100% would be interesting. I guess you could kill the engine somehow - turn off the fuel or pull the fuses.

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#39

Post by agumonkey » Tue, May 19, 2015, 1:05 PM UTC

bottled_poe wrote: post #19

tirant wrote: post #7

I am not surprised at all. There are a lot of contractors involved in the development of the software for the A400M, and they are basically competing for price and employing undergraduates making below €18K/year, which they replace every few months due to burnouts and bad working conditions. Projects get continuously delayed, and key people barely stay more than a couple of years.

Have you been involved with the engineering of aircraft control systems, or are you just speculating?

It confirms what I've seen https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9569636

Re: A400M Airbus Flier crashed because of software issues

#40

Post by yitchelle » Tue, May 19, 2015, 1:05 PM UTC

tirant wrote: post #7

I am not surprised at all. There are a lot of contractors involved in the development of the software for the A400M, and they are basically competing for price and employing undergraduates making below €18K/year, which they replace every few months due to burnouts and bad working conditions. Projects get continuously delayed, and key people barely stay more than a couple of years.

> ...and they are basically competing for price...

and if the contractors are from India, the competition does not stop after the contract have been awarded. During the execution of the project, the competitive behavior will continue. One contracting firm will compete with an aim to reduced the tasks/responsibility of the other contracting firm, thus (or hoping to) capturing more contracting hours. Very vicious and dangerous..