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Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

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Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

#71

Post by rpmcb »

ams6110 wrote: post #61
CaptG wrote: post #37

If you're curious, check out https://www.foreflight.com/ , it's available from the app store and is marketed towards GA pilots. I've used it with some success on a domestic US flight with the inflight WIFI. EDIT: I just checked ForeFlight had a version update on 4/27. I doubt American is using the same software on their tablets, but then again you never know.

Certification for GA and large jet commercial passenger service are two different things. GA pilots can and often do use various portable navigational and other devices that are in some ways more sophisticated than what commercial airliners have, but they are not certified for commercial use.

Eh, yes and no. The FAA requires operators to get approval for iPad EFBs individually, and does not require GA pilots to do any such thing. "Certified," however, has a special meaning in aviation. iPads are not certified hardware, period. Pilots must still use their aircraft avionics (which are certified) as their primary means of navigation. iPads can be supplemental only, for both general aviation and commercial operations.

Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

#72

Post by CHY872 »

duncanawoods wrote: post #50
draugadrotten wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that the entire 737 fleet on American had experienced the same behavior. That seems to be inaccurate. American Airlines confirms "several dozen flights" which is probably less. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/29/apple-ipad... And the fix was available through nearest Wi-Fi. Leaving cockpit a few minutes. The horror! "In some cases, the flight has had to return to the gate to access a Wi-Fi connection…

>> Leaving cockpit a few minutes. The horror! For an airliner, yes, the horror. Why would you want to downplay the dangers of pilots losing access to their flight manuals?

because there aren't any such dangers.

Nothing safety critical would have been entrusted to the iPad. The pilots would be able to deal with the problem with either ATC support (anything the pilots can read to each other, ATC can read to them) or backup papers.

Yes, if you're on the ground, you won't be taking off without the stuff, but that's obvious when it can be fixed by the pilot getting out for a few minutes.

People don't screw around with plane safety. The failure mode of 'our iPads turned off' will have been considered as a prelude to their being introduced.

Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

#73

Post by anc84 »

CHY872 wrote: post #66
ithingsnoway wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is outrageous that flights could be stopped because of a reliance of shiny iThings and the software running on them. Paper versions do not run out of juice. There is a place for shiny tech, but the flight deck is not it. Paper worked, and we should go back to it.

Why? It saves a tonne of cash ($1.2 million per year), and has led to a few dozen flights delayed , ever. It's wasteful to force the pilots to carry around 30lbs of paper which is out of date every few months, and which is not safety critical.

> Why? It saves a tonne of cash ($1.2 million per year), and has led to a few dozen flights delayed, ever.

In total? That's nothing.

Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

#74

Post by CHY872 »

ithingsnoway wrote: post #62
imglorp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paper comprises an entire suitcase. Charts, airport docs, aircraft manuals, maint logs, regulations, etc etc. Updates are frequent and also paper. The fuel savings alone from not carrying the paper is substantial. As long as there's a backup tablet, it should be okay. If they get lost they can always call in for vectors. ref: http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=20295&item=124327

Didn't the backup tablet also experience issues in this case?

in which case they can call in for vectors

Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

#75

Post by VLM »

wodenokoto wrote: post #53
ceejayoz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine that happening mid-flight! Not a problem, really. FAA regulations require all sorts of backups and emergency procedures. Even my dad's little four-seat general aviation plane has backups for every critical instrument. This issue prevents you from taking off (out of caution), but if it happened in-flight everyone'd know what to do.

More over, isn't this just a manual? I mean, for most normal situations, the pilots know what to do, so even if the backup also died, chances are pretty good that they would land without problems, I imagine.

Maps too, from what I hear. The problem is scalability. If no one carried maps, everyone would have to talk verbally and take notes with ATC for five minutes for every landing to make sure nothing had changed.

If only a couple planes pester ATC then the system will keep up. It would be safe enough. What are the odds of an inflight emergency requiring a diversion at any instant? Pretty low. So if it happened to one plane they'd figure it out verbally. However requiring all ATC and all pilots to talk over all maps at all landings isn't scalable.

Something similar happens with manuals. One plane loses a system and its ipad, you call home on the radio or satphone or contact a fellow pilot on 123.45 MHz or call ATC for help. This doesn't scale to every plane in the air at the same time for every mostly minor maintenance writeup. Maybe you can ignore error messages this flight, after all most measurable things are not important, just like in business. Or maybe engine code 3141Z.kjdf.subsection2 means the engine is about to explode on the wing, but you've got no manuals...

Something often overlooked is megacorp analysis paralysis. You'll be formally written up if you don't file an engine operation temperature profile thingy form or some meaningless catering receipts or whatever according to boring corporate policy, and it will be brought up at your annual performance review, affect your promotion chances, etc. This scales pretty well when one ipad breaks and you use the copilots ipad or call your boss and argue and he issues you an indulgence or the boss takes dictation of the form for you or you refuse to fly (its only one flight after all). This doesn't scale well when every ipad in a company stops working.

Personally, if I were in a plane over water and I lost all my papers out the window, no fuel estimates, no weight and balance, no maps, no flight plan, no list of obstacles, no nav plan, no notes, nothing at all, I'd probably panic and head for the closest coastal airport (and where is that, without any docs?) If one plane does this, it scales VERY well. ATC calms you down, vectors you in, gives you some geographical advice, and you land. If every plane in the air does this simultaneously, you'll overload ATC and probably get someone killed.

This applies everywhere to all industries not just planes.

Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

#77

Post by dalke »

ithingsnoway wrote: post #44
apalmer wrote: post #34

Kind of weird, there historically have been similar 'do it the old school way because its more reliable' fallbacks for other things in air transport. What happened to the planes that were mid flight when this bug occurred?

It is outrageous that flights could be stopped because of a reliance of shiny iThings and the software running on them. Paper versions do not run out of juice. There is a place for shiny tech, but the flight deck is not it. Paper worked, and we should go back to it.

Paper has its own problems. The article links to a more complete article on reasons why "shiny things" replaced paper, at http://hub.aa.com/en/nr/pressrelease/american-airlines-compl... :

> An Electronic Flight Bag, which replaces more than 35 pounds of paper-based reference material and manuals that pilots often carried in their carry-on kitbag, offers numerous benefits for American and its pilots.

> ... removing the kitbag from all of our planes saves a minimum of 400,000 gallons and $1.2 million of fuel annually based on current fuel prices. Additionally, each of the more than 8,000 iPads we have deployed to date replaces more than 3,000 pages of paper previously carried by every active pilot and instructor. Altogether, 24 million pages of paper documents have been eliminated

> ... All American pilots now enjoy the benefits associated with replacing their heavy kitbags – one of the airline's biggest sources of pilot injuries – with a 1.35-pound iPad. The digital format also requires less time to update each of the six or more paper manuals found in each pilot's kitbag, as manual paper revisions take hours to complete every month, compared to the minutes it takes for electronic updates.

Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

#78

Post by rpmcb »

elmin wrote: post #48
apalmer wrote: post #34

Kind of weird, there historically have been similar 'do it the old school way because its more reliable' fallbacks for other things in air transport. What happened to the planes that were mid flight when this bug occurred?

Aircraft approaches are issued every 90 days. To stay up to date you need to have a book of these 'plates' for every region of the U.S, or a subscription to a service that sends you paper updates. If this happened in flight they would either get ATC to read them the plate, or check with ATC that whatever outdated plate they had was still accurate. Obviously though this is a pretty big technical error on the part of J…

Thanks for the mention, elmin. Can confirm ForeFlight is not involved.

Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

#79

Post by CPLX »

pyvpx wrote: post #16
CPLX wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this seems extraordinarily unlikely. Your proposition is that a no-iOS zone was maliciously created in multiple highly secure and surveilled areas across the country (ie airports) but despite the fact that the hack should affect all iOS devices in range, there were no reports whatsoever of any passenger devices (nor the pilots iPhones for that matter) being disabled.

while I fully agree with your last part, the first part of your argument is dubious at best. it would be trivial to get away with a malicious access point in an airport. they helpfully provide charging stations for your electronics, and all it takes is an identically sized and shaped power brick to drop in a malicious access point. see http://samy.pl/keysweeper/ but modified with wifi instead of bluetooth and you get…

It would be trivial to get away with it in one airport. Doing it in multiple airports spread across the destinations where AA flies simultaneously would be significantly less trivial.

Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed

#80

Post by pmelendez »

draugadrotten wrote: post #51
pmelendez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> , but have one iPad and one other device from a different manufacturer running different software Exactly my thoughts. I am surprised they didn't have any contingency plan as backup.

> they didn't have any contingency plan as backup. Do you have any Source of your claim that there was no contingency plan? FAA regulations seems to indicate that there are plans: "(5) Procedural means. g. Procedural Mitigations. If one or more onboard EFBs fail, resulting in loss of function or the presentation of false or hazardously misleading information, a contingency plan or process will need to be in place to…

The same articles says: "The pilot told us when they were getting ready to take off, the iPad screens went blank, both for the captain and copilot, so they didn’t have the flight plan,” " (emphasis mine)

What I meant is taht they didn't have a second electronic contingency plan. Probably they had to switch to paper on those flights (otherwise the impact would have been minimal)

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