Final report on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight exit door plug separation

Having been on an air crash investigation kind of vibe since the Air India accident, I have conflicting opinions on boeing.

On one hand, their quality control, engineering etc has been declining, not to mention the suspicious deaths of whistleblowers..

But on the other, the fact that each pilot can see and feel immediately what inputs the other is applying is such a huge advantage compared to airbus’ fly by wire.

There are at least 3 accidents on airbus planes which can effectively be attributed to dual input. Loss of situational awareness, highly technical changes in the way the aircraft controls (why would this ever be a good idea), given certain circumstances.

Imagine dying because of the different between ‘pull down’ and ‘push down’. On a boeing, when the captain pushes the nose down, you see immediately what he means. On an airbus, you’re dead by the time the captains input override is acknowledged.

There are definitely pro’s to the airbus system but why cant we add input feedback?

FWIW Airbus has tested a force-feedback side stick. Why they don't already offer it as an option I do not know. Maybe they are calmer now but for decades they took the attitude that "We built an un-crashable airplane because we are smarter than you" and took any criticism as a personal attack.

If you're curious the 757, 767, 777, and 787 are all fly by wire but use both physical linkage under the deck and force-feedback servos to transmit control surface feel back to the pilots. But they also have torque tubes that can be overpowered and ... shocker... in a dual input situation they do the same as Airbus: average the inputs. But at least you have to really yank on the controls to make that happen.

I suspect this brief lecture (2 parts) on automation dependency will be right up your alley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WITLR_qSPXk

What's the latest on Air India? Fuel Switches were last I saw and if it means one pilot is able to disengage unilaterally, it kind of falls into the same area about design philosophy (I think they are located on diff areas for diff planes).

> But on the other, the fact that each pilot can see and feel immediately what inputs the other is applying is such a huge advantage compared to airbus’ fly by wire.

Confusion is still possible on Boeing aircraft[1] (the incident happened with an Air France 777 in 2022. AvHerald has more direct quotes from the official report.)

[1] https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/opposing-dual-inputs-con...