Human vs Computer Conflicts

The two crashes of Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft in the past year seems to be coming down to a problem of a conflict between the pilot and the on board computer system. In response to an unusual nose-up event, both the pilot and the computer change the controls to push the nose down, resulting in a over reaction. Correcting for the first over reaction by both the pilot and the computer results in a second over reaction, more extreme than the first. If the pilot does not recognize the situation and disengage the computer system, the result is loss of control and a pile of debris. The argument that the solution is more training for pilots seems specious.

A couple of years ago I became re-interested in the reasons for the crash of the Air French Airbus Flight 447 in 2009. At the time I wondered if the 'fly-by-wire' systems on the newer larger airliners was the culprit. In reading the final report on the accident, the cockpit voice record had a comment by one of the pilots on the way to their watery grave: "I don't know what it's doing". It occurred to me when reading it that the pilot was not sure whether he was fighting the aircraft or the computer. This is the fundamental problem with computer control of anything. Whether it is aircraft, cars, or anything where the computer is in control with the human also believing that he/she is also in control, a conflict can easily result in the human fighting the computer because of not being sure what the system is doing. This is especially true when the human is used to controlling a normal plane or car but is not sure what the computer is supposed to do.

As a one-time computer systems designer, it seems to me that the solution should always be that the computer system should be monitoring the human's inputs and neither cancel nor exaggerate them. In the case of the Boeing 737 Max 8, if the pilot has properly responded to the situation, the computer should be programmed to minimize any additional input to the problem. Expecting the user to correct for the computer is always an improper design, and avoiding such must be a fundamental consideration as we move to more and more computer aided systems.