Human Factors Issues in the Air France Flight 447 Crashes

Almost two years after the Air France Flight 447(Airbus A330-200 jet)¬, a well-maintained modern airplane, crashed, the key components from the flight recorders and cockpit voice recorder were finally found. The plane was originally en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro into the ocean, and unfortunately all passengers were killed.

According to The Wall Street Journal “The pilots of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago apparently became distracted with faulty airspeed indicators and failed to properly deal with other vital systems, including adjusting engine thrust, according to people familiar with preliminary findings from the plane's recorders."
In another article Spiegel, citing the experts who have participated in the analysis of the Black Boxes data reports, stated that at the time the first alarm sounded, the pilot was not in the cockpit.

Following these revelations, and despite the fact that a formal investigative report is not yet published by Bureau of Investigations and Analyses, or B.E.A. , "Pilot Error " is vigorously condemned by the Syndicat de Pilotes d'Air France (SPAF).

According to New York Times "… the sequence of events captured on the recorders is expected to highlight that the jet slowed dangerously shortly after the autopilot disconnected. The pilots almost immediately faced the beginning of what became a series of automation failures or disconnects related to problems with the plane's airspeed sensors,…", "The crew methodically tried to respond to the warnings, according to people familiar with the probe, but apparently had difficulty sorting out the warning messages, chimes and other cues while also keeping close track of essential displays showing engine power and aircraft."

According to the NYT, “…pilots seemingly were confused by alarms they received from various automated flight-control systems as the plane passed through some turbulence typical on the route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. They also faced unexpectedly heavy icing at 35,000 feet. Such icing is renowned for making airspeed-indicators and other external sensors unreliable."
All these notions hint at many human factors issues related to design, safety training, and hardware failure. A few questions that require a proper answer include:

• Why were the alarms confusing?
• Why were the warning messages difficult to sort out ?
• Why and how were the cues on the displays unclear?
A.M.
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Related Press Reports
"Crash du Rio-Paris : il n'y aurait pas eu d'erreur de pilotage, " LEMONDE.FR, May 19, 2011.
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2011/05/19/crash-du-rio-paris-il-n-y-aurait-pas-eu-d-erreur-de-pilotage_1524155_3224.html

"Rio-Paris : les syndicats de pilote dénoncent les "fausses allégations, "LEMONDE.FR May 24, 2011.
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2011/05/24/de-nouveaux-elements-sur-la-catastrophe-du-vol-af-447-divulgues-par-la-presse_1526418_3224.html#ens_id=1513709

“Air France Flight 447,” nytimes.com , May 16, 2011
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/a/airplane_accidents_and_incidents/air_france_flight_447/index.html?

Reports of Pilot Error in Air France Crash Are Condemned," nytimes.com, May 24, 2011.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/europe/25france.html?ref=airfranceflight447

“Absturz von Air-France-Flug 447,” Spiegel, May 22, 2011.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,764083,00.html  

“Report on Air France 447 crash deepens mystery,” newscientist.com, May 27, 2011.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/05/blaring-alarms-confused-doomed.html
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The Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics International NEWS – June 2011- Number 26
http://www.ahfe2012.org/news/2011_June.html

Fukushima Nuclear Plant Disaster: Are there any human factors issues to look for?

Japan's recent earthquake and tsunami crisis in which the Fukushima Nuclear
Plant was deeply damaged, raised a variety of issues regarding safety
throughout the rest of the world's nuclear power plants. This disaster,
along with the severe amount of casualties and unknown effects of
contamination in the population and environment, bring up several major
questions that are directly and indirectly related to human factors.

For instance, is it possible to predict all risk factors for a nuclear power
plant? If not, is it wise for humanity to use a technology when we know that
its accidental failure can have a dangerous toll on humanity and can
contaminate the environment forever? The Fukushima Nuclear Plant Disaster
illustrates that all risk factors were unevaluated, and that the plant was
not prepared to equip any human help in the event of a nuclear accident.
There are reports of cases where the emergency workers did not even have
basic necessities in such a situation, such as boots. However a silver
lining remains in the fact that this catastrophe did not occur in a third
world country, but in one of the most advanced countries in the world:
Japan.

This accident, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Gulf of Mexico, and other
reports that many active nuclear power plants have shut down and must be
closed, reveal a deeper problem. The ravenous world hunger for energy and
the push to get it as fast as possible while ignoring possible accidents
fails to consider the long term consequences. Isn't it time to invest in
renewable energy and the long term life of our planet, rather than the short
term gains of gas or power energy companies?

A.M.

The Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics International NEWS - April 2007 - Number 1

Book Review: Smart Clothing: Technology and Applications

If you only know a little about Smart Clothing, this book will be a real eye-opener into the concepts of the technology and its applications. If you already know about this area, then this book will be a real resource in providing readers with a good review of all aspects of the technology. In the introductory chapter, the book provides a well-rounded review of smart clothing technology (Chapter 1), followed by an ample explanation of the design processes and development (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 reviews all aspects of the smart clothing standardization, which includes trends, patents, methods, and evaluation techniques. Chapters 4 to 8 go over interfaces, hardware and software, and materials. The next chapter continues on with an evaluation of methods for wearable computing. The last chapter gives a brief overview of solar cell and its usage in the smart clothing textiles that are discussed, providing a good perspective of how fascinating this technology might be.

All contributors of this book offer very well explained chapters with extensive research reviews and reference lists.
Reviewing this book was a very enriching experience, although it occasionally appears as a very futuristic science and technology, though with its authors smart writing manages to convince that it is a real and advancing technology.
A.M.

Smart Clothing: Technology and Applications, Edited by Gilsoo Cho, CRC Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4200-8852-6
http://www.crcpress.com
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Published in:HCI International NEWS - January 2011 - Number 45

Oracle OpenWorld: The Oracle Empire's Customers/Users Conference

Oracle OpenWorld was held in San Francisco from September 19-23, 2010. This year’s particularity was the addition of the “Java One “conference after acquisition of Sun Microsystems. This made the event, according to Oracle, the largest conference in Oracle's history. With more than 41,000 attendees it was too large for the Mascone convention center complex and used many hotels in the area as well. Despite the sophisticated conference organization, going from one location to another proved to be difficult, inconvenient and time consuming. Many JavaOne attendees also felt slighted being at Hilton not Mascone and some even found the experience painful!

On the content side and from Human Computer Interaction standpoint, 5 years after acquisition of PeopleSoft and then Siebel and others, the promised land of “Fusion Applications” with all the best of features from all, sounded still quite like a promise. I was not able to see any concrete demonstrations of human computer interaction illustrating advances in technology or innovations in user interface or user experience.

On the technology side an important theme and hot topic seemed to be Cloud Computing, as one finds in most technology conferences and events these days.

All related sessions on this topic were well attended. Curious attendees struggled to see what is really happening in cloud computing since many presentations seemed to be somewhat light in terms of content. We still need to wait and see what the real results and impacts of Cloud Computing will be. Maybe at next year's Oracle OpenWorld - if one is optimistic!

A.M.

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Published in:
HCI International NEWS - November 2010 - Number 44

Book Review: Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL

In a well illustrated and easy to read book on Social Media Networks, the authors offer in the introductory chapters (1 to 3) definitions and overview of social media networking concepts along with multiple examples of analysis techniques. Then, NodeXL, an interesting open source template for Excel is used to illustrate the analysis techniques. Easy instructions are given through tutorials on how to use NodeXL for social media network analysis (Chapters 4-7). Chapter 8-15 provide ample cases studies illustrating networks analysis for email, Twitter, hyperlinks and more, thus enabling readers to use the tool proficiently to conduct social media network analysis.

With an extensive list of related references, colorful charts and graphs, this book is a valuable resource to all professionals involved in designing, evaluating and researching social media networking. It is also an excellent textbook choice for a social media networking related courses.

A.M.

Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL - Insights from a Connected World, Derek Hansen, Ben Shneiderman, Marc Smith, Morgan Kaufman , Elsevier, 2011, ISBN 13: 978-0-12-382229-1
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