In an incident that is bound to elicit a response to calls for enabling single-pilot operations, a Turkish Airlines captain died in mid-air after becoming ill on a flight from Seattle, Washington, to Istanbul, Turkey. The second in command and a relief pilot took over and Flight TK204 diverted to John F. Kennedy International Airport where it landed safely.
Having two pilots is clearly safer. When theTurkish Airlines captain died mid-flight, the co-pilot and relief pilot took over and landed the plane safely. This incident proves the value of a two-pilot crew. Case closed!
Makes you wonder if Turkey is among those countries with more stringent medical requirements than the FAA 1st class medical in the US. If so it must have missed something or did not detect any anomalies. RIP.
As far as single pilot airline ops, this will help those opposed to such ops.
What is one of the major benefits of having a twin engine airplane? If you lose one engine you still have another to get you home.
What is one of the major benefits of having two pilots? If you lose one pilot to an unanticipated event you still have another one to get you home.
Airplane systems are riddled with very expensive redundancy. Why are some trying to get rid of one of the least expensive most effective redundancy systems we have on planes?
Sorry, and I appreiciate that if you are a pilot that you are protrecting your job, but the move to single pilots is utterly inevitable and, like pilot-less aircraft, just a matter of time.
A much more relevant question for non-commercial pilots (ie me) would be, given that commercial aircraft can quite competently take off and fly by autopilot quite safely for as long as it has fuel, why (in an emergency situation) could it not also land autonomously - or at least by remote control?
Don’t get me wrong. I am not against 2+ pilots on a commercial flight. But I think that Tommy’s comment above is correct; single pilot ops will come. Those interested in finances and reliability could say that this sad incident provides further argumentation in favor of fully autonomous flight ops, with single pilot ops being an interim step.
Absolutely no, never, NOT any pilotless aircraft! Possibly cargo-carrying ballistic missile cargo vehicles, but again no pilotless passenger-carrying ballistic missiles, either; no matter what Robert A. Heinlein envisioned.
Why does it have to be inevitable? The first time a commercial pilot-less aircraft crashes killing every passenger on board two things will happen: 1) it will be the last time anyone will board one and 2) insurance companies will refuse to bind coverage on them.
While I agree with the sentiment of keeping two pilots completely, I do have to challenge your assertion that “one of the least expensive” systems on the plane is the pilot. I can’t speak to an airlines earnings report, but in general, payroll and benefits is one of the largest costs in a company. If you can eliminate 30% of your payroll, it is a huge game changer to the overall health of the company. Considering what has happened to pilots salaries in the last decade, that just puts a larger target on the pilots as a cost that needs to be cut.
I’m not getting on a single pilot airliner. I’ll just drive or fly myself if it comes to that. My son is training now to be a commercial pilot. So again I’m all in on keeping two pilots. But we have to face reality, pilot costs are expensive. We used to have two pilots and a flight engineer. When is the last time you saw a flight engineer?
You’d figure that the CEOs of both air carriers and manufacturers would quit stepping over a dollar to pick up a penny. Silly me… these MBA graduates from the top notch business schools are ignorant about the real life environments of today. Perhaps they should watch the movie, “Back to School”, that Rodney Dangerfield starred. The scene specific day one of his attendance of Business 101.
I suggest Boeing start pilotless aircraft with the 737MAX loaded with Boeing employees, management in first class of course. Will see how many employees call in sick on day one.
It is inevitable because … it is! And given that 80%+ of commercial air crashes are attributable to pilot error, it sounds like the sooner the better, to me! It’s the same as with road transport. 90% of road collisions are down to driver error (probs more). Thus, autonomy will save the insurance companies an absolute fortune and you can bet premiums will not fall once the safety record of autonomous vehicles is statistically proven.
Crashes have never had any significant effect on passenger numbers and insurance companies will be even more gung-ho - as long as the money comes in they won’t care less!
The first commercial pilot-less aircraft crash will certainly be a major news story, but will only be a hiccup in the ongoing use of pilotless technology.
Passengers (who were driven to the airport in a driverless Uber, then took a driverless tram to their gate) will continue to be driven more by the ticket cost than the technical details of the plane’s operations.
And insurance companies will continue to use the overall safety record of pilotless planes in deciding whether or not to offer coverage.
[In this case, the safety record would initially be based on the awesomely good safety record that plotless freighters will have had to acquire before allowing passengers in the first place.]
Why did the remaining flight crew choose to fly over or by several large airports where emergency health care is immediately available - Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, etc. - to land in New York? The captain may have lived if he got help sooner.
I agree that two pilots are needed when flying expensive machinery above people on the ground. However, I see airlines and freight becoming more and more automated. I see a future where the captain will “log in” to his airplane from a ground station to do the take off and/or landing portions of a flight, while automation will take over for the enroute phase. You could have a different remote “captain” land the plane than the one who handled the departure. I don’t like it but I think it’s coming. Until the day when they fully automate air travel and no pilots are involved at all. Sad.
No doubt the technology and capabilities will continue to advance and improve, but none of us has a crystal ball. The goal of eliminating even the possibility of human error in aviation is laudable, but removing pilots out of the cockpit altogether, regardless of how advanced and capable the technology becomes, is in my opinion a reduction in redundancy, not an enhancement of it.