Is automation in aviation dulling pilot’s skills?

A recent accident has turned the media’s eye to the topic of automation in aviation. The recent Air France 447 crash has been traced to pilot error recognizing and handling the aircraft after an automation failure.  Is the main cause of this truly too much reliance on automation or a lack of training on recognizing automation failures?  Many believe automation in the cockpit has dulled pilot’s skills.

Personally I don’t believe automation is to blame. Automation is excellent in the cockpit. It makes the job of flying the airplane easier and safer when used appropriately.  It allows the pilot to divert some of their attention to other aspects of the flight and gain situational awareness. However as with many other things it can be abused.  If the automation is used so the pilot may divert their attention away from the flight altogether then the automation has now become a negative factor.

I recently interviewed a captain of a cargo aircraft. He had some interesting incite for me. When I asked about automation he said the part that worried him the most was many of the first officers have a tendency to fixate on it. When an autopilot begins doing something wrong or unexpected many of them try to fix the autopilot instead of disengaging it and flying by hand until the problem can be identified and resolved. This is troublesome as it goes against the age old pilot rule of flying the airplane first. This supports my belief that pilots are lacking training in dealing with automation and the proper procedures for when it fails.

Finally I believe much of this stems from the more modern aircraft used in flight training. I am currently conducting my training in a G1000 equipped Cessna 172. I started in an old 1970’s steam gauged 172. I have found the training in the older aircraft was key in developing many skills and building confidence and comfort with my own abilities to find my way and maneuver the aircraft without the aid of advanced autopilots coupled with GPS systems and other automated systems. I have the confidence that if the autopilot does something unexpected I can disconnect it and resume the flight by hand with little more than a slight feeling of being inconvenienced. Much of this comes from situational awareness and knowing where you should be is where you are and exactly where you are headed. I think training programs need to be rewritten and refocused to integrate automation. For more on this you can read Teaching Automation.

In the case of Air France 447 I feel the pilots ultimately lost situational awareness. The aircraft began stalling and the autopilot disengaged. The pilots were not following the instruments and failed to execute a proper scan interpret the scan and recognize the aircraft’s nose high low airspeed stall. Had the pilots been properly monitoring the aircraft they should have caught the declining airspeed and high angle of attack before it developed into a stall. This can be avoided with proper training in dealing with automation and how to adapt when it fails.