As I have been agonizing over the tragedy in Michigan, a thought kept
running through my mind: WHY COMPUTERS DON'T FLY AIRPLANES.  As I finally
examined that thought, I realized that is was a perfect analogy.  The State
of Michigan was running on autopilot quoting outdated information and
refusing to consider facts.  Here's what I see.
 
When you look at today's modern aviation technology, you have to marvel at
the level of sophistication of the machines that assist the pilots in
navigation, flying, and landing.  A modern airplane can fly completely
automated to the point of taking off and landing.  The only thing the pilot
has to do is get the plane to the proper runway and once it has landed, get
it to the proper gate.  Why then do we still have pilots?  Why should the
airlines spend good money on a human being in the cockpit?  The short answer
is that the human being has something that the technology does not have.
The human being has EXPERIENCE, JUDGEMENT, and HEART or COURAGE!!!!!  If
something goes wrong in the cockpit, the machines would respond in a
predictable pattern following the "rules" which may not apply in that
particular emergency.  On the other hand, the human being can exercise
his/her vast years of flying EXPERIENCE, can exercise JUDGEMENT in dealing
with that unique emergency situation, and will employ their HEART or COURAGE
to get the airplane down safely against all odds and logic.  Remember the
airplane that landed in Sou ix City?  It had lost all hydraulic pressure
which meant all the controls were inoperative.  The pilots figured out a way
to control the plane using the engines.  No machine could have figured that
out.  The pilots were able to crash land and 180 people out of 250 walked
away from the crash.
 
Remember the 747 whose cargo door blew out in flight with a full load of 500
passengers?  Against all odds, the pilots landed safely in Honolulu.  When
the Boeing engineers did the simulations, they said there was NO WAY that
the airplane should have made it.  But it did.  All passengers survived
because there were human beings in the cockpit who called on their
EXPERIENCE (one of the pilots was a glider pilot in his spare time and he
credited that experience as the reason he was able to land the plane),
JUDGEMENT about being able to think through the situation and act in a way
that was not prescribed but was effective and HEART or COURAGE because they
had a strong will to live and get the plane back despite all odds.
 
I don't want to belabor the point, but what I saw in the KODO incident was a
bunch of bureaucrats who wanted to play it safe, follow the rules, no matter
how outdated or illogical, and ignore the facts.  They did not call on
EXPERIENCE, JUDGEMENT or HEART.  They just blindly wanted to apply the
rules-kind of like a computer flying an airplane.
 
I guess it is a good thing that COMPUTERS DON'T FLY AIRPLANES.  It is also a
resounding inditement of why BUREAUCRATS SHOULDN'T FLY AIRPLANES either!!!!!
 
[MS]
[Posted in FML issue 1974]