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Further Comment on the IEEE Spectrum article concerning MCAS
Gregory Travis has responded to my comments in the Risks Forum Digest at https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/31/22#subj23 . He includes a wealth of interesting new information. He only disagrees with one of the points I made concerning the accuracy of his article, namely the categorisation of the frequency of failure of AoA sensors. I said Travis suggests AoA sensors…
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IEEE Spectrum on Possible Software Involvement in Two Recent Airliner Crashes
(This article is a modified version of one which appeared in the ACM Risks Forum Digest, Issue 31.21) Gregory Travis published an article on 2019-04-18 on the involvement of the MCAS software on Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in two recent crashes, Lion Air flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, in IEEE Spectrum. The article…
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Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities in Commercial Aviation
The US Government Accounting Office has published a report into the US Federal Aviation Administration’s possible vulnerabilities to cyberattack. One of my respected colleagues, John Knight, was interviewed for it. (While I’m at it, let me recommend highly John’s inexpensive textbook Fundamentals of Dependable Computing for Software Engineers. It has been very well thought through…
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Thoughts After 4U 9525 / GWI18G
It is astonishing, maybe unique, about the Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 event how quickly it seems to have been explanatorily resolved. Egyptair Flight 990 (1999) took the “usual time” with the NTSB until it was resolved, and at the end certain participants in the investigation were still maintaining that technical problems with elevator/stabiliser had not…
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Germanwings Flight 4U 9525
19:15 CEST on Friday 3rd April The BEA have recovered the Flight Data Recorder and read it. They issued a communiqué. Here is my translation of the pertinent paragraph: At a first reading it appears that the pilot in the cockpit used the autopilot to command a descent to an altitude of 100 ft, then,…
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Security Vulnerabilities in Commercial-Aircraft SATCOM Kit
There has been some press in advance of last week’s Black Hat conference speaking of vulnerabilities in commercial-aircraft flight management systems and possible implications for the safety of flight, for example in a Reuters article by Jim Finkle from August 4. The article is technically fairly accurate on the claims made and the manufacturer’s response,…
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Don Hudson and PBL on the ITU’s proposal for real-time flight data transmission
The International Telecommunications Union has been conducting its four-yearly meeting. Its president has apparently promised everyone to make possible the real-time transmission of flight data from commercial transport aircraft in flight. This has been supported by the Malaysian delegate. All according to this news report: MH370: ITU Commits to Integrate Flight Data Recorders with Big…
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Software Quality and Fitness for Purpose
Following on to my recent post on certification requirements for commercial aircraft, John Rushby and I have been discussed a paper of his, on commercial aircraft software and the guidelines DO178B, in the invited session on certification at EMSOFT 2011. John is concerned with whether DO178B “works”, that is, leads to high-quality code which is…
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Coda, Interdisciplinary Work, and Scientific Publishing
It sounds like a mish-mash, doesn’t it? will probably read like a mish-mash, too. Because true interdisciplinary work always looks that way, I think. That is one of the main points I wish to get across. But first, let me get there. Concerning my last post, Leslie noted that the condition he labels “FAA requirement”…