Software Bug Caused Qantas Airbus A330 To Nose-Dive 603
pdcull writes "According to Stuff.co.nz, the Australian Transport Safety Board found that a software bug was responsible for a Qantas Airbus A330 nose-diving twice while at cruising altitude, injuring 12 people seriously and causing 39 to be taken to the hospital. The event, which happened three years ago, was found to be caused by an airspeed sensor malfunction, linked to a bug in an algorithm which 'translated the sensors' data into actions, where the flight control computer could put the plane into a nosedive using bad data from just one sensor.' A software update was installed in November 2009, and the ATSB concluded that 'as a result of this redesign, passengers, crew and operators can be confident that the same type of accident will not reoccur.' I can't help wondering just how a piece of code, which presumably didn't test its input data for validity before acting on it, could become part of a modern jet's onboard software suite?"
Bad software (Score:5, Funny)
This, from the same company, while building the A380 megajet decided to upgrade half of their facilities to plant software version 5, while the other half decided to stick with version 3/4. And did not make the file formats compatible between the two versions, resulting in multi-month delays of production as a result.
Point being, in huge projects, simple things get overlooked (with catastrophic results). My favorite is when we slammed a $20 million NASA/ESA probe in to the surface of mars at high speed because some engineer forgot to convert mph in to kph (or vice-versa).
It is the Programmer's Fault (Score:1, Funny)
It is clearly the fault of the programmer. They should be held liable for incidents like this. Management tries their best, but ultimately it always comes down to the coders. The company can be protected by the ToS, but not the lazy programmers.
How did it happen? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:it's more complicated than that (Score:4, Funny)
A better use of psychology will be to examine the heads of anyone who wants to throw maths out of the window and engage psychologists when designing AI algorithms.
Re:What about Google driverless car? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What about Google driverless car? (Score:3, Funny)
I don't think anyone's out to force you to use a driverless car.
But if you do aquire one, don't be suprised if one morning you get in and find the interior is all spaced out white with whispy grey lines that lack contrast.
Re:What about Google driverless car? (Score:5, Funny)
Except that the designers of the software didn't take all possible situations into account. For example, any Fly By Wire Airbus will automatically pitch up if speed increases too far above the maximum airspeed, even when flown manually. This may be a good idea when the airplane is diving (the most likely cause for overspeed), but not when it's straight and level with other traffic immediately above!
Except if that other traffic is also an Airbus.
Re:What about Google driverless car? (Score:5, Funny)
Even on the road today this is an issue. Doesn't matter how good of a driver you are. If one other idiot on the road is driving crazy, you could get killed no matter how you drive. Weakest link and all that...
Everyone who drives faster than me is a maniac. Everyone who drives slower is an idiot.