Recent domestic crashes are a reminder to airplane manufacturers that safety must be considered first when designing highly automated airplane with complicated software that might require computer savvy pilots to operate. Experience show that automated household gadgets such as computers/laptops, cell phones, TV, etc. could confuse and rattle an average computer/electronic literate individual sitting in the living room or office. Comparing a rattled and confused person in the living room with a pilot in the air with hundreds of passengers on board, struggling to discern and resolve abnormal software signals within seconds sends a cold and paralyzing shiver to the spine. Evidence show that air travel is safe and innovations in aviation and aerospace engineering and other related airplane technology have made air travel safe. However, the speed of shifting from semi-manual operation of an airplane to highly automated airplane must be at a pace commensurate to the computer and software skills of the pilots who operates the minimal manual components of the airplane. It is the opinion of the author that airplane software must be designed in such a way that any abnormal signal must not lead to accidents or crashes. The author postulates the below suggestions that might be interpreted as science fiction, but could be researched and converted into potential operable proposition.

The Green Box

Whenever a crash occurs, most investigations require data from the recovered black box to determine the possible causes of the crash and potential solutions to prevent another crash. In a similar situation, manufactures of airplanes must consider designing pre-crash brain box called the “green box” to assist the pilots to quickly detect, interpret, and resolve abnormal signals that could lead to fatal outcome. Because of the urgency that might be needed to resolve abnormal signal in the air, the green box must have a component to accurately guide the pilot on what to do and the time interval needed to resolve the issue. The green box must also have an option to default to self-correct mode on its own accord or default to manually operating system that pilots understands better depending on the urgency of the issue. For example, green box self-correct mode is automatically activated by itself during take-off and initial climb issues that requires urgent mitigation, while issues during Cruz phase of the flight might default to manual control with audio or signal guidance of the pilot. In the first instance, the airplane could not crash because the auto-mode had mitigated the pilot’s manual slow response.

Artificial Intelligence

With massive amounts of data collected during the design and improvement of airplane functions in the last century and huge amount of data collected during the transition from the era of risky air travel to the current era of safe air travel, computers could be designed to collate, interpret, and quickly resolve emergencies in the airplane in the air within a matter of seconds to prevent deadly outcomes. In the opinion of the author, aviation and air travel require urgent deployment of artificial intelligence to move air travel from safe to near perfection. Even though artificial intelligence is likely to be indispensable to all aspects of human activities, some activities could begin to reap the benefits sooner than others. It is therefore prudent to commission computer and software experts and charge them with a time-based task to transition from current status to artificially intelligent airplanes.