Comment by russdill
2 days ago
There is no possible way to confuse these two actions. There's a reason a wheel is attached to the gear lever.
2 days ago
There is no possible way to confuse these two actions. There's a reason a wheel is attached to the gear lever.
> There is no possible way to confuse these two actions.
This is obviously an overstatement. Any two regularly performed actions can be confused. Sometimes (when tired or distracted) I've walked into my bathroom intending to shave, but mistakenly brushed my teeth and left. My toothbrush and razor are not similar in function or placement.
That's just your brain associating the bathroom with the act of brushing your teeth, and therefore doing it automatically upon the trigger of entering the bathroom. It bears no resemblance to the accidental activation of a completely different button.
The other poster's correction: "it’s like brushing your teeth with razor" is apt. Touching the fuel cutoff switches is not part of any procedure remotely relevant to the takeoff, so there's no trigger present that would prompt the automatic behavior.
Now I'm trying to remember if I've ever picked up my razor and accidentally begun tooth brushing motions with it. Probably!
More relevantly, you seem to me to be unduly confident about what this pilot's associative triggers might and might not be.
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I agree. Has anyone here unplugged their mouse instead of pressing caps lock by mistake?
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It depends on how that person internalized and learned the behaviour. We store things differently.
If someone confused their steering wheel for the brake you'd probably be surprised - there are indeed errors that are essentially impossible for a competent person to make by mistake. No idea about the plane controls, though.
Even in modern "fly by wire" cars the steering wheel and brake pedal have an immediate effect. They are essentially directly connect to their respective control mechanisms. As far as I understand both of the plane controls on question just trigger sequences that are carried out automatically. So it's more like firing off the wrong backup script than scratching the wrong armpit.
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Technically an overstatement but not by much. Correctly restated, its highly unlikely these actions were confusing pilots. It's as if you mistook flushing your toilet twice when instead you wanted to turn on the lights in your bathroom.
I don't agree with the "twice". A frequently performed manipulation like the fuel cutoff (usually performed after landing) collapses down to a single intention that is carried out by muscle memory, not two consciously selected actions.
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If I were to apply OPs assertion to your actions it’s like brushing your teeth with razor. I guess that’s what they meant.
Not really, though. They're both (retracting the gear, and cutting off fuel) just toggle switches, as far as your brain's conscious mechanisms go. Doing them both on every flight dulls the part of your brain that cares about how they feel different to perform.
(I'm not strongly arguing against the murder scenario, just against the idea that it's impossible for it to be the confusion scenario.)
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Even humans have fixed action patterns. Much behavior is barely under conscious control.
this bathroom thing and various similar scenarios happens to me when im on weed.
Genuinely curious - could heavy marijuana use cause confusion between landing gear and fuel cutoff? Or some other drugs? (Wondering if they screen pilots for alcohol before they board an aircraft.)
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The other day I was eating dinner while chatting with my partner. I finished eating and needed to pee and throw away the fast food container. I walked straight to the bathroom, raised the toilet lid and threw the fast food container right into the toilet.
Weird mistakes can happen.
My partner got a good laugh out of it
Yep, I’ve taken clean dishes from the dishwasher and put them “away” in the refrigerator.
As I get older, I do some similar stuff, way more than past, even it is just once per month. And I guess way more when sugar is high than not. Don't know your age or medical profile and I am not a doctor, just keep an eye.
Sometimes people put cleaning liquid in the fridge.
Given a long enough span of time, every possible fuck up eventually will happen.
Because there's no difference in actions needed to do so. A similar mistake is throwing away a useful item while holding onto a piece of trash. The action is the same, it's just the item in question that's different.
This is not what happened here at all. The actions needed to activate the fuel cutoff switches are not similar to any other action a pilot would want to make during takeoff.
The form of the action isn’t necessarily what’s stored. They may have memorized something as “fourth action” or some other mnemonic mechanism
Probably time to design a plane that can't be sent into terrain in seconds by flipping a switch.
Now try to design a plane that also lets you rapidly shutoff fuel to both engines in case of fire.
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And a gun that doesn't let you point it at your face. And a knife that doesn't let you cut yourself. And a car that doesn't let you accelerate into a static object. And...
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"Sent into terrain in seconds by flipping a switch" is both too inaccurate and feels too cursory to take as impetus for serious design criticism, especially when the extensive preliminary report explicitly does not recommend any design changes with the current information.
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I want you to guess how many traffic accidents are caused by accidentally reversing when you intended to go forward.
Test your mental model against the real world. This is your opportunity.
Those are caused by operating the same lever in a slightly different manner. Not comparable to two completely differently designed levers placed far apart.
Same goes for accidental acceleration instead of braking. Two of the same kind of lever right next to each other.
Accidental acceleration while intending to turn on the wipers would be a fitting example, I don't think that happens though.
You’re just overlaying your mental model.
Think of the action as a stored function. Maybe they’ve always recalled the function as part of a certain list. It can be a case where the lists get confused rather than the modality of input (lever etc)
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Driving isn't trained to anywhere near the same standard.
Probably more training required to bake a cake than drive a car (hours wise).
If we had your typical driver fly a plane we'd be doomed to a lot of crashes.