Autopilots, or auto-flight systems, are used to varying degrees during a flight, depending on aircraft type, the operating environment, the airline's own operating procedures and the individual pilots. Even with these systems engaged, the pilot still performs a number of important functions vital to the safe management of the aircraft.
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However, they can also allow pilots to mentally disconnect. A recent flight simulator study conducted by NASA's Ames Research Center on a group of pilots, each with an average of 18,000 hours of flight time, concluded that reliance on autoflight systems had eroded the pilots' ability to make complex cognitive decisions. Further, the more automated a flight was, the more pilots' minds tended to wander, leading to a kind of attention deficit disorder that can prove fatal.
The crash of an Air France Airbus A330 in 2009 with the loss of all 228 on board and a Continental Connection flight over New York that killed 50 just a few months before were both attributed to pilot error. In both cases, when the autoflight system detected a problem, it disconnected itself and alerted the pilot, as it is programmed to do, but both pilots made decisions that caused their aircraft to stall and crash.
In this context, it seems appropriate to ask is this what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370? Were the pilots asleep at the wheel?
