many AA a/c grounded because their I/pads crashed

[britfrog 180]

sometime I think we are too reliant on technology

I have always hefted around a case with all the paper approach plates needed , just in case

I wonder if apple will pick up the tab

 

http://qz.com/393909/american-airlines-planes-are-grounded-because-their-pilots-ipads-have-crashed/

[allardjd 1,853]

They must have a keg on the desk and be partying hard at MS.

 

John

[mutley 4,488]

I saw a similar post on the BBC. They were using a free app from Jeppesen called FlightDeck but you have to be commercial or military in order to download it.

They had to taxi back to the terminal in order to get a wi-fi signal to update the program. 

[ddavid 149]

That's funny - my iPad 'pops out' every so often, maybe because the Flash part is too complicated (IOS V5.1?)

But when you link this to our discussion on hacking, things start to look just a little edgy (if that's the right 'street' word?)

Cheers - Dai.

[Gunner 69]

sometime I think we are too reliant on technology...

   We are...we just don't realize it.

[brett 2,299]

Well, we hate to say we told you so....

 

What about planes that were already flying? Seems odd that it only happened in a few cities and not everywhere.

[allardjd 1,853]

There's a lot we don't know here and I don't think we're ever going to get the details of this one, except in the broadest terms. Even that, when it comes, might be flavored with BS or be wholly BS. They will not want to publicize the nuts and bolts that caused this for the reasons we've been discussing in another thread.

 

I suspect that their software must be FAA certified. I assume that what's in the devices gets uploaded into the FMC. This is going to cause a manure-storm for FAA, AA and the software vendor (Jeppesen?), at least - possibly others. It will be interesting to see if The-Company-Named-for-Fruit ends up being wholly blameless, if we ever find out. This is much more likely a software issue than hardware, but you probably can't assume the OS isn't part of the problem - it may or may not be.

 

AA will want to sue someone for loss of revenue; pax will want to sue for being inconvenienced. The lawyers will, as always, be the big winners; the media, who will be hard-pressed to work the term "nose dive" into their reporting but will probably manage anyway, will be a distant second on the winner's list. Also-ran winners will be Microsoft and AA's competitors though they too may be adversely affected by whatever corrective/preventive measures the FAA and the NTSB may decide to put in place down the road.

 

I guess we should be thankful no crashes occurred as a result.

 

John

[Quickmarch 488]

 

Got this from a friend - way back when.................

[allardjd 1,853]

Yeah, one of Allard's Laws of Power Plant Maintenance is, "Endeavor to never own anything whose name begins with a lower-case letter "i".

 

John

[MartinW 0]

“The pilot told us when they were getting ready to take off, the iPad screens went blank, both for the captain and copilot, so they didn’t have the flight plan,” Toni Jacaruso, a passenger on American flight #1654 from Dallas to Austin, told Quartz.

"Didn't have the flight plan"... I thought the iPads just contained charts? So do they contain the actual flight plan too?

I recall, some airlines have been using a Windows XP system for years, so electronic EFB's aren't new.

Just read on PPRuNe that the iPad apps have been the most stable of all. I don't think it's a big deal to be honest, it'd a small fraction of the AA fleet that was affected, and many of the aircraft simply went back and picked up paper charts. A rare event, but of course the media will blow it out of proportion.