Monday, May 4, 2015

Potentially critical bug found in Boeing 787

After the tragedy of Germanwings, incidents regarding airplanes have been frequently reported. It is natural that authorities and mass media pay attention to similar issues to the past incident. Especially, since the case of Germanwings made hundreds of victims, it is unavoidable that the inspection against airline companies become strict. And it is admirable to improve the safety of the flight.

My past entry: German Airbus crashed in France

My past entry: Air Canada accident

My past entry: Thailand airlines banned due to security concern

My past entry: Near crash case after lightning strikes an airplane

Very recently, the US air safety authority pointed out an error in the software installed on the Boeing 787 control system. This type of plane equips four generator-control units. If they fell into the fail-safe mode at the same time, the aircraft should lose the control entirely, even if in the sky.

The Guardian: US aviation authority: Boeing 787 bug could cause 'loss of control'

According to a Boeing spokesman, it would be unrealistic that this critical failure is actuated as far as usual maintenance is properly performed. Considering the condition of the occurrence of the bug, I agree with this opinion. Boeing is updating the software to fix the bug.

Our concern is other critical errors potentially not being detected yet. Boeing 787 was also questioned in the past about the battery issue, causing the delay of the launch. I found the trip on this plane very comfortable. Nonetheless, the matter of the safety should not be underestimated.


An airplane equips computers. And you know computers have numerous bugs. The more complex the program is, the more frequently an error occurs. No one can fix all of the bug in Windows OS. Perhaps, the safety of the airplanes has been at risk, nowadays, though I do not want to believe it.

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