In the 1970s and ’80s, working for Airbus, Mr. Ziegler and his colleagues perfected a revolutionary system known as “fly-by-wire control,” marrying electrical circuits and digital computers to make almost perfect flying machines. “Within the limits of physics and structural science,” Mr. Langewiesche writes, “Ziegler and his colleagues identified the wrinkles of conventional handling and mostly ironed them out.” The airplanes that resulted — including the Airbus A320 — are not only easy to fly and filled with redundancies that make mechanical backup systems unnecessary, but they will also not let pilots make certain mistakes. The airplane “will intervene to keep people alive,” Mr. Langewiesche writes.
Because these rare interventions cannot be overridden, they are not popular with all pilots. The fly-by-wire system wasn’t designed to protect passengers from people like Sully, Mr. Langewiesche writes, but from “people at the low end of the scale, who occasionally will be at the controls of any airplane that is widely sold and flown.
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