Just When You Thought Planes Were Safe: Airbus Redesigned Cockpits Because Engines Were Shutting Down When Pilots Spilled Drinks
After spilled drinks caused a pair of midair engine shutdowns, Airbus has redesigned a crucial cockpit system in its flagship A350 wide-body jet: It has made the center control panel, which sits below a console that pilots often use as a makeshift table, liquid-resistant.
The redesign came after two incidents in which an engine unexpectedly shut down in the middle of a flight, after drinks were spilled onto that control panel.
The cupholders in the Airbus A350 are smaller than those found in other planes, and pilots have tended to use the center console as a makeshift table for their drinks. And as anyone who's nursed a hot beverage while flying must know, putting a cup on a flat surface in midair is a good way to prompt a spill.
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Dare I beat the age-old theme of that this website has built its brand on TO DEATH, but here we go again: how has the airline industry not moved past this. I’m tired of lumping this into a ‘we’ situation. It’s not we. It’s not us. It’s not anybody but them. Them being the people building the planes, selling the planes, and finally putting us on the planes.
This falls into that category. If spilling a drink means the plane you built crashes, then what the fuck are you doing building planes. It’s unacceptable. Nobody thought to make the cupholders big enough in the first place? Nobody thought to have backup plan if a coffee went sidewise in a mode of travel that is NOTORIOUSLY BUMPY? I don’t understand how something like that makes it past the first trial run. I want it on record that I think every new plan should be tested by having a bunch of nerds in lab coats just pouring every brand of drink a pilot has ever been known to drink down the controls. If Sully dreamt about parching his thirst with it, it gets thrown on the buttons.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that this was fixed. But, then again, how many times have we had this talk? Better yet, how many more times will we have it? It’s absurd. Here I am thinking that every problem that I could ever come up with has been accounted for, and time and time again I’m proved wrong. They’re banking on us being sheeple. What’s the whole premise that the scientific method is based on? Something like you can test something 999 times but you’re banking on the fact that it might be different on number 1000? Well the commercial flyer is built to function in the complete opposite fashion. You’re proven to me time and time again that you’ve somehow overlooked that the most basic malfunction can be catastrophic for human life? And yet, here I am, ready to bet the house that with this near tragedy you’ve finally found the last of them. Maybe this is the quality we deserve after all.
