Chilling Questions Arise on High-Tech Cockpit Meltdown

Shortly before his Aeroperu Boeing 757 crashed into the Pacific Ocean, pilot Erick Schreiber complained that he had lost all of his navigation instruments. “The computers have gone crazy,” he said.

“I don’t have any instruments,” Schreiber told the control tower in Lima, according to an official who heard the tape early this month.

Moments later, he said: “What’s happening? What altitude am I at? Why is my ground crash alarm on? Am I over land or sea?”

Schreiber tried to make it back to the Lima airport in the early morning darkness, but his plane crashed into the ocean about 28 minutes later, killing the pilot and 69 others aboard.

It was not the first time air traffic controllers have heard such chilling words. Investigators believe that cockpit computers played a role in two other 757 crashes in the last year, claiming 349 lives.

In another incident last May, the pilot of a Martinair Boeing 767, a sister ship to the 757, was forced to make an emergency landing in Boston after his computerized instruments gave erroneous readings and then died. In that case, controllers at Logan International Airport steered the pilot, flying six miles up in sunny skies, to a safe landing.

Conditions couldn’t have been more different for Schreiber and his co-pilot. Their 757, bound from Lima to Santiago, Chile, had taken off at 12:42 a.m. Oct. 2, surrounded by clouds and mist, and was in the air just five minutes when Schreiber reported problems.

Although investigators still do not know what caused the trouble with either plane, there was a similar symptom: a breakdown in the planes’ revolutionary “glass cockpit.”

The computerized instrument panels--color television screens that inform pilots about their plane’s course and mechanical functions--are used in most modern aircraft.

They have redundant electronics and are backed up with several tried-and-true manual instruments. But a sudden loss of the computerized images can stun pilots--much like what apparently happened to Schreiber.

Some critics say the electronics, which allow a pilot to plot his entire trip and even land his aircraft, also can cause pilots to lower their guard.

“What happens is guys get focused on the magic and forget the plane is still flying,” said a veteran 757/767 pilot who spoke on the condition neither he nor his airline be identified.

“There is clearly a tendency when there is a problem with the magic for a guy to try to trouble-shoot the magic, and that’s not a good thing because your head is down and you’re preoccupied,” the pilot said.

A Boeing spokeswoman said she knew of nothing to indicate that pilots of “glass cockpit” planes tend to rely too greatly on their computers.

“How an individual pilot responds, who can forecast that?” Susan Bradley said. “But I know that we take great pains to train the people who fly our products.”

One part of that training says to simply turn off the flashy electronics when there is a problem and rely instead on longtime flying tools such as a magnetic compass and a mechanical airspeed indicator.

The 757/767 pilot said that switch is sometimes harder for younger pilots who learned to fly in computerized aircraft. The Martinair pilot, for example, was 37, although he had been with the airline for eight years.

“They forget that as long as the wings are there and there’s no problem with the power plant, you can still fly,” said the veteran pilot. “You just have to make the mental shift.”

Robert Hancock, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator leading the Martinair probe, said “it’s too early to tell” whether there is any connection between the two incidents.

He said finding a problem with the 767 has been like locating trouble in “a long line of Christmas-light bulbs.”

Investigators removed about 20 components from the Martinair plane before allowing it to return to service. It now flies with a computer that is monitoring its electronics.

Although the 767 and 757 are different airplanes, they went into service a year apart and their cockpits typically are identical. Their instrument panels look like a video arcade, with small monitors spread in front of the pilot and co-pilot. The backup instruments are off to the side.

The Martinair failure was the first with a 767 reported to Boeing. Although investigators still are not sure what happened with the Aeroperu 757, Schreiber’s report of a complete navigational failure would be the first for that aircraft.

There are now 721 such aircraft in use around the world, but this month’s crash was the third loss of a 757 in less than a year.

The first occurred Dec. 20, when an American Airlines flight from Miami to Cali, Colombia, slammed into a mountainside after its pilots punched in the wrong navigational code. The crash killed 160; four others survived.

The second occurred Feb. 6, when an Alas Nacionales flight plunged into the waters off the Dominican Republic, killing 189. Investigators believe the pilots cut their speed after receiving a false warning, but the investigation is still open.

“As far as we know, the three accidents are unrelated,” said Boeing spokeswoman Cheryl Addams.