Actually this may not be as far fetched a scenario as most will think it is.
Sure, it’s unlikely that you end up with the whole thing in your hand – although in an Airbus you can easily take off the little steering wheel that you use to control the plane on ground. But it’s probably not impossible to break the fly-by-wire controls by, say, spilling your full cup of coffee upside down over the sidestick.
Luckily, Airbus thought this through.
[A whole mechanism is involved with an Airbus sidestick. The chance that something may happen that’s not kosher there is not zero point zero.]
[The tiller, or little steering wheel that controls the nosewheel steering during taxi, is easily removed by pulling out the pin that’s spring-loaded at the back of it. In better times and in more relaxed and less professional airlines, it could have been the source of jokes: give it to the flight attendant and ask her to hold the steering wheel for awhile.]
- It would depend on exactly what kind of failure you get in the sidestick. It may disconnect the autopilot if it gives a continuous or intermittent bogus input, where the ions floating around in your ex-latte make a false contact. If not: try using the autopilot for the rest of the flight. That makes things easiest.
- Otherwise, the other pilot can easily take over by pressing a takeover pushbutton.
- The other pilot can also disconnect the other sidestick permanently (if it gives an unwanted input) by keeping the takeover pushbutton pressed for at least 40 seconds. It then doesn’t matter what the other sidestick commands, it will be disregarded.
[The red button sticking out is the one to press to disconnect the autopilot and/or to take control from the other pilot. An aural voice will shout “priority left” or “priority right”.]
[In front of the pilots are these “sidestick priority” lights. Green comes on in front of the one with priority, in case the other one is giving an input, red comes on in front of the one who has lost priority because the other pilot pressed the red priority button on his stick. Here the captain (sitting left) took control away from the First Officer (sitting right). It doesn’t matter what that stick does then. If the FO isn’t giving an input, the green light will be off, but as long as the FO’s stick is taken out, that red arrow remains illuminated. Obviously the situation can be reversed: the FO taking control from the captain.]
[Here both pilots are giving an input. If one pilot then swears he’s not touching the stick, it’s time for the other one to keep his priority button pressed for 40 seconds, so the one stick remains disconnected (and the red arrow comes on then), because the stick is obviously giving a faulty input.]
Continue the flight as planned for the rest. No big deal. Though if after the 40 second disconnect you can’t get the autopilot back, there’s something else fishy going on, and you probably don’t want to cross the Pacific in manual flight for 8 or 9 hours.
Plan on the pilot with the working stick to do the landing, obviously. Afterwards, write a report and try to explain how your cappuccino ended up inside the stick’s mechanism. (Actually, there’s plenty of rubber to protect that, so you’ll really have done something silly or malicious then.)
Author – Bruno Gilissen ( Airline Captain )
