Wen | Shi Yaqiong
Cover source | Visual China
Great sorrow and regret envelop every Chinese.
At about 14:38 on March 21, China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 was missing and crashing over Wuzhou City, Guangxi Province, while on a Mission from Kunming to Guangzhou. There were 123 passengers and 9 crew members on board.
A working group sent by the Civil Aviation Administration of China arrived that evening to guide and assist in the rescue and aftermath of the local scene. Local fire brigades, armed police, and southern theater troops have all sent rescue forces. At present, search and rescue and accident investigation are still ongoing.
In fact, the use of technology to make flight safer is the direction that the entire civil aviation industry has been working towards. The quest for safety never stops. Statistics can also reflect the progress of the aviation industry. In the past 70 years, the incidence of major accidents in the field of civil aviation has been showing a tendency to decrease. Over the past seven decades, the civil aviation industry has not only significantly outperformed cars, bicycles and walking in safety, but has also made significant progress compared to itself.
Since 1955, civil aircraft have been designed to continue to fly and land safely in the event of any single fault or predictable combination of faults.
According to the current design requirements, an aircraft has a probability of encountering a crash-level safety accident after flying for 1 million hours. Based on the average usage time of commercial aircraft today, the existing standard is designed with more than 10 times the redundancy in the time dimension.
Source: aviation-safety
Digital technologies represented by big data and artificial intelligence have also begun to enter the civil aviation field in order to further reduce the possibility of safety issues.
Predictive maintenance: Discover problems before they occur
Image source: Visual China
Predictive maintenance (Predictive Maintenance) is a state-based maintenance, based on a large number of data sensors integrated by modern aircraft, through the monitoring of the operating status of each component and system, predict the future development trend of equipment status, according to the state development trend of equipment and possible failure modes, advance development of predictive maintenance plans.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) noted in 2020 that the amount of data in all parts of the maintenance system is growing steadily through digitization. Driven by big data, predictive maintenance based on AI can predict failures and provide corresponding maintenance measures, greatly improving the efficiency and effectiveness of maintenance.
A number of aircraft manufacturers have launched corresponding predictive maintenance platforms, including Airbus SKYWISE, Lufthansa Technology's Avinatar, Air France-KLM Engineering's PROGNOS, etc. From the application cases of Airbus and Delta Air Lines, predictive maintenance can reduce the probability of unplanned events in air conditioning, cabin pressurization systems, power systems, landing gear, brakes and air supply systems by 10% to 50%.
Digital Twins: Full-process risk elimination during the design and operation phases
Image source: cadlog.com
Digital twins use physical models, sensor updates, operating history and other data to map the real physical world in the virtual space, reflecting the whole life cycle process of the corresponding physical equipment. In the aviation sector, digital twins can be used in R&D, manufacturing assembly and subsequent full-cycle aircraft operation and maintenance.
For example, in the design and development phase, each component can be matched to other components in the virtual space before it is actually processed. Through virtual simulation technology, performance and reliability are tested in modules such as simulated wind tunnels. The cost advantage of R&D based on the virtual world is enormous, and the R&D team has the opportunity to measure and verify more unexpected scenarios than before, providing a security guarantee for the final product finalization.
During the assembly and operational maintenance phases, real-time sensor-based data will also provide engineers with precise guidance to reduce the incidence of unexpected events.
According to previous media reports, dozens of Russian companies have jointly introduced digital twins into the design of aircraft engines.
Connecting Satellites: Let the sky never get out of touch
For a long time, people relied heavily on radar for aircraft surveillance. But when an aircraft is flying at sea or in remote areas, signal coverage issues make it difficult for ground control centers to control the precise position and actual operating status of the aircraft.
On Earth, these "surveillance blind spots" are mostly located in the sea, polar regions, mountains and deserts , etc. – they occupy more than 80% of the earth's area. In 2014, malaysia airlines MH370, which lost its signal at sea, was the most recent incident to "lose contact" outside radar range.
After the incident, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) introduced the Global Aviation Distress and Safety System (GADSS) standard, which shortens the tracking interval for aircraft locations to 15 minutes.
In 2013, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Proba-V satellite, which for the first time verified the feasibility of the satellite-based ADS-B system. At present, the "air-space connection" model has been widely used in civil aviation, which not only significantly reduces the risk of accidents such as missing contact, but also plays an important role in air traffic control, airport scene activity monitoring and other functions.
Digital Sky: More than a single plane
At a meeting hosted last year by the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization (CANSO), experts from Europe noted that navigation service providers could not accomplish the integration of the entire air traffic management system through individual efforts. To this end, they proposed the concept of "Digital Sky Europe", which uses the latest digital technologies to transform Europe's aviation infrastructure so that it can safely and effectively cope with the growth and diversity of future air traffic
By incorporating and consolidating data from all players, including airports, airlines and carriers, the integrated system is expected to provide a more flexible traffic management model to better cope with disruptions, air traffic traffic growth and the future of aircraft diversity.
More comprehensive data will lead to improved safety across the aviation system and provide conditions for deeper cooperation in airline operations, airport management, and aircraft maintenance.
It is believed that in the future, the advancement of technology can further improve the safety of flight.
But even so, no one can guarantee 100% trouble-free. The aviation industry is probably the most complex system for humanity in the field of industrial "mass production", and no one can "exhaust" all possibilities before an accident occurs. Pilots remain one of the most important guarantees of passenger and people's safety.
After the accident, a picture of the chat history was widely circulated on the Internet.
The image comes from the Internet
It is precisely through the efforts of these generations of civil aviation people that civil aviation users can get a safer and better experience. They always practice real life with a high degree of professionalism and self-esteem, perseverance and a sense of responsibility to explore the magical and wonderful blue sky.
We believe that disasters do not stop there. In the next time, civil aviation will use all means to prevent it from happening again.
For example, on June 30, 1956, United Airlines Flight 718 collided with Trans World Airlines Flight 2 over the Grand Canyon of the United States, and because the two aircraft were far away from the radar range of Los Angeles Airport, air traffic controllers did not know the exact location of the aircraft and could only write reports in an estimated manner.
The worst commercial airliner crash in history at the time made people realize that air traffic control command within the airport limits alone was far from guaranteeing "traffic order". This prompted the civil aviation authority to invest $250 million to upgrade the air traffic management system, which allowed aircraft to fly only in the prescribed air corridors (i.e. routes). The FAA, which is now the airworthiness certificate for commercial aircraft, was thus established.
For another example, on December 28, 1978, after United Flight 173 was lowered from the landing gear, only two of the three green lights representing the nose wheel and the main landing gear lit up, and the aircraft circled around the airport for an hour due to the insistence of the chief and deputy captain to inspect and troubleshoot them. Although the flight engineer on board gently warned that fuel was running out quickly, the captain stubbornly waited a long time before starting the final entry. Eventually the plane ran out of fuel and crashed in the suburbs.
In 1980, with the help of NASA, the civil aviation community introduced the first Crew Resource Management system, which became a standard training model for communication and collaboration among crew members to deal with problems and was universally used worldwide.
We believe that after this accident, there may be more safety reflections and measures in the civil aviation field.
The above, whether emotional or rational, is far from enough to express the true emotions in our hearts. Words and sensibilities appear so weak in the face of our misfortunes, and words and reason appear so powerless in the face of our suffering. None of this can express our deep love for the deceased, nor can it express our sorrow for the unfortunate death that we admire.
We will always remember them, the fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters of each of these families who have been killed. They never die ， they just fly higher。
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