Well researched and very informative. Technology is a wonderful thing but still needs human thought and reaction to give best results.

Chilling and thrilling! I read this book after reading three murder mysteries in a row, and this book was no less spine chilling! It is not for the faint hearted- I could feel myself worrying about the issues in the book the next time I board a flight. I also felt myself in awe of what all the pilots go through while in the cockpit. Jack J. Hersch’s writing is very persuasive in making the point that automation is all pervasive in airplanes but it can lead to far more dangers because of the complacency it develops. I can easily agree with him since that is the common issue with anything that seems to make life easy - it has a flip side. AI, technology etc are all tools which help with a particular purpose but can lead to side consequences that are crucial to know.

Jack does well to get to the details of the birth of the automation from the early gyroscope invention to the latest airplanes and their deep automation. At places he also explains a lot of the technicalities of the plane and the way it flies and is controlled, which I agree is needed to inform the readers to be able to fully appreciate the concerns he later raises, but I was a bit too bored to really read and understand those portions, I was more keen to see his analysis and description of the crashes - which he does beautifully (maybe this was my problem coming from murder novels!). He does a good job of showing cases where crashes could be attributed to automation in the planes. He also dives into good research which shows how human factors are impacted by such automation and this makes his case stronger. He also shows cases where crashes were averted in spite of automation trying to play spoilsport! I like it that he also covers at the end of the book the landing of the flight on the Hudson River by Capt Sully.

He does well to also continually appreciate the fact that he is only talking about a tiny slice of the aviation industry - there are far many more good pilots and benefits that automation has brought. But when emergencies happen, it is the point where things can go completely wrong.

I loved reading the book, about a topic I had no clue about but was always curious about. The book makes you think and I attribute that to the great writing and arguments provided therein. Highly recommended read in my view!

In this book, Mr. Hersch details the wonders of aviation automation and how it has made the pilot’s life much easier and flying much safer. Safer, that is, when it works and when dependence on it it hasn’t made the pilot’s perishable flying skills rust from lack of use. Sigh …

First off there is a short history of airplanes and how they slowly acquired all the gizmos and gadgets that fill modern cockpits and tell the flight crew the vital things they need to know such as airspeed, altitude, attitude, among many, many others. I didn’t know a lot of this information so it was interesting but experienced pilots may feel otherwise.

Then Hersch began using past crashes as examples of what can go wrong and why. Some of these flights are more well known such as QF 72, Air France 447 and US Airways 1549, while others such as Turkish Airways 1951 and QF 32 are less so. He saves the most time and effort to explain why Boeing built the 737- MAX, the skinflint and (frankly) inexcusable reason it didn’t tell pilots or airlines about the computer automation that was installed in them, and the horrific results for Lion Air 601 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.

But automation alone isn’t the cause of the problems. Pilot overreliance on automation to the point of losing critical flying skills bears some blame as well. Lots of studies have and are being done on how pilots interact with and respond to automation when it’s working and when it stops working. A sad thing seen again and again is that with all the warnings, bells, and messages that computer programs – via the electronic surfaces of a plane – can deluge pilots with during an emergency, often those programs fail to tell the pilots what’s actually wrong.

Automation is here to stay. It can help us or kill us. Unlike a factory foreman on the ground running an assembly line, the pilot of a plane flying at 500+ mph and 35,000 feet in the air can’t just shut down an Airbus or Boeing plane to figure out what’s wrong. Flying is safer than driving a car but it’s still got a ways to go. B

This book may make you think twice before boarding a civilian airliner. How much does one really think about all the automation that goes into these massive planes?

Told with plenty of knowledge and history of aviation and several examples of what can go wrong on a flight, don’t ever let your guard down on the human component. Even in today’s planes fly themselves motif the pilot can and will always be the difference. Pilots, never lose your focus!