We often talk about the growth and development of the AI era , and that

one day in the future it will be intelligent enough and have its own stance to fight
against humans. This sounds absurd and seems to only appear in science fiction
movies. However, history has proven the exact opposite. It is a story from 16 years
ago, on a journey across the Indian Ocean, strange sounds continuously echoed in
the cockpit. A series of error messages were displayed on the screen. The world’s
most modern passenger plane plunged as if possessed. Passengers were thrown and
lifted into the air. The computer system refused all control of the cockpit. It began to
rebel and seize control of the plane. The crew had to land immediately. There was
only a desolate airport and not enough safety equipment. The battle between
humans and artificial intelligence they created. Who is the victor? Welcome back to
the final station. Right now, join us on a flight considered the most terrifying in
history. Flight number 72 of Qantas Airways. October 7, 2008, Changi International
Airport, Singapore. A busy Monday morning at one of the busiest airports on the
planet. On the runway at that time, an Airbus A330 was docked. It was being
refueled, undergoing final checks, preparing for a 5-hour flight to Perth, Australia. As
the most versatile and efficient wide-body aircraft of Airbus, inheriting the design
excellence of the legendary A300, the advanced Fly-by-Wide system of Airbus A320.
The A330 naturally became the darling of most airlines around the world, owning a
perfect safety profile, proven through millions of flight hours globally. Today, it will
be operated by 12 crew members, 9 attendants and 3 pilots. The captain is Kevin
Sullivan, 53, a former top gun pilot of the US Navy. Graduated from the University of
Colorado with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering. In 1978, the captain
was appointed as a pilot of the F-14 Phantom and was deployed to the Indian Ocean
battlefield. With excellence and innate talent, in 1986, he officially joined Qantas,
becoming one of the excellent pilots flying the largest passenger planes of the
airline. Throughout his career, the captain has accumulated 13,592 flight hours, of
which 2,453 hours are on the Airbus A330. The first officer is Peter Lipsett, who has a
total of 11,650 flight hours, of which 1,870 hours are on the Airbus A330. As it is a
long flight, there is also the presence of a co-pilot named Ross Hales in the cockpit,
who only has about 2,070 flight hours, of which 480 hours are on the Airbus A330. At
9:32 am, after all 303 passengers were present on the plane, QF72 officially received
the takeoff order. At 10:10, the plane climbed to a cruising altitude of 37,000 feet.
Reached a maximum speed of 954 km per hour. Most passengers unbuckled their
seat belts, enjoyed meals and rested. The smoothness of the modern plane helped
the children fall asleep. Everything seemed to be going peacefully like that. Until
12:40, when the plane was flying over the Indian Ocean in Western Australia, the
haunting moments officially began. The autopilot suddenly disconnected. Just a few
seconds later, the plane’s lights flickered off and on, the loud alarm sounded from
inside the cockpit. The central control panel, a series of error messages were
continuously sent to the screen. The captain was horrified to realize a crazy situation.
Something that in his 30 years of flying, from military to civilian, he had never encountered
or been trained before. Over speed and under speed warnings simultaneously sounded. How
can a plane fly at maximum speed and at minimum speed at the same time? It’s absurd. The
captain observed the horizon through the cockpit and quickly cross-checked the equipment.
Clearly, the plane was still operating very normally. The captain asked the co-pilot to call the
first officer ,who was on a scheduled vacation , returned to the cockpit. In cases like this, the
pilot will restart the computer system or wait for it to restart itself. However, with QF-72, it
seemed that an invisible hand was controlling the plane, making the pilots completely
powerless, unable to do anything more. And when no one could explain what was happening.
At 12:42:27, the nose of the plane suddenly plunged 8.4 degrees below the horizon. The giant
A330 plunged down, falling nearly 200m in 2 seconds. The plane accelerated quickly, the
sound of the wind became more and more terrifying, at least 60 passengers not wearing seat
belts and the attendants were sucked up to the ceiling of the plane. Others were bumped and
hung up. Suitcases were spilled all over the aisles. In the cockpit, the pilots were also pulled
from their seats, but they were lucky to be held back by the seat belts. Captain Sullivan
intended to manually control the joystick, but gave up. Because he knew that changing the
mode at this time could cause the plane to rise and become uncontrollable. A few more
seconds passed, when the blue of the sea appeared right in front of him. The captain thought
his life was over. Perhaps the biggest deadline of a person’s life is coming to him. However,
the captain did not easily surrender. The responsibility for the lives of more than 300 people,
immediately woke up and helped him regain his spirit. Despite the over speed and under
speed alarms still ringing loudly. Sullivan calmly lowered the plane a bit, before trying to
bring it back up to 11,000m. On the side, co-pilot Hales was also frantically clearing error
messages on the screen. At 12:43, the computer system seemed to no longer want to joke. It
returned to normal operation, the autopilot was activated again. The Airbus A330 took off
and returned to the original flight level. first officer Peter finally returned to the cockpit. He
had a broken nose but still went in to replace the co-pilot. In a short time, the flight crew had
promptly detected Prim, one of the three computer systems controlling the plane and
considered the brain of the autopilot was having problems. They immediately proceeded to
restart it. However, the silence only lasted exactly 3 minutes. At 12:45:08, the Airbus
continued to plunge to the ground as if possessed. Within 15 seconds, it fell freely 122
meters. Passengers were once again thrown onto the floor of the plane. Even those who had
fastened their seat belts were also lifted into the air. Screams and cries filled the cabin. Many
people even prayed that death would come faster and they would not have to suffer any more
pain. The captain frantically pulled the joystick but it still did not respond. The feeling of
helplessness overwhelmed his mind. The thing that a pilot fears the most on a plane is losing
control of himself. When an incident occurs, while Boeing allows their pilots to intervene,
and have more options with the flight control computer system. Then for Airbus, this is
completely the opposite. The computer system will refuse any impact from the pilot, and try
to control the plane in the way it thinks will be safest for the flight. The situation became
more serious, just then, a flight attendant also sent a report to the cockpit, that many
passengers were seriously injured, they needed medical care. Upon receiving the
information, the captain decisively deactivated the autopilot system and decided to
manually control the plane. It was time for him to regain control at any cost. Mayday!
Mayday! Mayday! This is Qantas 72. We are having a problem with the computer
system, request to divert straight to Learmont. Confirm! The runway will be prepared,
QF 72. Do you have any other problems? Request to prepare an ambulance, there are
many people who need medical care. The captain sent an emergency signal and
requested permission to land at the desolate air base in Learmont, Western Australia,
36 km to the south, where he had previously participated in training courses when he
was a navy soldier. But that was not easy, the plane was in a very bad condition and
the crew was not sure if it would suddenly plunge again. No one can guarantee that
the crazy machine will not have another attack. The closer to the ground, the less
time and space they have to correct mistakes. When the first officer entered the
landing point of the plane, the computer system continuously reported errors. He
tried to enter data manually but to no avail. The first officer called back to the
Maintenance Department of the observation in Sydney via the satellite
communication system to try to seek help. But they also couldn’t explain what was
happening. With no other options, the captain had to fumble to find the landing gear
at an altitude of 3000m. Below is the deep Indian Ocean and the captain is not
allowed to make any mistakes. He set up a call to the cabin to reassure the
passengers. The flight attendants with their full injuries were trying to assist the
passengers back to their seats. After the emergency call from the captain, the air
traffic control agency in Melbourne sent a series of warnings to the authorities across
the country. Western Australia Police and a small Ishmael medical center urgently
carried out preparations. Due to visibility restrictions, the captain had the plane fly
two laps in the sky to check the situation. Both engines were still operating, but the
crew could not tell whether the landing gear and flaps could be deployed in the
correct position. The simultaneous loss of automatic brakes and lift prevention parts
when the plane is on the runway is also a big challenge. Each slow minute passed,
Learmont airport appeared in front of them. The captain clenched his lips and began
to apply all the experience he had gained while working in the air force. Initially, he
reduced power and let the plane plunge onto the runway in a spiral. Then, continue
to lower the nose of the jet and bring the plane back to idle mode at the final
approaches down the runway. The length of the runway is perfectly suitable. At
exactly 1:32 pm, 50 minutes after the first plunge, the plane landed successfully. Like
a miracle, all passengers survived. Everyone applauded in admiration as they escaped
from the door of death. The captain sat calmly in the cockpit. Ladies and Gentlemen,
this is the captain. We are safe. Thank you all for your patience and please forgive us.
Please sit in your seat. The medical team is coming and supporting you. After
speaking, the captain went into the cockpit to check the situation. The scene was
fierce, the interior of the cabin was almost destroyed. The incident on the plane
caused all 115 passengers to be injured. Among them, 12 people were seriously
injured. 2 people suffered spinal injuries. Male flight attendant Fujimaya had to suffer
lifelong disabilities. Many positions on the ceiling of the plane were also damaged.
Some parents hugged their bruised children, with reproachful eyes as if to say to the
captain, what did he do to them. The captain couldn’t explain anything, because even
he didn’t know what had just happened to the plane. The cause of the accident. Right
after the incident, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, ATSB, with the support of
the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Qantas Airways, the French Bureau of
Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety and the manufacturer Airbus conducted
an investigation. A copy of the data from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice
recorder was collected and analyzed. Three years after the incident, in the final report
issued on September 12, 2011, the ATSB concluded that the cause of the QF-72
accident was a combination of an error occurring in one of the three aircraft data
inertial reference units ADI-RU and under the previously unknown software design
limit of the Fly-by-Wide flight control system on the Airbus A330. As mentioned
earlier, the A330 is a very modern aircraft. The aircraft is equipped with many
airspeed sensors, altitude sensors and angle of attack AOA sensors. When the plane
is flying in the sky, the results from these sensors will be returned to the ADI-RU
system. After processing the information, this system will provide that information to
the flight computer in the form of 32-bit binary encoded. The advanced computer
system of the A330 is designed to cope with all safety loss situations, including the
case of the nose angle being too high leading to extremely dangerous loss of speed.
When the AOA angle sensor detects the nose of the plane is too high, it will send
data back to the ADI-RU and from there this system will issue an emergency nose
down command to ensure safety. That’s why we see the Airbus plunge twice in a very
short time. Although it was possible to explain what happened on the Airbus A330
that day, top experts still could not explain why the computer system on the plane
had such a problem. What made it misread the data and misunderstood that the
plane was in danger while it was actually operating very normally. To this day, the
answer to this question is still a mystery. The crew of the flight QF-72 has never
received any awards for what they have done to save more than 300 lives. On the
contrary, the terrifying experiences on the flight caused Captain Sullivan to suffer
from stress disorder. He decided to stop flying for 8 months and did not share
anything with the press. It wasn’t until 10 years after the old incident, the 63-year-old
captain dared to stand up and share his true feelings. He said, he was very worried
that the era of automation would threaten the civil aviation industry in the future. A
typical example of this is the Boeing 737 MAX, the troublesome child of the giant
Boeing. The aircraft line was developed by the company to narrow the gap with rival
Airbus. Introduced in 2017, but since 2018, the 737 MAX has continuously caused
horrific accidents. First was flight GT610 of Lion Air. The flight had an incident on the
way to Jakarta, causing 189 passengers and crew to die. Next was flight 320 of
Ethiopian Airlines. The flight crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 157 people. It is
worth noting that both of these accidents are related to the advanced MCIS system
on the 737 MAX, a system that enhances aircraft control features. Simply understood,
this software will automatically push the nose of the plane down when it feels it is
pointing too high. It can be seen that automation is increasingly dominating all
aspects of human life. In addition to the positive impacts, it also leaves many
unpredictable consequences. And many people even believe that, at some point in
the future, robots will rise up to fight directly with us. Do you think this can happen?
Please comment below!