Asiana crash hearing focusing on role of pilots, automation

A hearing into July’s Asiana airline crash at San Francisco International Airport began in Washington Wednesday. In the hearing, the National Transportation Safety Board was expected to look beyond the Asiana crash to consider the broader issue of cockpit automation and how it may create confusion for pilots.

While the NTSB is not ready to identify a cause for the crash, investigators at the scene found no obvious failures in the Boeing 777's automated flight control systems.

“The concern is that the pilots may have not fully understood the workings of the automation and that they assumed that the auto-thrust was controlling the speed when in fact it was not,” said CBS News aviation and safety expert Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger.

“There are two pilots in the cockpit for a reason, and if they're using automation a big key is to monitor, and pilots are trained to monitor,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said in the crash's aftermath.

“We sometimes don't have the manual flying skills that we really should, and that can lead to a lack of confidence and makes us reluctant to intervene quickly or effectively enough when the automation isn't doing what it should,” said Sullenberger.

An FAA study of cockpit automation released last month noted that pilots can become "accustomed to watching things happen" and "rely too much on automated systems."  The hearing that began Wednesday may help uncover whether that was the case in the Asiana crash.