Article: Idiot proof the design.

Recall the 100-ton weight error introduced into a flight management computer (FMC), the resulting Singapore International Airlines (SIA) tailstrike on takeoff, and Capt. Timothy Crowch's call for a "radical overhaul" of FMC design (see ASW, Jan. 26). The following comments are offered by an avionics/systems engineer with a U.S. carrier. For reasons evident in the commentary below, this expert prefers not to be identified:

"The continuing occurrences of tail strikes due to bad FMC data are yet another textbook example of poor system design [that] operators are forced to deal with on a daily basis. The same type of event occurred at my company (except on landing) ...

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