Flying High with IT Governance?
Posted by Jeff Papows on Tue, Mar 23, 2010 @ 09:42 AM
There's nothing like a massive software upgrade mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to get my attention, along with a lot of other frequent flying IT folks.
In case you haven't heard or read in the Wall Street Journal, the FAA has mandated that airlines install new autopilot software in Boeing 777's within the next 90 days. The bottom line is that there were two incidents in January regarding autopilot software. It turns out that when crews inadvertently engaged the autopilot before take off, there was unusually strong resistance from the autopilot as they preparing for takeoff. This caused the pilots of both planes to remain on the runway for the safety of the passengers. Along with the autopilot software, this new "airworthiness directive" calls for additional software changes in the Boeing 777.
Now I'm all for whatever makes flying as safe as possible. Though given the fact that there have only been nine of these types of incidents among the 4.2 million flights since 1995, I have to scratch my head and wonder if this overhaul is going to cause unnecessary glitches due to the integration and introduction of new software into a system that, for the most part, is working just fine. What's even more baffling is that these changes could affect more than 800 planes if these regulations are accepted overseas.
Given what we know about the propensity of glitches when new software is introduced without proper IT governance around it, I have to wonder if this new federal mandate will cause more problems than it will potentially solve.
What do you think? Does the new FAA airworthiness mandate inspire confidence in flying? Post your comments below or send an email to jeff@weblayers.com