Southwest captain fell severely ill during flight, so a pilot from another airline stepped in

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Originally published at: Southwest captain fell severely ill during flight, so a pilot from another airline stepped in | Boing Boing

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Or they stayed at a Holiday Inn Express?

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Did he have the fish?

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Captain Striker, I presume?

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Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

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Food for thought: Airlines Move To Have One Pilot, Not Two, In Cost-Cutting Solution

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As far as self-driving vehicles go, commercial airplanes are certainly closer to it than cars, because the skies are already fairly regulated. I’d think it would depend on length of flight and likelihood of adverse conditions like storms, complicated flight patterns or choppy air.

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“Fly the friendly awries!”

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And just like with self-driving cars, everything will probably go fine until one of the machines encounters a situation that deviates even slightly from the conditions it was explicitly programmed to deal with.

Honestly, if any kind of vehicle was ready to cut human operators out of the loop it would be trains. You don’t even have to steer those things, much less worry about altitude or atmospheric conditions.

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There’s grades, stopping distance for a given speed, and obstacle detection to factor into it, but more or less? yes.

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“You must think… in Russian.”

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But what about:

  • takeover by terrorists commandeering missle-launching satellites?
  • gun and sword fights between hired killers and mafia/gangs?
  • hackers flipping switches on the track to divert the train?
  • spies chasing and fighting each other on rooftops, disassembling the train while they are at it? (Yet nobody in charge seems to notice)
  • young archaeologists chased through circus cars by looters?
  • thieves going after gold and mail on board?
  • murder mysteries?

Clearly, todays AI is not up to the task.

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How did the flight crew even find out there was another pilot on board? Did they make an announcement over the intercom?

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Robert Hayes?

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Probably they were getting a curtesy flight-it’s not uncommon for flight crews to get a ride from other airlines, or so I’ve heard.

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Pilots flying as passengers will usually make themselves known to the crew.

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