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store near you. Modern

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air travel is safer than it's ever been.

0:35

That's what the numbers show. But several

0:37

high-profile incidents involving passenger planes since the

0:39

beginning of the year have highlighted that

0:41

things can still go wrong and how

0:43

scary it can be. An

0:46

Alaska Airlines flight was forced to

0:48

make an emergency landing after a

0:51

portion of the plane blew off

0:53

in mid-flight. That panel ripped away

0:55

at about 16,000 feet,

0:58

which left a gaping hole

1:00

in the aircraft. Footage from

1:02

Haneda Airport shows a Japan Airlines passenger

1:04

airplane on fire. It makes it all

1:06

the more remarkable that everyone's off this

1:09

aircraft in one piece. But could future

1:11

generations of airplanes make problems like these

1:13

a thing of the past? Our

1:16

commercial airliners are smarter

1:18

electronically today than they've

1:20

ever been. They're constantly

1:22

recording, they're constantly monitoring,

1:24

they're constantly connected. Anthony

1:27

Brickhouse is an associate professor at

1:29

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. He

1:32

runs their Aerospace Forensics Laboratory and he

1:34

used to work at the National Transportation

1:36

Safety Board. He says

1:38

all the data that planes generate today when

1:40

they're running normally, as well as from accidents,

1:43

are helping engineers design better systems

1:45

and stronger materials to make future

1:47

airplanes even safer. It

1:50

may not be anything that passengers will notice, but

1:52

the way the flight crew interacts with the aircraft

1:54

and air traffic control is going

1:56

to be definitely advanced. From

2:00

the Wall Street Journal, this is the future

2:02

of everything. I'm Danny Lewis. I

2:05

spoke with Professor Brickhouse about what airplane engineers

2:07

are learning when things go wrong, and

2:10

how new materials, and even AI, could help

2:12

make flying safer in the years to come.

2:15

Stay with us. This

2:24

episode is brought to you by Reese's Peanut

2:26

Butter Cups. In breaking news,

2:28

leading scientists worldwide are conducting experiments

2:31

to determine if Reese's Peanut Butter

2:33

Cups are the perfect combination of

2:35

peanut butter and chocolate. However,

2:37

it appears the study was inconclusive,

2:40

as the scientists couldn't help but eat all the

2:43

Reese's. Because when you want

2:45

something sweet, you can't do better than Reese's.

2:47

Find Reese's now at a store near you. Since

3:01

the beginning of the year, airplane safety has

3:03

been top of mind for many travelers, especially

3:05

after the recent Alaska Airlines incident where the

3:07

door plug of an emergency exit on a

3:10

Boeing 737 MAX 9 blew out mid-flight. A

3:14

preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board

3:16

found that four bolts that would have kept

3:19

the door secured in place were missing. Professor

3:22

Brickhouse, are there ways that emergency exits and

3:24

their door plugs could be designed without the

3:27

need for just a few critical components to

3:29

secure them? It's really hard to

3:31

answer that question. In safety, we're always

3:33

trying to continuously improve. The

3:36

thing about this Alaska Airlines accident that is

3:38

important to remember is that as

3:40

an industry we can learn from this and hopefully get better

3:43

so that the same thing does not happen again. We've

3:45

been designing aircraft for a long time

3:48

now, but designing an aircraft is a

3:50

really complex proposition. And engineers

3:52

are constantly fighting the weight ratio. You want

3:54

to keep the aircraft as light as possible,

3:57

but also make it as strong as possible.

4:00

We're continually evolving design and different

4:02

features just to make aircraft more

4:04

aerodynamic, more efficient, and more

4:06

comfortable for the passengers. One thing

4:08

that's happening, you know, we have new aircraft that

4:10

are being made more and more out of composite

4:13

materials. The Airbus A350 are

4:15

more than 50 percent composites in terms

4:17

of their weight, but I think we're

4:20

going to see more and more designs

4:22

coming with composite materials. What do you

4:24

mean by composite materials? It's

4:26

basically a plastic type material with

4:28

a resin or glue to

4:30

hold it together. And like you

4:32

tap on it and it sounds almost like a

4:34

metal, but it's not a metal. We started

4:36

using what we call a laminar composite

4:38

material, which is like a

4:41

layered structure. Sometimes we even call it

4:43

a sandwich structure because that's pretty much

4:45

what you're doing. You're adding layers to

4:47

get the proper level of thickness. And

4:49

the good thing about composites is they're

4:51

really, really strong and they're really, really

4:53

light. And you can do things with

4:55

the composite design that you can't do with the

4:57

traditional metal. Boeing's 737 MAX

4:59

line of airplanes has been plagued with

5:02

problems for years. An earlier

5:04

model of the aircraft, the 737 MAX 8,

5:07

was involved in two fatal crashes, the

5:09

Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October 2018

5:12

and an Ethiopian Airlines crash a few months

5:15

later in March 2019. The

5:17

Wall Street Journal reported at the time

5:19

that a combination of a malfunctioning sensor

5:21

and an automated flight control system were

5:24

responsible. How might future aircraft balance the

5:26

benefits of automated systems like that with

5:28

the need for pilots to be able

5:30

to take charge quickly in an emergency?

5:33

Well, that's the thing about safety investigations and

5:35

why we do it. We want

5:37

to look at both fatal MAX 8

5:39

accidents and really understand the

5:42

circumstances of those. In safety, we

5:44

talk about a single causation theory

5:46

versus a multiple causation theory. And

5:48

we know scientifically that no accident

5:50

is specifically caused by one event.

5:53

It's always multiple events. We, from

5:55

an aviation community, are in what

5:57

we call a data-rich environment. commercial

6:00

airliners are smarter electronically

6:02

today than they've ever

6:05

been. They're constantly recording.

6:07

They're constantly monitoring. They're

6:09

constantly connected. And the

6:11

whole intent of automation is to give the

6:13

pilots tools to decrease their workload

6:16

and allow the computers to do more. But

6:19

as a safety person, I always want

6:21

my flight crew to know

6:23

as much as they can about the system.

6:25

I never want to see a day where

6:27

a pilot gets in the cockpit and just

6:29

monitors the system. You know, we want humans

6:32

actively involved in that equation. AI

6:34

is also getting a lot of hype as the

6:36

solution to just about any problem you can think

6:38

of. What are the parts

6:40

of, you know, piloting and operating an airplane

6:42

that you don't think should be left to

6:44

automatic systems in the future? I think of

6:46

automation as an assist and not the end

6:48

all and be all. But

6:51

I just like to have the human in

6:53

the equation and I'm a fan of automation

6:55

and AI that just doesn't

6:57

do it all, but makes

6:59

the workload less, which can

7:01

minimize mistakes and just make the system

7:03

flow smoother than it would manually. Pilots

7:05

used to carry 40, 50 pounds of

7:07

charts. And

7:10

those are papers that they would actively use during the

7:12

flight. Well, now pilots walk

7:15

onboard an aircraft with their luggage,

7:17

but they don't have this massive flight

7:19

back. Everything is in the

7:21

iPad. We call them electronic flightbacks

7:24

and that's not necessarily automation, but

7:26

definitely using technology to assist. The

7:29

systems that we have on board the plane

7:31

now are highly automated. We're

7:33

even upgrading the air traffic control system so

7:35

that it becomes more automated. So it may

7:37

not be anything that passengers will notice. I

7:40

think the passenger experience, you know, from

7:42

the gate to taxi to takeoff and landing will be

7:44

the same. But the way the flight

7:46

crew interacts with the aircraft and air traffic control

7:50

is going to be definitely advanced. And

7:52

even from a maintenance point of view, our

7:54

planes today have what's called health monitoring systems.

7:57

So as the plane is flying, the

7:59

engine. could literally send information to a

8:02

ground station and literally tell the

8:04

mechanics, this is what's going on with the

8:06

system. So the mechanics don't have to spend

8:08

a lot of time trying to diagnose what's

8:10

going on. But you know, I

8:12

can see aviation becoming even more automated and

8:15

having even more advanced systems than what we

8:17

see right now, which is pretty fascinating. As

8:20

we heard, airplanes are starting to use new

8:23

materials in their construction. Just

8:25

ahead, we'll hear more about how they could

8:27

help make flying safer. Stick around. Thank

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drive safely. So

9:11

just last week, a United Airlines flight

9:13

from San Francisco to Boston was diverted

9:15

after part of the plane's wing appeared

9:17

to be damaged mid-flight. Obviously,

9:19

this is still under investigation. It's very

9:22

early. But how might future airplanes be

9:24

designed to prevent damage mid-flight? Are there

9:26

systems that could alert maintenance or flight

9:29

crews to potential damage before it happens?

9:32

Right now, I don't think we know whether the

9:34

part that came off was purely cosmetic or whether

9:36

it was actually structural. Obviously, you

9:38

don't want to see something like that occurring.

9:41

But If something is just cosmetic, then it's

9:43

not really going to affect the safety of

9:45

the aircraft. But Obviously, you know, as we

9:47

look into the future, designs are going to

9:50

be out there that are safer than what

9:52

we have now. You Know, the way that

9:54

we manufacture aircraft in different sections, we may

9:56

see larger pieces being used, and that could

9:59

possibly enhance. Whatever

10:01

you're you're building anything you know, the

10:03

less connections you can have. The.

10:05

More structural robustness? Yeah, you're going

10:07

to get. In before that,

10:09

in January, there was the Japan Airlines

10:12

incidents where a jet collided with another

10:14

aircraft at Tokyo's Hundred Airport and burst

10:16

into flames. Three hundred and seventy nine

10:18

people on the Chat, an Airbus, a

10:20

three fifty survived. You. Mentioned

10:23

earlier that this craft is made

10:25

of a lot of composite materials.

10:27

How might have changed the situation

10:29

compared to an aluminum airplane? That's.

10:31

What we're interested his daddy. Traditionally

10:34

composite materials are stiffer than aluminum

10:36

alloy materials with said to have

10:39

some some place and can actually

10:41

get. Sold. During that

10:43

in sick from an engineer suspected we

10:45

want to know exactly how the composite

10:48

material behave so that we can to

10:50

bear it to how the aluminum alloy

10:52

material behave. So the weekend speak to

10:54

what we talked: Survivability Composite bows differently

10:57

than aluminum hours. Obviously with this accident

10:59

there was a massive fire that broke

11:01

out their faces that you know you

11:03

have about ninety seconds to evacuate an

11:06

aircraft and I was the they took

11:08

eighteen minutes but that's just speaks serve

11:10

you know how well the evacuation. What

11:12

I'm sure they going to be looking

11:14

at You know, the number of emergency

11:16

exits that were available on aircraft? They'll.

11:19

Be looking into how many of them were

11:21

actually usable. They can be looking into how

11:23

exactly they performed. Engineers. Will

11:25

will look into. you know how robust

11:28

the structure the aircraft was So I

11:30

have how does it behave in that

11:32

impact and could anything have been done

11:34

to make it even more robust? I

11:36

was filled with an alarm. A significant

11:39

amount of information from this federalized accident.

11:42

Anthony Brickhouse is an associate professor

11:44

at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. Thanks

11:46

for joining us! Thank you for

11:48

the future of everything is a

11:50

production of The Wall Street Journal.

11:52

This episode was produced by Me

11:54

Any Less. Exodus.