Can AI and automated planes help prevent plane crashes?

Al Jazeera

14-02-2025

More than 100 people have been killed in air crashes this year already, including in a midair collision between a commercial airliner and a helicopter near Washington, DC, and a plane crashing into a bus on a Sao Paulo street.
The fatal incidents in the first two months of the new year came after last year was declared one of the deadliest in aviation history with at least 318 deaths in 11 civilian airplane crashes, including two incidents in the last week of December.
While fatal air crashes are rare, they attract extraordinary attention, often reinstilling the fear of flying. At least 25 million adults in the United States alone have a fear of flying, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The fear is often exacerbated not just by the crashes but also incidents like emergency landings, a door blowing off a plane and aircraft skidding off runways.
Industry experts and investigations concur that human error is to blame for a majority of crashes.
While artificial intelligence is being heavily used in the aviation industry – from route optimisation and fuel efficiency to predictive maintenance and sustainability – can it also be used to make flying safer and prevent disasters and loss of life?
'A lot is being done, and there is much more to come,' Freshta Farzam, CEO and founder of LYTE Aviation, told Al Jazeera.
'AI is already playing a crucial role in reducing aviation accidents and loss of life by improving situational awareness, predictive maintenance and decision-making processes. In air traffic control (ATC) and collision avoidance, AI is helping out tremendously.'
Safety is a top priority in the aviation industry, where the wellbeing of passengers and crew and the efficient functioning of air travel are paramount, according to a research paper titled Artificial Intelligence in Aviation Safety: Systematic Review and Biometric Analysis. 'As the industry evolves, embracing technological advancements like AI becomes crucial,' it said.
In 2023, there was one accident for every 1.26 million flights, according to the International Air Transport Association. That figure was the lowest rate in more than a decade. But that was followed by more than 400 casualties in the next 14 months.
Up to 80 percent of all aviation accidents are attributed to human error with pilot error thought to account for 53 percent of aircraft accidents. Still, air travel is not the most dangerous form of travel, according to Panish-Shea-Ravipudi LLP, a law firm in Los Angeles, California.
'Air travel is only as safe as the operator, the equipment and the training procedures that underlie the flight itself. Without stringent aviation safety training and controls, air travel is unsafe for private and commercial passengers,' it said.
Speed of change
So where can AI help mitigate disasters and loss of life?
'When it comes to aviation, there's a lot of advancement in AI, even though a lot of that has not trickled through to the commercial aviation because of the processes and certification,' Amad Malik, chief AI officer at Airport AI Exchange, said.
'The way the regulations are set up is that years and years of data is required before you can use anything in the commercial landscape. What we do have right now is something that started in the 1960s. But there's also a concept of having AI as a local intelligence within the aircraft that can detect and mitigate even if the pilot or ATC are making a mistake.
'What we do is we don't replace anything with something new. We just pile on. The first biggest challenge for us to get to a place where any of the new technologies can really help is going to think outside the box and see what needs to be replaced. Regardless of what technology you bring in, if you're not going to let go of the past, learn from it, adapt and get better, nothing's going to change.'
Major changes and innovations in air travel are currently being witnessed, including the air-taxi market, which is predicted to grow exponentially by the end of the decade.
By 2029, the air-taxi market is predicted to grow to $80.3bn from the $4.9bn that it was worth last year, according to the market research firm Spherical Insights. This market demand is 'driven by the need for an alternative mode of transportation and the increasing problem of traffic congestion in metro cities,' a report by Mordor Intelligence said.
With the increase in demand for short- and long-distance air travel and the advancement in technology, are self-flying and autopilot planes the solution?
'Human error, misjudgement, fatigue, poor decision-making is the major factor behind air accidents,' Farzam said. 'AI could eliminate these risks, leading to safer flights. But the main issue will be trust. We understand that innovation inevitably needs a hybrid step before we go full on. Autonomous air taxis and sky buses will come, but not in the next 15 years. Human beings need to get ready for it.'
In January 2023, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said: 'I think the future of autonomy is real for civil [aviation].'
'It's going to take time. Everyone's got to build confidence. We need a certification process that we all have faith and believe in,' he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
A piece for the 2023 World Economic Forum suggested that 'while the concept of autonomous aircraft may sit uneasily with some people, it is important to think in terms of how autonomy can augment human capabilities in aviation – and vice versa – rather than replacing them'.
'Today, many aircraft functions are already automated, with high precision and integrity autopilots and flight control systems guiding planes through the skies along carefully planned routes, often without much human intervention. Onboard automation coupled with the right space and ground-based positioning and communication infrastructures are also capable of routinely landing widebody airliners safely in challenging, zero-visibility conditions,' authors David Hyde and Jia Xu wrote.
But Malik, a qualified pilot himself, argued that putting AI into a plane right now 'is going to give us more problems than solutions because you have to communicate with the ground, with other airplanes and there's a lot going on'.
'It's not that it's not here already, but it just needs a lot more testing, bit more development. We also need to look at how we can bring AI into the ATC realm. Because if AI is flying the plane, your ATC operator can't just pick up the radio and say, 'Hey AI, can you drop down 500 feet?'. That's not going to work.
'If you try to implement that kind of a solution, we are just going towards something which is way more complex than it has to be. So the solution is that we start working towards something that will become completely AI driven on both ground and air sides.'
Farzam pointed out that 'AI can work here alongside human pilots' and 'AI-powered co-pilots could take over in emergency situations, reducing human error.'
'The new era has begun, and hopefully AI will also help us all to accelerate sustainability in aviation, not just sandbox projects, but actual impactful sustainable solutions for aviation.'