Earlier this week, at an airport in Seattle, USA, a software error was responsible for an incident known as 'tailstrike' on two Alaska Airlines flights.
In the aviation world, atailstrikeis an incident in which the tail of an airplane hits the runway, the ground or even another stationary object. Generally, these episodes occur during take-off or landing and are not normally considered dangerous movements - however, this is not always the case, as these incidents can seriously damage aircraft.
At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport these accidents happened twice in the same morning, both involving Boeing aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines, even leading to the suspension of flights and temporary interruption of this company's air activity throughout the country.
According to the subsequent investigation, it was discovered that a bug was responsible for this incident: according to the Seattle Times, these 'tailstrikes' happened after a software error in a program sold by a Swedish company called DynamicSource. This program is supposed to provide fundamental weight and balance information that pilots enter into their flight computers, to help determine, for example, how much thrust the engines will provide and how fast the plane will be available for take-off. In this particular case, the error ended up transmitting incorrect data that seriously underestimated the weight of both aircraft.
The original article via Gizmodo can be read here.
