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Duc Tran
NASA Ames Research Center

Estela Hernandez
Northrop Grumman Information Technology

As part of the investigation of the accident involving American Airlines Flight 587, the
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), in cooperation with NASA Ames Research
Center, proposed to conduct observations and tests using the Vertical Motion Simulator
(VMS). The investigation was divided into two phases. Phase I consisted of evaluating the
accelerations experienced during the accident event by back-driving the cockpit controls,
displays, out-the-window scene, cockpit communications, and motion of the aircraft as
recorded and derived from the aircraft’s flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice
recorder (CVR). Phase II consisted of evaluating the effects of flight control characteristics
and accelerations similar to those experienced during the accident event on pilot perception
and performance using a tracking task. The tracking task consisted of pilots following an
on-screen target with various flight control configurations, with both motion off and motion
being back-driven using derived acceleration data from the FDR. This paper describes the
work provided by the VMS in support of the investigation and does not include any
conclusions drawn from the study.

Download the full paper in PDF (2.9 Mb).

A hardcopy of this document is available by request from Kathleen Starmer.