Big Red Button

Everywhere you find potentially deadly machinery, you will see a big red button. The idea is that, if you see a piece of machinery going out of control, you push the big red button. Then the machine stops in its tracks. This is true for elevators and escalators. This is also true for all dangerous manufacturing machinery. However, my favorite example is Uber's test version of its self driving car. The center console included a big red button.

Airliners need a big red button. We need a way tell the aircraft that the pilot is in charge. We've lost two commercial airliners because the flight crew could not gain control of the aircraft. There should be a simple and easy method for bringing the aircraft back under human control. A big red button would fit that bill.

I know that if this was taken literally, the plane would crash. Modern aircraft simply can't be directly controlled by a human. The flight commands of a flight crew have to be "interpreted" by flight control system. However, there is a qualitative difference between the flight control giving a helping hand and the flight control system ignoring the flight crew.

I also know that sometimes flight crews fail. Then, it's the human's turn to fly the aircraft into the ground. The term for that is "Controlled flight into terrain". On average, flight crews have been more dangerous to airliners than autopilots. However, when there is a fight to control the aircraft, I have to side with the humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_switch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_flight_into_terrain