Ep. 1: The Zombie Accelerometer

A Malaysia Airlines 777 leaves Perth for Kuala Lumpur and immediately chooses violence, but in the most corporate way possible: by politely delivering contradictory warnings and letting the computers argue about reality.At 38,000 feet the cockpit gets “low airspeed,” a pegged slip indicator, and the stunning experience of being near overspeed and near stall at the same time. The autopilot responds by pitching up hard and climbing like it just remembered it left the oven on at home. Meanwhile the autothrottle keeps coming back after disconnect attempts, because it is apparently fueled by spite.The villain is the ADIRU, the jet’s inner ear, plus one long-dead accelerometer that never truly stayed dead after power cycles. We unpack the software logic that let it happen, the gaps in certification testing, and why this incident helped force better checklists and software fixes for the 777 fleet.