In this handout photo released by the National Transportation Safety Board, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 sits just off the runway at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday, July 7. The Boeing 777 coming from Seoul, South Korea, crashed on landing on Saturday, July 6. Three passengers, all girls, died as a result of the first notable U.S. air crash in four years. 
A photo showing the damaged interior of the aircraft was released by the NTSB on July 7. The flight carrying 291 passengers and 16 crew took off from Shanghai and stopped in Seoul before heading to San Francisco. 
An investigator photographs part of the landing gear at the crash site in a handout released on July 7. Investigators believe that the pilots were flying too slow and too low as they neared the airport on July 6. 
An investigator inspects the broken-off tail of the plane in a handout photo released July 7. The crash killed two people, injured 182 and forced the temporary closure of one of the country's largest airports. 
An investigator stands near the tail of the plane in a handout photo released on July 7. The NTSB has ruled out weather as a problem and said that conditions were right for a "visual landing." 
Investigators approach the crash in a handout photo released on July 7. 
Fire crews attempt to quench the blaze on Saturday, July 6. 
Smoke rises from the crash site across the San Francisco Bay on July 6. 
Asiana Airlines Flight 214 remains on the runway on July 6. 
A plane sits on the runway on July 6 while emergency crews tend to the crash site. 
A helicopter flies above the wreckage on July 6 as people observe from across the waters of San Francisco Bay. 
Travelers at San Francisco International Airport look at the departures and arrivals board after Asiana Flight 214 crashed on July 6. The airport, located 12 miles south of downtown San Francisco, is California's second busiest, behind Los Angeles International. 
Kevin Cheng talks on his phone as he waits in the terminal after Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash-landed on July 6. He said he was supposed to pick up students who were on board the flight from Seoul. 
Passengers wait for the British Airways counter to reopen at San Francisco International Airport on July 6. 
Police guard the Reflection Room at the San Francisco airport's international terminal, where passengers from Asiana Airlines Flight 214 were reportedly gathering after the crash landing on July 6. 
People are escorted from the Reflection Room at the San Francisco International Airport on July 6. 
Traffic backs up on U.S. Route 101 South in San Francisco on July 6. The Bay Area airport was closed to incoming and departing traffic after the crash, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. 
People look over the wreckage across a cove in San Francisco Bay on July 6. 
Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, speaks to the press at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, before departing for San Francisco with an NTSB crew on July 6 to investigate the crash site. 
The San Francisco Giants observe a moment of silence for those killed and hurt in the crash before their baseball game on July 6 against the Los Angeles Dodgers at AT&T Park in San Francisco. 
Crews comb the end of a San Francisco airport runway following the crash landing on July 6. 
People in Seoul watch a news program reporting about the crash landing on July 6 in San Francisco. Asiana Airlines Flight 214 took off from Seoul earlier Saturday. 
The plane crashed on July 6 around 11:30 a.m. (2:30 p.m. ET). 
People walk past the wreckage of the plane's tail on July 6. 
The burned-out plane remains on the runway on July 6. Passengers and crew members escaped down the emergency inflatable slides. 
Rescue workers tend to the crash site on July 6. 
Debris litters the runway on July 6. 
Airport shuttles arrive on the scene after the crash landing. 
Wreckage from the Boeing 777 lies on the tarmac on July 6. 
Crews surround the remains of the plane on July 6. 
Investigators pass the detached tail and landing gear of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 on July 6. 
An aerial view shows the site of the crash landing between the runways on July 6. 
Smoke rises from the crash site on July 6 at the airport in San Francisco. 
Fire crews work at the crash site at San Francisco International Airport on July 6. 
The Boeing 777 lies burned on the runway after it crashed landed on July 6. 
An aerial photo of the scene on July 6 shows the extent of the plane's damage. 
The burned-out plane sits surrounded by emergency vehicles on July 6. 
CNN iReporter Amanda Painter took this photo while waiting at the San Francisco airport on July 6. The entire airport has shut down and flights diverted to other airports. 
iReporter Val Vaden captured this photo while waiting in a departure lounge at the San Francisco airport on July 6. Val observed the billowing smoke and emergency responders' rush in. 
iReporter Sven Duenwald was at home on July 6 when he saw smoke rising into the air near the San Francisco International Airport. 
iReporter Timothy Clark was standing on the eighth floor of the Embassy Suites Airport Hotel when he heard a loud crashing sound from outside. "My daughter told me she heard a plane crash. I used my camera to get a clearer view and I could see a dust cloud. Then people running from the plane, then flames," he said. 
A photo provided to CNN by Eunice Bird Rah -- and shot by her father, who was a passenger on the plane -- shows flames and smoke bursting out of many of the aircraft's windows. 
David Eun, a passenger on Asiana Airlines Flight 214, posted this image to Path.com along with the message, "I just crash landed at SFO. Tail ripped off. Most everyone seems fine, I'm ok. Surreal..." It was one of the first photographs taken after the crash. 
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- This week, public hearings take place on the crash of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777
- Robert Mark: Have pilots become too dependent on computer systems to fly planes?
- He says it's a serious problem when pilots get overwhelmed by technology
- Mark: We need better cockpit designs and train pilots more on hands-on flying
Editor's note: Robert P. Mark is a pilot, award-winning journalist and publisher of Jetwhine.com, a website about the aviation industry. He's been teaching people to fly since 1974. He also teaches at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and is author of the upcoming book, "Loss of Control."
(CNN) -- As the National Transportation Safety Board begins public hearings on Wednesday into the crash of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 in San Francisco in July, one question is certain to keep popping up: Have pilots become too dependent on computer systems to fly their airplanes?
The simple answer is yes.
When pilots become confused or overwhelmed by technology that was supposed to make their jobs easier or when they find themselves unable to regain control of their aircraft when a component in the computer system fails, the aviation industry needs to seriously assess the problem.
Modern airliners use computers to handle just about every function imaginable -- from starting the engines and monitoring the cabin environment for the right temperature and pressure balance to handling the complex navigation necessary to fly an airplane safely between South Korea and San Francisco.
Shaking free of any of the technology anywhere along the way is very difficult because so many of the aircraft's systems depend upon each other to work together.
An airliner's automation today can handle almost all of a pilot's duties more smoothly and with better precision than any human. Computers have become so tightly integrated into the operation of an airliner, however, that the real problem is trying to carve out a few tasks the pilots can still call their own. One of the last completely human tasks is landing the airplane.
With computers being tasked to perform so much of the work on each and every flight, pilots find their jobs have changed dramatically. Whereas once they were captains of the sky able to manipulate the flight controls to maneuver a 500,000-pound airplane through stormy skies and still plunk 300 people down at the destination safely, they now find themselves to be mere system monitors.
New details emerge in plane crash 
A closer look at plane's evacuation Today, pilots program the computers before takeoff, making sure all the panel lights are green and then watch as the computers fly the aircraft most of the way.
Is it any wonder that with so little practice actually manually handling the aircraft's flight controls and making many of the critical decisions that are now handed off to the computers that the pilots often find their minds wandering?
We shouldn't be surprised that this happens. We all grow easily bored when we're forced to watch someone, or something, perform a task for hours on end, especially when we've been told that the computer pilot in this case probably flies better than we do anyway, at least most of the time.
Consider Asiana 214's arrival at San Francisco.
Facts uncovered during the initial investigation pointed to the pilot's failure to notice that a critical system called the auto-throttles was accidentally turned off. Auto-throttles let the computers control how much power the aircraft's engines produce to maintain a given airspeed. With the auto-throttle switched off, the pilots thought the computers were controlling power and airspeed, when in actuality, the computers were on standby. Basically, it means that no one was actually controlling the aircraft's altitude at that time.
Without enough engine power, the aircraft's speed dropped too low to allow it to continue flying and it struck a dike just short of the runway, ripping away the landing gear. Three people died while 181 were injured, 12 critically.
During the final few seconds of the approach to San Francisco, the pilots simply sat in the cockpit, apparently mesmerized by the view of the bay, assuming the computer was flying.
The big question of course is why didn't they notice the computers were on standby?
With the recent release of a study, "Operational Use of Flight Path Management Systems," the aviation industry has begun to identify weaknesses in our aviation safety system, including potential problems in human-computer interactions.
The report recommends improving pilot training to include more hands-on flying practice and more intensive classroom study about technology's shortcomings. It also calls for better cockpit designs that reduce potentially confusing messages, and up-to-date training to keep federal regulators ahead of the technology curve.
The study has been turned over to the FAA, but no timeline or next steps in the process have been outlined. Without a defined plan of action soon, we may see another crash on the horizon before too long.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Robert P. Mark.
