I'm no genuis...but shouldn't it be...after striking... a bumblebee?
EDIT: I love Bingo...none of my comments are to be taken as a put down,

WTF: Mechanics found a bumble-bee had struck and embedded itsself into one of the pitot tubes of the airplane after takeoff, effectively blocking that dynamic port of the pitot system. Is that all it takes?

Nope



Yeah, that's all. Scary, huh?

That B-2 that crashed itself recently did so just because of excess moisture in the pitot system.

On that plane, the computer makes pretty much all the decisions, so it flew into the ground.

Making it the world's most expensive boomerang.

I love bumblebees.

I had no idea they are little fuzzy black and yellow terrorists! Trying to mess with the pilots and s**t.

Poor little suicide bee.

A pitot is about the size and shape of a ballpen with the point retracted, generally situated under a wing (smaller planes) or along the fuselage under the cockpit windows. It's pretty easy to block that small hole facing forward.

However it's an essential part of the airspeed measurement system.

Air Data Computers compute airspeed based on pitot and static intakes and the autopilot and autothrottle react based on the ADC. So a blocked pitot can easily lead the ADC to overestimate the airspeed more and more as the A/C climbs (and air density decreases) and make it stall.

if they are so small and presumably cheap, why don't they just install like 5 per plane? then if one has an off reading you just ignore it and listen to the other 4

I think they do, but there's only a few spots that work.

In addition to the pitot tube, there has to be a static port, which needs to be in a place that reads only the "still" ambient air pressure.

Places where the airflow around the plane gives the required reading aren't very many.

The Empire doesn't consider a small one-man bee to be any threat or they'd have a tighter defence.

The pitot tube should be heated by wrapping it in electric coils that can remain red hot and covered with a protective jacket. Then there won't be any freezing happening. The power can be generated using an auxilery turbine mounted anywhere on the plane like in the tail section.