Should there be cameras in the cockpit of airplanes? Why or Why Not?
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No, because flight recorders already save large amounts of information about what the plane is doing, the pilot inputs, and what is being said audibly. I'd like to understand how a visual that vastly increases the storage requirements would help understand an event.
Frame rate doesn’t necessarily have to be high. Idk how the black boxes on airplanes work, but surely storage options have increased a lot since their invention, right?
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A camera wouldn't have prevented anything, it would only make blame slightly easier.
Maybe improved mental health resources for pilots would be more helpful.
Or maybe not having a single point of failure for something so critical. Airplane engines are made to burn for a while before they become a problem, so why can't a two engine shutdown be inhibited below a certain radar altitude, or something of that nature?
Seems like a lot of pretty easy fixes that would work preemptively, rather than just another $20 part marked up to $20,000 because it comes with a FAA part number, that can only be used to assign blame after the fact.
Let me ask everyone this, would you want a camera in your office? Or should nurses have to wear body cameras all shift just so if something happens to a patient they can make sure they can blame the correct person?
A camera wouldn't have prevented anything, it would only make blame slightly easier.
Blame isn't necessarily the important thing for the outcome of an investigation. It is important to determine fault for the sake of preventing future failures. Did the crew flip the wrong switch, or did the system change state without the crew doing anything? Is there a training issue, or an overwork issue, or design flaw, or a maintenance problem?
You can't answer these questions without knowing the sequence of events prior to the failure, and the flight recorder data that shows a system state change might not be enough if you can't determine how or why that change happened.
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Asking because of Air India 171. Pilots and their unions are objecting to it because of "privacy" reasons. What do you think about it?
No. For what? Occasional and slight benefit to some subset of accident investigations?
Pilots deal with more than enough bullshit. Putting them on camera is outrageous.
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No, because flight recorders already save large amounts of information about what the plane is doing, the pilot inputs, and what is being said audibly. I'd like to understand how a visual that vastly increases the storage requirements would help understand an event.
The concern here is storage requirements?
Having no visual is a huge disadvantage. You miss a great deal of context.
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A camera wouldn't have prevented anything, it would only make blame slightly easier.
Maybe improved mental health resources for pilots would be more helpful.
Or maybe not having a single point of failure for something so critical. Airplane engines are made to burn for a while before they become a problem, so why can't a two engine shutdown be inhibited below a certain radar altitude, or something of that nature?
Seems like a lot of pretty easy fixes that would work preemptively, rather than just another $20 part marked up to $20,000 because it comes with a FAA part number, that can only be used to assign blame after the fact.
Let me ask everyone this, would you want a camera in your office? Or should nurses have to wear body cameras all shift just so if something happens to a patient they can make sure they can blame the correct person?
You can’t make a case for something without the proof that something happened.
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Asking because of Air India 171. Pilots and their unions are objecting to it because of "privacy" reasons. What do you think about it?
Yes and no.
Yes because these people are at work; if they're not using a bathroom, having cameras recording them while they perform their job is within their employers purview to do.
The can object all they want, but it's something that is, and can be done for pretty much everyone working. Think about cashier's at grocery stores and convenience stores... They're almost always on camera all the time. I can hear someone saying "but that's different, it's for security".... Is it?
Having a flight recording of what the cockpit is doing during the flight, seems like something you would want when you are entrusting them with a multimillion dollar piece of machinery and hundreds of people's lives.
On the other hand, where the hell is that information going to go? The black box? Doubtful, that shit is already cram packed with stuff they need to record. On a device in the cockpit? Sure, you'll never find it in a crash, but you do you, I guess.
So I'm on the no side because unless you're putting it in the flight recorder, it's borderline useless for anything beyond scrutinizing someone doing their job. If you are putting it in the flight recorder, is there any information that's going to get left out to make space for the video of pilots picking their noses at 30,000 ft?
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Asking because of Air India 171. Pilots and their unions are objecting to it because of "privacy" reasons. What do you think about it?
the question is too broad. should cameras be in cockpits? yes.
should video streams of those cameras be available live? no.
should recordings of the cockpit be stored on the blackboxes? yes
should the footage be wiped between each flight? yes.
pilots have far too much on their minds while flying a plane, no reason to allow a micromanaging ego trip of an executive access to their cockpit to provide unhelpful "critiques" for better flights. let the talent do what you hired them for and take appropriate action after the incident with the supplied evidence.
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Privacy reasons? Now I’m wondering what really happens in the cockpit.
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Pretty easy fix? There might be an emergency checklist somewhere that requires you to shut off engines. Testing the fuel cut off is part of the pre flight, at least for small airplanes. I see no reason why it wouldn’t be for larger airplanes.
Unless you’re type rated in the airframe or work for Boeing, I would refrain from offering simple fixes.
Also radar altitude? Do they not use pitot tubes for altitude?
Pitot tubes measure a plane's airspeed. It's static ports that measure barometric pressure. radar altitude directly measures the distance between the ground and the plane using radio waves is more useful on final approach
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A camera wouldn't have prevented anything, it would only make blame slightly easier.
Maybe improved mental health resources for pilots would be more helpful.
Or maybe not having a single point of failure for something so critical. Airplane engines are made to burn for a while before they become a problem, so why can't a two engine shutdown be inhibited below a certain radar altitude, or something of that nature?
Seems like a lot of pretty easy fixes that would work preemptively, rather than just another $20 part marked up to $20,000 because it comes with a FAA part number, that can only be used to assign blame after the fact.
Let me ask everyone this, would you want a camera in your office? Or should nurses have to wear body cameras all shift just so if something happens to a patient they can make sure they can blame the correct person?
It doesn't prevent anything in the moment. It serves as an investigation tool and learning tool after the fact. And that is the real prevention tool. We don't have to rely on cockpit narration to know more about what's going on beyond the instrumentation and controls.
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It doesn't prevent anything in the moment. It serves as an investigation tool and learning tool after the fact. And that is the real prevention tool. We don't have to rely on cockpit narration to know more about what's going on beyond the instrumentation and controls.
What's to learn? From this incident specifically.
That a pilot with a history of mental health issues most likely did it? What does that teach us? And what are we going to do about it?
Anything shy of treating it as a disability and retiring the pilot with full pay until their retirement age will result in people still hiding rather than looking for help when they need it.
The USA doesn't have cockpit cameras and has a pretty exceptional safety record, so I'm not sure what anyone is hoping to achieve other than blame someone, which is entirely contradictory to safety.
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Pretty easy fix? There might be an emergency checklist somewhere that requires you to shut off engines. Testing the fuel cut off is part of the pre flight, at least for small airplanes. I see no reason why it wouldn’t be for larger airplanes.
Unless you’re type rated in the airframe or work for Boeing, I would refrain from offering simple fixes.
Also radar altitude? Do they not use pitot tubes for altitude?
Ohhhhhhh buddy you activated my trap card. I happen to have multiple type ratings, and I still consider myself far from an expert. However I do still hold a CFI so I'm going to try to teach you some stuff!
Every airplane that I've been required to have a type rating for has a radar altimeter. A lot of systems already use that information, from auto landings, to caution message inhibits, down to GLD spoilers. Watch any "landing an airliner" YouTube videos, I feel pretty safe in saying generally you will hear an audible "50, 40, 30, 20, 10", that information is usually derived from the radar altimeter.
While you are correct, there are emergency checklists that do require engine shutdowns, there are very few that would require that to be done weight off wheels and under 1000ft AGL. Off the top of my head, the ditching (landing in water) checklist would, but that could be tied to a ditching switch, if equipped, which since I don't have a 787 type, I don't know if it does, but I would guess it probably does.
Seeing as you know what a pitot tube is I'm going to assume you at least have some interest in flying. The pitot tube is used for airspeed, what you're probably thinking of is the other part of that system called the static port. That's used for things like altitude and vertical speed.
Circling back to my "simple fix", my current airframe has triple redundant hydraulics with dual redundant pumps for each. So for something that has that much redundancy, don't you think something as critical as an engine should require more than one switch to shutdown, at least at an altitude of high vulnerability? Just food for thought.
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A camera wouldn't have prevented anything, it would only make blame slightly easier.
Blame isn't necessarily the important thing for the outcome of an investigation. It is important to determine fault for the sake of preventing future failures. Did the crew flip the wrong switch, or did the system change state without the crew doing anything? Is there a training issue, or an overwork issue, or design flaw, or a maintenance problem?
You can't answer these questions without knowing the sequence of events prior to the failure, and the flight recorder data that shows a system state change might not be enough if you can't determine how or why that change happened.
My understanding is that we already know that information, we have the technology to know when the switch is moved, not just when the system acts as if the switch is moved.
I can't imagine the fuel cutoff switches aren't monitored, and if they aren't that's something that should already exist.
Once again, I will point out, and I really hope I'm not jinxing it, but the USA doesn't have cockpit cameras, and even still has a pretty exceptional safety record.
And I understand blame is not the intent, but pardon me if I don't believe that information won't be used against the crew. This pretty much killed single pilot operations, so now the other solution is to put the crews under a magnifying glass until you can find more problems you can use.
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Privacy reasons? Now I’m wondering what really happens in the cockpit.
Just watching some videos on the tablet during cruise (with headphones plugged in so the Cockpit voice recorder doesn't hear it)
Don't worry about the white stains, its just... coffee creamer... or whatever...
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You can’t make a case for something without the proof that something happened.
It is my understanding that it is known the switches were moved, not that there was a failure that reproduced the same effect.
Switches can be monitored meaning their position is known and recorded. Further the odds of them both failing, one second apart is almost zero. All signs point towards someone turned them off, and one of the pilots had a history of mental health issues. It's not a guarantee, but the math seems to be adding up.
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No. For what? Occasional and slight benefit to some subset of accident investigations?
Pilots deal with more than enough bullshit. Putting them on camera is outrageous.
Why is audio okay, but video is where the line is drawn?
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Yes, but it might be very important to determine: did the pilot/copilot flick the switch, or did the switch change state without user input?
Is the crew at fault (training issue/operator error) or is the manufacturer at fault (design flaw) or was the ground crew at fault (improper maintenance)?
A camera could help determine that, if it had the right field of view.
Mechanical switches aren't flipping themselves 4 seconds apart
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Mechanical switches aren't flipping themselves 4 seconds apart
No, but a short circuit might
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It is my understanding that it is known the switches were moved, not that there was a failure that reproduced the same effect.
Switches can be monitored meaning their position is known and recorded. Further the odds of them both failing, one second apart is almost zero. All signs point towards someone turned them off, and one of the pilots had a history of mental health issues. It's not a guarantee, but the math seems to be adding up.
So why not have video evidence to be sure?
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Asking because of Air India 171. Pilots and their unions are objecting to it because of "privacy" reasons. What do you think about it?
Yes, 100%. Storage shouldn't be a problem in this day and age on multi-million dollar vehicles. And the privacy issue could be worked around too, like video recordings only accessible offline or upon pilots consent, unless there's an accident and it's requested by the investigators. I might be ignorant with this, but I don't see the problem really.
