Should there be cameras in the cockpit of airplanes? Why or Why Not?
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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.
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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?
wrote last edited by [email protected]They're basically several terabytes of memory cards with a really really really good casing, locator beacon and a big battery.
Storage has improved hugely, but they also went from storing a hundred parameters once per second to storing a few hundred thousand parameters in pretty much realtime. Dozens of terabytes of data is already going in there.
On the other hand, we can basically realtime encode video nowadays, so I don't see why another 100gb would be a problem.
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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.
vastly increases the storage requirements
A couple terabytes of SSDs is a trivial expense on a commercial aircraft in 2025.
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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?
I don't really see how this is a privacy thing. They're on the job, what's so private about that? Plenty of people are under video surveillance on the job.
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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 would only make blame slightly easier
If anything other than an intentional act by ones of the pilots is to blame, then that's pretty useful. If the switches malfunctioned or there's a way to actuate them accidentally, that's a design flaw in the aircraft.
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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?
What are you working as? No need to answer. Everyone knows for themselves. Now imagine if you're constantly being recorded while on duty, every single critical step you make in your job. Even knowing nobody is gonna watch the footage unless there's an accident.
In my opinion it adds a stress factor, and as someone who had terrible health consequences of growing up under constant stress, I'd most likely refuse to work somewhere, where I'm being recorded.
MentourPilot has outlined some possibilities though. Out of all ideas of applications in the cockpit, probably the best is when the interaction with instruments are recorded, not the entire cockpit. But then I'm not sure how useful that is. Yes, in this particular accident involving AI171 it would be absolutely crucial. But in other accidents? Every accident is different. The FDR already records the state of instruments. It's highly unlikely that in other accidents such a footage would be useful. On the other hand, I find it likely that in other accidents other camera angles would be needed, which aren't recorded.
It's a really tough choice. Yes, safety first, but... pilots are humans too. We should rather do everything we can for them to not have any reason to do anything malicious, no matter if it's accidental or deliberate. Prefer their mental health, their well being, their training, their work-life balance.
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vastly increases the storage requirements
A couple terabytes of SSDs is a trivial expense on a commercial aircraft in 2025.
You wouldn’t want this video stored on traditional SSDs though. You want it stored on media in a black box like the voice & data recorders so that it can survive crashes, fires, etc. Not sure what the costs associated with that would be though…
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You wouldn’t want this video stored on traditional SSDs though. You want it stored on media in a black box like the voice & data recorders so that it can survive crashes, fires, etc. Not sure what the costs associated with that would be though…
Again, negligible
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I don't really see how this is a privacy thing. They're on the job, what's so private about that? Plenty of people are under video surveillance on the job.
That doesn't make it not a privacy thing.
In many countries employers are not allowed to just arbitrarily video surveil you.
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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.
I think you're probably vastly overestimating how much increasing the storage on a flight recorder would cost.
Even magnetic storage has vastly dropped in price over the years, it's just become less common.
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it would only make blame slightly easier
If anything other than an intentional act by ones of the pilots is to blame, then that's pretty useful. If the switches malfunctioned or there's a way to actuate them accidentally, that's a design flaw in the aircraft.
I get what you're saying, but how many thousands of cycles do you think the 787 has on it for this to be the first time they failed, and for two separate switches to fail seconds apart?
Accident investigators are very good at what they do, and I will be willing to bet they will be able to narrow it down to an actual cause, even without a camera.
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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.
should the footage be wiped between each flight? yes.
Unfortunately that's not how it would work, current FDR data already isn't wiped between flights, and has been used in the past to discipline crew members.
The issue with that is that when the blame game starts, people inherently try to hide stuff rather than admit fault and work towards a solution.
So where do you draw the line? Should everyone always have a camera pointed at them for "safety"?
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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?
In cab recording is becoming increasingly common in some industries. For instance, the US trucking industry.
I would argue that the effectiveness depends a lot on the goals and attitude behind it. If the goal is to penalize the operator (driver/pilot/engineer/etc.) for every single infraction then it's just a huge waste of money. If the goal is to retain the best operators and help build a culture of safety then I can potentially see some value there.
