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Why the Final Moments Inside a Cockpit Are Heard But Not Seen
jones_supa writes: There's no video footage from inside the cockpit of the Germanwings flight that left 150 people dead — nor is such footage recorded from any other commercial airline crash in recent years. Unlike many other vehicles operating with heightened safety concerns, airline cockpits don't come with video surveillance. The reason, in part, is that airline pilots and their unions have argued vigorously against what they see as an invasion of privacy that would not improve aviation safety. The long debate on whether airplane cockpits in the U.S. should be equipped with cameras dates back at least 15 years, when the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) first pushed regulators to require video monitoring following what the agency called "several accidents involving a lack of information regarding crewmember actions and the flight deck environment." The latest NTSB recommendation for a cockpit image system (PDF) came in January 2015. Should video streams captured inside the plane become a standard part of aviation safety measures?
Someone like Andreas Lubitz could have just reached up and stuck something over the camera lens. That's if he even cared about being filmed, which is doubtful. From what we're hearing about his desire for notoriety, he'd have probably loved to have those last moments caught on camera and broadcast around the world.
We're probably going to see a lot of TV news shows and newspapers calling for cameras in cockpits, but it won't be anything to do with safety, it will be because the footage has commercial value to news organisations.
Wow. A team of investigators have had full access to the black box since it was retrieved. This is standard protocol in Europe, where they have mandatory flight safety programs in place for all commercial aviation and very clear protocols in the case of a catastrophic incident (yes, that's an actual class of incident, not emotive language).
The prosecutor is parroting back what has been written in reports and given to him. He won't even have access to the original recording without supervision.
Your grounds for being skeptical should come from the fact that the investigation is ongoing, not this kind of straw man.
Apparently the pilot is a master at voices.
Even if that half-assed attempt was true, it doesn't improve the safety - they'd still all be dead. It just gives us the ability to ogle and lay blame.
Root cause analysis is not just about laying blame, it's about finding out where the processes/procedures broke down and how they can be improved to prevent a similar incident in the future.
I understand that people who know nothing about flying think video is some miracle or something, but the data recorder shows exactly what the controls are set at. Quick: look at the thrust lever. What percentage of max thrust is it set at? You have to guess with video. The data recorder will tell you exactly.
Why exactly are data recorders antiquated? I mean the concept, not a specific device. This notion that everything should be recorded all the time is idiotic.
Pilots hate this idea because it will show they are human. They make jokes, complain about work, talk about their weekends, etc. Have an incident and armchair idiots will be putting over every last everything trying to find something to blame it on. Oh, the captain discussed his favorite beer, he must have a drinking problem! Quick: let's go through his entire background until we find someone who one time saw him drunk at a football game and interview that person all week.
This is why pilots hate this. That and what is to stop their employer from listening in on their conversions? They might be taking about pay, or working conditions, and we have to stop that. The reason data and voice recorders only record a certain period of time started as a technological limitation but pilots insist on it staying that way for good reason. A complete flight needs no record like that. Video idiots of course will want the whole flight recorded, and pilots know this do it had to be stopped. If I have to watch everything I say and comment on every second I'm on duty at my own job, I'm going to be nervous and borderline hostile. That is not what I want my pilot to be.
Look, if it actually increased safety, as the data and voice recorders have done, they would be all for it. But it won't. It will only have unintended consequences. How about letting the people who do the job have a big say in this and stop the armchair lunacy.