Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordings

[SpiraMirabilis]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

aevfo, MQAAord is a pilot. Thats why there is a sarcasm tag right next to that sentence you highlighted in red.

 

[jhugz]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Potentially the most obnoxious post since my joining of JC in December of 2007. I am not sure, no matter how much I disagreed with a persons perception, that I would demean what they were trying to say or how they were participating in a discussion simply because I felt my position was superior both in skill level and responsibility. Calling someones former responsibilities "a joke" compared with pilots is simply not a great thing. May I suggest a great book? Seriously - it is the only self-help book ever written that is worth anything:

I used to be a F/A so I am speaking on experience. Are you?

 

[Boris Badenov]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

None of this has anything to do with what certificates you hold or don't. The question is do you want to work in a position where anything you say at any time can be overheard and used against you in the interests of "safety". I don't. And unless you're all actually as perfect as you make yourselves out to be on the internet, you don't either.

 

[Douglas]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Well said MQAAord.


There are more reasons than privacy.

 

[Orange Anchor]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Are you afriad of being terminated? Are you not adhearing to company policy? The only reason I can see is because there is something to hide. I am an outsider looking in, so I don't really know. This is not flamebait, it's an honest to goodness question. Educate me.

The argument of 'something to hide' is a usual one but that is not the issue.
The CVR and FDR were installed for accident investigation. The FOQA programs were designed to find out what was really happening on the line but that information is 'sanitized' to keep it from being used for other purposes.

So, we have to ask, what is the real purpose of randomly listening to CVRs and will that program, like FOQA be invaded by lawyers and management for other purposes other than safety?

 

[Killtron2000]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

It will degrade safety, because CVR's will not have any info on them. Crews will pull circuit breakers or refuse to fly.

That would be something the crew is intentionally doing that has a negative impact on safety and is wrong. Again I ask what is so terrible about being held accountable for what you are doing while you are trusted with so many lives?

 

[Orange Anchor]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

I'm not discrediting your experience as a FA, but comparing FAs to Pilots is like comparing apples to oranges.

But if I did my job with the same quality as some of our FAs do, everyone on the plane would be dead.

Bottom line: Pilots have much more invested in our career than a FA does.

What does any of this have to do with randomly pulling CVRs?

 

[Killtron2000]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

The question is do you want to work in a position where anything you say at any time can be overheard and used against you in the interests of "safety".

Any time? You can talk all you want in the terminal at the hotel or wherever. The difference there is you are in an environment where distraction and lack of situation aren't dangerous.

 

[Orange Anchor]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

I gotta say there is some real hostility coming out towards F/As here and that is surprising. Some of the comments harken back to the attitude that F/As are just aerial bimbos who are there just for a fun ride (infer from that what you will).

In some ways, the anti-F/A posts are more enlightening about attitudes than the arguments pro/con about CVRs. And not in a good way.

 

[Minuteman]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

It probably wasn't the first time they made bad decisions.

I'm going to withhold any assumptions about causes until at least a final report is published.

But, you do touch on an important point. How many times in any given month do crews allow airspeed to decay below Vref, continue approaches that should have been abandoned, or otherwise come close to bending metal or injuring people. I don't think those are questions that can be answered with any statistical merit by reviewing CVR recordings. Unfortunately, I think listening to tapes will result in answering only a very specific question ("Is the sterile cockpit rule being observed?"), with lots of manpower expended for little lasting benefit.

What are they even going to do to normalize a review of one tape with another? Think about ASAP. The intake comes from reports written by a group of people with a wide variety of observational and narrative abilities. ASAP programs have spent lots of time developing a taxonomy for classifying conditions, events and causes in an attempt to catalog that "data" and start producing correlations and occurrence rates. Is a program that reviews CVRs going to develop a similar analysis rubric for flight deck recordings where there is only raw data (no narrative)? Does doing that even make sense when you are also routinely ignoring data from a well-instrumented FDR?

 

[WacoFan]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

I used to be a F/A so I am speaking on experience. Are you?

No, didn't used to be an F/A. Point I was trying to make is that you kind of slapped her down with your "its a joke" comment. Whether you were an FA, a Navy Seal, or Jesus really is irrelevant to the topic of communicating with people in a manner that won't make them feel like they hate you. That is why I suggested the book.

 

[JumpWake]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

To people who think this is okay: Would you want all levels of management above you listening to everything you said at work? Would you wear a wiretap and have every word you say recorded with the possibility of management listening to it at any time.

If this goes through, it will decrease safety, because people will NOT talk as much, out of fear/paranoia that the company is "out to get them". It will put a damper on communication. The CVR is there, and can be pulled when there's a reason, I do NOT feel that random downloading could possibly accomplish anything good.

There is already a tool in place for observation of pilots: Checkrides! Also, professional standards deals with issues of non-professionalism & safety.

:yeahthat:

 

[Boris Badenov]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Any time? You can talk all you want in the terminal at the hotel or wherever. The difference there is you are in an environment where distraction and lack of situation aren't dangerous.

Would I be right in guessing that your user information in correct in putting your age at 21?

 

[jhugz]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

No, didn't used to be an F/A. Point I was trying to make is that you kind of slapped her down with your "its a joke" comment. Whether you were an FA, a Navy Seal, or Jesus really is irrelevant to the topic of communicating with people in a manner that won't make them feel like they hate you. That is why I suggested the book.

It is a joke. I went through it. I can say it was a joke. Sit in class watch a couple movies take a couple quizzes and study a hour or two a night. It is not rocket science like you are trying to make it. I said earlier that I respect her for being a flight attendant because she was one for many more years then I was. I have dealt with some real scum so she probably dealt with 10x the amount I did.

I remember getting slapped on the wrist on these forums because I made some comments about ALPA when I was at CommutAir a F/A seeing their bribing process. etc... I was told because since I was not in the flight deck I am not qualified to be making these opinions just like Q and myself for that matter are on this topic.

I have said before I have plenty of "friends" in the aviation community that are willing to help me progress my career because of my work ethic, dedication to the job, and just fun to be around on extended trips. I can care less if someone on this forum thinks less of me because I would go work for GoJets, I think ALPA is a joke, I would take an FO position on a PC-12 for 75-150 dollars a day. Get over yourselves and stop trying to act like I need a couple of you select few on the website to continue my career in aviation.

 

[aevfo]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

aevfo, MQAAord is a pilot. Thats why there is a sarcasm tag right next to that sentence you highlighted in red.

Good one, way to read, you are brilliant. PP SEL 100TT. That is a little different than the checkrides this thread is covering. Back to CVR monitoring...........

 

[SpiraMirabilis]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Any time? You can talk all you want in the terminal at the hotel or wherever. The difference there is you are in an environment where distraction and lack of situation aren't dangerous.

Yeah, just what I want to do an a scheduled reduced rest overnight wherein the van driver is consistently late and it is a 20-30min drive to the hotel meaning that of the 8 hours only maybe 5-6 is behind the door at the hotel. Yeah, I'm going to spend that time shootin' the (you know).

Have you ever heard of a safety concept called CRM? Do you think it would HELP or HINDER CRM if the crew was worried anything they said could be randomly heard by Management?

 

[SpiraMirabilis]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Good one, way to read, you are brilliant. PP SEL 100TT. That is a little different than the checkrides this thread is covering. Back to CVR monitoring...........

Not really. Another 100 hours and she could fly an RJ. PPL checkride was much more stress to me than any of my 121 proficiency checks.

 

[ajf005]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

That would be something the crew is intentionally doing that has a negative impact on safety and is wrong. Again I ask what is so terrible about being held accountable for what you are doing while you are trusted with so many lives?

It's hard to understand when its not affecting you. We all know our jobs and what it takes to competantly fulfill our duties. If you're worried about safety, how is it any safer to have your head buried in a company manual compared to a USA Today? Its the small nit-picky things they'll find on these CVR's that will drive us up a wall. Example: setting V speeds....the book says "The PNF shall call out " V1 115, Vr 120, V2 125, etc"... what actually happens is more like " Speeds 15, 20, 25 ...set" Different yes, unsafe? Not in my opinion, if you set the correct speeds. I don't know any pilot who would actually think of setting 15, 20 and 25 for v speeds in a transport category plane. Think of someone being there to bust you every time you didnt come to a full and complete stop at EVERY stop sign you ever stop at. Is it unsafe? Sure according to the books it is but not under certain circumstances.

 

[aevfo]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

I know of at least one fatal accident in recent history that can be attributed to lack of situational awareness while the crew was chatting during the whole thing. Explain how these recorders are going to have a negative impact on safety? I think safety takes priority over anything else.

Those colgan pilots took a perfectly good airplane and crashed it. It probably wasn't the first time they made bad decisions. What's so wrong about being held accountable for what you do or say while you have dozens of lives in your hands?

You are already held accountable for what you do. The only thing CVR monitoring would do was see if crews were talking when they shouldn't be. So, what are you going to do? Are you going to slap the crews that do it, or is it going to be anonymous? Why don't you just continue on down the path and put video camera's in the cockpit and start dinging crews that do the flow out of order, or don't transfer controls during an approach brief. This is a very slippery slope that we don't need to go down.

The only good thing that would come from this is that some upper management would know immediately what the pilots thought about them in some very colorful language.

 

[MQAAord]

Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Thank you all for your support, here in the thread and via PM.

As always, people are entitled to their opinion. Though if anyone thinks I don't "get" what a checkride is, or what it means to a pilot's career, that is not correct. I do.

Like Orange Anchor, I'm really not understanding the hostility here.

For some reason I'm having visions of Kevin (Staplegun)'s avatar running through my head.


Now for goodness sakes, let's keep this on the subject of the CVR issue. I think it's a very important issue that deserves discussion. Shem, I especially liked your post. I may not agree with it, but your post was well-spoken, intelligent, rational and professional. Thank you.