Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordings

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Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Minuteman said:
I'm going to withhold making any statements like that 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.
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I think the sterile cockpit rule is a good idea and if there was some way of enforcing it the comair crash may not have happened. Right now its just a suggestion. I would agree a CVR alone is not the best tool for what they want to do although when I fly with another pilot I usually verablly tell them what I'm doing and why or what I think they should do.

The only negative thing I could think of coming from this is pilots being worried about talking about a situation and having a CRM problem.

Minuteman said:
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?
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Whether the effort is worth it or not would be a managment desicion. They might be getting some kind of insurance discount for it but I really don't know. If they were to take some action based on this the proper thing to do would be to have the cheif pilot look at what happened and the pilot would have a chance to explain. You're right the details of each report will be different depending on who wrote it but I think you would be able to tell if certain crews keep having the same problem reported.
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

aevfo, you miss the obvious solution! All of that (camera + CVR) and then pipe it straight to the FAA. It'll be like flying with a fed, except ALL the time. :)
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

SpiraMirabilis said:
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?
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Is this about your gripes with your schedule? If you want banker hours go be a banker.

The CRM is the only big problem I saw with it. I think you would have to at least try it to see if it actually does affect how crews communicate.
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Killtron2000 said:
They might be getting some kind of insurance discount for it but I really don't know.
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I know of one 121 operator who went to an insurer to inquire about a discount for having an SMS. The insurer basically told 'em that this year's premiums are predominantly determined by last year's claims (so no discount). :rolleyes:
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Killtron2000 said:
Is this about your gripes with your schedule? If you want banker hours go be a banker.

The CRM is the only big problem I saw with it. I think you would have to at least try it to see if it actually does affect how crews communicate.
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The first paragraph of my reply was to show that your suggestion "just talk at the hotel, sheesh!!" was completely ignorant of the realities of our profession.

So. now we have to try everything to be able to say if it would be a good idea or a bad idea? I've never tried crack cocaine but I'm pretty sure that it isn't good for me, is my opinion on the relative health merits of crack cocaine invalidated because I never gave it it's fair shake?
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Killtron2000 said:
I think the sterile cockpit rule is a good idea and if there was some way of enforcing it the comair crash may not have happened. Right now its just a suggestion. I would agree a CVR alone is not the best tool for what they want to do although when I fly with another pilot I usually verablly tell them what I'm doing and why or what I think they should do.
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Did you actually read the CVR transcripts from that accident and figure out where the brake was released or just listen to the media lackeys blab on about sterile cockpit?

Based on what you said and what actually happened, I'll have to go with the latter.
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

ajf005 said:
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.
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I don't think there is anything wrong with being precise. I think we should be held to a higher standard than bus drivers.
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

aevfo said:
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.
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You're only held accountable after a checkride or an accident/incident. A little late I would say. If you consistently do things wrong then there is a problem that might not show up on a checkride. Do you think management is going to want to retrain a new pilot every time somoene tunes the wrong frequency? I doubt it.
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Really? Only held accountable after checkrides or accidents? Here I thought that I got standardization rides and line checks and randomly observed by the FAA. I guess I must be imagining it. Phew, can relax.
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

SpiraMirabilis said:
The first paragraph of my reply was to show that your suggestion "just talk at the hotel, sheesh!!" was completely ignorant of the realities of our profession.

So. now we have to try everything to be able to say if it would be a good idea or a bad idea? I've never tried crack cocaine but I'm pretty sure that it isn't good for me, is my opinion on the relative health merits of crack cocaine invalidated because I never gave it it's fair shake?
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The health effects of crack cocaine are well documented with the data from actual use of it. That's the whole reason you already know it will most likely be bad. I think it's hard to say whether the knowledge their conversations are being randomly sampled will affect CRM without trying it. Has somebody else already tried this?
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

SpiraMirabilis said:
Really? Only held accountable after checkrides or accidents? Here I thought that I got standardization rides and line checks and randomly observed by the FAA. I guess I must be imagining it. Phew, can relax.
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Whatever you call them they are essentially check rides because you know somebody is watching so you are generally on your best behavior. Would I let a passenger put their hands on the controls with the FAA or a check airman there, of course not. What if it's a beautiful korean girl and nobody else is on board....well I'm not goint to admit to anything but it doesn't make it ok. We're all human and we all do things we wouldn't do if we were being watched. Unlike your home I don't think you really have a right to privacy in the cockpit.
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

OldTownPilot said:
Did you actually read the CVR transcripts from that accident and figure out where the brake was released or just listen to the media lackeys blab on about sterile cockpit?

Based on what you said and what actually happened, I'll have to go with the latter.
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They were posted on this forum before and I did read them.
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Minuteman said:
I know of one 121 operator who went to an insurer to inquire about a discount for having an SMS. The insurer basically told 'em that this year's premiums are predominantly determined by last year's claims (so no discount). :rolleyes:
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I guess I don't know why they want to do it then.
 
Re: Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordin

Very divided on this...

For one it indicates a major distrust in our new generation of pilots and I see Boris' point about the ragdance..... being wired on every move... I don't know.

But, the other side of the coin is that unsterile cockpits have lead to several accidents with greenhorn and not so greenhorn crews. Somehow CVR's can aid in finding information after the crash.

:banghead:
 
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