FAA reauthorization bill includes Cockpit Video Recorders! 👎

[Roger Roger]

Pilots: no cameras because people will watch and share it out of ghoulish curiosity

Also pilots: man I wish I hadn’t listened to that CVR, ooh look, new CVR audio released that I definitely listen to for education value not ghoulish curiosity

 

[ppragman]

I don't want a camera pointed at me while I work. It's invasive. There are no "safety benefits" that don't have better mechanisms.

Are you familiar with the concept of panopticon, and why it is considered inhumane? This is that.

And frankly, it's just voyeuristic.

I mean, I am familiar with the panopticon, but this isn't it. The panopticon was describing the perfect prison whereby people will behave differently because they can never tell when they're being surveilled, this is kind of already a thing with respect to the CVR. If you have it separated from management and part of the FOQA program, I do not see any difference from a CVR at all. Obviously, if management is using it to enforce disciplinary stuff - sure that's bad, but I don't see that happening for obvious reasons.

The "boss man" spying on you by listening to your conversations during work is already something that's been dealt with with regard to this sort of stuff. I imagine guys were freaking out just as much when they put CVRs in the airplanes.

And there are absolutely safety benefits - especially in terms of accident investigation and other extremely useful pieces of science. I worked for a place that had this, I literally didn't even notice it at all, it's not a big deal provided management is siloed from it. We carried on the same conversations in the cockpit, we did the same stuff, we flew like we normally did. It was literally not a big deal.

Honestly, from a FOQA standpoint, I could totally see it being extremely helpful. Understanding the context of "why" stuff is happening, is critical. This just paints a better picture.

 

[ppragman]

My big thing is video can be turned into click bait and do more damage to the pilots families than with a CVR. Right now only interested people read CVRs. But when video gets shared, everybody will see it and judge.

I wouldn't mind cameras on the airplane to feed the CVR, but not in the flightdeck.

Honestly, in the event that videos of the flight deck during impact are release... I can't see it being too different than how traumatic it must be for families to listen to the last seconds (or read the transcript) of the CVR.

Personally, I think this is much ado about nothing, and the benefits of seeing exactly what was happening by investigators, or from a FOQA standpoint would be huge.

Let's say you have a new checklist change. You think it's really good, but after a few months, anecdotes come in that it's not being followed, or worse, that it's leading to other problems - well, now you have a tool to get more context about what's happening. As long as that stuff is siloed there is no reason why it can't be kept out of managements hands. Let ALPA run the program.

Do you really think guys would call "stable" when they're not actually stable if there was a camera? Do you really think guys would bust mins as often if there was a camera? Literally, everyone on here complains ad nauseum about "oh, it's weird that we only break on the go-home leg" lol, that stops the second that there's evidence lol.

It'd take a while to get use to, but not really, I had that installed in the corporate airplane I flew and literally never thought about it. If they would have been scraping my charred remains out of a mountain somewhere I would hope that the footage would have been useful to preventing someone else from befalling the same fate.

Hard to advocate for better rest rules in the absence of data - if/when there's another accident you'll be able to literally see the guys have fallen asleep.

 

[ASpilot2be]

I mean, I am familiar with the panopticon, but this isn't it. The panopticon was describing the perfect prison whereby people will behave differently because they can never tell when they're being surveilled, this is kind of already a thing with respect to the CVR. If you have it separated from management and part of the FOQA program, I do not see any difference from a CVR at all. Obviously, if management is using it to enforce disciplinary stuff - sure that's bad, but I don't see that happening for obvious reasons.

The "boss man" spying on you by listening to your conversations during work is already something that's been dealt with with regard to this sort of stuff. I imagine guys were freaking out just as much when they put CVRs in the airplanes.

And there are absolutely safety benefits - especially in terms of accident investigation and other extremely useful pieces of science. I worked for a place that had this, I literally didn't even notice it at all, it's not a big deal provided management is siloed from it. We carried on the same conversations in the cockpit, we did the same stuff, we flew like we normally did. It was literally not a big deal.

Honestly, from a FOQA standpoint, I could totally see it being extremely helpful. Understanding the context of "why" stuff is happening, is critical. This just paints a better picture.

This absolutely should never be used for FOQA. That should purely be from the airplane gates and triggers.

 

[ASpilot2be]

Honestly, in the event that videos of the flight deck during impact are release... I can't see it being too different than how traumatic it must be for families to listen to the last seconds (or read the transcript) of the CVR.

Personally, I think this is much ado about nothing, and the benefits of seeing exactly what was happening by investigators, or from a FOQA standpoint would be huge.

Let's say you have a new checklist change. You think it's really good, but after a few months, anecdotes come in that it's not being followed, or worse, that it's leading to other problems - well, now you have a tool to get more context about what's happening. As long as that stuff is siloed there is no reason why it can't be kept out of managements hands. Let ALPA run the program.

Do you really think guys would call "stable" when they're not actually stable if there was a camera? Do you really think guys would bust mins as often if there was a camera? Literally, everyone on here complains ad nauseum about "oh, it's weird that we only break on the go-home leg" lol, that stops the second that there's evidence lol.

It'd take a while to get use to, but not really, I had that installed in the corporate airplane I flew and literally never thought about it. If they would have been scraping my charred remains out of a mountain somewhere I would hope that the footage would have been useful to preventing someone else from befalling the same fate.

Hard to advocate for better rest rules in the absence of data - if/when there's another accident you'll be able to literally see the guys have fallen asleep.

You have to think of how god awful people are. Right now not many people read the cvr transcript. Nobody makes a big deal of it. But when video of the crash from the flightdeck makes it to social media, people will hunt down the pilots family and make life difficult. Video is an awful idea in that regard.

This is one area where data gathering can cross a line.

 

[ppragman]

You have to think of how god awful people are. Right now not many people read the cvr transcript. Nobody makes a big deal of it. But when video of the crash from the flightdeck makes it to social media, people will hunt down the pilots family and make life difficult. Video is an awful idea in that regard.

This is one area where data gathering can cross a line.

Meh, I'll believe it when I see it. All the names are usually public already, if this didn't already periodically happen, I'd be surprised.

You can see who the pilot was, and when the NTSB says, "pilot error" I doubt it's any better for the pilots' families. Hell, I have listened to audio of guys screaming bloody murder (rightfully so) before impact on this very site, I don't think footage changes much.

Also, I reject the idea that "people are god awful." The vast majority of people I've worked with, met, and otherwise interacted with are fantastic. I reject that on principle alone. People are pretty great.

This absolutely should never be used for FOQA. That should purely be from the airplane gates and triggers.

hard disagree - FOQA is a great application. We could actually, you know, see why people are screwing up. Context is good, and more context is better. Hard to actually know how •ed up a policy change is without contextual data - camera footage gives you exactly that.

I oppose it being used punitively, but to make the cockpit safer? I'm here for it.

I wonder how many times a year guys call "field in sight" at minimums on the go-home leg when they don't see a thing. I have seen this happen a time or two... granted I was operating in a different world, but I would bet it happens everywhere, even a small percentage.

Similarly, I'd bet a lot of discrepancies get ignored that would be impossible to ignore if there was footage. That could be good.

I don't know, I imagine this is exactly what people were worried about when CVRs came out (I could be wrong), and low and behold, well, now that's a cornerstone of aviation safety.

 

[ASpilot2be]

Meh, I'll believe it when I see it. All the names are usually public already, if this didn't already periodically happen, I'd be surprised.

You can see who the pilot was, and when the NTSB says, "pilot error" I doubt it's any better for the pilots' families. Hell, I have listened to audio of guys screaming bloody murder (rightfully so) before impact on this very site, I don't think footage changes much.

Also, I reject the idea that "people are god awful." The vast majority of people I've worked with, met, and otherwise interacted with are fantastic. I reject that on principle alone. People are pretty great.

hard disagree - FOQA is a great application. We could actually, you know, see why people are screwing up. Context is good, and more context is better. Hard to actually know how •ed up a policy change is without contextual data - camera footage gives you exactly that.

I oppose it being used punitively, but to make the cockpit safer? I'm here for it.

I wonder how many times a year guys call "field in sight" at minimums on the go-home leg when they don't see a thing. I have seen this happen a time or two... granted I was operating in a different world, but I would bet it happens everywhere, even a small percentage.

Similarly, I'd bet a lot of discrepancies get ignored that would be impossible to ignore if there was footage. That could be good.

I don't know, I imagine this is exactly what people were worried about when CVRs came out (I could be wrong), and low and behold, well, now that's a cornerstone of aviation safety.

But nobody in the general public cares when it's all in text. But when it's in reels being shared on Instagram, it opens a whole new audience which is where it gets dangerous.

As for FOQA, how do you keep it anonymous when there is video evidence with faces? That's where it's a bad idea. It's supposed to see trends when left unattended.

 

[JordanD]

I can't believe you're arguing that footage isn't objectively worse than hearing someone die. There's many, many documentaries that have used audio for some pretty horrific things, but showing them would be unimaginably awful and immensely worse to see. Jonestown, some of the details of 9/11, and a few other things come to mind.

The vast majority of people I've worked with, met, and otherwise interacted with are fantastic. I reject that on principle alone. People are pretty great.

That's fantastic and I'm glad that's been your experience. Unfortunately there's people out there whose sole mission seems to be "how awful of a person can I be over the internet." Numerous cases of families of dead people in various instances being harassed with stuff like that for no reason.

 

[phill1174]

All of the social media posts, phone photos/videos, texts especially after a wreck when they recover mobile devices has to be a treasure-trove of information.

We just had some relatively vague Flight Safety Bulletin about "notable and highly visible events (…) in the National Airspace System" that directs compliance with checklists, procedures and compliance with the PED rules...

It really shouldn’t be as hard as pilots make it out to be. It’s amazing that folks can’t sit their phone down to fly an approach or take off, or prioritize flying the airplane which is your job.

I shouldn’t be shocked though when we have teenagers who are fighting teachers for taking their phone. Unfortunately it probably won’t get better or we’ll see more folks start to get canned for these things. Surprisingly the only time I’ve seen excessive PED usage was flying with a senior guy whose wife was what I assume getting visits by someone while he was gone.

 

[MikeD]

We just had some relatively vague Flight Safety Bulletin about "notable and highly visible events (…) in the National Airspace System" that directs compliance with checklists, procedures and compliance with the PED rules...

Why vague? They should tell the story, with the names and other identifiers redacted.

 

[derg]

Why vague? They should tell the story, with the names and other identifiers redacted.

Ha! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Personally, I prefer receipts as well! Like all the KCM issues. Don't say "Due to crew infractions…" say "Ronald Thornton of WorldNet Airlines, in civilian clothes, attempted to bring a big assed bag of weed through KCM now ya'll got some randoms, POW!"

 

[trafficinsight]

There is not a single accident in the flight data recorder era where a camera would have made the difference between determining probable cause or not.

Someone just wants snuff films.

• that.

 

[MikeD]

To me, the basic premise of a camera is no different than HUD tape in a fighter jet. The big difference is though, is that HUD tape just looks out the front of the jet. It doesn’t show the cockpit. Our cockpit cameras at my op, show the instrument panel, a little ways out front, and you can see the crew hands on the controls, but that’s about it. To see the crew, they’d have to lean far forward in their shoulder straps, and even then you only see shoulders and helmet of someone. But…..we also don’t have CVRs and only a limited FDR-style recording ability that isn’t crashworthy anyway. So there are wide differences between various aviation ops and what video would value-add and what it wouldn’t.

 

[trafficinsight]

To me, the basic premise of a camera is no different than HUD tape in a fighter jet. The big difference is though, is that HUD tape just looks out the front of the jet. It doesn’t show the cockpit. Our cockpit cameras at my op, show the instrument panel, a little ways out front, and you can see the crew hands on the controls, but that’s about it. To see the crew, they’d have to lean far forward in their shoulder straps, and even then you only see shoulders and helmet of someone. But…..we also don’t have CVRs and only a limited FDR-style recording ability that isn’t crashworthy anyway. So there are wide differences between various aviation ops and what video would value-add and what it wouldn’t.

We're not firing weapons at people, that's the difference.

 

[JordanD]

To me, the basic premise of a camera is no different than HUD tape in a fighter jet. The big difference is though, is that HUD tape just looks out the front of the jet.

That would be more palatable but is literally no different than what we already have with recording all of the instrument parameters. Does there really need to be footage out there of me spilling food on my lap or changing my shirt because I spilled coffee all over the front of it?

 

[MikeD]

We're not firing weapons at people, that's the difference.

Neither am I in my bird, but you can see the difference in how the camera is mounted and what it sees, and what it doesn’t. But again, we don’t have other recording devices either. So there an argument for and against, regards how viable it is.

 

[derg]

There is not a single accident in the flight data recorder era where a camera would have made the difference between determining probable cause or not.

Someone just wants snuff films.

• that.

This is true.

 

[derg]

That would be more palatable but is literally no different than what we already have with recording all of the instrument parameters. Does there really need to be footage out there of me spilling food on my lap or changing my shirt because I spilled coffee all over the front of it?

Not the widget NOT THE WIDGET, dammit Jordan!

(Proud to have ya, man!)

 

[JordanD]

Not the widget NOT THE WIDGET, dammit Jordan!

(Proud to have ya, man!)

Fortunately I got two airlines out of said shirt, also fortunately I didn’t spill anything on the airplane.
Unfortunately I had to do a transcon with coffee soaked pants.

 

[derg]

Fortunately I got two airlines out of said shirt, also fortunately I didn’t spill anything on the airplane.
Unfortunately I had to do a transcon with coffee soaked pants.

“It’s coffee”

”Why does it smell like urine, J?”

”I swear its… coffee…”