Ryan Ewing
Ryan is Sr. Director of Digital for Firecrown's Aviation Group. In 2013, he founded AirlineGeeks.com, a leading trade publication covering the airline industry. Since then, his work has been featured in several publications and news outlets, including CNN, WJLA, CNET, and Business Insider. During his time in the airline industry, he's worked in roles pertaining to airport/airline operations while holding a B.S. in Air Transportation Management from Arizona State University along with an MBA. Previously, he worked for a Part 135 operator and later a major airline. Ryan is also an Adjunct Instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Why the heck not? The tech has been ready for decades. Just do it.
Absolutely not. FDR and CVR give raw data that is easily interpreted and not open to conjecture. Video is interpreted by the eyes of each individual viewing. Each of us have our biases. It is incredibly easy to manipulate after it is released, resulting in “conclusive video evidence”.
And FDR and CVR data are not as easy to manipulate?
Other than pulling the breaker or attempting to erase the CVR, no. As far as the media it is written as a transcript and not open to interpretation.
Would you like to be monitored every second at your work place?
Let’s add CVR, FDR & video to your car….
CVR data can be misunderstood .. I did military accident investigation and we would spend hours listening to what was said.. often coming up with “unintelligible” or “unrelated conversation”
A professional should not care . Doing well at your job is just part of being employed . Really, it would provide another excellent data point . Look at how helpful badge cameras have become . They’ve saved lives that could have been ruined.
If it’s a commercial vehicle like a bus, yes, bring it. My car is personal, just me, so no.
This would add yet another layer of voyeurism and liability to an already challenging job. CVR/FDR data is already being attacked as a source of information for liability cases. All pilot unions are against this. It is incredibly invasive - we live up front, locked in for hours. NO.
Let me know when city/highway buses, tractor trailers, cabs, ubers, couriers all get CVR/FDR & video.
If you are really concerned about saving lives, you wii demand that something be done about the slaughter of Americans at the hands of “medical professionals ”. The number 3 killer of Americans is medical errors. (400,000-440,000yr) I was almost a victim myself. The major US airlines have not had a fatal accident in many years. Put your energy somewhere that might directly impact you or your family.
So we can watch the fight ? Why not. However, for the sake of passenger safety, we have to develop fully automated aircraft, with a link to an ops center that can make the decisions and assume control. Perhaps 1st gen will still have a pilot on board. This ruptures the image of the macho captain in control of it all, but obviously we have to stop the few rotten apples and the 99.9% decent pilots will indeed pay the price for them few suicidal colleagues. I’m sorry but pax safety trumps pilot egos. Obviously, fully automated aircraft can manage separation and hence no ATC required either (just basic monitoring by a computer watching out for anomalies). The discussion about the cockpit camera sounds very 1990s to me.
Categorically not.
Aviation safety has improved hugely due to the Just Safety Culture, which requires that routine use of FDRs when a carrier notes a variation from SOPs be anonymised. This usually involves the carrier having the traces, but with no detailed date/flight ID and the union having the decode to tie the trace to a particular crew. The union calls the crew for an explanation of the incident and why a report was not filed. If the union is satisfied they tell the carrier so. If not, they pass the details back to the carrier for a training remedy. This would be impossible with video.
Furthermore, what are we trying to fix.
Assuming no technical issue but a crew issue, nothing was broken, technically. If the crew was broken, fix the issues of pilot wellbeing. Make mental health issues non-jeopardy. Set up pilot wellbeing solutions. Crewing issues. Home life. Financial issues. Maintain the pilots as well as we do the aircraft, not try to police them.
We have to ask ourselves whether an occasional mass-murder/suicide is an acceptable risk, and then whether cameras might help to prevent them. I suspect that it would. The precedent is already set for countless other professions, like bank teller or blackjack dealer, just to name a couple. Those jobs don’t come anywhere close to being able to kill someone.
Then, there’s the aircraft itself. The B787 is one of the most advanced aircraft ever made. It knows everything about itself, where it is in location and flight envelope. The fuel shutoff switches should NOT have followed the pilots wishes, in this case. One engine, okay, shut it down. But, both engines, never under ANY circumstance short of fire on the wing. Why does such a smart aircraft allow itself to be driven into the ground when everything is otherwise okay? This is not acceptable.
To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.
Don’t forget, computers are programmed by humans, AI is programmed by humans, when AI makes AI, it was originally programmed by humans.
Finally, a use for previously useless uniform caps. The camera will make a convenient place to hang it over. If the lens is flush, crews will carry masking tape in their flight bags.
Oh please no. This is a terrible idea. Any computer link that allows someone else to “assume control” will definitely, 100% be used by criminals or terrorists. There exist no computer networks anywhere that cannot and have not been hacked. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you a “miracle technology” that is simply snake oil.
Disclaimer: I’m an FO at a U.S. legacy carrier…so of course I’m biased. Nonetheless, here are my 2c.
Cameras in the flight deck wouldn’t do much if anything to prevent situations like this.
Thankfully, crewmembers with mental issues appear to be the exception, not the rule. But, assuming Air India was an intentional act of sabotage, it’s obvious this guy was looking for attention. If you want to unsubscribe from life, there are plenty of ways to do it by yourself and to yourself in the privacy of your own home. To take an entire heavy jet full of pax and crew with you implies you likely wanted attention. Cameras are just one additional source of media (in addition to the CVR) so now everyone can not only hear you go out, but watch you as well. We can see the same thing with the rise in school “incidents” in the U.S. where I believe the perp is often looking to be remembered in infamy.
My fear is that cameras would be used by the company and FAA for more nefarious purposes than good. I don’t trust this any more than I trust the govt telling me that it was only planning to use the powers of the patriot act to spy on terrorists…we all know how that turned out.
Please, I’m not boasting, since thousands of pilots have a lot more experience than myself. But, I’ll start by giving my experience anyway to hopefully give my response a little credibility. Soloed a C-172 in 1967, high-performance military jets (command pilot/check airman) until 1992, Pt.121 (captain/check airman) for US airline in B-737&A-320’s until 2008, and Pt91 (international captain) for foreign privately owned B-737CJ & A320ACJ until retired 2018, with 20,000+ hours. Probably shouldn’t have done that, because I know the s-replies will soon follow. Anyway—
MY Q&A Answers: # 1 - NO! # 2 - NO!! # 3. If Q&A follow, then always refer back to #1 and #2.
Do we need all the grand-standing, the finger pointing, or the cover-their-#s, and all of them giving their “expert” advice? You know them: the Big-brother politicians, the national&international compliance agencies, aircraft manufactures, the management elites, and inputting all their feel good policies and procedure dying (whoops, I ment trying to look like their helping?.
Can you offer a single example of an actual accident that video recording would have prevented somehow?
It is possible to dream up hypothetical scenarios. But any ACTUAL?
The aircraft had 0.000 means to prevent the fuel shut-off during the flights most critical phase and that seems to be acceptable standard in todays world.
I don’t think anyone argued that cockpit video would have prevented anything. It would provide answers.
This Air India 787 mess… We’d know exactly which pilot was the suicidal murderer.
We already have sufficient regulations in place. Simple answer: NO
As a retired airline pilot who remembers the promises of the FAA that CVR tapes would NEVER ever be released to the public…forgive me if I scream to the highest mountaintop NO NO NO. Don’t pee on me and tell me it is raining…fool me once but not again. You are a pilot…something happens to you…do you want your family watching your body be incinerated and demolished on YouTube? Do you want to watch your son or daughter dying in a crash? Men shouldn’t be in women’s locker rooms/bathrooms and cameras shouldn’t be in the cockpit. PERIOD
Any changes we make to systems in the cockpit ought to be made after a determination based upon a rigorous review of copious data, that it is very, very likely to improve outcomes and very unlikely to make matters worse.
Curiosity is human and normal and I share it. But it is far from clear how the tech suggested would actually change any outcomes. It is also possible that such changes could have a negative impact. Satisfying my curiosity is not worth risking any negative change in outcomes. you cannot observe anything without changing it.
Which would not change the outcome. And it is very unlikely to alter future cases. It only would satisfy our idle curiosity.
What was the captain wearing? … I had a friend flying a USAF C-12 on final when his flightsuit Velcro cuff caught on the condition lever and inadvertently moved it. If the Air India captain was “guarding” the throttles from below (and above the fuel cutoff switches), he might have accidentally lifted the lever-lock switches to cutoff without knowing? Perhaps a simple coat cuff, wristwatch, or bracelet caused this tragedy? This would seem to fit the scenario and explain the recorded crew audio.
Just saying … a camera would let us know.