Asking because of Air India 171. Pilots and their unions are objecting to it because of “privacy” reasons. What do you think about it?
In cab recording is becoming increasingly common in some industries. For instance, the US trucking industry.
I would argue that the effectiveness depends a lot on the goals and attitude behind it. If the goal is to penalize the operator (driver/pilot/engineer/etc.) for every single infraction then it’s just a huge waste of money. If the goal is to retain the best operators and help build a culture of safety then I can potentially see some value there.
Its brought in for safety reasons, all very valid and worthwhile, and 2 weeks later theyre watching the cameras live and giving pilots disciplinary meetings for drinking water on company time.
the question is too broad. should cameras be in cockpits? yes.
should video streams of those cameras be available live? no.
should recordings of the cockpit be stored on the blackboxes? yes
should the footage be wiped between each flight? yes.
pilots have far too much on their minds while flying a plane, no reason to allow a micromanaging ego trip of an executive access to their cockpit to provide unhelpful “critiques” for better flights. let the talent do what you hired them for and take appropriate action after the incident with the supplied evidence.
should the footage be wiped between each flight? yes.
Unfortunately that’s not how it would work, current FDR data already isn’t wiped between flights, and has been used in the past to discipline crew members.
The issue with that is that when the blame game starts, people inherently try to hide stuff rather than admit fault and work towards a solution.
So where do you draw the line? Should everyone always have a camera pointed at them for “safety”?
I think I was pretty clear on where I draw the line.
thank god I’m not the FAA, right?
What are you working as? No need to answer. Everyone knows for themselves. Now imagine if you’re constantly being recorded while on duty, every single critical step you make in your job. Even knowing nobody is gonna watch the footage unless there’s an accident.
In my opinion it adds a stress factor, and as someone who had terrible health consequences of growing up under constant stress, I’d most likely refuse to work somewhere, where I’m being recorded.
MentourPilot has outlined some possibilities though. Out of all ideas of applications in the cockpit, probably the best is when the interaction with instruments are recorded, not the entire cockpit. But then I’m not sure how useful that is. Yes, in this particular accident involving AI171 it would be absolutely crucial. But in other accidents? Every accident is different. The FDR already records the state of instruments. It’s highly unlikely that in other accidents such a footage would be useful. On the other hand, I find it likely that in other accidents other camera angles would be needed, which aren’t recorded.
It’s a really tough choice. Yes, safety first, but… pilots are humans too. We should rather do everything we can for them to not have any reason to do anything malicious, no matter if it’s accidental or deliberate. Prefer their mental health, their well being, their training, their work-life balance.
Yeah just put cameras aimed on the instrument clusters. Or maybe like body cams for the pilots. That way they can pick their nose and scratch their balls or labia in relative peace, but you still get that important data about how a pilot error gets made.
Privacy reasons? Now I’m wondering what really happens in the cockpit.
