Ask Lemmy

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.

No, because flight recorders already save large amounts of information about what the plane is doing, the pilot inputs, and what is being said audibly. I'd like to understand how a visual that vastly increases the storage requirements would help understand an event.

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.

A camera wouldn't have prevented anything, it would only make blame slightly easier.

Maybe improved mental health resources for pilots would be more helpful.

Or maybe not having a single point of failure for something so critical. Airplane engines are made to burn for a while before they become a problem, so why can't a two engine shutdown be inhibited below a certain radar altitude, or something of that nature?

Seems like a lot of pretty easy fixes that would work preemptively, rather than just another $20 part marked up to $20,000 because it comes with a FAA part number, that can only be used to assign blame after the fact.

Let me ask everyone this, would you want a camera in your office? Or should nurses have to wear body cameras all shift just so if something happens to a patient they can make sure they can blame the correct person?

Yes, 100%. Storage shouldn't be a problem in this day and age on multi-million dollar vehicles. And the privacy issue could be worked around too, like video recordings only accessible offline or upon pilots consent, unless there's an accident and it's requested by the investigators. I might be ignorant with this, but I don't see the problem really.

Are they mostly worried about audio? Because it really would make conversation on a four hour flight awkward if you knew everything was being recorded.

As for video, I feel like anything they don't want me to see is something they shouldn't be doing at work.

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.

I don't really see how this is a privacy thing. They're on the job, what's so private about that? Plenty of people are under video surveillance on the job.

Privacy reasons? Now I’m wondering what really happens in the cockpit.

No. For what? Occasional and slight benefit to some subset of accident investigations?

Pilots deal with more than enough bullshit. Putting them on camera is outrageous.

Yes and no.

Yes because these people are at work; if they're not using a bathroom, having cameras recording them while they perform their job is within their employers purview to do.

The can object all they want, but it's something that is, and can be done for pretty much everyone working. Think about cashier's at grocery stores and convenience stores... They're almost always on camera all the time. I can hear someone saying "but that's different, it's for security".... Is it?

Having a flight recording of what the cockpit is doing during the flight, seems like something you would want when you are entrusting them with a multimillion dollar piece of machinery and hundreds of people's lives.

On the other hand, where the hell is that information going to go? The black box? Doubtful, that shit is already cram packed with stuff they need to record. On a device in the cockpit? Sure, you'll never find it in a crash, but you do you, I guess.

So I'm on the no side because unless you're putting it in the flight recorder, it's borderline useless for anything beyond scrutinizing someone doing their job. If you are putting it in the flight recorder, is there any information that's going to get left out to make space for the video of pilots picking their noses at 30,000 ft?

Does it matter which pilot flipped the switch though? The switches got flipped, maybe intentionally, maybe by accident. They already know when they got flipped, and have the audio of what they were doing at the time. So they can probably figure if it was possibly related to a procedure in progress. That's about all they need. At best you might get evidence that it was intentional, which won't save any lives, and will likely make people feel even worse.