I have no opinion on this, however it should work like cockpit voice recorders in that only the last 120 mins are recorded in the event of a major incident. It’s basically a loop where the footage is continuously overwritten.
My husband had the misfortune to be on a flight when an engine failed, he said the sudden large drop in altitude was really scary especially for a nervous flyer like him.
The pilot decided to turn back to San Francisco as they hadn’t been flying for long but he assured the passengers that it was perfectly safe as the plane could fly on two engines (it was a Tristar).
If the video is locked in a crash proof container like the voice and data recorder, it can only be accessed in the event of an incident, like the CVR. Nothing to worry about.
The data on black boxes, including the CVR, can be accessed on the ground.
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But it never is unless there is an incident. If management wanted to hear what the pilots were doing, they’d already be listening to the CVRs.
Integrating video in the “black box” systems might very well be an acceptable solution. However it is probably a lot more expensive to implement, and it will take a very long time for it to become available across the fleets. What pilots are afraid of is a “cheap” solution that is more used for surveillance and disciplinary actions than accident investigation
Me I would add more surveillance cameras in the cabins…
Yes they are. Some decades ago the FAA introduced a rule requiring a clean cockpit i.e. no extraneous conversations in critical flight periods. Operators are required to review the CVR‘s to ensure compliance with this rule. While this only applies to the US it is also mirrored in many other countries. In addition very valuable maintenance information is contained in the data recorders.
It should be a condition of installation that these camera recordings are on a short ring buffer (say 6 hours) and illegal to be for anything other than serious incident investigation. Then there should be no issue.
Crew should be aware that the flip side of cameras is they also protect the innocent from false accusation or cover-up.
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It would have to be integrated into the black box, or the data would not survive an incident like the Air India, and therefore not be useful.
That sounds good in theory, in practice you are dealing with multiple jurisdictions, each country has its own laws and each airline can pressure the manufacturers with their own requirements when billion-level contracts are at stake, etc.
The “black box video” solution in practice doesn’t happen because there is no money in it for the airlines. And the public regulators are not too keen either - both because they don’t see the additional value in it and because they are heavily lobbied by the airlines.
Given that the majority of transport accidents are caused by “operator error”, I guess airlines don’t want evidence that would increase their liability further.
Dandi,
These rules and regulations are dealt with by ICAO. In this case ICAO has had on their agenda the issue of including cockpit video for at least a decade. They have already developed standards on the technical aspects of how it would be done but have yet to reach a consensus from States on implementation.
With the development of ‘faked news’ and AI, to me, it is growing less likely it will ever come to be. The fires won’t even be out but the tabloid web-sites will be full of ‘leaked’ videos showing ‘the shocking last seconds. And John Q. Public will eat it up. Then the accusations of ’cover-up’ etc will drive conspiracy theories like we haven’t seen yet.
The data requirements are enormous, considering flights can be as long as 18 hours and 40 minutes and you want a reasonable level of quality.
International flights are covered by the Montreal Convention 1999 (aka MC99). which limits airline liability in case of accidents.
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FInancial liability sure, but they can’t limit reputational damage.
Price is the biggest driver of airline selection, then schedule. Reputation is down the list.
Does the black box record a full 18+ hour flight?
Current a 2TB SSD would easily save 18 hours of 1080p video for 1 or 2 cameras. An SD card in that size is about 200chf max.
Yes! But is it done or mandatory?
Yes. But that 2TB SSD needs to be made crash and fire resistant, tested, certified, inspected and maintained.
Any new equipment should not endanger the airplane. Sounds simple, but this objective takes a lot of time, work and money.
I was also anticipating the suggestion that the data could ‘just’ be uploaded to the cloud