Posts about: "CCTV" [Posts: 84 Pages: 5]

From the beginning, my impression looking at the final glide video was that they weren't sinking as fast as I would have expected with both engines failed completely. A rough analysis using 787 L/D data, revisited as more speed and altitude estimates became available, convinced me that it was very unlikely that they could have gotten that far in that configuration with not only no thrust, but the drag from that big windmilling front fan on each engine. The preliminary report states they got at least one engine turning, apparently fast enough to reduce that drag and therefore get them to the crash site. However, as tdracer opined, a few more seconds would not have allowed for enough thrust to develop to stop the descent before ground contact.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recently investigated the loss of an R66 and praised the ability of the factory-fitted video recorder to assist in identifying the cause of the accident. DFDR & CVR legislation was written, literally, half a century ago, long before on-board video was even possible, yet alone considered, and technology hasn't kept up with the times. It's about time it did.

Truck & bus driver's, cabbies, train driver's, even the kid at Macca's who hands you your burgers are all filmed at work and don't feel it's a hostile workplace, so sorry to say that airline pilots are most certainly not special enough to argue against the introduction of such technology - no matter how big your ego. The same argument of Big Brother was used when CVR's were introduced and no one bats an eye anymore, it's widely accepted, even though you'll still get the odd bloke here or there who erases the CVR before handing over to the next crew. If regulators want to introduce onboard CCTV with the same protections as CVR data, you won't win an argument against it. E specially when the increasing number of fatalities whose ultimate cause is pilot suicide will sway public opinion against you by people who themselves already subject to such surveillance at work. "Why are they so special?" will be the sentiment...

Granted, accident investigates are good at what they do, and I'm in awe of their ability to reconstruct the majority of accidents to determine the ultimate cause (without video). but when technology is available that would have already solved this accident ie. "On-board CCTV shows the Effo selecting the engine run switches to OFF for reasons that remain under investigation" (and to be clear, I AM NOT suggesting that's actually what happened...), it would solve a lot of issues and put to bed speculation about what actually happened to the fuel control switches, who did what and when and I'm at a genuine loss as to why people would argue against it, when it's already so widespread and entrenched in other industries.

Even now - with the preliminary report, I haven't seen mention of which pilot asked the other "Why did you [go to] CUTOFF?" whereas a video would have already told the whole story of this accident - with the exception of the why?

And that is what will drive it.

We have all had to accept CCTV if we want to pump gas, scan groceries, walk into a bank, get on a bus, walk thru an airport, or catch an Uber.

We have the situation where pilot malfeasance is now the number 1 cause of RPT fatalities.

Guess where this is headed.

Despite my understanding and agreeing with the merits of the arguments made by commercial pilots about the potentially deleterious effects of cockpit videos and the publication of raw recorder information, I think it would be prudent for commercial pilots to brace for a mugging by political reality. If the truth is that the course of events in the cockpit of AI171 is 'pretty clear' from the recorded voice and data recorders, the political pressure to reveal, 'soon', what is 'pretty clear' is likely to become overwhelming in the context of previous tragedies. And any impediment to that happening in future tragedies, because of pilot resistance, will be steamrolled. If pilots want to argue that they will be 'less safe', I wish them luck in getting popular support.

Korea has made CCTV mandatory in operating theatres .

I work in a facility where cameras outnumber staff on site roughly 3:1.

Various forms of public transport (trains, buses, trams, I assume many boats) have ubiquitous external, internal, and in at least some cases driver facing CCTV.

Plant control rooms (including power stations, dams, and chemical facilities) have ubiquitous CCTV.

Driver-facing cameras with alerting and KPIs for events like speeding, hard braking, phone usage/distracted driving, and fatigue detection are becoming increasingly common for fleet vehicles, thanks largely to hefty insurer discounts. That's not just heavy trucks but things like HVAC installers, linemen, and ambulances.

I suspect anyone who thinks this will never happen in aviation is being rather optimistic.

CVR is likely what was meant.

yes thank you for the correction, CVR. I don\x92t see what the problem is? I have been flying for 20 years I couldn\x92t care less if the CVR has a camera feed.

Once in a bazillion, eh?

It seems more passengers are dying in scheduled flights in recent times due to pilot suicide than any other cause - and people still want to argue about whether it was suicide or an accident after the fact.

The simple fact is it would likely have 'solved' this accident by now. We'd know if the fuel switches were operated by a crewmember. We'd know which crew member. We'd know who asked who "why'd you [go to] cutoff?", we'd know if there was any physical activity between the two before or after the engine shutdown and we'd (probably) know if there was any indication or external reason for them to do so that isn't captured on the DFDR or CVR. The ATSB raved about the ability to recover video footage in the R66 prang - and that was a single-pilot helicopter that was fitted with it, one could only speculate how much the accident investigators would have liked to have it here...

So...I ask this as a genuine question - why are pilots so fearful of being video'd at work when virtually every other industry - particularly transport related industries - has at least CCTV, if not more intrusive methods of surveilling their employees? In my last company, we had real-time In Vehicle Monitoring Systems , Dashcam's and Cat Driver Safety Systems in our light vehicles, FFCCTV and dataloggers and IR detectors in the locomotive cabin to detect movement, CCTV throughout the shunting yard and car dumpers as well as the datalogging of the signal system and radio communications - and that was just a train company. And the notable thing about all this surveillance is, several times, I was able to demand the relevant evidence be downloaded and it cleared me of an allegation of wrongdoing. In part, due to the lack of protections afforded us in rail when compared to the legislation guarding use and disclosure of the CVR that exists in aviation.

Can anyone articulate a specific reason or their grounds for not wanting CCTV in the flight deck - and not just a catchall "it's a hostile work environment" - what makes it hostile in your view? Why do you feel it's acceptable to be filmed in the aerobridge but not the flight deck? The fact they can watch you screwup instead of just listening to you screwup? The fact you can't hide anything that goes on behind the closed door after an accident? What specific articulatable reasons do pilots have for not wanting to be captured on CCTV in their workplace like so many other employees around the world take for granted every day?

Post the math, or we're talking about nothing.

"Quickly solving" (which in your post means finding soneone to blame) an accident does not mean improving safety. A CCTV is NOT a preventive measure, and CVR and FDR proved to provide enough data to conduct a proper safety investigation.

A camera right in your face 24/7 does nothing to improve safety, and could also lead to inactions for fear of repercussion. Anyway, if you want camera be my guest, with the only condition to introduce AI fatigue recognition. That's be a blast, as written above.

Oh, by the way...saying "a lot of people are already being recorded at work" means less than nothing.

@ The Brigadier
@ Lead Balloon
Sadly, we are living in an era few of us imagined, and where previously unthinkable events are becoming more common. Wishing it weren't so or saying in ain't so won't make it not so.

I believe the industry should embrace change. If not, the industry risks finding itself embraced by change.

Better to be out in front of this issue and negotiating appropriate safeguards on CCTV monitoring, rather than being dragged along reluctantly and with less influence.

I agree

CCTV would not have prevented 9/11, nor Germanwings. The perpetrators in these incidents made no effort to hide their crime, and had no concern about their legacy after death.

CCTV may well have prevented MH370 as well as this case. With both, a premeditated plan had the effect of creating confusion and at least some doubt. That may well have been the intent of the method adopted (rather than simply nosing over).

As always, we are talking about risk management - not risk elimination.

Emphasis added.

We don't have evidence sufficient to reach that conclusion in either case. Maybe such evidence will emerge in the Air India crash investigation. Conceivably, investigators already have it (although, if they do, it should have been cited in the preliminary report), but we don't have it. If that's what happened in MH370, it seems pretty unlikely, at this point, that it's going to emerge.

We wouldn't have the video for MH370 even if a camera was installed, so, no, it wouldn't.
We don't even know that the Ahmedabad crash was a suicide, or that there was a "premeditated plan".

I think there's a good chance that there might be mandated CCTV in cockpits in the future as a consequence of this accident. There's also near enough to a 100% chance it would not and could not prevent this type of accident, but "accident prevention" will be the reason given. It always makes me curious how knee-jerk regulatory actions get justified. I don't care that much if they do install it - the worst that could happen is I get sprung picking my nose. But I do care when authorities or Governments issue nonsense reasons for it in an effort to be "seen to be doing something" by the public.

I'm late to the party here (deliberately) but I'm slightly surprised there seem to be quite a few commenters not acknowledging the elephant in the room after this report. I spent years on the B767 and the B744 before moving to Airbus. These are big chunky switches requiring two different muscle actions to change their position. "Accidentally" moving them from run to cutoff with a neat 1 second split is extremely improbable even at the best of times, and makes no sense at all during the first moments of the takeoff phase. The hypothesis which does make more sense based on the facts now available is just a bit disturbing to mention, but that's unfortunately where we are at the moment.

I can't see that, given MH370 is at the bottom of the ocean. Continuous streaming & monitoring would have been required which in my view isn't possible on at least 2 grounds

The topic of CCTV in the flight deck is now for discussion: here in R & N.

To repeat:

The topic of CCTV in the flight deck is now for discussion: here in R & N.

This was posted sometime ago, but if anyone would still find it useful to pinpoint the location of the aircraft in the 'new' photo from the Preliminary Report (with RAT deployed) I made a crude attempt which placed it roughly midway between the two sets of identical touchdown zone markings, ~245m (803 ft) from the displaced threshold of RW05.

The deemed position of the CCTV camera is only an estimate, based on visual cues. I'm happy to share my workings, should anyone find it useful to cross-reference this with other data they are working on, but I will avoid cluttering up the thread any further until/unless it becomes relevant.

You're looking for the point where the LEFT of the two white lines intersects the runway (ignore the white dots):

Thank you! Eyeballing the map overview at FR24 and the ADS-B data, that puts it at 8:08:49. That's 6 seconds after the loss of both engines, so the clock could still be 4 seconds fast—and would have to be fast if that was the first frame of the video where the RAT was fully deployed.

You're welcome, maestro!

I figure you are already well aware of the following, but I mention it to avoid others reading more into the words than was intended: the report doesn't confirm whether or not the CCTV still in Figure 15 is the first frame where the RAT can be seen fully deployed.

This energy-based model illustrates Air India 171's flight profile from liftoff to impact. It uses the initial data point from FlightRadar24 of 184 kts G/S, 21 ft height, Google Earth for the crash location, and CCTV footage (originally posted on X) for timing.



A key observation is the calculated average ground speed of 150 knots from the initial point, just after takeoff, to the crash site, derived using the CCTV elapsed time. The model incorporates "best-guess" mid-points inferred from the CCTV footage, which help depict approximate indicated airspeeds consistent with the aircraft's energy state throughout the flight.



The analysis assumes zero thrust during the flight and an average Lift-to-Drag ratio of approximately 12. For this model, a takeoff mass of 210 tonnes and an estimated V2 of 160 knots were used.



Note: This analysis was conducted prior to the release of the AAIB preliminary report, and therefore does not account for the correct take off mass and the actual V2 of 162. The differences are small and as this is a rough best guess, it\x92s just a basic energy model to show the possible trade between speed and height. No account was made of an engine spooling up at the end of the flight. Visual review of the video suggests the thrust from any restarting engine must have been very low, as no significant yaw is discernible.