Posts about: "CVR" [Posts: 256 Pages: 13]

There are indeed, in the United States, rather strict prohibitions and limitations on the availability of CVR transcripts as well as recordings under federal statutory law.

First, the NTSB is subject to strict statutory limits (See 49 U.S.C. Sec. 1114 - "Disclosure, availability and use of information"; 1114(c) "Cockpit recordings and transcripts":

1114(c)(1) Confidentiality of recordings.\x97
Except as provided in paragraph (2), the Board may not disclose publicly any part of a cockpit voice or video recorder recording or transcript of oral communications by and between flight crew members and ground stations related to an accident or incident investigated by the Board.

(2) Exception.\x97Subject to [certain exceptions] the Board shall make public any part of a transcript, any written depiction of visual information obtained from a video recorder, or any still image obtained from a video recorder the Board decides is relevant to the accident or incident\x97
(A)if the Board holds a public hearing on the accident or incident, at the time of the hearing; or
(B)if the Board does not hold a public hearing, at the time a majority of the other factual reports on the accident or incident are placed in the public docket.

So there are strict limits, although NTSB may exercise discretion - but I would argue that the default setting is non-disclosure, given the policy imperatives both stated and implied by this section:

1114(b)(3) Protection of Voluntary Submission of Information.\x97
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, neither the Board, nor any agency receiving information from the Board, shall disclose voluntarily provided safety-related information if that information is not related to the exercise of the Board\x92s accident or incident investigation authority under this chapter and if the Board finds that the disclosure of the information would inhibit the voluntary provision of that type of information . (emphasis supplied)

And by experience, Board has been quite discreet about disclosures of recordings... I hope I recall this correctly and await any necessary corrections.

What about in court?

49 U.S.C. Sec.1154 - "Discovery and use" of recordings and transcripts

(a)(1) Except as provided by this subsection, a party in a judicial proceeding may not use discovery to obtain\x97
(A) any still image that the National Transportation Safety Board has not made available to the public under section 1114(c) or 1114(d) of this title;
(B) any part of a cockpit or surface vehicle recorder transcript that the National Transportation Safety Board has not made available to the public under section 1114(c) or 1114(d) of this title; and
(C) a cockpit or surface vehicle recorder recording . (emphasis supplied)

The exceptions (crunching down to the essence of their application) require in camera review - i.e., by the judge in chambers rather than open court - and a judicial determination that further disclosure is required to assure a fair trial. (Pretty standard, stock-in-trade for federal district court judges, imho.) (Edit: note " in camera " is a Latin term and legal term of art, and does not refer to or mean actual cameras whatsoever.)

And, any permitted use of subject recordings must be subject to a Protective Order of confidentiality and maintained under seal to prevent use "for purposes other than the proceeding".

[ [i]The foregoing is not legal advice or counsel whatsoever and is not permitted to be construed or interpreted in any manner by any person or entity as legal advice or counsel - not least because there is no such thing as anonymously sourced legal advice or counsel in the United States (or any other such place as may comprehend the written English word)..... and for all the other reasons the sophisticated and good-spirited PPRuNe community will already have realized. . . . hopefully with the proper and expected smirk. ]

Now, editorially: I argue emphatically that free dissemination of recordings would be very, very unfortunate because it would produce - and I'm not trying to exaggerate - disastrous effects. The prior posters have articulated the reasons this would occur, and I won't repeat, mostly to avoid short-changing any of the previously - and convincingly and validly - stated points.

I do, however, disagree pretty strongly with the assertion that such unfortunate bad results already are occuring despite non-disclosure rules. First, although advocates, activists and would-be experts can run with partial information and fill in the blanks freely, everyone under the Sun knows that such persons have agendas. Maybe they're lawyers and maybe they're flaks or lobbyists - it isn't important what hat they wear, everyone knows they have an agenda. And so the goal or purpose of their attempts to fill in the omitted information is readily dismissed by anyone taking 15 seconds to give the matter some thought. And for those who can't or don't want to work, I mean can't or don't want to think for 15 seconds, well, the impact upon them of the agenda-driven information matters to the public interest about as much as whether any one of such individuals who can't or won't be bothered to think happens to like strawberries.

Second, is not the point about releasing the entire recording based upon being able to hear the nuance, the inflection, maybe the "transmission" of raw, and in what we're talking about, profound human emotion? (I actually anticipate hearing such CVR recordings could be quite traumatic for John or Jayne Q. Public, but not to digress.) And without that raw, unfiltered content, how much impact does the agenda-driven interpolated information have, in comparison? I suggest, it does not have nearly the same type of impact at all, and it very definitely does not have the same level, the same (if you will) quantity of impact, even if it is similar in nature to some degree. It would be pretty quickly shrugged off or forgotten ..... unlike the real recording were it to be heard.

In other words, the argument that bad things already are happening when omitted information is supplied in the public domain is wrong, first, because "consider the source" - everyone knows the agenda-driven information is for that purpose (and usually financial, at least insofar as trial and defense counsel are concerned), and second, the made-up or interpolated information lacks significant impact in and of itself, in comparison.

If this SLF/attorney had anything to say about changing these legal and policy rules, . . . . . . . well, I don't, so.
(I would have posted sooner but I made the mistake of trying to read the thread's progess since last night first.... with probably 12 pages now still to go, I hope this post hasn't been entirely superfluous or otherwise obnoxious.)
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Thank you for this reply, check orders of magnitude and powers of ten.

I think we'll need to agree to disagree, since those cameras won't prevent any accident (all they'll do is improve post mortems) but they will create a hostile work environment which is not healthy for corporate or flight deck culture.

Your ref to MH370 is noted, and also not agreed either.
Suggest you read up on how to stop terror attacks. The psychology of what is operating there is quite similar. The perp has the initiative.

As to AF 447, the data from a sub-system provided some useful info
(before the aircraft was found and then the FDR and CVR changed the story considerably)
that was not intrusive.

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?

My final thoughts for this event.
Misinformation, most of us including myself was of the view that Gear Up had been selected because we saw an image believed to be the accident aircraft with the bogeys stowed for retraction.The report image shows that they were not and the Gear Selector was down. A crucial element in the sequence of events.

The preliminary report around the cause is deliberately vague for obvious reasons.The investigators would know exactly what was done/said and by who. The clack clack of the fuel switches would be on the CVR and align with the FDR. The First Officer was the Pilot Flying and his control inputs would be on the FDR (trim operation) when the engines were commanded to shutdown.
The full version will leak otherwise we have to wait for the Final Report. I'm of the view that the only thing misunderstood was the Captains meaning of Retirement..

Just to clarify, I'm not aware of any confirmation at this point that the Fuel Cutoff switches were physically moved from RUN to CUTOFF and back again.
We do have evidence that the FDR, thus the databus, received signals that the Fuel Cutoff switches were in the RUN position, then the signals changed to CUTOFF one second apart, and then back to RUN at four second intervals.
In the absence of video, we could only use CVR data to determine that the switches were physically moved - either through flight crew conversation or sound of switches being moved.
When the PF asks why the PNF "Why did you cut off" we don't know whether he concluded the fuel was cutoff by checking the physical position of the switches or through instrument annunciations.
I accept that with sampling rates the physical movement of switches to CUTOFF at one second intervals could be logically explained. I can understand why there would be such an interval between physically moving the two switches back to RUN, unless there was some sort of struggle which presumably would be easily detectable on CVR.
Unless I've missed something, I'm not ready to conclude that the switches ever physically moved.

But there will be a lot of information on the CVR
The information on the CVR that has been publicly released is minimal. Conspicuously so
The preliminary report has said the switches were turned off, then on
There has been no AD or advisory, and Boeing has stated they don\x92t anticipate any.

Occam\x92s razor suggests that those privy to the CVR are confident in their assessment.

Exactly. Here we have a captain who reminds us repeatedly of such, whilst denigrating reminding us that another aviation blogger who has a different theory is not a captain, but quietly praises another captain with impossibly shiny bars (Brasso perhaps?).

Nevertheless he glosses over / ignores the fact that the crew comments are not time stamped, and as such you cannot base much on the time delta until the switches were returned to their normal position. It could be 1 second or 9. I wonder why the decision was made to omit that time stamp in the Prelim Report.

He's talking about a 10 sec delay between fuel cutoff and back to run (after 4min15sec into the video)

Look at 5.06 in the video, he simulates the CVR comments immediately after the cutoff and times the gap until they are switched back on. He may be right, but that timeline has no more validity than the CVR comments being 1 second before the switches are turned back on again, which could paint a very different picture (inadvertent or mechanical).

I don't think a ten second gap between event and recovery action is particularly noteworthy in terms of demonstrating malfeasance.

Bear in mind that it would take 1 to 2 seconds for this to have become fully apparent, plus then initial surprise to figure out it was engine related - being optimistic, 3 seconds total.

7 seconds does not seem remotely unreasonable to then deduce cause, especially given what various other posters have said that FC switches wouldn't be high on their list to check. In fact, it seems like pretty good going.

If it was 10 seconds between the CVR and recovery action (as per your quoted poster) then that changes things quite a bit. But it wasn't.

PS the conclusion may be right (or it may not be), I'm open on the topic. But that 10 seconds gap doesn't tell us the answer.

Ok, agreed. we can't know when these words were said, but I think it's reasonable to assume it was somewhere in the 10 sec gap.
The point he's trying to make is that this 10 sec delay is consistent with his assumption that it was all premeditated by the captain.

Yes, that is clearly what he is trying to make. The point I make is this: that point rests almost entirely on the CVR conversation happening very shortly after the switches are activated and there being a long pregnant pause before they are switched back. Had the cutoff been inadvertent (mistaken action by PM or mechanical) and it took them 8 seconds to work it out (which is quite reasonable under the circumstances), the switching of them back on 2 seconds later could equally be an entirely consistent timeline.

The report has not identified who said those words and when. I find this curious as it's pretty easy to count back the seconds from the end of the CVR recording or forward the application of full power.

The problem is that that is fitting the facts to the narrative, not the other way round.

Truth is that the 10 sec delay is consistent with that, but it's also wholly consistent with it being accidental.

It is effectively irrelevant in the deduction.

If the CVR discussion is very early in the 10 seconds, then that consistency changes...but we don't know that.

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.

For historical reasons, adding CVRs (Voice/Audio) to aircraft was a controversial subject. I think there was a particular accident that led to their introduction, but involved the 'buy-in' from pilot's unions, who were able to play their part in the legislation and installation. For instance, each cockpit (at least until 10 years ago) has a CVR erase button.
Recording images/videos is prevented by similar union/regulator agreements AFAIK . It might take this accident to change that, of note the GE EAFR fitted to the 787 has the capability:
i.e. the 787 EAFRs appear to have the crash protected ability to record images/video, but not (yet?) the cameras etc. to do it.

Is that the "Captain's friend heard CVR tape" report that came out before the CVR had been read out, or a different source?

The former seems very discredited.

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.

Pilot error.. flown 777 and 787 for years now, these fuel control switches don't bounce about and it takes a positive action to move them to cut off.. FO was PF and Captain probably got confused by throttles rolling back and started double loss of thrust memory actions... but at low altitude? what on earth ? Thrust levers were "fully forward " according to report so some attempt to squeeze the juice... of course if it was something more sinister with no audio on the CVR we will never know.. sadly