Safety Board Urges Deployment Of Cockpit Image Recorders

Air Safety Week, August 2, 2004

Lawyers would have a "feeding frenzy," Johnson envisioned. A picture is worth a thousand words, and the video would be used by plaintiffs lawyers to dramatize pain and suffering, he theorized.

Erasing the CIR tape after the NTSB completes its investigation was generally thought to be a non-starter. "I don't think this is a good idea," declared Michael Demetrio, a plaintiffs lawyer from Chicago. CVR, DFDR and CIR materials are all part of the record and should be open to analysis, and certainly available under discovery with appropriate protections against unauthorized use, he argued.

"A CIR would help dismiss silly claims, like the one that the USAir Flight 427 pilot was reading a newspaper," Demetrio added.

Mark Dombroff, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer with airline clients, said, "If the CIR is the only recorder, release under protective orders to lawyers and use in trials is even more likely."

Controlling access to imagery may be particularly difficult in international cases. The AAIB's Smart outlined a three-key concept by which investigators could gain access to encrypted imagery. Authorities of the country conducting the accident investigation would have one key, the CIR manufacturer would have another, and representatives of the pilots' union would have the third. All three keys would be required to gain access.

Research results

Further impetus for CIRs may come from ongoing research slated for completion in September. Conducted by Pippa Moore of the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the research was undertaken to compare the data provided by a CIR against the data provided by CVRs and DFDRs and whether "any additional information is provided and whether the benefits associated with the additional information justify the potential invasion of flight crew privacy," according to the latest (June 18) update on this research.

The interim conclusions affirm that:

* It is possible to install imaging recording systems that provide a general view of the flight deck without exposing the identity of the flight crew.

* The image recordings provide useful data not available for the CVR or DFDR (e.g., loss of flight displays and failed flight crew attempts to solve problems).

* Image recorders can confirm facts suggested by other recorders (e.g., smoke in the flight deck).

AD Aerospace's Mike Horne participated in this CAA simulator research. He recalled that pilots tended to point to partial panel failures, for which there was no indication on the CVR or DFDR. In a smoke trial, one pilot knocked off his glasses while donning the smoke mask and goggles, a momentary distraction not caught by the CVR.

Although Horne has an interest in cockpit imagery as a potential camera supplier, he pointed to the NTSB's challenge regarding FAA inaction to date. "An accident investigation tool will not be installed in airliners without a requirement," Horne said.

"We need to push," he declared. "New aircraft are in design now, and now's a chance," he added. Regarding the pilots' privacy concerns, Horne said, "Pilots are fully competent professionals. They're going to be following procedures, so I really don't see what the problem is."