The largest US pilots union opposes it on pilot privacy grounds. (To be clear, I think having an expectation of vocal privacy while you are in charge of an airliner is absurd.)
Well, there is the theory and then there is the reality.
Theory: having less privacy makes things easier for accident investigators, post-mortem.
Reality: In this case, the pilots did their job and got the plane down safely despite rapid depressurization and literally having their headsets sucked off of their heads. It is extremely unlikely to be pilot-error that a door-plug ripped off the airframe at 16,000' or that investigators would learn anything significant from the process in the flight-deck before or after the incident. At least nothing that would root-cause this incident.
That is a non-sequitur. Investigators should have access to accident data regardless of whether the pilots did their job.
Root cause analysis isn't the only reason: it would be good for pilots to have this case study, as well as analysis on how systems responded to the abrupt change.
Having this data is strictly better than not having it.
> Root cause analysis isn't the only reason: it would be good for pilots to have this case study, as well as analysis on how systems responded to the abrupt change.
Yep, could be used as a "this is exactly what you do in this scenario" example for future pilots, or a "what did they do wrong" type real-world exercise for pilots to review (with no blame given to the OG pilots in this scenario for example).
Middle ground would be to have full media access for investigators, but a union rep managing a review and redaction process to have anything immaterial to the investigation redacted. This preserves both valuable data and privacy. Checks and balances.
That the plane landed safely is not an indication that every part of the post-incident process went well.
There could be steps that weren't followed, there could have been training gaps. There could have been secondary impacts of sudden depressurization that could have spiraled out of control, but the pilots thought on their feet to save the plane. We'd want to know exactly what they did so we could add it to the recovery process.
Your comment would only make sense if your example of reality showed the theory was flawed. However, your example of reality is unrelated to the theory, so not sure what your point is.
I think there's some validity to the privacy concerns, but it seems those could be addressed with proper access controls and rules. The recordings should only really be listened to in the aftermath of an accident, in which case, as you say, the expectation of privacy should (in my opinion) take a backseat.
On the other hand, if someone recored my whole work day every day I would not be happy. I don't think you would stay at your job of that was a condition of it.
There has to be a better solution to this issue.. extended recordings in an emergency, triggers based on conditions, private keys for pilots... IDFK, cause I try not to get involved in engineering that might KILL someone.
> if someone recored my whole work day every day I would not be happy
I'd be perfectly fine with not voice recording people who's daily work may or may not impact the global delivery of cat pictures.
I think if you choose a job where there are several hundred people's lives on the line relying on you doing your job professionally and correctly, the expectation of privacy argument is somewhat less convincing.
> I don't think you would stay at your job of that was a condition of it.
Some people literally have no choice. Do you think _any_ Amazon delivery driver is "happy" with their on-job surveillance? Do you think _any_ call centre worker is "happy" with "calls are recorded for quality and training purposes"?
> if someone recored my whole work day every day I would not be happy
Many people live with this reality every day already. Remote workers with screen sharing software, certs installed so companies can spy on everything you do, retail workers under cameras all day.
I don't understand. Are you implying that recording a pilot's voice for more than two hours could kill someone? Or just that aviation is stressful and high stakes?
(I agree that it's stressful and high stakes, which is why we record it.)
I like the fact that I can say "People may have acted like someone was going to die, but my code never killed any one"... its a preference, I want to know I can have a bad day, fuck up, and not have to carry the weight for my whole life.
Make it so they don't have reasonable suspicion CVR data won't be abused by the company, and you might get somewhere. For example criminal consequences for misuse that hit C-level and possible leakers.
Sincerely, someone who had death threats partially thanks to manipulated audio record that was done in good faith during investigation, which was leaked and edited later by third party who gained access to it 5 years later.
My wife ridicules me because when we went out to eat, before a multitude of children , I would often say “nobody ever tipped me as a meat clerk when I was working in 45 degrees elbows deep throwing away and scraping rotting meat from the shelves and gutters and then serving ‘fresh shrimp ‘ and organic grass fed filet mignon” when I felt expected to tip 20% for an already over priced meal.
As my first boss, meat clerk young lady, told me “shit rolls down hill.” More powerful people tend to get shitted on less. It was a motivation to move up.
But I still think it’s shitting on people to expect or accept constant recording of everything mundane thing while awaiting the exceptional [screw up]. Pilots are more powerful than Amazon warehouse workers but recording every breath, every whisper, ever fart is undoubtedly shit in a warehouse or a cockpit or an operating room.
Then again, the only way I could accept it is if everyone is recorded all the time and it was all public or at least FOIA able for many people. Especially the government and universities and Wall Street other wise it’s just a way to control and hang things over peoples heads.
As to the tipping grumpiness I grew up partly in the 3rd world where tipping 50 cents was a great tip and I’m cheap and didn’t/don’t make tech bro money. I found the ultimate solution was to just not eat out so much except for truly special occasions. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there too somewhere.
Unfortunately people will take recordings out of context, edit them, use unrelated pieces for other means (maybe the pilots shit-talked CEO who started pushing employees into contracting?) etc.
I (person who blamed the pilots union above) actually like unions. I could probably even say good things about pilot unions; I would say that part of the reason US airlines have fewer accidents than some other wealthy countries is the effect the unions have had on resisting attempts to work pilots through dangerous levels of fatigue, and on ensuring pilots can report dangerous situations and have them comprehensively fixed without retaliation.
I don't have faith in "market forces" to do those things, and consider the state of aviation in some other countries to be a living experiment showing why.
The opposition to cockpit recording is bonkers, though.
It's not bonkers. Notably, the pilot's union is not trying to turn back the current status quo of 2 hours recorded, they are blocking a significantly longer recording system. Such a system would inevitably record a few (probably) irrelevant flights worth of pilot chit chat and banter.
Has anyone tried, oh IDK, compromising? Maybe instead of 24 hours, we do 6? Or up to 24 hours but only of the "current" flight that matters to the current event? It's a negotiation. The Pilot's union doesn't have veto authority on safety. Sure they can threaten to unanimously strike if it's passed and that might be a big threat to airlines since they have basically stopped investing in the funnel of new pilots, preferring instead to pay everyone food stamp wages and drag themselves through the obvious """Pilot Shortage""" that results when a job that costs $40k to get only pays $25k a year.
HN isn't a monolith, and it certainly has better representation of anti-union sentiment (ie. they don't all get downvoted to oblivion) compared to other discussion forums (eg. reddit).
No, but I'm also not driving hundreds of souls around near mach 1 strapped to 100k gallons of jet fuel. And when I've worked in government environments I had escorts watching my screen like a hawk the entire time.
Not to mention the tapes are only pulled if there's an incident. You could even have a little tamper seal on it to show if it's been downloaded. This is absurd.
The issue with police body cam audio is that they are regularly recording non-police who do have a right to privacy. That's not an issue for pilot cockpit recordings. (If it is, you've got an incident that should be recorded.)
The muting you observe of police footage isn't of the first part of the audio, it's the prior 30 seconds from before the record button is pressed. They have a constant buffer going, as things can happen... unexpectedly.
> The muting you observe of police footage isn't of the first part of the audio, it's the prior 30 seconds from before the record button is pressed. They have a constant buffer going, as things can happen... unexpectedly.
I just want to clarify that it only buffers the video. The way you worded it still doesn't explain why the previous 30 seconds of audio isn't included in the buffering.
When the button is pressed is when audio recording is started and the previous 30 seconds of video buffer is prepended to the live recording.
If my job involved taking the lives of hundreds of humans in my hands, then I would expect that, at least during the hours in which said lives are my responsibility.
The intersection between employers who demand to film you being in a chair and employers who shower their employees with substantial lucre is the null set.
I just watched a youtube video on how a person looking for editing jobs had some pretty poor working conditions with terrible pay. A very controlling boss, asking him to edit on an old x86 macbook because he was told it was 'for creators'. The guy mentioned he a beast machine at home he could edit remotely and the person told him "do you want to edit?". The boss would not even provide him a mouse-he had to edit by trackpad.
He walked out around noon. The boss asked him to come back for an extra $20 that day.
I doubt the jobs where you don't enjoy any level of trust are the ones where you get paid well or get any kind of dignified treatment.
I recently saw a job ad for a JavaScript specialist where the position entailed having screenshots and keyboard + mouse tracking to monitor your working hours. It was a freelancer position, so the hire would handle taxes and health insurance, no equipment would be provided and working hours would start at 08:00 German time sharp for at least nine hours or until you "finish the daily tasks". Pay would however be for 189 hours per month, no compensation for sick leave/holidays/vacation, and you'd be paid via upwork.com (with you paying Upwork's fees) in US dollars.
What is your point? We were discussing when pilots should be expected to be recorded in the cockpit for privacy vs safety. I mentioned there are software engineer jobs where you have to keep the camera on all day.
There are jobs where you are expected to keep the camera and there are programmers who accept those work terms.
Pilots can have the lives of quite a lot more than that on their hands since an airplane makes for a great kinetic weapon. The pilots of KLM Flight 4805 took the lives of almost 600 people.
