Fly The Spying Skies On Smerky Airlines

(And I also posted here.)

In his column yesterday, intrepid Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Michael Smerconish leads off with the following…

Drivers today don't make a move without receiving instruction from their GPS. Kids communicate face-to-face using iChat on their laptops. Nobody leaves home without a BlackBerry. We read books on the Kindle, watch movies in the car, and buy music from our cell phones.

Smerky must live in the “high rent” district; I know plenty of people, including your humble narrator, who don’t own one of the latest doodads he just described (though I could download a ring tone to my cell phone, to be honest, but I’m not sure what the reaction would be if “Secret Agent Man,” for example, started playing in the event that I were to accidentally leave my cell on and receive a call while meeting a client).

But the real point he’s trying to make here is that video cameras should be installed in the cockpits of planes, in the wake of the tragic Brazilian air liner crash in the Atlantic a few days ago.

However…

According to Arthur Wolk, the nation's preeminent aviation expert and lawyer, the technological capability is there, but the support of the union that represents U.S. pilots isn't.

"The problem is the pilots unions have objected to that because they say that then the companies will be looking over the pilots' shoulders to make sure that they haven't exceeded any of the airplanes' capabilities," he said.

"To me, it makes common sense that we need to get rid of those old bugaboos and we need to start having real-time transmission of both flight data and cockpit voice."

The National Transportation Safety Board began advocating in earnest for cockpit video recordings in 1999, after the crash of EgyptAir 990. Traveling from New York to Cairo, Flight 990 crashed 60 miles south of Nantucket Island. The NTSB led the U.S. investigation and concluded in March 2002 that the crash occurred "as a result of the relief first officer's (RFO) flight control inputs." Experts consulting for the Egyptian effort, meanwhile, put forth a series of mechanical failures they believed had felled the aircraft.

The plane's flight data recorder revealed that the autopilot was turned off - as were both engines - when the plane went down. The cockpit voice recorder, meanwhile, caught the RFO rhythmically repeating the phrase "I rely on God" almost a dozen times as the captain returned from a bathroom break demanding, "What's happening?" A video, the NTSB argued, would have gone a long way toward detailing exactly what occurred.

Smerky, by the way, says something to the effect of the recovery crew in the Atlantic looking for a cassette tape “in the age of the iPod” – I would argue that the sophistication of the available technology is not the only issue here (and I really don’t understand what the video of a lunatic muttering “I rely on God” would have done to prevent the tragedy of Flight 990, when all video will do is allow you the utterly horrific experience of watching tragedy unfold without being able to prevent it).

And given that we’re talking about Smerky and airline safety both in the same post, you just KNOW what’s coming next, don’t you?

…we need look no further than the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to know how valuable cockpit image recordings could be when combined with the video and data recordings every plane already produces.

The black boxes from American Airlines Flight 11 and United Flight 175, which hit the twin towers, were never recovered. The voice recorder from American Flight 77, which pierced the Pentagon, was too damaged to yield any useful information.

And while we've heard the audio recording of the moments leading up to United Flight 93's crash in Shanksville, nobody knows for sure what actually happened between 9:58 a.m., when the passengers launched their counterattack, and 10:03 a.m., when the plane hit the ground at more than 500 m.p.h.

I have to tell you that, In a really twisted way, I’m actually glad Smerky brought this up, because it gives me an excuse to link to this typically thorough post from Len Hart on the subject of the 9/11 attacks (I’ve read through most of it and plan to again so I can digest it all).

Here’s what I’m wondering about, though. Suppose, God forbid, someone plans to do something terrible on an aircraft. What’s to prevent them from storming the cockpit and shooting out the camera?

And another thing: if you’re going to photograph what’s going on, photograph everything. This notion of “well, we won’t photograph the faces of the flight crew for privacy concerns” is a joke. Are you planning to scramble their voices for privacy concerns also?

(Note: I’m not unsympathetic to privacy concerns. I’m just saying that it’s ridiculous to say you’ll do this and only go half way.)

But here’s another factor Smerky didn’t tell us about (from here)…

…one reason pilots oppose image recorders is that such promises were broken after they agreed to the introduction of cockpit voice recorders in the 1960s, the Air Line Pilots Association said in a statement submitted to the board.

Pilots had been told the tapes would be used for accident investigations only and wouldn't be publicly disclosed. But in 1989, a 6 o'clock news program played the cockpit voice recorder from Delta Flight 1141, which crashed on takeoff in Dallas. The crew and passengers survived.

Though laws were subsequently passed that limited the use of cockpit voice recordings, they are still used against pilots in criminal proceedings and disciplinary actions by employers, the statement said.

Airlines are skeptical of the cameras. They want a cost-benefit analysis done first before they have to pay for the devices.

So the airlines don’t want the cameras either (or, at least, they don’t want to pay for them)?

I’ll tell you what – this New York Times article tells us about the horrifically low pay and brutal hours of personnel manning our commuter flights, written shortly after the crash of Flight 3047 outside Buffalo. It also tells us the following…

The renewed worries over commuter planes come as passenger airlines, regional and mainline, have achieved unprecedented levels of safety. Passenger deaths per million flights are down by more than two-thirds in the last 10 years. The 49 people on board the Buffalo flight were the first in 30 months to die during a scheduled flight on a passenger carrier.

But of the six scheduled passenger flights that have crashed since Sept. 11, 2001, only one has been from a major carrier. Four, including the one in Buffalo, were commuter flights; a total of 133 people died on those flights. (The fifth, a 50-year-old seaplane in Miami, was in neither category.)

…

The Federal Aviation Administration, while it enforces one set of safety standards, says it does not know how the safety of the commuter airlines compares to the safety of the big carriers. It is working on that question because of…planned Senate hearings.

And as far as those personnel charged with plane safety on the ground are concerned, this tells us the following…

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union that represents those who "move tin," says some facilities are critically understaffed, causing delays and increasing the possibility of mistakes by tired controllers working 10-hour days and six-day weeks.

"Without a doubt, I would say this rubber band has been stretched as far as it's going to go and it's not a matter of whether it's going to break, but when it's going to break," said Hamid Ghaffari, president of the union's Pacific region.

So it sounds to me as if the issue of plane safety, despite some wonderful numbers as a result of the hard work of dedicated professionals, is something we need to monitor carefully; if you’re going to pinch pennies, so to speak, don’t do it to the point where you’ll later regret it while at an altitude of 30,000 feet or higher.

And by the way, when it comes to stressed-out individuals responsible for our lives as we travel here, there and everywhere, never forget the “contribution” of this guy to the whole mess, as noted here.