FlyingStone
Hmmm, conflicted on the need for the CVR to shed light.
Res ipsa loquitur.
Plane goes from sunny side up to zero in ~20 seconds. Required flight path has a roll. FDR is indicated to show a throttle split. The physics of what needed to happen is straightforward. The CVR would arguably add insight into the human interactions, as well as adding additional physics data points, automated alerts etc. On the other hand, the CVR will likely show the level of confusion that arises in a crew's comprehension of the events, but this tune has been played before, repeatedly, AF 447, Adam 574, AS214, Perpignan (XL888T), CAL140, CAL676, IA605 (Bangalore) etc. In all of these sorts of cases, the crews were dealing with trying to catch up to what the aircraft was actually doing, vs their expectation of state. Other cases such as AI855, KAL 8509, and similar are cases where the information to the crew has failed and the crew don't react in time to resolve the differences. This is not a TE901 type investigation as to WITWHH. The facts speak for themselves. CVR's have a paradoxical impact, that it becomes easy to dismiss the crew as being exceptions, rather than the generic run of the mill mix of aluminum tube importers/exporters. The recommendations will almost certainly add a need for better training, but of what? Of being human, of the time to recognize that things just ain't so? To open up a NNCL that takes 20 seconds to find, 30 seconds to read the index, 10 seconds to open the page, and then adds...not much help. The main problem is the crew taking a finite time to recognize what the issue is, and then to work out what is good, and what can work next to sort out their issue. The Jet upset, flight with unreliable airspeed, etc is all well and good, and great guidance, when the crew are aware that it now applies to their suddenly unhappy world. the upset training we do in the sim is vanilla flavored; 'OK, blogs, and bloggette, today, we are going to do UA. hand over the aircraft to the other pilot, and put your head down.... now....... wait for it.... wait for it..... OK.... recover.... " Just like the real world. So in the sim, having been prebriefed of the event, and recovery, and then at the point of the session that it is undertaken, then being a party to the process of the setup, and preparing for when they open up their eyes, we end up missing the bit that happens in the real world, the time it takes to recognize that the world just ain't so, and that all that training in the sim needs to be applied in an eye-pleasing manner. In summary, all the training in the world on upset technique will matter nowt, if the crew don't recognize that they have a problem in time to apply their techniques so assiduously gained in the sim sessions. Funny thing is, its not that hard to set up, we just don't have the inclination or enthusiasm to do it. There is a downside to such SA training, as that is what it is, and the lack of SA training is what keeps killing people. The problem is (and was noted in an SA training workshop some 27 years ago), that a competent crew member losing SA in a training session has a huge hit to their ego, and confidence needs to be restored thereafter. Canned UA training is a step above lipstick on the pig, and alone will not improve the outcome. The training and recurrent training programs we have are a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise, not risk reduction oriented, and that is a missed opportunity. AQP was supposed to improve that and ended up being hijacked by beancounters and compliance managers.
If SA becomes recognized as the fundamental issue we have in aviation, then that epiphany gives a direction towards solutions that may be meaningful. Or we can apply more regulatory bandaids, as the FAA did post Colgan. WTF!