Originally Posted by
blind pew
Reading the Forbes article it would appear that some soul decided to interfere with what should be a sterile phase of the flight in that the monitoring pilot had a series of tasks which could and should have been carried out when the aircraft was stationary. Especially relevant as the copilot was new on type.
It isn’t the first time that I’ve seen ill thought procedure changes which left no one monitoring.
Since the tasks involved checking take off performance then Pm wouldn’t have been looking outside.
Perhaps it’s also about time that the 30 mins CVR rule is changed - after all it was introduced 50 years ago.
(I was on BALPA tech committee in the early 70s tasked with airfield lighting amongst other things - operated a heavy in 1978 into JFK and know how difficult RT and taxying can be without unnecessary distractions).
Push to erase at the gate should not be a thing. (TWA 841) Cockpit cameras should be a thing. Erase at pushback or before maintenance makes so much more sense. There are accidents where CVR and FDR on a preceding leg would have been helpful to investigators.
My understanding is that leaks of US and European CVR have been extraordinarily infrequent, with most due to legal proceedings. Incidents of cockpit audio that have embarrassed crew and carrier have generally been from hot mics with ATC or intercom; in fact those are the only ones that come to light publicly as far as I recall.
I understand the privacy issues and no one likes people looking over their shoulder, but frankly we are all surveilled in the workplace now, and transportation seems like a role where it is truly warranted. There are strong legal protections where CVR is concerned and they seem to work.