justme69:
Do you think that if such a program was being used on this MD-82 over at Spanair it would've prevented the accident?
From the moment the airplane departed for the second time after it's return to the gate? - No.
But that is not what FOQA programs do. I believe you now have a better comprehension of FOQA. It's a good start but there is much, much more to such a program than can be gleaned by reading a few articles - the subtleties are enormous, the variations on how to do FOQA well are wide and the protections for crews also vary widely. Some (the Asians, typically, but now, apparently, others in Europe) use a pilot's data to punish rather than learn. Such a stupid approach to safety has it's own long-term reward and is universally discouraged under a Just Culture approach to flight safety but some owners/managers want instant solutions and remain largely ignorant that they are in the business of aviation.
What FOQA does is to identify trends and highlight incidents. In this, the program is extremely successful. Association pilots may call crews to learn more about the event because the program does not use the CVR data, does not record ATC transmissions, does not know what the weather was, does not know if the cockpit was sterile, (the TAM accident A320 cockpit was not - there was a female scream just as the aircraft went over the edge of the airport boundary and into the buildings across the street), and does not know what transpires between maintenance people and the cockpit crew on the ground.
The program uses exactly the same data as the crash recorder does. It is from the exact same sources - primarily the ARINC 429 and 717 - designated standard aircraft data busses although other ARINC standards are employed especially on the 787.
This is a crucial fact mainly because I have seen an airline dismiss some very serious "FOQA data" because, they said, it "wasn't from the DFDR and so they couldn't act on it". Using this as an excuse to continue operations when a different action was indicated is a grave misapprehension of what FOQA is, what the data sources are and how such actions may place the organization legally in harm's way. "Knowing and not acting" is the same as acting with intentional negligence.
What FOQA also does is put the lie to those management people who harbour and broadcast their illusions that their operation is completely safe, does not make mistakes and that their standard is second to none. Such is simply ignorant wishful thinking but is popular at safety board meetings where the tough issues don't have to be dealt with and no senior manager gets "branded" or otherwise thought that his/her department isn't the safest possible. That "safety is first" is simply another illusion. It is not. Cost is first and it is extremely difficult to change that world-view. The usual "intervention" is an accident, a pattern which repeats itself so often that safety people can always be found doing thus:
I continue to hear reactions such as astonishment when I describe what we are seeing in the data - raised eyebrows and "not our pilots!!" are typical of the reactions, followed by dismissal of the data in some very serious incidents in which most of the details may go unreported to the regulator but not unobserved by FOQA and, by reports, to management.
All these facts stated, the program itself is one of the most significant improvements in safety analysis in the last fourty years. British has been doing this kind of work since the late fifties and many enlightened airline managements brought in FOQA programs as computerization made such possible and cheaper.
Often, FOQA is only taken seriously after an accident. That is the case at QANTAS after Bangkok, Air Transat after their Azores diversion, US Airways etc. Other carriers "get it" right away and do FOQA properly. Most are somewhere in between. The program is accepted worldwide, more or less, by almost all pilots because the intention is not "big brother" - the intention is to remain as informed as possible about what the fleet is doing and how the fleet is being flown. As such, it is a proactive approach to flight safety.
Now - to respond directly to your question, justme69, a FOQA program can tell both the pilots' association (if there is one) and management (if the deidentified data is shared with them, and it must be for due diligence requirements), depending upon how long the data is kept and who examines it on a daily basis, it can tell you if any of the fleet taxiied out with the slats/flaps retracted and it can, depending on the programming of the LFL, (Logical Frame Layout - a "map" of parameters and their values), tell you whether the takeoff warning horn sounded.
It can tell you how many times it happened, where and what the rate per nnn number of flights is, etc - once the data is available, it can be analyzed using graphing and statistical techniques.
It cannot "predict" an incident or accident but no one can. What it can do is point to heightened risk or the need to discuss an unreported incident with a crew, (using the pilots' peers, NOT management!).
In fact, many FOQA programs record over a thousand parameters, many more than the the aircraft's DFDR or FDIMU. So a very detailed picture (and, with suitable software, an animation) may be built of each flight the aircraft takes.
It takes a very experienced person who is also an active pilot with the airline to interpret the data successfully. Such a job cannot be handed over to the cheapest intern available because mistakes in interpretation will most assuredly be made. If the airline actually takes the data seriously and acts upon it, correct interpretation is fundamental.
I hope this helps - truly, a book could be written on doing FOQA properly and well.
PJ2