Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordings
By ANDY PASZTOR
The Feb. 12 fatal crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 has sparked a novel labor-management dispute over appropriate uses of an essential safety tool: cockpit voice recordings.
Colgan Air Inc., which operated the flight, is proposing to download and analyze random cockpit recordings in the future as a means of enhancing safety and enforcing cockpit discipline. The union representing Colgan's roughly 480 pilots is dead set against it.
Federal investigators Tuesday are slated to release transcripts of the cockpit conversations that took place in the minutes before the twin-engine Bombardier Q400 plane stalled at below 3,000 feet, rolled violently and plummeted to the ground, killing 50 people.
According to people who have reviewed the transcripts, the crew engaged in a prolonged chit-chat as the plane descended from cruise altitude and then prepared to land. That violates basic aviation rules, which prohibit discussions of non-flying matters during certain phases of flight. Commercial pilots are prohibited by something called the "sterile cockpit rule" from engaging in extraneous conversations, particularly when maneuvering below 10,000 feet.
Firefighters surround the wreckage of Continental Connection Flight 3407 in February.
Colgan's management has approached local leaders of the Air Line Pilots Association, the largest U.S. pilot union, with the proposition that such spot checks of cockpit behavior would help supplement and improve existing safety initiatives. ALPA's leadership has responded with a resounding "no."
Not a single U.S. airline is believed to sample cockpit recordings in this fashion, and even general discussion of such a step is considered anathema by the pilot union. Pilots contend it would violate their privacy and demonstrate management's lack of trust in their professionalism. Individual pilots at Colgan and other carriers have criticized the airline's proposal, but so far ALPA leaders haven't made a public stink. An ALPA spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., decline to comment.
The National Transportation Safety Board hasn't been formally asked by either side to weigh in, but board members, staffers and outside air-safety advocates are likely to oppose the idea on the grounds that it could chill voluntary disclosures of safety lapses or mistakes.
Some safety experts fear the initiative could even backfire, encouraging certain pilots to try to deflect blame by possibly erasing cockpit conversations captured on the devices. Currently, such data is used exclusively in accident probes or as part of joint airline-union programs to investigate the causes of various types of close calls or dangerous incidents -- in the air as well as on the ground.
Captain's Training Faulted In Air Crash That Killed 50On Sunday, Colgan spokesman Joe Williams confirmed in an email that the carrier has proposed that recordings "be monitored for safety purposes by selected union and company pilots." He said the company believes such a step is the most effective way to obtain "an accurate view of pilot performance." Colgan believes the cockpit recordings "could become great accident prevention tools," he said
Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association, said Colgan's concept is the natural evolution of current safety practices. "If we are identifying cockpit discipline" as an important safety factor and "there is a random, non-punitive way" to sample data, according to Mr. Cohen, "why wouldn't we at least begin talking" about broader uses of cockpit recorders?
Pilot union officials are especially sensitive about the topic because they already face calls by the NTSB to install video-recording systems in many cockpits. Overseas, cockpit voice recordings have become embroiled in criminal proceedings after some high-profile crashes. And pilot representatives increasingly are wary of any proposals to further strip recorded conversations of confidentiality.
Buffalo Crash Sparks Debate Over Use of Cockpit Recordings - WSJ.com