Originally Posted by someTexan
Sometimes, when accident CVR tapes are reviewed and FDR's decoded it appears that the accident/incident pilot's themselves have limited or no knowledge of aviation at all
Everything is possible.
When I read some submissions to TechLog, I find myself wondering if people have any clue about stuff they are writing. And I am well assured that others think the same about me.
That's the point here. Translate: you're trying to fly an airplane with a couple hundred people in back from A to B as best you know how, and some joker is going to play back what you said and decide you are an idiot.
Let me recount a similar experience. I gave evidence before a UK parliamentary committee in 1998 about the development of the UK's new southern ATC center. I was well prepared, gave measured answers, in a room full of interested people, and my appearance was reported on the appropriate page of the Financial Times, along with a rational reconstruction of the arguments I presented.
A short while later, I was given the transcripts to comment. Reading it, I came across to myself like an complete idiot. Whatever, I said it, for better or worse. Gotta say yes, print it. You can read it in the parliamentary transcripts if you like - they are on-line.
What is missing from the judicial process of replaying CVR's is a rational reconstruction of what exactly the crew were saying and meaning (as the Financial Times, and later the New Scientist, gave to my comments). "Rational" in the sense that it makes deliberate sense of what they were communicating and why.
Until some attempt is made to do this, all of it will sound to the untutored ear like - well, like people talking to each other, unaware of the enormity of what is about to unfold. The untutored reaction (on the part of a jury, or panel of judges) to which is: don't you people know how serious this is? To which the tautological answer is: no, we were just doing our usual job according to the usual rules until it went pear-shaped.
Context is decisive. PJ's worries are well-grounded. But judicial proceedings have a right to information. How do we solve this?
PBL