CVR Question...

[damo1089]

Watching Air Crash Investigations sparked a question:
In airliners, and planes fitted with CVR's:
Is there any requirements for the pilots to talk to each other extremely descriptively when something unexpected happens?
I ask this because if the aircraft went down, the investigators could just hear on the CVR tapes:
"Whats going on there?" "I dunno, it looks like its malfunctioning" "See if you can get to the bottom of it!" "Aye aye, captain" "oh, here is the problem!" "pull up" "mayday!"
Or:
"That altimeter looks to be ascending, when we are obviously descending, do you agree?" "Yes, I agree, that is definitely not right" "See if you can fix it, I know the light is on but you have my permission to remove your seatbelt" "Okey dokey" "Captain, this rat I have in my hands was chewing through the wires, the little bugger" "pull up" "mayday!"

In situation one, the investigators would have no clue what was malfunctioning, and what was causing the problem.
In situation two, they would have known what happened.
The question may be stupid, and some of you will probably disagree with my lack of technical jargon, and the unconventional manner in which I asked the question. But, id like to know anyway, is there a requirement for pilots to communicate the obvious for the benefit of the CVR investigators in case of an emergency? If not, do you think there should be?

[Icarus53]

In the event that an investigator has nothing else to go on in determining what caused a crash, you can bet your a@# that in the last few minutes of flight, the crew were concentrating rather hard on not allowing the crash to occur at all. They are less than likely to be concerned with whether or not other people figure out what happened to them if it goes badly.

If it's that serious, crew communication is going to be focused on getting the plane on the ground - that's the pilot's problem which we are paid to solve. Putting together the pieces afterwards with limited information is the Accident Investigator's problem which he is paid to solve. I'll worry about earning his paycheck after I'm on the ground with another "so there I was" story.

[AussieNick]

if an investigator was/is listening to a CVR its a pretty good bet that the crew would have been doing anything in their power to save the aircraft so i doubt they would be wasting their time explaining their apparent issue in detail

[tipsy2]

i doubt they would be wasting their time explaining their apparent issue in detail

That's what the QAR & FDR are for.:ok:

tipsy

[737 wannabe]

I think that to answer the actual question there is not a specific requirement to discuss problem situations in detail for the sake of a CVR.

Depending on the sophistication/size etc. of the plane if it has a CVR it will also have a flight data recorder that will also monitor various parameters i.e. altimeter/engine settings/level of arousal of the rat chewing through the wires which will assist in the investigations.

[ad-astra]

To be quite honest I haven't really thought deeply about the CVR for years.
Most crew regard it as a system sitting back doing its own thing to be analyzed when necessary.
During an emergency the priority will always be getting the issue resolved and getting the aircraft safely down.
If I had a crew member annunciating every detail for the benefit of the CVR then I would be VERY concerned as to what his priorities were.

Is he was working with me to achieve a safe outcome or is he working for the crash investigators for a comprehensive report?

[hoss]

not a stupid question damo1089. the crew of situation 2 have communicated more effectively and made the job easier for the investigators. as i understand there are no regulatory requirements to announce 'situations/events' on the cvr but it makes very good sense to. in answering your second question,perhaps its a bit hard to establish and then enforce common sense as a requirement.

:)