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9 lives
29th Jan 2017, 00:47
I was reminded today, while re watching the video of the Mallard crashing in Australia, that today's pilots have a super learning tool which us older pilots did not really have. Today, we have quite a selection of video clips which show what really happened. In my day as a new pilot, I'd read the accident report, trying to imagine, and maybe having depictions in the accident report. A lot of imagination was needed.

Now, frame by frame, replay and replay, we can pick through the excellent video from someone's cell phone, or maybe a news camera. For those of us who have come close a few times over the years, we've seen the view out the windshield, with things not looking so good. We survived, though maybe not by much.

Now, instead of the life threatening view out the windshield, there is so much resource in video, to see it going and gone wrong, without risking one's life to be in the middle of it all. So while we wait for the report, we have the video, and the [perhaps learned] comments which can be found to expound opinion.

You don't have to risk ridicule by presenting your opinion, but it sure is worth considering the video so you can consider what happened, and how you're not going to do that!

I'm confident that the unfortunate Mallard pilot would probably had seen some of the videos of tight turns at low altitude not working out, but somehow, the impression did not stick to be recalled when it mattered most. Let's all do our best not to be the pilot in someone else's video of an accident.

rnzoli
29th Jan 2017, 10:22
With the availablity of durable, affordable and small action cameras, cockpit recordings do a lot towards safety and preventing accidents by understanding and correcting small errors beforee they line up through the Swiss cheese holes.

I consistently record my flights for debriefing, and watch other people's similar recordings on YT. Very educational for low-hour pilots in the danger zone.

The risk of being ridiculed, or even reported to authorities is very real, some people behave as if they had never been beginners or made any mistake, give you summary statements like "never fly again", "go back to school" etc. However, this problem is greatly overwhelmed by the benefit that some other people will actually analyze the situation with you and can help pinpointing the error(s) precisely. One just has to ignore the noise of useless comments.

Having a camera on board will eventually lead to recording your own acccident, if you get into trouble. But it is again still better to know what went wrong afterwards, than having only speculations. Cameras can be on your side too, proving near-misses caused by others, misleading radio comms from others, aircraft malfuncions and your actions.

So overall, the greatest benefit is preventing accidents in the first place.