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In flight Pilot suicide
Last night (Fri) a UK TV channel aired a 60 min prog to consider how many civil carrier a/c crashes may have been due to pilot suicide (deliberate action). 8-9 crashes were cited with only one confirmed by radio tx
The NTSB official supported flight cockpit video recorders at a Congressional hearing, rejected by ALPA. Psychological testing within a pilot's medical was considered unworkable by the Industry, despite acceptance & implementation by JAL The B 737 was involved in several incidents (known control surface probs) In many cases FDR showed no mech malfunction, CVR was 'ambiguous' and the accident investigation conclusion was 'speculative' or 'conjecture' Would accident investigation be aided by cockpit video recorder or a more comprehensive digital FDR? |
Video vs digital FDR
Before the usual hysteria starts about loved ones last moments etc it's a legitimate question. It all comes down to bang for the buck.
Some of the "demand" for this comes from the NTSB and was prompted by a few specific crashes. One point is expanded digital FDR is happening and uses existing "infrastructure" and a lot of acquired knowledge. I do not think digital FDR was available the two 737 crashes that are suspected rudder events. I'm not sure of the other events you refer to. In the silk air case it seems someone with knowledge was able to disable the FDR and CVR and presumably would have done the same with a video recorder. I suspect a bit of gum and paper over the lens might become standard preflight if they were installed. If video were available it will take at least a few crashes to figure out how to optimize the equipment, installation and the use of data. As crashes are relatively rare this will be a long time in providing any real benefit for what is sure to be a significant expenditure. Improved ground radar and signage might be a better place to spend money. Getting people to stop driving drunk and use their seatbelts would save a lot more lives than cockpit video ever will. 20driver |
It's possible though. The Silk Air flight that went down over Sumatra in Dec97 is still widely considered as pilot suicide, although strongly denied by SIA.
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Gumdrivers right a piece of gum and paper over the lens would be the 1st thing on the check list,but all jokes apart how many pilots would wear the fact that theres a camera of some sort watching their every move,
If GB can nearly go on strike over a carpark what do you think they're say to this little number ? |
Egyptair flt990
EA 990 in late 1999, comes to mind, though the craft was the B767.
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Well,
If they put the cockpit video recorders in, atleast I would have some place to hang my hat! Cheers Wino |
The additional stress of having every move recorded and perhaps analysed later with unknown effects on his career, may well push an already sick pilot over the edge.
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If they put the cockpit video recorders in, atleast I would have some place to hang my hat! |
I suspect that if it was standard, everyone would quickly forget the camera was there.
Even on the driving school programmes that used to be on tv a couple of years ago, after just 20 minutes the 'players' have clearly forgotten that there's a camera right in front of them. |
very sad . . . . . . .
There was a case a number of years back of a chap who learned to fly, with the sole aim of committing suicide. Somewhere on the south coast.
To all who met him he was the life and soul of the party, joined in all the club activities, and generally well-liked and respected. Nobody knew that he had a long, long, history of depressive illness, and several previous suicide attempts. Had a medical with a local AME, but, of course, there is usually very little or no contact between an AME and a candidate's GP . Lessons went very well, until the day came when he was sent on first solo. Took off, left airfield area, flew out over the sea, and deliberately nosedived in, after transmitting his intentions and his apologies to the TWR on the RT. Fortunately this kind of thing is very rare indeed. |
The truth that no one wants
The unspoken truth is: that you do, or have in the past, slept in the cockpit to increase safety. This is why ALPA, an honorable organization is against this.
The gov is never going to do the right thing in the uneducated eye of the public and admit that NASA studies all point to 70% fewer mistakes in the terminal area when redeye pilots take a 20-45 minute nap enroute. Morons all over the net might be calling for the head of the first gov official who grows a pair and supports this needed improvement to air safety. You know, and I know that video in the cockpit will greatly increase accident knowledge. But you know, and I know, that management/gov will abuse this info to blackball perceived troublemakers, union ringleaders, etc. Solution: just like the cockpit voice recorder, make it a federal offense to release the data in anything but an FAA/NTSB/gov investigation of an accident. No accident? The crew MUST have the ability to bulk erase the data, like we did on the 30 minute voice recorders. Suicides? Come now. Exactly how many could their possibly be? Silk Air Egypt Air Attempted JAL DC-8 in Japan rumour of Colorado Springs 737 do you know of another jet suicide? I don't. That's about it on jets. Not even a one-one hundred thousand percent of total operations. If the media is so paranoid of Kamikazi pilots crashing them to their deaths, they should force the FAA and Airlines to re-instate the third pilot in the cockpit (S/O, GIB, F/O, etc) That's what I think. pacific plyer |
Having experienced cockpit video in the simulator where it was used briefly as a training aid to review emergency handling (before it was never used again), it's important to understand it is so useless. Viewed from the back looking down at the pilots, you can see hardly anything effective. It's very dark at night. I am not having one of those things looking into my face- it will end up with a bit of paper blocking it!. A very expensive solution to a problem that is not really there! At the end of the day, it does not 'prevent' anything, it is merely a possible tool in accident investigation. All that bother and expense to not actually achieve anything?
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"Psychological testing within a pilot's medical was considered unworkable by the Industry, despite acceptance & implementation by JAL"
Hardly surprising, Japan have something of a record of pilot suicides. "Yes, the video recorder mounting might be too weak to hang your self... But hanging self in flight is perfectly feasible - a passenger managed this, in a toilet. Pilots take toilet breaks too." The problem is not the individual pilot, on a multi crew aircraft, committing suicide, it is when he decides to commit murder as well and take the passengers and the rest of the crew with him. |
.... i think the only proven suicide was a royal air maroc (atr42/72 ?) in the early nientees ...
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Talking of ATR-42s, there was also the Botswana incident, round about the year 2000.
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i remember i couple of years ago a virgon atlantic flight from london-barbados. The first officer commited suicide when the flight was over, the remaining crew became suspicious when he didnt turn up the next morning.
This guy probably got so low, he couldnt live anymore, but he didnt involve anyone else, which i think was very big of him. G-STAW |
JAL DC-8 crash Tokyo. Captain attempted suicide or intentional crash.
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So you're going back 40 years for examples? Maybe one a decade....which cockpit cameras will do zero to prevent? Scratching a bit, isn't it?
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pacflyer:
Sometime ago, Canada introduced "controlled rest on the flight deck" legislation, making legal what crews have been doing since long-haul commercial flying began. The procedures involved a third person on the flight deck, usually an F/A because one crew member (out of 3) is usually back for the break; It works well and lasts about 20 minutes which is all most need to refresh - through the extensive research one thing isn't recommended and that's anything longer than about an hour as REM sleep begins for some by then and deep-sleep is more difficult to recover from than a nap. So far as cockpit video recording goes, I can't see it being introduced anytime soon. As mentioned, the quality is terrible especially at night, the screens cannot be read of course but the worst and most concerning aspect of such recordings is, the likes of CNN, Fox News or Sky will do their best to get hold of the recordings for their evening news titillation and entertainment - To be blunt, reality TV has already become prime-time viewing and broadcasting an accident from the cockpit would simply make producers and advertisers drool in anticipation of the audience numbers. We in Canada have long made it illegal to access the CVR information by other than trained investigors of the TSB; even that has been breached by the courts in a recent case. We have attempted to make access to the DFDR and FOQA QARs also illegal but so far have been unsuccessful. Pilots have every right to such privacy with the obvious exception of investigations of incidents and accidents but that's it. There isn't any way, ever, that flight crews trust or ever would trust the media, the lawyers and the politicians with such information. Although the utility of such recordings is obvious in terms of accident investigaton, (and like some here, I have had my sim sessions recorded for immediate review afterwords, and frankly the tool is an excellent learning one), neither the number of suspected cases nor the high risk of inappropriate use can justify the installation. |
I've found them useless, with very little information other than what the CVR gives you. All you see are heads moving and arms reaching out. I think I would take great delight in putting a dab of vaseline on the lens. They are intrusive. The trust has already been breached with playing CVR tapes for public titillation. They are not having me on image as well....period.
The promise was these investigative tools were for accident investigation by accident investigators ONLY. They let us down with CVRs. They simply are not going to have the chance with video. |
more info on #11 . . . . . . .
I just looked up the AAIB report on the suicide I referred to in an earlier post. I hadn't realised it was as long as eleven years ago !
In case anyone is interested, it can be seen here : www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resources/dft_avsafety_pdf_500851.pdf Interesting to note that, in spite of the AAIB's recommendation, there is STILL no official or reliable means of communication between AME's and pilots' GP's. |
I would have some place to hang my hat!
:ok: good one.
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Punkalover...quite right about the JAL...I recall that too.
And RAINBOE...I think the Camera in the cockpit is a very good idea. we still use them in our sims. One time, the camera proved I was right and the instructor/sim check airman was wrong. He stated that I didn't do something, but the video showed I made the callout and followed the procedure. I would LOVE a camera in the cockpit. It can prove that you did everything right! I also want a camera at the radar display that the controllers use. DID you know that there are some recordings of the display that do not show what the eyes of the controller see? Blips that are there or aren't, recorded by the objective camera could prove a controller right when the computer is wrong. THE ONLY pilots that don't like the camera in the sim are the ones that are going BALD. |
Captains will wear their Breitlings on their right wrist and refer to it during the welcome PA. Maybe a Jaguar baseball cap for the Captain and a Porsche cap for the FO?
Why would a video prevent suicide? All it would accomplish is to show that the guy did indeed commit suicide after turning to the camera and perhaps explaining the whys and wherefores, much like the videos on Al Jazzerah after the bombers vaporise themselves. Pointless and expensive. I would much prefer a fish eye lens behind the nose leg showing me some useful information. |
Would a camera on the flight deck deter someone who wanted to crash the aircraft? I think not.
If you're going to fit cameras to the aircraft then how about a set looking back at the wings, engines and tail? I'm sure if you stored video from them, as well as making it available to the flight crew, it would assist accident investigation far more in cases of structural failure. If the crew could see nasties such as significant leading edge damage then they'd know not to slow down too much and incidents such as the El Al 747F at Amsterdam could be avoided. |
Wasn't there that incident on a FED-EX DC10 that was prevented?
Lets add them all up then and see how many there have been then. By the way, we are not the only profession to have experienced what are termed "intentional unsafe acts" A recent article in a Forensic Science journal reported that since 1970 fifty four healthcare professionals in 20 North American and European countries have been convicted of murdering over 300 of their patients and suspected of murdering over 2100 more. (Dr Shipman / Nurse Beverley Allitt etc) Other murder / suicides have been suspected on the railways (trains driven into buffers etc) and in the Chemical industries. (deliberate opening of volatile chemical pipe valves etc) While extremely rare, it seems that "intentional adverse events" may be slightly more common than we might be expecting. Some of these guys seem to want to get themselves in the record books. Should we not give the matter some thought before we have a "nasty" ? Rather than doing nothing until something happens? |
And exactly what does a video on the flight deck achieve.....or prevent?
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Cockpit Video
There have been several posters in this thread objecting to cockpit video on privacy grounds.
That is nonsense. Airline pilots are in a monitored environment. There is no justification for suggesting that the cockpit is a private place. Even though current generation data recorders monitor more parameters than before, it could well be useful to be able to see over the shoulder shots showing the view out the window and the movement of the yoke/sidestick (rudder is probably too hard) All modern fighter pilots have cockpit video recording. Generally, it is just a HUD and front window view, but can give clues to pilot actions. Ask any fighter pilot whether any of his/her actions are influenced by knowledge of the recording going on - you will find that they are not. Admittedly, in the old days I have had friends who stuck by an ailing bird and said that the refrain that repeated in their minds was "... and the board found that..", but those same friends did not object when the HUD camera came along. A reasonably high definition cockpit video camera could well be useful in incident analysis. We should not be afraid of reasonable post-incident assessment of our actions, at least in North America/U.K. where the safety culture still is supportive of pilots. Concern for inappropriate use of such video could well be addressed in the context of collective agreement negotiations when cameras are introduced. |
Concern for inappropriate use of such video could well be addressed in the context of collective agreement negotiations when cameras are introduced. Generally, it is just a HUD and front window view, |
Hi,
Item 1 It does nothing to increase safety and nothing in accident prevention. Item 2 Any potential suicide would simply block it But .. the result of item 2 is a fast conclusion for the investigators.... In some cases .. the option suicide was retained as possible cause and so .. polluted the investigations. If the camera lens is blocked .. you have the answer by extrapolation :) If the camera lens is not blocked .. you assist as spectator of the suicide... if any. Conclusion: No increasing of safety or prevention.. but great help for investigators. Regards. |
Factual Suicide
In Australia a pilot that couldn't make the grade with Connellean Airlines, stole a Baron in Broome and then flew it about 900 miles to Alice Springs where he proceeded to use it as a kamikazee, aiming it at the main office of the airline.
He scored a direct hit on the hangar and office killing a number of people including the owners son. The airline never recovered. |
plt_aeroeng;
There have been several posters in this thread objecting to cockpit video on privacy grounds. That is nonsense. Airline pilots are in a monitored environment. There is no justification for suggesting that the cockpit is a private place. We in Canada have long made it illegal to access the CVR information by other than trained investigors of the TSB; even that has been breached by the courts in a recent case. We have attempted to make access to the DFDR and FOQA QARs also illegal but so far have been unsuccessful. Pilots have every right to such privacy with the obvious exception of investigations of incidents and accidents but that's it. My view on the privacy of the cockpit in terms of the invasive nature of the recorded environment is the same as yours I suspect: that it is the nature of the job to have in-depth recording on board and that pilots cannot expect not to have such recordings in their work environment. I fully agree with that view if that's the one you're expressing and that any other expectation is indeed nonsense. The "right to privacy" statement I make refers to keeping all that recorded safety data away from the media, the lawyers and the politicians. That is the expectation pilots have a right to; - In fact, I hope that is the same expectation that the Minister and the Accountable Executive of every carrier in Canada has! That is certainly the agreement implied in any tacit pilot association acceptance, at least in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, of the invasive nature of on-board recording equipment. In Germany, according to my friends doing FODA work at Lufthansa, this expectation is expressed in German law - the data is the pilot's alone and may not be used for any other purpose than investigation. That law best expresses my own view and wish for the protection of flight data in Canada. I trust we are on the same page here - my fault for not fully expressing my view very clearly. All this said, re: Concern for inappropriate use of such video could well be addressed in the context of collective agreement negotiations when cameras are introduced. First, collective agreements do not have the force of law, at least in Canada and clearly not in the US. I am unsure of the legal status of CA's in the aforementioned states but almost certainly other laws have higher status and can, and have, intervened even when the CVR is required by the courts under demands for the production of information in either a civil or criminal proceeding - in other words, "the public interest", which force is presently incorporated in the Aeronautics Act in Canada. Second, the protection of all flight data belongs well beyond the reach of all but trained safety investigators and those for whom access to such information is necessary to build safety programs and validate data, etc. Corporate willingness to "re-interpret" collective agreements in their favour may not stop at the industrial aspects of any such agreements. I have seen this take place where there have been past violations, albethey rare, of these very clauses - perhaps innocent enough and without result but "ignorance" of the CA notwithstanding, the CA cannot ultimately protect flight data from such error or willing violations as the law can. Some, perhaps most, airlines have the ability to at least read CVR and DFDR equipment and do so for certification requirements. That said, there are also certainly strong corporate motivations for the privacy of flight data. All modern fighter pilots have cockpit video recording. Generally, it is just a HUD and front window view, but can give clues to pilot actions. Ask any fighter pilot whether any of his/her actions are influenced by knowledge of the recording going on - you will find that they are not. Admittedly, in the old days I have had friends who stuck by an ailing bird and said that the refrain that repeated in their minds was "... and the board found that..", but those same friends did not object when the HUD camera came along. A reasonably high definition cockpit video camera could well be useful in incident analysis. We should not be afraid of reasonable post-incident assessment of our actions, at least in North America/U.K. where the safety culture still is supportive of pilots. Using today's tiny, very sophisticated video monitoring technology the ideal installation is not one mounting but multiple camera mountings throughout the cockpit - on the instrument panel in several locations, facing the crew, on both sides to monitor the stick/bag storage area, from the rear bulkhead both high up and low down, from the forward overhead panel down and slightly rearwards to capture hand/arm motions especially at the pedestal and even in the rudder pedal areas, although such movements are already captured by DFDRs (and all sophisticated variations of recorders) - you get the idea. It's like setting up a very tight security system in a sensitive area; the limit is not technology, obviously and some will observe that it may take just a bit more vaseline and a bit more time during the cockpit check... The key once again is strictly-controlled data. Achieving such a heavily protected legal environment in a democracy is very difficult but it has been done with the CVR in Canada and is done in the US under the FAA's laws governing FOQA data. Even as you may say that the North American and UK safety cultures in general support crews in this, (a view with which, in comparison with the way Asian crews are treated, I agree), that same safety culture does not, with perhaps the exception of the US law cited, extend to legal protection and is instead, to a greater or lesser degree, at the will of the courts and "the public interest", (which is nothing short of protection of the Minister at the expense of the publication of data were it to come down to two competing priorities). The Act to amend the Aeronautics Act in Canada (Now Bill C7,) may or may not survive the present 40th parliament but the amendments which were proposed to protect flight data have been dropped. Despite the high utility, the great value to flight safety, the acceptance of the deep invasion into the cockpit and the notion that pilots must expect this invasion as part of the tacit agreement when they go to work for an airline, such programs in the aforementioned states proceed with the blessing of pilot associations. The moment that the trust, which I refer to as "the pilot's right to privacy", is broken and the signal is sent that such information is no longer the sole domain of the investigators and of those who run safety programs such as FOQA/FDA/FODA and that through some legal, ethical or industrial quirk the data is at risk of public, legal and media exposure, SMS and all safety programs are finished in Canada and, I suspect, in any state where similar circumstances obtain. Now THAT would be a problem for the Minister as well as the Accountable Executives of all carriers in Canada. |
PJ2,
Good post. (and good posts others.) And I tend to agree with everything you said. Worked for a carrier one time whose first reaction to anything in question was to plug a download device into the DFDR & VR and take it to management. Even if it was a duty time limit question where the operating crew refused to continue one more leg! About that time I quit answering trip revision questions on the acars..... decided we'd just talk to em when we get on the ground. It was very distracting having crew control pestering you in the decent several times demanding to know if you would go one more leg on some loophole that they interpreted. You guys all raise valid points. If the camera camel pokes his head under the edge of the tent.... pretty soon the whole unqualified media will be crashing in too, second guessing every joke and movement that seems odd to them (if their record of obtaining CVR tapes is any indication.) A shame really, because if kept in professional circles it might give the profession insight. This "pilot paranoia" by the media started drug testing, airport pilot screening, background investigations.... cameras in the cockpit may be coming next whether we like them or not.... (Supporting your union is the only defense imho.) If misused cameras turn up comrads, I suggest we just go "full surveillance society" and drug test (on camera) congress, the administration, the president, the CEO, corporate officers, and anybody else we can think of. Big Brother won't like the camera pointed back at him will he? Refresh my memory here..... We won the cold war didn't we? Sigh.... I'm just not so sure anymore..... |
IIRC there was an event in Southern Australia a few years ago when a pilot flew a light aircraft (type unknown) to attend his ex-wifes funeral.
After the funeral he headed south over water in the general direction of the South Pole. Apparently his PNR was "fuel exhaustion". That was it. Presumably there's a wreck and a body on the ocean floor somewhere between Australia ans the South Pole. |
Regarding the Silk Air 737 crash. Although the relatives of the dead passengers lost the court case held in Singapore - they tried to prove one of the pilots must have caused the crash - a difficult point to prove especially in Singapore. I heard later that some of them won a case held in USA against the rudder designer. There was no evidence that the Silk Air crash was caused by an uncommanded rudder movement but it suited a few interested parties to speculate that was the case
No doubt there was an Appeal. Can anyone offer a brief summary of that court case in USA and was it based upon a suspected uncommanded rudder event - and is litigation still running over the Silk Air case? |
This is a very interesting discussion. There is obviously a very clear message here from the pilots that cameras would not be considered in the cockpit. However there are many other professions where cameras in the workplace are an every day part of the job. Some examples:
- Control rooms in reactors/power plants - Police vehicles - Taxis - Office buildings of various firms - Busses (in some cities) etc Some of these are cited as safety (taxis), some as monitoring (control rooms), some as theft prevention etc (offices, shops). While I am not saying your opinion is wrong, I find it interesting more the reaction and trying to work out the rationale behind the objection. I assume that every industry that went through the introduction of cameras into the workplace went through similar reactions, however they are now all using them and I guess doing so with little fuss. Every now and then you see TV footage on the news of something from some type of camera. An example here in Australia would be footage of bouncers bashing some guy outside a pub for example. The camera is in the bouncers work place, and the media have used it against him, but there does not seem some outcry over their installation. What is it in your minds that makes you think as a group cameras should not apply to pilots, as opposed to other industries? I understand your doubts over preventing accidents etc, probably true, but for reviewing and learning after the fact? As I said, interesting discussion and one I am sure will go on for a while as management or regulators try to push them upon you. |
Specialization requires peer review not media review
gchriste,
Your question seems reasonable and is the kind of misunderstanding found in the popular press. But it's actually an example of the type of abuse we are trying to avoid. In your mind, it appears from your question, you feel that a bar room brawl or operation of a copy machine on the ground is equal in complexity to a pilot living for long periods of time in his cockpit and making decisions at 500 mph. Not even a nuke power plant operator exists in such a confined unforgiving environment. Let's take a different example. While not being trained in medicine, I can still foresee the "chilling effect" which a camera that has footage released to the lay public, could cause in the operating room. Surgeons would be reluctant to allow the new recruits to train and practice their art. Doctors would worry about malpractice documentation and not do what is safe but what is defensible in court. Rather than save patients lives ER personnel would be only worried about how their actions might look to a lay jury if a distraught family member got a hold of the camera footage and sued them. End result? Safety is thrown out the window in favor of face saving. The camera is not the problem. The problem is that the only people qualified to view the footage are peers in the profession. Not politicians. Not Judges. Not Lay Juries. By the same token, I am not qualified to convict a surgeon for telling lewd jokes in the middle of a procedure to alleviate stress. If we can not trust the video custodian, we cannot reduce the danger of more stress being placed into an already stressful work environment :O These are my opinions only, and I don't speak for my colleagues here who might have different views. |
"Doctors would worry about malpractice documentation and not do what is safe but what is defensible in court."
Unfortunately this is increasingly the case. Treatment is becoming lawyer-driven rather than doctor/pathology driven. Very sad and everyone suffers (except the lawyers). Mac :mad: |
FedEx Attempted Murdercide
There was also the FedEx attempted suicide/sabotage of perhaps fifteen years ago. Though, on second thought, I believe that the pilot who wanted to crash the aircraft into the FedEx Memphis hub was deadheading on the flight in question. So not sure if that counts... maybe more of a hijacking. Quite a story though. Yikes.
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In my opinion, it is something unnecessary. Indeed, if surveillance tech is so cheap, why not point the cameras all around the aircraft so crew can actually see what's going on outside. As for safeguarding data; I am sure the bigger countries with some decency, expertise and strong unions will never have a leak. My problem is the smaller countries with weak unions.
Look for an example once at the crash of the Luxair Fokker 50, where in the preliminary report the full transcript of the CVR was published. Meaning, the CVR transcript was out in the open, and the crew was already convicted by public opinion before the official report was out. Purely because some of the people involved in the investigation had no idea about good practice or privacy laws. Now with videos it will go the same way, and I really would not want anyones family see a relative die in the cockpit. Now on another note: Terrorists caused more deaths in recent years, why not put a camera on each seat row in the cabin? I think its just some sick desire of voyeurism, that's all. Let all these people think of a solution for Zimbabwe instead where thousands of people die each year because of violence and an oppressive regime. |
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