Cvr, Fdr , Vcr ?

[krujje]

AirRabbit and PJ2;

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. There are many interesting points you've raised which bear thinking on.

At the risk of throwing this thread even further into digression, something PJ2 said caught my eye:

In lawsuits, while anyone remotely connected with the incident/accident is cited it is the organization/airline and the manufacturers who usually have the deep pockets whereas it is the doctors themselves who are the corporation.

I can't see pilots having to "carry mal-practise insurance" because of this.

How would this be different in an operation structured around contracting pilots from a third party? The situation becomes even murkier as fine lines have to be traced between company SOPs and pilot responsibilities... I can imagine the contract supplier now being sued along with the operator and the manufacturer. Has anyone seen this is litigation yet?

[PJ2]

krujje;

I have no idea how it would be different with contract pilots etc. I think there is much that is gray and many devils on walls may be painted, some interesting, most to no avail. I think the general principles I described apply. Who knows what would apply with "third party contract pilots". Nomads and soldiers-of-fortune rules come to mind...

[AirRabbit]

Originally Posted by PJ2

In lawsuits, while anyone remotely connected with the incident/accident is cited it is the organization/airline and the manufacturers who usually have the deep pockets whereas it is the doctors themselves who are the corporation.

I can't see pilots having to "carry mal-practise insurance" because of this.
Usually, the pilot is the way to the organization and not the target. It is generally not like that in the medical profession even though hospitals may be targets.
I hope I'm not misinterpreting your thoughts here - the "learning", of which you speak, is being done and has been done for decades. What you are looking for is the erradication of human error in complex systems.
If I understand your points, our industry suggests a different approach - full erradication of error is a "brittle" solution; it takes only one example to break the model.
A risk-tolerant, "graceful failure" system is not brittle but shields the system from single-point (human error) failures through layering of defences, intervening soft-failures, backups etc - I think you get the picture and likely have considered these notions already...

Of course, you are right about pilots not having "deep pockets," and my reference to them having to get "malpractice insurance" was my own version of hyperbole.

While it may have sounded as such, I certainly DO know that that complete erradication of human error - whether or not in a complex system - is a lost cause; and, of course, I've run the gamut of intervention scenerios, defence layering, etc. And anyone would have to be completely blind (or nearly so) to miss the absolutely outstanding job the aviation industry does, on a regular basis, in identifying things that need attention. Certainly, as an industry we are in one of the lowest accident rate periods in history. Unfortunately, if/when the activity picks up, maintaining that accident rate (as low as it is) is going to mean an increase in the number of accidents. I guess I'm overly sensitive to these areas ... however, in my not-so-humble opinion, we simply cannot continue to increasingly rely on automatic systems as we continue to press the boundaries of operations; e.g., RNP SAAR approaches, GPS navigation/approaches, on-board computations of lateral and vertical descents into worrisome terrain, etc., etc., etc. All very good systems, and normally, quite safe - getting to be routine in many cases. Now we're looking at "automatic recoveries" from jet upsets? Will that mean a reliance on following more closely behing the "heavies?" No problem there - "george" will keep us safe. Sure.

I am fully on board with the idea that expecting pilots to be 100% error free for a thousand hours a year for 30 to 40 years of flying as being a very nice goal - but it can't be guaranteed. And with the boundary-pushing on-going all over the world, the potentials of being error free are lessened and with the increased frequencies of pushing those boundaries, it actually increases the potential of seeing more errors. Sure, we have several methods of determining what we think are logical causes for accidents and incidents - but, similar to flying instruments - I'm coming to the opinion that "one peek is worth a thousand cross-checks" - or, in this case, "...worth more than a thousand CVR/FDR readouts."

[john_tullamarine]

as being a very nice goal - but it can't be guaranteed.

.. and totally unachievable .. hence the need for error tolerant systems and individual discipline so that the consequences of the errors are acceptable, if undesirable.

[AirRabbit]

Precisely

.. hence the need for error tolerant systems and individual discipline so that the consequences of the errors are acceptable, if undesirable.

...ergo, the necessity of as much information as possible about what decisions were made or not made (to know what to teach and practice) ... and, hopefully, reveal the oft-asked and ever-illusive "why."

[aseanaero]

Some really good info posted on this subject , thanks to the detailed posters

The purpose of my original post was purely from a saftey / accident investigation point of view , an image recorder would fill in a lot of the missing information gaps that seem to frequently crop up in using CVR and FDR.

The technology available today makes a CIR much more economic compared to a few years ago.

However, others have correctly pointed out this would be another tool to be used by management, lawyers and the media to nail pilots to the wall.

So how do you stop unauthorised use of the data ? Encryption of the file with only the aviation authorities having the decryption key to be used in cases of genuine accidents and incidents ?