Exclusive: SFO near miss might have triggered ‘greatest aviation disaster in history’
#811
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I believe they waited to report it because some combination of:
1) They were too tired (or otherwise impaired) to think straight
2) They needed more time to come up with a plausible excuse and make sure they got their story straight
3) They knew that there was very incriminating evidence on the CVR and they needed to make sure the plane flew it's morning flight before the CVR was pulled.
Now we'll never know the full truth about what was going on during that first approach
#812
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Nonsense! They most certainly did recognize the severity at the time. From the copilot interview: "During taxi to the gate, he was distracted and shaken up. He realized that he almost landed on a taxiway and the result “could have been bad.” That's pretty clear!!
I believe they waited to report it because some combination of:
1) They were too tired (or otherwise impaired) to think straight
2) They needed more time to come up with a plausible excuse and make sure they got their story straight
3) They knew that there was very incriminating evidence on the CVR and they needed to make sure the plane flew it's morning flight before the CVR was pulled.
Now we'll never know the full truth about what was going on during that first approach
I believe they waited to report it because some combination of:
1) They were too tired (or otherwise impaired) to think straight
2) They needed more time to come up with a plausible excuse and make sure they got their story straight
3) They knew that there was very incriminating evidence on the CVR and they needed to make sure the plane flew it's morning flight before the CVR was pulled.
Now we'll never know the full truth about what was going on during that first approach
#813
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So why, in this day and age, has the recording time never been increased or ever come up in a safety conversation? Or has it and has been swept aside?
#815
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I take it then that you are knowledgeable about the engineering that goes into particle accelerators, space craft, military weapons and defense systems, computer chips, and all other fields?
#816
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My understanding is pilots don’t want longer recordings for privacy reasons. In part, hey are afraid it will be used for things other than crash investigations. Do you want someone recording (and keeping) every word you say at work?
#817
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Privacy is a red herring.
Last edited by Admiral Ackbar; May 4, 2018 at 8:54 am
#818
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Most of us don't carry 100+ people's lives in our hands every day we go to work. Heck lack of privacy is also the norm in the vast majority of certain jobs, such as in policing.
#819
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It is actually the norm for almost every corporate job these days. Every email I send, every text message, the geolocation of my phone etc are all recorded and kept. Keyword logging is also performed. Heck, there is even the ability to record every voice conversation if the company wants to turn it on. And lets not even talk about network security tools which can reconstruct all IP communications (including email, IP calling, etc.) on a network from just the IP packets -- they literally just sit on the network, they don't need to use Exchange logging or any other such tool. Corporate privacy is a complete myth at any moderate to large sized company today. The fact that 1000 people came within 5m of dying and the pilots use privacy as an excuse is completely, well, inexcusable.
#820
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#821
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Don't you think that they were likely discussing how that happened during taxi to the gate, while they were distracted and shaken up?
#822
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Not if they were following the sterile flight deck rules. But you seem to think all of the actions they took were deliberate, so they must have deliberately broken that regulation too.
#823
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They said as much. Again from the interview: "After he talked with NORCAL, he did a brief announcement to passengers to say that they had
done a go-around and would be landing in 6 or 7 minutes. The crew had a quick discussion afterspeaking with NORCAL. He thinks that they said they would talk about it more when they wereon the ground. They wanted to focus on setting up the approach."
#824
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Since we can't know the facts, I can only give my opinion. And yes, my opinion is that, during taxi, these guys were likely discussing the fact that they had very nearly died a few moments ago and were likely talking about what happened and how.
But, once again, we'll never know, cause they didn't pull the CVR or immediately report the incident so that the plane could be pulled from service before its next flight
#825
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Leaving aside whether it's reasonable to record someone performing a safety critical function, there are very simple technological solutions. Just encrypt the recording with keys owned by the OEM or regulator (FAA, Transport Canada, etc), so that it is impossible for the airline to access them surreptitiously outside of a bona fide incident investigation.