Forgive me for asking what may, to some, seem a dumb question. When I travel on a regular London bus, from Oxford Street to Notting Hill, there are (according to my count) as many as 16 CCTV cameras covering the various areas inside a double decker bus. I feel very safe and secure knowing this. Yet, aircraft that cost 1000 times more (I'm guessing wildly, but you know what I mean) do not have this. All the times I see reports in the press of a "passenger from hell" commotion on board an aircraft, we are reduced to viewing images captured from the cellphones of passengers who happen to witness the event. Surely if every bus in London can have such tech (which is not so expensive), then a multi-million dollar aircraft should have no issues installing the same?

Regulatory costs would make installing CCTV on planes vastly more expensive than the cost for city buses. Like possibly millions of dollars per plane. The airlines would have to burn more fuel to haul that extra equipment around. Airplanes are sealed tubes packed with witnesses, so what would the extra surveillance bring to the table in case of an incident?

For big incidents you are probably right, but it might help with thefts, sexual harassment and the likes.

Aircraft passengers go through security screening and must show government issued ID. Bus passengers do not.

Not in all cases, some airlines at some airports do not require you to show any ID.

Many airlines already have CCTV on the planes, you just dont know about it. My wife was a flight attendant for a very large airline and they have it on their wide bodies planes

Emirates have CCTV on their A380s. Maybe the 777s also.

CCTV always makes me feel more spied on than safe.

This, and I'd bet the CCTV on buses is mainly to help identify individuals in case of a situation. The airline already knows the full name of every individual in every seat. Passengers cell phone videos will provide multiple views of any "incidents" on a plane

In this day in age I would have though that aircraft would have CCTV cameras on the flight deck to accompany the voice recorder to help in the event of an accident.

Fair enough gfunkdave....

So...you will demand footage NOT be downloaded if you are assaulted on the bus....since you don't like being "spied on"....?

(If UK law is anything like Australian in this area, the footage is stored onboard and ONLY downloaded where required...there is no routine viewing of it...it records for a certain amount of time...then records over it....unless SPECIFICALLY downloaded by those authorised to do so)

Look again. There often are at least 1-4 cameras on a lot of aircraft. The 1st one is often the easiest to spot.

Not currently required by law.

Quite unlike buses, airplanes have two important things going for them: they have a crew with the authority to hand you over to the police in any country you land in, few questions asked and they make it impossible for whoever's getting in trouble to escape. So the odds of a person being successfully handed over to the police on a plane are 100% while on a bus that number is a lot lower.

You're not going to see CCTV on the flight deck for decades, at least in the US. All of the pilots' unions have fought strongly against it. They did similar for the cockpit voice recorders, and only agreed to it when the FAA/DOT said recordings can never be released to the public. This was brought up at a speech by Captain Sullenberger I attended. He said even his own wife was not allowed to listen to the recordings. He also said the transcripts of the recordings aren't verbatim, but kindly leave out some choice words.

On aircraft, what I don't understand are the lack of CCTV cameras to show areas not visible from inside the aircraft. My car has 6 cameras around it. I can see the position of every single tire, the edges of each bumper. Even the most expensive aircraft cannot. If I were a pilot, I'd really like to be able to visually confirm from the cockpit whether the cargo hold FIRE light is real or due to a failing sensor. Likewise, after a hard & heavy landing, I'd like to be able to see if my brakes were on fire. The tail cam on the newer Airbus aircraft does provide some of this, but more for show than utility.