Deleting the cockpit recording hinders the investigation into the Boeing 737 Max 9
Officials investigating why a panel on a Boeing 737 Max 9 blew open during an Alaska Airlines flight last week say they are struggling to figure out exactly what happened because the plane’s cockpit voice recorder overwrote itself before it did so. could be picked up.
This is not a new problem. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, has recommended for years that recorders be programmed to record up to 25 hours of audio before automatically resetting themselves, but the Federal Aviation Administration has been reluctant to mandate longer recordings.
The FAA last month proposed 25-hour recorders on new planes, but argued that adding them to the existing fleet of U.S. planes would be too expensive. In addition, a pilots union has opposed the move to 25-hour recordings unless Congress enacts protections banning its release to the public.
Safety board chairman Jennifer Homendy said agency investigators have conducted 10 investigations since 2018 where the cockpit voice recorder had been overwritten, with critical recordings lost forever. The voice recorders are among the most important pieces of evidence investigators use in reconstructing the events that led to accidents while trying to determine the cause.
Ms. Homendy said a recording of the Alaska Airlines flight would have contained much important information, including the bang the crew described hearing shortly after the plane took off from Portland, Oregon, on Friday. She said the recording would have allowed investigators to hear communications between the crew during the incident and identify any communications problems, including any audible warnings in the cockpit.
“There is so much information we can get from the CVR that goes beyond just communication between flight crew,” Ms. Homendy said. “That is such an important piece of evidence to improve safety. Without that, we’re just piecing things together from interviews and losing a lot.
Flight crew members told federal investigators that they were so focused on going through their emergency checklist, communicating with air traffic control and getting the plane on the ground that they did not hear any alarms. Federal investigators have not suggested that the pilots or crew of the flight made any mistakes.
“So they don’t remember that now, and we have no evidence that that happened,” Ms. Homendy said. “So if somehow a verbal warning were to fail, we wouldn’t know anything about it.”
Alaska Airlines said in a statement Wednesday that due to the active investigation, it could not comment on why the cockpit recorder audio was not recovered in time. But the airline added that it welcomed the FAA’s proposal to extend the withdrawal time.
“We support this effort, which would bring the U.S. airline industry more in line with international regulations,” the airline said.
The United States lagged behind much of the world in requiring the use of longer voice recordings on commercial aircraft. In 2016, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a branch of the United Nations, adopted a standard calling for recorders capable of capturing the last 25 hours of audio on all new aircraft starting in 2021. The European Union Aviation Agency’s 25-hour mandate will come into effect for new aircraft in January 2021.
Cockpit voice recordings begin the moment pilots start an aircraft. This allows the recording to capture pilots’ preflight checks, passenger boarding and other activities as the crew prepares for takeoff.
The two-hour limit means that the recorder can be quickly overwritten even on short flights, especially if there are delays on the runway. Once the two-hour limit is reached, recording will automatically restart.
Recorders are designed to stop automatically if an accident occurs, but they don’t stop for incidents like the one involving Alaska Airlines’ 737 Max 9. In such cases, someone would have to remove a circuit breaker on the plane to prevent the device from tripping. start over. That did not happen in this case.
The Security Council then started advising to extend the recording time a harrowing incident in 2017 at San Francisco International Airport when an Air Canada plane almost landed on a taxiway instead of a nearby runway. Four aircraft loaded with passengers were waiting on the taxiway. The incident could have been one of the worst aviation disasters in history, but federal investigators still have no idea what was going on in the cockpit because the recording automatically restarted before it could be retrieved.
Robert Sumwalt, then chairman of the safety board, said recordings of major aviation incidents could give federal investigators a more complete picture of what happened and how to prevent it from happening again.
“It gives you almost a firsthand account of what conversations and what sounds are happening in the cockpit,” he said. “People may think they remember things clearly, but sometimes our memory fails us.”
The FAA proposed a rule in December that would require new aircraft to be equipped with 25-hour voice recorders, but did not require commercial airlines to install the recorders on all aircraft, as the NTSB recommended.
The FAA estimated that upgrading each aircraft would cost $741 million. Installing the new recorders alone on new aircraft would cost $196 million.
“Our proposed rule is consistent with regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency,” the agency said in a statement.
Ms Homendy said saving lives should outweigh any financial concerns. She also pointed out that the lasting impact of a catastrophic plane crash would far outweigh the direct costs of a safety improvement borne by airlines and ultimately travelers.
“The costs would be significant, not only in terms of finances, but also in terms of the reputation of the company, in terms of the reputation of the manufacturer and suppliers and everyone else involved, and the cost of public confidence in the American aviation system. ” said Mrs. Homendy. “That’s what would be lost immediately.”
Congress has also taken note of the issue. Bills pending in the House and Senate to reauthorize the FAA would increase the length of recording on all aircraft to 25 hours within four years.
Since the 2017 San Francisco incident, Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, a California Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he supported the security council’s recommendation on voice recorders because critical data was often lost because investigators couldn’t retrieve it quickly enough .
“The move to 25-hour cockpit voice recorders is an essential part of advancing air travel safety, which has already been adopted as an international standard,” said Mr. DeSaulnier.
But the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents pilots at Alaska, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and other companies, has long opposed the move to a 25-hour voice recorder due to privacy concerns. In a statement, the union said that while voice and flight data recorders provided crucial information, the group wanted lawmakers to ensure that researchers used the recordings only to improve the aviation system.
Federal law prohibits the safety board from releasing copies of cockpit voice recorders under freedom of information laws. But the law does not prevent the FAA or airlines from releasing copies.
“Unfortunately, the legal statute that protects the privacy of the cockpit voice recorder only applies to NTSB,” the statement said. “In addition to the NTSB, the protections in that statute should be strengthened and applied to both the airlines and the FAA before considering extending the duration.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, said that despite opposition from the pilots’ union, he and other members of Congress planned to advance legislation to extend the recording time.
“Without access to cockpit voice recordings, investigators lack vital information about any troubling incident, whether it be a near miss, an equipment malfunction or the recent Alaska Airlines flight,” Mr. Cruz said in an interview.
Niraj Chokshi reporting contributed.