Officials investigating what caused a panel on a Boeing 737 Max 9 to explode during an Alaska Airlines flight last week say they have no idea what happened because the plane’s cockpit voice recorder was automatically overwritten before it was recovered. He said that he is having a hard time elucidating exactly what is going on.
This is not a new problem. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, has long recommended that recorders be programmed to record up to 25 hours of audio before automatically resetting, but the Federal Aviation Administration has recommended that recorders be programmed to record up to 25 hours of audio before automatically resetting. They are reluctant to make recording mandatory.
The FAA last month proposed equipping new aircraft with 25-hour recorders, but argued it would be too expensive to add to existing U.S. aircraft. Additionally, pilot unions oppose moving to 25-hour recordings unless Congress puts in place safeguards that would prohibit their release to the public.
Safety Commission Chair Jennifer Homendy said safety commission investigators have conducted 10 investigations since 2018 and found that cockpit voice recorders were overwritten and critical recordings were lost forever. Voice recorders are an important piece of evidence used by investigators to reconstruct the events that led up to the accident.
Homendy said the recordings from the Alaska Airlines plane would have contained a lot of important information, including the bang the crew said they heard shortly after the plane took off from Portland, Oregon, on Friday. , said that the recording would have allowed investigators to learn the following: Listen to communications between crew members during an incident and identify communication issues, including audible alarms in the cockpit.
“CVR provides a lot more information than just communication between flight crews,” Homendy said. “This is important evidence to improve safety. Without it, we would be missing out on a lot, piecing together information from interviews.”
Flight crew members told federal investigators that they did not hear any warnings because they were focused on reviewing emergency checklists, contacting air traffic control, and getting the plane on the ground. Federal investigators have not suggested that the pilot or the flight’s crew made any mistakes.
“So now they don’t remember it, and there’s no evidence that it happened,” Homendy said. “So if any verbal alert somehow fails, we won’t know about it.”
Alaska Airlines said in a statement Wednesday that due to the active investigation, it could not comment on why the audio from the cockpit recorder was not recovered in time. But the airline added that it welcomes the FAA’s proposal to extend recording times.
“We support this initiative, which will bring the U.S. aviation industry more compliant with international regulations,” the airline said.
The United States has lagged behind many countries around the world in mandating the use of longer audio recordings on commercial aircraft. In 2016, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a division of the United Nations, adopted standards requiring all new aircraft from 2021 to have recorders capable of recording the past 25 hours of audio. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s 25-hour obligation has ended. It goes into effect in January 2021 for new airplanes.
Cockpit audio recording begins from the moment the pilot launches the plane. This allows recording of pilot preflight checks, passenger boarding, and other activities as the crew prepares for takeoff.
The two-hour limit means that recorders can be quickly overwritten even on short flights, especially if there are delays on the runway. Once the 2-hour limit is reached, recording will automatically resume.
The recorders are designed to automatically shut down in the event of an accident, but not in accidents like the one on Alaska Airlines’ 737 Max 9. In such cases, someone must remove the airplane’s circuit breaker to prevent the equipment from shutting down. I’ll try again. That didn’t happen in this case.
Cockpit records can provide valuable information.
Cockpit recordings from the second of two fatal Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes in Ethiopia show pilots took the correct course of emergency actions to prevent the plane from crashing due to a software system flaw. It became clear that it had started. These measures required pilots to fly the plane manually, which pilots said was extremely difficult and “didn’t work.” The accident killed 157 people.
The safety committee then began recommending that recording time be increased. Tragic incident at San Francisco International Airport in 2017 when an Air Canada plane nearly landed on a taxiway instead of a nearby runway. Four planes carrying passengers were waiting on the taxiway. The accident may have been one of the worst aviation accidents in history, but federal investigators still have no idea what was going on inside the cockpit because it was automatically redone before the recording was recovered. Not yet.
Robert Sumwalt, who was chairman of the safety commission at the time, said records of major aviation accidents would help federal investigators more fully understand what happened and how to prevent it from happening again. He said there was a possibility that it could be grasped.
“It gives you almost a first-hand account of what conversations happen and what sounds you hear inside the cockpit,” he said. “People think they remember things clearly, but sometimes memory doesn’t help.”
In December, the FAA proposed a rule that would require new aircraft to have 25-hour voice recorders, but stopped short of requiring commercial airlines to equip all aircraft with recorders, as the NTSB recommended.
The FAA estimates it would cost $741 million to upgrade all aircraft. Installing the new recorder only on new aircraft would cost $196 million.
“Our proposed rules are in line with regulations set by the International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency,” the agency said in a statement.
Homendy said saving lives should take precedence over economic concerns. She also pointed out that the lasting impact of a catastrophic plane crash would far outweigh the immediate costs of safety improvements borne by airlines and ultimately travelers.
“The cost will be significant, not just financially, but in terms of the company’s reputation, the reputation of its manufacturers, suppliers and everyone else involved, and the public’s confidence in the American aviation system.” said. “That’s something that gets lost quickly.”
Congress is also paying attention to this issue. FAA reauthorization bills pending in the House and Senate would extend recording time 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, has issued a review of the safety committee on voice recorders because critical data is often lost because investigators cannot quickly retrieve it. He said he supports the recommendations.
“The transition to a 25-hour cockpit voice recorder is an essential element in increasing the safety of air travel, which has already been adopted as an international standard,” Desaulniers said.
But the Airline Pilots Association, which represents pilots from companies such as Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, has long opposed the move to 25-hour voice recorders, citing privacy concerns. The union said in a statement that while voice recorders and flight data recorders provide important information, it wants lawmakers to ensure investigators are only using the recordings to improve aviation systems. Stated.
Federal law prohibits safety boards from releasing copies of cockpit voice recorders under the Freedom of Information Act. However, the law does not prevent the FAA or airlines from releasing copies.
“Unfortunately, the statute protecting the privacy of cockpit voice recorders applies only to the NTSB,” the statement said. “In addition to the NTSB, the law’s protections need to be strengthened and applied to airlines and the FAA before considering an extension.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he and other lawmakers plan to move forward with legislation to increase recording time, despite pushback from pilot unions.
“Without access to cockpit audio recordings, investigators lack critical information about any troubling incident, whether it’s a near miss, equipment failure, or the recent Alaska Airlines flight,” Cruise said in an interview. he said.
Niraj Chokshi and james glanz Contributed to the report.