4 ms·

Could they add cameras to solve this issue?

roryirvine 11mo ago
During engine failure / fire situations, I would expect that pilots are likely to be too busy to have any time left over for peering at a video feed, trying to assess the state of the wing. In emergencies, information overload tends to make things worse, not better.
- ExoticPearTree 11mo ago
  Having cameras pointed at the engines/wings like rearview mirrors would be helpful. It does not add that much workload if you take a quick glance in the “mirror” and figure out what the problem exactly is. And now we have technology that allows for cameras everywhere to give a better situational awareness across all critical aircraft surfaces and systems. It is going to take a little bit of adjusting to, but it will help improve safety in a tremendous way.
  - cedilla 11mo ago
    This would need to be tested. There's a lot going on already during normal take-offs. Now you're in a situation where the engine fire alarm is going off, probably a few other alarms, you got so many messages on your display that it only shows the most urgent one, you're taking quick glances at 50 points in the cockpit already. And how would the cameras even work? Are the pilots supposed to switch between multiple camera feeds, or do we install dozens of screens? And then what, they see lots of black smoke on one camera, does that really tell them that much more than the ENG FIRE alert blaring in the background? Maybe this could help during stable flight, but in this situation, when the pilots were likely already overloaded and probably had only a few seconds to escape this situation - if it was possible at all - I can't imagine it being helpful.
    - ExoticPearTree 11mo ago
      You know how the tail camera works on the new planes? Something like that, which can be far away from the wings, but get the full picture. Am I saying it's the solution for everything? No. But after you go through the memory committed items during an emergency, you can take a look outside and be like "ah, I see better what the problem is". If we don't try to see how it goes, we won't know if it is a good idea or not.
    - wongarsu 11mo ago
      It'd certainly need more thought put into it than just showing the camera view from the entertainment system. Either just one camera on the tail pointed forwards, so you have one single camera that can show the whole plane, or two cameras in the front, one pointed at each wing. Two cameras is worse than one, but they are less likely to be affected by smoke or blood splatters or whatever. Maybe give each pilot one of the camera feeds. And you'd have to fit a dedicated screen for the video feed so pilots don't need to switch through screens in an emergency. It'd take lots of testing and engineering. But especially in cases where you have multiple warnings going off I imagine that a quick view at an exterior camera can often give you a clearer/faster indication of the situation
  - krisoft 11mo ago
    > Having cameras pointed at the engines/wings like rearview mirrors would be helpful. Helpful in what way? What are the pilots going to do with the information?
    - ExoticPearTree 11mo ago
      They won't have to rely on cabin crew description of what they see over the wings or have to send one of the pilots to take a look (see UA1175).
      - sim7c00 11mo ago
        its super weird to me this isn't a thing, and there's resistence to the idea. I mean, if they are already masters at glacing at 100000 differnent indicators and warning messages etc. and processing them at super speeds (they really do!) then i'd say a monitor with a bunch of buttons below it to switch feeds (maybe a little more elaborate, but not tooo...) would be helpful. the problem might be getting trained and experienced pilots to adjust to it since they are already in a certain flow of habits and skills to apply in their job, but new pilots surely could learn it as they aren't so set on their ways yet and have the opportunity to build this new data into their skillset / habits.
        bronson 11mo ago
        Pilots are already overloaded so we can probably overload them a little more?
        throwway120385 11mo ago
        Look, information overload is a real problem. Medical devices are an analogous industry in that in an emergency nurses and doctors are getting completely bombarded with alarm tones, flashing lights, noise, and also whatever is going on with the patient. There are standards in that industry governing how you alarm, what your alarm tones sound like, what colors you're supposed to use, how fast you're supposed to flash, and so on. And people still miss alarms because there are still a ton of them all going off at once. People have an upper limit on their capacity to take in information, and that limit goes down when they are moving quickly to solve problems. Throwing more information at them in those moments increases the risk that they will take in the wrong information, disregard more important information, and make really bad decisions. So no, it's not cut and dried like you're thinking.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 11mo ago
    How does that work in the dark/rain/snow? Or are we now going to add lights pointing in the direction where the camera is facing. And then what do we do about the fact that aircraft external lighting has to follow regulations?
zuppy 11mo ago
They surely can and this has been done. On one the flights that I took with Turkish Airlines they had a few video streams from different sides of the airplane. One was from the top of the tail and you could see the entire plane. Now... not sure how much that is helpful in this kind of emergency, they really didn't have time to do much.
- fredoralive 11mo ago
  I'm not sure they usually have the views on screen in the cockpit in flight, even if available (and an old MD-11 freighter won't have the cameras in the first place). The picture of an A380 cockpit (on the ground) on Wikipedia does show the tail view on a screen, but its on the screen normally used for main instruments. With an A380 that had an uncontained engine failure causing various bits of havok (Qantas 32?) IIRC the passengers could see a fuel leak on the in flight entertainment screens, but they had to tell the crew as AFAIK they didn't have access to the view in the cockpit in flight.

During engine failure / fire situations, I would expect that pilots are likely to be too busy to have any time left over for peering at a video feed, trying to assess the state of the wing. In emergencies, information overload tends to make things worse, not better.

ExoticPearTree 11mo ago
Having cameras pointed at the engines/wings like rearview mirrors would be helpful. It does not add that much workload if you take a quick glance in the “mirror” and figure out what the problem exactly is. And now we have technology that allows for cameras everywhere to give a better situational awareness across all critical aircraft surfaces and systems. It is going to take a little bit of adjusting to, but it will help improve safety in a tremendous way.
- cedilla 11mo ago
  This would need to be tested. There's a lot going on already during normal take-offs. Now you're in a situation where the engine fire alarm is going off, probably a few other alarms, you got so many messages on your display that it only shows the most urgent one, you're taking quick glances at 50 points in the cockpit already. And how would the cameras even work? Are the pilots supposed to switch between multiple camera feeds, or do we install dozens of screens? And then what, they see lots of black smoke on one camera, does that really tell them that much more than the ENG FIRE alert blaring in the background? Maybe this could help during stable flight, but in this situation, when the pilots were likely already overloaded and probably had only a few seconds to escape this situation - if it was possible at all - I can't imagine it being helpful.
  - ExoticPearTree 11mo ago
    You know how the tail camera works on the new planes? Something like that, which can be far away from the wings, but get the full picture. Am I saying it's the solution for everything? No. But after you go through the memory committed items during an emergency, you can take a look outside and be like "ah, I see better what the problem is". If we don't try to see how it goes, we won't know if it is a good idea or not.
  - wongarsu 11mo ago
    It'd certainly need more thought put into it than just showing the camera view from the entertainment system. Either just one camera on the tail pointed forwards, so you have one single camera that can show the whole plane, or two cameras in the front, one pointed at each wing. Two cameras is worse than one, but they are less likely to be affected by smoke or blood splatters or whatever. Maybe give each pilot one of the camera feeds. And you'd have to fit a dedicated screen for the video feed so pilots don't need to switch through screens in an emergency. It'd take lots of testing and engineering. But especially in cases where you have multiple warnings going off I imagine that a quick view at an exterior camera can often give you a clearer/faster indication of the situation
- krisoft 11mo ago
  > Having cameras pointed at the engines/wings like rearview mirrors would be helpful. Helpful in what way? What are the pilots going to do with the information?
  - ExoticPearTree 11mo ago
    They won't have to rely on cabin crew description of what they see over the wings or have to send one of the pilots to take a look (see UA1175).
    - sim7c00 11mo ago
      its super weird to me this isn't a thing, and there's resistence to the idea. I mean, if they are already masters at glacing at 100000 differnent indicators and warning messages etc. and processing them at super speeds (they really do!) then i'd say a monitor with a bunch of buttons below it to switch feeds (maybe a little more elaborate, but not tooo...) would be helpful. the problem might be getting trained and experienced pilots to adjust to it since they are already in a certain flow of habits and skills to apply in their job, but new pilots surely could learn it as they aren't so set on their ways yet and have the opportunity to build this new data into their skillset / habits.
      - bronson 11mo ago
        Pilots are already overloaded so we can probably overload them a little more?
      - throwway120385 11mo ago
        Look, information overload is a real problem. Medical devices are an analogous industry in that in an emergency nurses and doctors are getting completely bombarded with alarm tones, flashing lights, noise, and also whatever is going on with the patient. There are standards in that industry governing how you alarm, what your alarm tones sound like, what colors you're supposed to use, how fast you're supposed to flash, and so on. And people still miss alarms because there are still a ton of them all going off at once. People have an upper limit on their capacity to take in information, and that limit goes down when they are moving quickly to solve problems. Throwing more information at them in those moments increases the risk that they will take in the wrong information, disregard more important information, and make really bad decisions. So no, it's not cut and dried like you're thinking.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11mo ago
  How does that work in the dark/rain/snow? Or are we now going to add lights pointing in the direction where the camera is facing. And then what do we do about the fact that aircraft external lighting has to follow regulations?

zuppy 11mo ago

They surely can and this has been done. On one the flights that I took with Turkish Airlines they had a few video streams from different sides of the airplane. One was from the top of the tail and you could see the entire plane. Now... not sure how much that is helpful in this kind of emergency, they really didn't have time to do much.

fredoralive 11mo ago
I'm not sure they usually have the views on screen in the cockpit in flight, even if available (and an old MD-11 freighter won't have the cameras in the first place). The picture of an A380 cockpit (on the ground) on Wikipedia does show the tail view on a screen, but its on the screen normally used for main instruments. With an A380 that had an uncontained engine failure causing various bits of havok (Qantas 32?) IIRC the passengers could see a fuel leak on the in flight entertainment screens, but they had to tell the crew as AFAIK they didn't have access to the view in the cockpit in flight.