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Cockpit cameras would improve safety on airplanes

Investigators know the precise time Andreas Lubitz sent Germanwings Flight 9525 into a mountainside, but when it comes to evaluating his psychology, they have little to work with.

By Adam Minter | Updated on May 19, 2015
The cockpit of an Airbus A 330-200 jet in Budapest, Hungary. The International Civil Aviation Commission, the U.N. agency that sets global aviation safety standards, is preparing to make a “big push” for cockpit cameras later this year. (AP Photo/MTI, Zoltan Balogh)

(Bloomberg View) — Thanks to cockpit data recorders, investigators know the precise time Andreas Lubitz sent Germanwings Flight 9525 into a mountainside and the maneuvers he used to do so. But when it comes to evaluating Lubitz’s psychology as the plane crashed, investigators have had little more to work from than a cockpit voice recording that, according to French prosecutors, revealed he was breathing steadily during the plane’s descent. Images that more clearly portray Lubitz’s state of mind — and offer more insight into how such tragedies can be prevented in the future — aren’t available. That’s because cockpit video cameras have never been required by any airline regulator.

Fortunately, that may soon change. According to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal, the International Civil Aviation Commission, the U.N. agency that sets global aviation safety standards, is preparing to make a “big push” for cockpit cameras later this year. (It’s unclear whether it will recommend them, or outright require them.) In doing so, it will have the support of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S.’s lead airline accident investigator, which in January listed cockpit cameras among eight safety-related recommendations it made to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

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