Accident analysis: Famous last words

It has even advocated for in-cockpit video recordings to capture the details of who did what when. It’s also been suggested that the mere fact of knowing you’re being watched can moderate behavior (a principal motivation behind programs that offer insurance discounts in exchange for installing data-logging devices in private cars). Whether this seems promising or ominous depends on where you strike the balance between privacy and security.

There’s no question that the wealth of data captured by newer airplanes’ on-board electronics—throttle and mixture settings, engine rpm and temperatures, autopilot programming and engagement, control inputs, and attitude and positional readings—has been crucial to resolving investigations of brief flights that ended catastrophically. Autopilots set to the wrong mode or wrong waypoint—or never actually engaged—have all been implicated. But in GA, much of what happens in the cockpit should probably stay in the cockpit. Even the most conscientious and capable among us have said things that would be embarrassing taken out of context.

“Do you see an airport out there anywhere?” won’t play well even if the flight ends uneventfully.Sometimes a carelessly chosen phrase needlessly alarms passengers. The pilot’s description of a delayed descent clearance as a “slam-dunk arrival” triggered one to protest, “No! No dunking and no slamming!” And even if the culprit is as innocuous as a flickering gear-in-transit light, nonpilots don’t want to hear “Is that darn thing acting up again?” Or—especially in instrument conditions—“What’s it doing now?” A recording of the pilot asking “Do you see an airport out there anywhere?” won’t play well even if the flight ends uneventfully. Another question better left unasked is, “Do you smell something burning?”

Others are less innocuous. A science writer researching a wildlife restoration project recalled sitting in the back seat on a radio-tracking flight when the pilot, citing some problem with the audio panel, asked her to take off her headset. He then flew a series of maneuvers while she scanned the landscape for their quarry. After 15 minutes he had her put the headset on again—which she did just in time to hear him tell his co-pilot, “OK, you win. I can’t make her throw up.”

Passengers aren’t blameless, either, although they most often err out of ignorance. It’s the pilot’s response that determines whether that hypothetical transcript would make headlines. Asked whether you can do loops and rolls in your Skyhawk, it’s best to suppress the urge to respond, “I don’t know, you want to try?” And when the first bump after takeoff prompts the inevitable “What was that?” don’t answer “Just a wheel falling off. It’s OK, we’ve got two more.” You wouldn’t want to see that in the National Enquirer—and anyway, it isn’t funny.