Airline safety watchdog wants to eavesdrop on cockpit chit-chat
by Our reporter

WASHINGTON- The National Transportation Safety Board want to monitor "black box" voice recorders in a bid to eliminate the kind of cockpit banter blamed for an airliner crash last year in New York that killed 50 people.

"It is essential to understand what is going on in the cockpit if we are to achieve further reductions" in the number of accidents involving commercial aircraft, Debbie Hersman, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a statement Wednesday.

"The benefits attained from the cockpit voice recorder should not be limited to posthumous investigations," she said.

The NTSB recommendation that cockpit black boxes be routinely monitored came in the agency's report, released this month, into the crash in which 49 passengers and crew and one person on the ground died when a Continental Airlines commuter plane slammed into a house outside Buffalo, New York.

The black box on that flight showed that the pilot and co-pilot "began a conversation that was unrelated to their flying duties" when the aircraft was below 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) as it approached Buffalo International airport.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and airline policy rules prohibit non-essential discussions when flying below 10,000 feet.

In another case of pilot distraction, two Northwest Airlines pilots overshot their destination by 100 miles (160 kilometers) because they were chatting and using their laptops, which is also in violation of aviation safety rules.

If the NTSB recommendation is put in place, airlines would themselves monitor cockpit voice recorders from their own aircraft, and they would do so "for safety reasons, not punitive reasons," Ted Lopatkiewicz, director of public affairs for the NTSB, said.

The NTSB is also asking the FAA "to seek legislation, if necessary, to ensure the protection of those recordings from public disclosure," Lopatkiewicz said.

Only cockpit conversations on US airlines would be monitored, he said.