Page 10 - 2018-Issue1

10 NEWS, NOTES & EVENTS

Flight Safety Spotlight

DON’T PUT YOURSELF IN THE FRAME

This article was originally published by the BALPA Flight Safety Department, December 2017

Don’t put yourself in the frame.
There’s nothing more impressive than saying to your kids “look here’s a video of Daddy/Mummy landing their
aeroplane”. This often works quite well with slightly older people as well apparently, but do you know how
vulnerable you are leaving yourself when you introduce your personal camera into the cockpit? Firstly, you could
be introducing a flight safety hazard; the Daily Mail reported earlier this year on an incident where 33 passengers
were injured after a pilot’s personal camera interfered with the controls and caused a rapid descent. Secondly, you
may be contravening company rules – that won’t be a pleasant phone call.

Finally, and really importantly, you may find any images you take (or are taken of you) being used against you or
your colleagues in the event of something going wrong. In a recent fatal accident investigation the police asked
for all AAIB material to be released to them but a judge opined that nothing could be released as that could prove
detrimental to future flight safety reporting. Nothing, that is, except for the personal video camera that the pilot
had installed to film his flying. That’s gold dust to some people.

Of course, you may find that your “David Bailey/Spielberg” worshiping colleague posts his imagery on social
media and some eagle-eyed member of the public may just notice something that you appear to have missed. Even
if nothing is actually amiss this could generate some undesirable attention and remember, these pictures and
videos will be there forever. So the next time you are tempted to capture the amazing sights that this job exposes
us to, or your fellow aviator says “it’s OK to take some pictures/take a video isn’t it?” can we suggest that you think
very carefully about all the possible ramifications. As we begin to see aircraft being delivered from factories with
cameras fitted as standard we need to make sure any images from the “office” are dealt with in a sensible, legal and
agreed way, and we need your help to make sure that happens.

ISSUE 1 | 2018 InterPilot | The Safety and Technical Journal of IFALPA