Cockpit conversation from Peach jet that descended too soon erased

Well slap a huge fine on them for it and make sure no one tries that crap again. "Altered and erased entirely". There's a lawsuit that definitely should happen, if not criminal proceedings.

If the recording was "entirely erased", how can anybody know that it was "altered"?

I have a question for any pilots out there. My understanding of the standard procedure for most airlines is that the co-pilot usual takes the controls during the take off and landing, the rationale behind this being that if the co-pilot is doing something wrong the senior pilot will not feel any hesitation to step in and correct the junior co-pilot. If the pilot were to take the controls, the co-pilot might hesitate to question pilot's mistakes and so its equivalent to having just one set of eyes and ears in the cockpit.

Firstly, is this true?

Second, if it is true, is this the operating procedure in Japan?

If both the pilot and co-pilot believed that they heard the same request from the controller, then wouldn't it be a problem with the clarity of ATC? Unless the senior pilot was flying and the co-pilot may have had doubts but didn't dare question whether what the pilot thought he heard on the radio was correct.

Very disturbing news for anyone intending on flying with Peach. If Peach or any employees have purposely recorded over the voice recording, it would be for the best if the airline is permanently shut down.

" If the recording was "entirely erased", how can anybody know that it was "altered"?"

" However, safety board officials discovered that the conversations had been recorded at the radio tower at Naha airport and still remained intact."

@John

Thanks, but it still doesn't make sense.

Sure, the original transcript exists, but if the "altered" version has been erased, then who knows how it was "altered"?

National Transportation Safety Board NTSB is an American agency. The proper name for the Japanese agency that investigates aircraft related incidents is the JTSB: Japan Transport Safety Board. When reading this article I was thinking, why is America investigating this, when I realized the name of the agency is incorrectly being reported.

First, it would be extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible to alter cockpit voice recording.

Second, only the most savy maintenance crew (ground personell), would be able to erase the data with special equipment. It would be highly unlikely the flight crew would have access to any of the equipment, or the knowledge to use it.

Lastly, what is said between the tower and the crew will be in the cockpit voice recordings. What is said in the "cockpit" is not recorded in the tower, unless the crew leaves a mic button pushed.

Unless systems have changed drastically in the last few years. If it has, please provide me a link. Even if the capabilities exist, Peach is a budget airline keeping overhead low, flying with FAA minimums. Not very likely they would have paid for bells and whistles.

I don't know the rules in Japan but in 2008 the CVR recording time was increased from 30 min to 2 hrs. A 30min loop may not be enough since it does overwrite. I would think that the investigators should have the technology to recover some of the erased or "altered" recordings. If Peach did do something to the recording, they should have their license pulled and people should go to jail.

My understanding of the standard procedure for most airlines is that the co-pilot usual takes the controls during the >take off and landing, the rationale behind this being that if the co-pilot is doing something wrong the senior pilot will not >feel any hesitation to step in and correct the junior co-pilot. If the pilot were to take the controls, the co-pilot might >hesitate to question pilot's mistakes and so its equivalent to having just one set of eyes and ears in the cockpit.

No this is not standard procedure. The PIC (Pilot in Command, aka the Captain) designates who the Pilot Flying is. Customarily, the Captain and first officer switch roles, one segment the captain flies and the other segment the first officer flies. For takeoffs and landings, again the PIC decides, and again traditionally, the Captain would be the one landing/taking off especially if the landing approach appears to be more difficult (shorter runway, bad weather, etc etc), but if the first officer has more experience at a particular airport, the captain can designate him the Pilot Flying.

Both the captain and first officer work as a team and the role of "Pilot flying" can switch, but again it is entirely up to the PIC to decide.

@Badge213

Thanks. Its good to know, but makes me a bit wary of flying on airlines in cultures where the first officer won't feel comfortable questioning the actions of the senior pilot. (ie Asiana Airlines at SFO)

@M3M3M3

I'll try to answer your question regarding chain of command issues. I work in linguistic evaluation of aviation personnel in the field. The issue of co-pilots feeling intimidated to question the authority and or point out mistakes of their pilots in East Asia has been a serious issue that has caused fatal accidents in the past. Because of this, most companies have modified what is called CRM training (Crew Resource Management) to eliminate these types of situations and make certain that mistakes are pointed out in real time. Without naming names, I have interviewed a co-pilot from one airline that felt confident in questioning their captain, and a different company's (same country) co-pilot who told me he was "afraid" to question his captain. This may not be indicative of the entire company but it indicates that there is still work to be done. Peach Airlines is a subsidiary of ANA which has a very strong safety culture and probably utilizes similar CRM training in regards to their crew although I haven't read it myself. LCC's (Low cost carriers) generally have less experienced pilots with lower pay, but this is not always the case and in order to get a commercial pilot's license in most countries you must go through rigorous training. In my experience, Japanese ATC (Air traffic control) personnel are extremely professional and usually speak slowly and clearly. Human error can always happen for a variety of reasons (we aren't perfect after all). The Airbus 320 that they were flying luckily has safeguards that prevented them from crashing in this situation, the ground proximity warning system. However, 90 percent of modern flight is done via auto-pilot and pilot's are more or less managers in the cockpit more than actual pilots most of the time (pilots take off and land, but even that can be done with autopilot at airports with the newest technology). The pilot might have misunderstood ATC's instructions and possibly input the wrong altitude into the flight computer, maybe without putting much thought into it because he most likely wasn't actually flying the plane (auto-pilot). Pilot's always read back ATC commands and vice versa to prevent mistakes like this from happening. Usually accidents happen due to multiple mistakes, failures, or random occurrences that happen simultaneously and are luckily very rare. The company erasing the data from the FDR (Flight Data Recorder) should be a crime punishable by imprisonment and suspension of service for the airline. I'm glad everyone got to their destination safely and I hope that we all continue to constantly improve the safety of aviation.