I hear news stories of bad things happening on planes, along with a verbal description of witnesses said, but I don’t recall ever seeing any camera footage. Are there security cameras on commercial airlines? If not, why not?
I suppose another possibility is that the cameras are there but the footage is not released to the media.
(have worked in the industry)
It depends on the specific airline carrier, but digital monitoring is still relatively new to such a technologically conservative industry, so it primarily comes in on newer airplanes (777’s, A380’s) on the more upscale airlines. Most older planes don’t have any active cabin cameras and rely on flight attendants viewing the cabin directly.
That’s possible I suppose but if the airline had footage of an unruly passenger attacking the cabin crew then why not release the footage to the prosecutor? Once that footage is used in a trial then it will surely get to the media.
I just find it odd that for years my local 7-11 has had better video surveillance than a commercial airline.
Your local 7-11 probably does not have a better system, my guess is they’re using VCRs and reusing tapes. And your local 7-11 probably experiences a somewhat higher rate of crime than a commercial airline.
… but the technology is so cheap and 9-11 evokes strong emotions, I would think every commercial plane would have had video on it by 9-12-01.
There are two things different in an airliner from a 7-11:
(1) There are always a lot of other people as witnesses, including the flight attendants, who are generally supposed to keep an eye on things.
(2) If someone does something criminal on a plane, he’s got no escape route, unlike in a 7-11, where he can just run out and disappear in the street.
Surveillance cameras are to help identify criminals who are no longer on the scene. That’s not going to happen on a plane, unless the criminal brings his own parachute, and can open one of the doors.
There’s also the additional cost of validating a camera system for an aircraft, which would have to be done for every aircraft type (as Supplemental Type Certificates). It’s not as easy as just taking a camera, attaching it to the ceiling and plugging it into a data recorder or some sort like you would in a store/on the ground.
The camera and recorder have to be powered, so you’re adding an electrical load to the wiring in the plane, requiring your generators to be able independently and together power the system (because if security is your goal, you don’t want the cameras dieing when one engine goes out). You need to qualify all the wiring and components for flammability, you need to design and control where wiring is placed in the aircraft (there really is not a lot of room for new stuff), you need to ensure that the location of cameras and recorders don’t affect your aircraft’s weight and balance and therefore flight envelope, etc. I’m sure there are a ton of factors I haven’t thought about, but I know that doing the design changes and getting them approved takes a butt-load of time. And you have to do this for each and every country/regulatory authority where your aircraft flies; FAA, Transport Canada, EASA, CAA UK, etc, because while many of them do have agreements to respect each other’s Type Certificates and data sheets, they don’t necessarily apply to Supplementary TCs.
So in the end, it comes down to a cost:benefit analysis, and the benefit just isn’t enough.
Guess who get to test out 737’s with onboard video systems? Right now some customers have cameras, it’s running about 1 out of every 3. Almost all have 3 cameras near the flight deck door, a few have a 4th camera in the aft galley area. The video is captured in a digital format, it is stored in a digital recorder in the flight deck. The video can be monitered from either of the center CRT’s in the flight deck either live or the recording. I doubt the entire system is much of a load on the airplanes electrical system, the whole thing operates from a single 7.5 amp breaker.
The 777 has even more cameras, besides those in the passenger compartment, there are also cameras on the lower fuselage (pilots use them to verify deployment of the main landing gear) and a couple landscape cameras, passengers can watch the video from those from their seats.
The A340 also has a bunch of exterior cameras which you can view from your seat.
I don’t really think the load would ever be a problem on the electrical system, but the fact is you’d still have to prove it to the airworthiness authority. They demand proof of everything. It’s cool that Boeing has decided to go this route, but I’m sure there was a fair amount of work involved and a ton of paperwork shipped out to the authorities. I don’t see manufacturers or third parties doing this for every existing aircraft type, although adding it to new designs/updates will probably start to happen more. I guess we’ll see it on the big planes, though I wonder if it will ever trickle down to regional jets?
Note that a hijacker once actually jumped out of plane using a parachute. If that 727 had a camera, then they wouldn’t have needed the composite sketch.
I came in to make a related point - if a crime is committed in an aircraft, there will be lots of independent, easily identifiable witnesses, most of whom (I would guess) are likely to be willing to testify. That’s much less likely to be the case when a crime is committed in a 7-11.
Did he insist on going to Cuba?