Video Can Be Transmitted To Ground in Emergencies

Video imagery of events in the cockpit or cabin could be transmitted to the ground using the existing sky phone systems installed on many airliners, according to developers of the technology.

"We can download closed circuit television (CCTV) video with a cellphone's worth of capability," declared Leonard Gollobin, president and chief executive officer of Fairfax, Va.-based Presearch Inc. The company provides such security technology to ground customers (e.g., banks), and in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks began development of the same capability for airliners.

The system was flight tested earlier this year, demonstrating in two days of airborne trials that the technology can provide high-resolution pictures of events in the air to a ground station.

Dubbed the AirPICS remote in-flight security system, Gollobin asserted that the system could be deployed now to enhance aviation security. He pointed out that U.S. military jets are being scrambled to intercept aircraft at an average rate of once a day. Where airliners are involved in these missions, the interceptor pilots may be authorized to shoot down an airplane if it appears to pose a terrorist threat. Presently, interceptor pilots have a poor view into the cockpit, but a CCTV camera placed in the cockpit, using the AirPICS concept, could provide an up-close picture to ground controllers of cockpit activity. As such, the system can remove the ambiguity in an emergency situation.

The resolution is sufficient, Gollobin said, for "facial recognition and to confirm the identity of the pilots."

"Any radio transmission coming off the airplane in a terrorist situation is suspect," he added.

Other than cell phone messages from terrified flight attendants and passengers, relatively little is known about exactly what occurred aboard the four airplanes hijacked on 9/11.

The zeitgeist for downloadable video may be right:

The Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, called for the deployment of video monitors "to alert pilots in the flight deck to activity in the cabin," since the pilots are now locked in the cockpit in front of hardened doors. Transmitting cabin or cockpit video to the ground takes the video concept to the next step.
Many airlines already are deploying CCTV to cover the cabin or portions thereof, such as the forward entranceway and galley area. The imagery is fed to a monitor in the cockpit. JetBlue Airways [JBLU] is a notable example of this trend, and Air Seychelles announced recently its intent to install CCTV to monitor the cabin space aft of the hardened cockpit door.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended cockpit video as a needed advance in recorder technology for purposes of accident investigations. Using a fisheye lens, the AirPICS system can record pilot activity, control positions and instrument displays in the cockpit.
The security and safety needs intersect.

Gollobin said some 2,500 U.S. airliners already are equipped with seatback airphones, so the air-to-ground link for transmitting video already exists. The existing ground infrastructure for the airphones also can be used, taking the video and sending it to airline and government operations centers in the event of an emergency.

To answer the usual up-front questions about cost and weight, the AirPICS system could be installed for about, or slightly less, than the $40,000 cost of an enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS). Conceivably, the cost could be paid by the U.S. Government. Precedent was established when the government ordered the installation of hardened cockpit doors and reimbursed operators some $300 million for this effort. The video system would relay information to the ground of activity on the cabin side of the locked cockpit door. Should terrorists penetrate the cockpit, the system would provide imagery of events on the fight deck. Depending upon the number of cameras, installed weight would be on the order of 30-50 pounds. For an aircraft with an installed airphone system and related antenna, AirPICS could be installed in about a day, or less (as was done for the flight tests last March).

We provide here a brief overview of important details:

The hardware

Lightweight color or black and white cameras can be installed, per customer desires, to cover the cockpit and cabin. Coverage of belly holds, other inaccessible spaces, and external areas, also can be provided. Cameras can switch between different modes (e.g., daylight visual, infrared) depending upon lighting conditions. Up to 16 cameras can be installed per transmitter.

Video imagery can be stored on the flight data recorder (FDR) in highly compressed form, using the same air-to-ground transmission technology. Live pictures are transmitted through a data port connection to the on-board communications system.

The imagery is encrypted before transmission to the ground.

One of the key elements of this architecture is that imagery is only transmitted during an emergency; it does not flood ground stations with routine data.

Concept of operation

No imagery is transmitted outside the aircraft unless the pilot activates transmission. If the pilot is incapacitated, or ground operators perceive suspicious activity - such as an airplane off-course, not responding to radio queries and with its transponder broadcasting the hijacked code - the video downlink can be activated from the ground.

The recorder/transmitter continuously monitors all on-board cameras, starting before takeoff. A number of video frames are kept in an "active" (or pre-alarm) storage (several minutes worth), and all frames are preserved in permanent storage (several hours' worth). The pre-alarm storage allows officials on the ground to observe what happened in the moments before an emergency.

At the ground station, the first video is displayed automatically within 30 seconds, and images from as many as 16 cameras can be shown simultaneously within 60 seconds.

If the on-board sky phone system is used, images would be refreshed every second. The imagery can include audio.

To exploit the existing capability of installed airphone systems, the AirPICS concept is independent of available bandwidth. "We pick the desired resolution and adjust the frame rate," explained Ronald McKenzie, a Presearch senior vice president who has been involved in the technology's development and testing.

A dedicated downlink would provide faster connectivity and refresh rates. What Gollobin and McKenzie emphasized is that a high-resolution, all-light-conditions capability exists today to transmit video from the airliner to the ground in an emergency situation.

In fact, Presearch is not the only company jumping onto the video transmission bandwagon. Boeing's [BA] "Connexion" concept envisions video transmission from the aircraft "to better manage an onboard event," according to the company's promotional literature.

The reaction to the video concept was generally favorable. Hans Ephraimson, president of the Air Crash Victims Family Group, said, "This concept sounds interesting and desirable within the NTSB recommendations - and also probably feasible because the pilots' objections against cameras in the cockpit could be overcome, inasmuch as they cover the cabin and hold." Billie Vincent, an aviation secuirty expert, endorsed the concept, saying, "The AirPICS system would be a useful security tool in many security situations." >> Gollobin, e-mail len.gollobin@presearch.com; Ephraimson, e-mail acvfa@cs.com<<

A Competing Video Product
"Connexion by Boeing is a two-way, satellite-based broadband communications system that can contribute to homeland security by enhancing flight crew and ground situational awareness using onboard video and audio, and two-way broadband transmission. The system has the ability to create an enhanced situational awareness environment linking the airplane, air traffic control, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Defense (DOD) into a common network to better manage an onboard event, and [it] offers federal air marshals a discrete and secure means for sharing and receiving real-time information with the flight crew and the ground."

Source: http://www.boeing.com/ids/homeland_security/ourCapabilitiies1.htm

About Presearch
Its video security products currently are protecting critical infrastructure (10 years, three generations of technology, and hundreds of systems in use at):

Nuclear power plants

Nuclear fuel processing facilities

Interstate highways

$35 million in annual sales.

In business nearly 40 years, with $500 million in government contracts to date.


http://www.presearch.com

FROM AIR SAFETY WEEK:


Call for cockpit video recorders.

"We have had far too many accident investigations in recent years where vital information that was lost could have been documented with the help of cockpit imaging recorders," declared Carol Carmody, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). She will chair two days of hearings July 27-28 on the feasibility and benefits of cockpit video recorders.

The hearings will commence at 9:00 a.m. each day in the NTSB's main boardroom, at 429 L'Enfant Plaza, SW, Washington, D.C.

A recommendation for cockpit video recorders is on the NTSB's "Most Wanted" list of aviation safety improvements (see ASW, May 12, 2003).

Time is running out. The NTSB wants cockpit video recorders installed on transport-category aircraft by Jan. 1, 2005 (see ASW, April 17, 2000). The Board's April 11, 2000, recommendation (#A-00-030) calling for such installation is presently in an "Open - Unacceptable Response" status.

A companion recommendation issued that day (#A-00-031) called for equipping aircraft built after Jan. 1, 2003, with crashworthy video recorders. With that implementation date clearly having come and long gone, this recommendation, too, is classified "Open - Unacceptable Response."

The recommendations stemmed from numerous crash investigations, including the 1997 crash of SilkAir Flight 990, in which the captain's suicidal actions were suspected, and the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, in which the relief pilot was believed to have put the airplane into its fatal dive.

The NTSB also has called for video recorders to be installed in smaller aircraft, in lieu of voice and data recorders, which are not required in these aircraft. Recommendations issued Dec. 22, 2003, stemmed from the fatal Oct. 25, 2002, crash of a Beech King Air that killed eight persons, including Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) (see ASW, Nov. 24, 2003).

For all such aircraft built after Jan. 1, 2007, the NTSB wants "crash-protected image recording" systems installed. These latest video recorder recommendations are in an "Open - Await Response" category.

The safety board repeatedly has called on the Federal Aviation Administration "to promptly initiate rulemaking activity" to get video recorders in cockpits. (Recall recent story on transmitting in-cockpit or in-cabin video via sky phone to a ground station; see ASW, July 12)

Posted on Tue, Jul. 27, 2004





NTSB Renews Call for Cameras in Cockpit

LESLIE MILLER

Associated Press


WASHINGTON - Safety officials are stepping up pressure on the Federal Aviation Administration to require video cameras in cockpits so accident investigators will have better information on what causes plane crashes.

The National Transportation Safety Board was beginning a two-day hearing Tuesday to renew its call for large and small planes to be equipped with crash-resistant cockpit image recorders.

"We need to light the fires," said National Transportation Safety Board member Carol Carmody, who will chair the hearing. The NTSB recommended that the FAA require large aircraft to be equipped with cameras four years ago.

Pilots object to the idea because they're concerned about their privacy. They also fear that images, unlike technical data, can give rise to subjective interpretations of pilots' actions in the seconds before a crash.

John Cox, executive air safety chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association, said cameras in the cockpit would be a waste of money.

"We don't get a particularly good product and it's expensive," said Cox, who will testify at the hearing. "If we have that money we can spend, let's get data that we can use. Objective data."

The safety board maintains that cameras would have helped safety investigators understand the smoke and fire conditions in the cockpit of two deadly plane crashes: Swissair Flight 111 on Sept. 2, 1998, which crashed off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, en route from New York to Geneva, Switzerland; and Valujet Flight 592 on May 11, 1996, which plunged into the Florida Everglades on a flight from Miami to Atlanta.

In both crashes, cameras could have helped investigators understand how the fires started, what the crews did to put them out and whether the crew managed to clear smoke from the cockpit. The safety board said such information might steer them toward modifying firefighting training, procedures or systems.

Cameras would have also helped answer questions about what happened in the cockpit of EgyptAir Flight 990 from New York to Cairo on Oct. 31, 1999. The NTSB said the co-pilot was alone in the cockpit when he disconnected the autopilot, reduced power to the engines, and sent the plane into the Atlantic Ocean off the Nantucket coast. The Egyptian government rejects any suggestion that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the Boeing 767.

Carmody said cameras would have also saved time and money in determining what caused the twin-engine plane crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone and seven others in Eveleth, Minn., on Oct. 25, 2002.

The safety board ultimately found the probable cause of the accident was the pilots' inattention to the aircraft's instruments. The investigation into that crash gave rise to the recommendations that all small planes be equipped with crash-proof cameras.

Carmody said image-recording technology is much less complicated - and therefore cheaper - than flight data recorders or cockpit voice recorders.

For small planes that aren't required to have cockpit voice recorders or flight data recorders, "it would give us something," Carmody said.

The Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that would implement the NTSB's recommendations for aviation safety, has taken the first steps in developing technical standards for video recorders.

FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitalieri called the recorders "an extra level of safety for aircraft."

But Cox, the pilots' representative, said interpreting video images is always subjective and therefore cannot lead to safety improvements.

It would be much better, he said, to spend limited dollars on data recorders that record more information about a flight than current recorders do.

"Objective data has served us well," Cox said. "That's where we need to stay focused."

Cox also said legal protections of video images aren't ironclad.

Carmody said the NTSB is required to treat video images the same way it treats cockpit tapes. The board never releases the actual recordings to the public, but makes transcripts available.

ON THE NET

Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov]http://www.faa.gov

National Transportation Safety Board: http://www.ntsb.gov]http://www.ntsb.gov

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