[ozr]

You're definitely not wrong. Most civil aviation authorities I'm aware of have some profound issues with their policies around pilots and mental health issues. Fixing that is more likely to prevent the issue in the first place. That's closer to the root cause and something that shouldn't be ignored.

But parallel to that (and unfortunately-but-most-likely in lieu of): we simply shouldn't be losing large aircraft and having no idea what happened.

[bombcar]

The biggest issue with all policies is the same with red flag laws - and even attempted mention of potentially having an issue grounds you and you lose your job; this makes the issue that much worse.

[ipython]

Yes. This is dangerous because pilots are afraid to disclose depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions for fear of losing their livelihood. For example, the FAA automatically considers an ADHD diagnosis disqualifying for airline pilots: https://pilot-protection-services.aopa.org/news/2018/februar....

This results in a “don’t ask don’t tell” situation which can be even worse.

[logifail]

> we simply shouldn't be losing large aircraft and having no idea what happened

Maybe it doesn't nearly happen often enough to make this any kind of a priority?

[ozr]

Why pay for the recorder at all then?

Sub-total loss is presumably much more common and it’s useful there, but the adjustments to prevent it being disabled/make it more durable would be helpful there, too.

[sokoloff]

From the article: All of the preparation is, inarguably, effective: Never has a recovered black box been so badly damaged that it yields no usable data.

That seems to me like they might be at a sufficient level of durability already.

[ozr]

I worded that poorly; durability in the sense of being resistant to attack by bad actors, not in the event of a crash.

[logifail]

> being resistant to attack by bad actors

The recorders already to work really well for the purpose they're designed for.

The "bad actor in cockpit" plus "unexplained disappearance" scenario, for which they're not designed, simply doesn't happen often enough to be worthwhile worrying about.

Short version: flight recorders aren't broken, they don't need "fixing"

Long version: imagine you were to propose a major redesign to your employer's systems to attempt to diagnose unaccountable failures which based on historical data happen 0.00000018% of the time[0], what would be the response?

[0] back of napkin maths based on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36284912

[Tabular-Iceberg]

Presumably because the incidence of pilot murder-suicide falls below the threshold and genuine accidents fall above it.

What’s the ratio like, 1:10000?