Listening to Music on the Flight Deck - Safety Issue? FAA/Company Aware?

[Flydaplane]

Who among us hasn't tried to pick up a NDB freq?
I think we should ban radios for big rig drivers because they don't need to be distracted. Let them drive for 8 hours straight focusing on the white lines and the guages on their trucks. I
f you're at cruise altitude and you've got a way to keep the radio calls from being missed, where's the harm? You're not sleeping, you can still monitor guages while listening...ever listened to the radio in your car and not crashed?

 

[XJETDriver]

There's been some recent threads on listening to music on flight decks. The first thing that came into my mind is, are these pilots for real? Shouldn't they be paying attention to the instruments (flight, engine, navigation, etc.)? I know flying cruise can be dull as a bowling ball. Speaking from a passenger's perspective, this topic would surely make a great story on the evening news. I would think listening to music is a distraction that compromises safety of flight. I know that there are no regulations against listening to music in the FARs, but do airline companies have policies against this because it can potentially compromise safety of flight? I can totally picture oil pressure dropping steadily as the pilots laugh their a$$ off on XM's comedy channel.

I know that pilots complain about the low pay scale and all, but when I read threads like this, it just gives airline management more fuel to justify cutting your pay. If I was management, my first argument to cut pay is, "well, they're up there listening to music on autopilot and not doing much so why are we paying them so much?"

Please forgive my ignorance to your day-to-day job. I just want to express a concern. What do other pilots think of this?

What do you think the Dr doing your open heart surgery is listening too? Maybe...Tom Petty, Korn...okay maybe not Korn. They have your life in their hands just as we do! Dr's jam out while doing surgery all the time... what is the difference? Nothing

 

[XJETDriver]

Finally, would you listen to your Ipod during an FAA enroute inspection? yes/no?

Would you talk below 10K while a line check was going on? No, but you would on a normal day, just like you would not jam out to your Ipod while being line checked. Good Day

 

[Wankel7]

What do you think the Dr doing your open heart surgery is listening too? Maybe...Tom Petty, Korn...okay maybe not Korn. They have your life in their hands just as we do! Dr's jam out while doing surgery all the time... what is the difference? Nothing

Outstanding point...and it isn't like they have a cruise portion of heart surgery!

 

[Flying Ninja]

What do you think the Dr doing your open heart surgery is listening too? Maybe...Tom Petty, Korn...okay maybe not Korn. They have your life in their hands just as we do! Dr's jam out while doing surgery all the time... what is the difference? Nothing

I think the difference is that the doctor kills one patient at a time, while pilots kill...well...enough said.

Anyway, the point of this discussion is whether listening to music in flight compromises safety and responsiveness of the crew and/or interferes with CRM. Some arguments I've read can easily be pointed to the basic five hazardous attitudes by CNN if one of these planes crash due to crew listening to iPods. I understand the ADF argument, but ADF don't give you the on-demand interactivity (more distraction over time) an iPod does.

The pilot view points are great. I'm curious as to what the airlines' and regulators' point of view on this is since this is a fairly new development in flight deck entertainment.

 

[XJETDriver]

Outstanding point...and it isn't like they have a cruise portion of heart surgery!

You are exactly right! Sometimes for 8-14 hrs.

 

[XJETDriver]

I think the difference is that the doctor kills one patient at a time, while pilots kill...well...enough said.


I'm curious as to what the airlines' and regulators' point of view on this is since this is a fairly new development in flight deck entertainment.

---No, thats not the difference. There is not a difference!

---Who cares what the view of the airline is? How are they going to know if we are listening to music? You might say...CVR? Well it cant be used for such things. Our FOM states that we can only read the CFM, AFM, FOM or anything pertaining to the fight. It says that we can NOT do jepp rev, read paper, and dip. Well I do all three, does it make me a bad pilot? I dont think so! I have a very good headset for listening to music. I just plug my Ipod right into the base of my headset. http://www.anrheadsets.com/products-mach1.asp