The benefits of integrated eye tracking with airborne image recorders in the flight deck: a rejected landing case study

Aircraft accident investigation has played a pivotal role in improving the safety of aviation. Advances in recorder technology, specifically Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVRs) and Flight Data Recorders (FDR) have made a huge contribution to the understanding of occurrences for accident investigators. However, even these recorders have limitations such as the evidence they provide about pilots' situation awareness or behaviours. Supplementing audio and data recordings with video has been discussed for many years and whilst there continues to be debate among regulators, operators, manufacturers and pilot unions, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has mandated Airborne Image Recorders (AIR) from 2023. The purpose of installing such systems is to provide evidence of crew operational behaviours in terms of both human-human and human-computer interactions (HCI) on the flight deck. Video alone is unlikely to provide sufficient evidence for investigators. This study examines the additional value that eye-tracking technology may provide through the case study of an accident involving an Airbus A330-300 aircraft which experienced a rejected landing. Currently, the investigation of such events, where crew interaction with automation is critical to their situation awareness, relies heavily on interview data. Such data may be unavailable (in the case of serious injury) or unreliable (based on hindsight bias). By integrating eye tracking technology into an AIR, accident investigators will potentially gain a better understanding of pilots’ visual scan patterns across flight deck instrumentation. This has implications for flight deck and procedural design as well as training and simulation.