Fatal crashes like this are rare enough to make the headlines, but near-accidents, non-fatal accidents and other minor events could be better documented and help improve the overall safety and efficiency.
Given the current low price of high-quality video equipment, and the cost of both safety equipment and investigation, even in minor cases, this sounds actually like a good idea. Footage could be deleted quickly if nothing eventful happens, reducing the costs even further.
It would be much more helpful and less privacy-invasive than the rest of the airport camera circuit, and probably cheaper.
Bureaucracy. Some entrepreneurial employee of the airport can't just head out and install cameras, no matter how cheap they are. You or I could get a gopro and a tiny PC and have high quality footage recorded all day and then deleted automatically if nothing eventful happens. But... we're talking about an industry that still uses token-ring networks.
A "markets" person might think, if it's so cheap and the footage of a crash so valuable, why don't individuals across the bay setup their own cameras to record the runway, then sell the footage if it becomes valuable?
My question still stands. I'm not proposing for some random person to go there and install the cameras, I'm wondering why the industry does not adopt this as a standard practice.
Either they already are, or it was deemed not useful to diagnose and prevent other disasters. Given the depth and the breadth of rules and regulations that make air travel safer than crossing the street [citation needed, I'm sure], I would assume that they're doing something right.
Given the current low price of high-quality video equipment, and the cost of both safety equipment and investigation, even in minor cases, this sounds actually like a good idea. Footage could be deleted quickly if nothing eventful happens, reducing the costs even further.
It would be much more helpful and less privacy-invasive than the rest of the airport camera circuit, and probably cheaper.