Radio transmissions by pilots wearing cloth facemasks may be more difficult to understand than those by pilots wearing surgical masks, or no masks at all, according to a report by the French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA).
The report, released in September, said that cloth masks “may result in a significant attenuation of the voice activity according to the model (density of material or weave).” An FFP3 mask with an exhalation valve also may result in “substantial attenuation in the voice frequency band and beyond, according to the position of the boomset microphone,” the report said.
On the other hand, the report added that wearing a single-use surgical mask with a nonwoven filter “does not significantly attenuate the loudness of speech.”
BEA researchers reached their conclusions by conducting two tests in the agency’s audio-cockpit voice recorder (CVR) library, using a method in which they performed “a comparative measurement between a situation where m…
