The NTSB temporarily disabled its publicly available accident file system after discovering that AI and image processing technique could use the audio spectrum images included in the files to approximately reconstruct cockpit voice recordings.
Cockpit voice recordings capture everything commercial pilots say and are extremely valuable when investigating crashes, but the NTSB rarely releases them out of respect for crash victims and their families. It does, however, release a spectrogram of the audio recorded. A spectrogram is a still image that is a visual representation of the audio, showing the ups and downs of the frequencies.
The issue was discovered when it released multiple documents during its two-day hearing on the UPS Boeing MD-11F cargo plane that crashed on Nov. 4, 2025, which included a spectrogram of its cockpit voice recordings. Some civilians were then able to use that image to recreate the voices of the pilots moments before their death and posted the created audio online. The clip covered the last thirty seconds of flight, according to CNN.
“The NTSB does not release cockpit audio recordings,” said the bureau in a statement on Twitter/X. “Federal law prohibits such public release due to the highly sensitive nature of verbal communications inside the cockpit. The NTSB takes these privacy restrictions seriously. The NTSB docket system is temporarily unavailable as we examine the scope of the issue and evaluate solutions. We hope to restore access to the docket system as soon as possible.
Documents on aircraft incidents are typically made public for transparency, but will be temporarily unavailable while the NTSB investigates the issue and evaluates possible solutions.
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