NTSB Temporarily Restricts Docket Access After AI Reconstruction of Cockpit Audio
The National Transportation Safety Board blocked public access to its docket system after discovering that cockpit voice data from a 2025 UPS plane crash had been reconstructed using AI. The agency restored access on Friday but kept 42 investigations closed for review.
insurancejournal.comThe National Transportation Safety Board temporarily removed public access to its docket system after discovering that cockpit voice data from a UPS plane crash had been reconstructed using AI tools. Federal law bars the NTSB from releasing actual cockpit audio recordings.
The docket for UPS Flight 2976 contained only a spectrogram image that converts sound frequencies into visual data. Scott Manley posted on X that the image file contained enough encoded information to allow reconstruction when paired with the public transcript.
Users applied AI tools including Codex to generate audio approximations of the pilots' voices.
The NTSB restored access to the docket system on Friday.
It kept 42 investigations closed while it reviews whether similar spectrogram files could be used to recreate restricted audio. The closed cases include the docket for Flight 2976, which crashed in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2025. The agency stated that the spectrogram had been included because it was not an actual audio recording.
Key Facts
Story Timeline
3 events- May 22, 2026
NTSB removed public access to docket system after AI-reconstructed cockpit audio appeared online.
1 sourceTechCrunch - May 22, 2026
Scott Manley posted that spectrogram data could be used to reconstruct audio with AI tools.
1 sourceTechCrunch - May 23, 2026
NTSB restored docket access but kept 42 investigations closed, including Flight 2976.
1 sourceTechCrunch
Potential Impact
- 01
Public researchers face temporary limits on accessing crash investigation data.
- 02
NTSB may change how spectrogram files are handled in future dockets.
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