The NTSB pulled its docket system offline after people used publicly uploaded investigation materials to recreate pilots’ voices using AI. The materials related to the November 4, 2025 crash of UPS flight 2976 in Louisville, Kentucky, where an engine separated from the wing during takeoff, killing three crew members and 12 people on the ground. The NTSB had released thousands of pages of reports, a video of the engine separation, a transcript of black box recordings, and a PDF spectrogram showing the audio’s sound spectrum. Individuals used the spectrogram to reconstruct the last 30 seconds of the flight while the pilots struggled to disable the plane. The NTSB stated it is examining the scope of the issue and evaluating solutions.
"The NTSB docket system is temporarily unavailable as we examine the scope of the issue and evaluate solutions."
"The NTSB is aware that advances in image recognition and computational methods have enabled individuals to reconstruct approximations of cockpit voice recorder audio from sound spectrum imagery released as part of NTSB investigations, including the ongoing investigation of the crash last year of UPS flight 2976 in Louisville, Kentucky."
"While the NTSB uploads accident reports that the public can access, it is not allowed by federal law to release cockpit audio recordings "due to the highly sensitive nature of verbal communications inside the cockpit." The NTSB's uploads for the UPS crash included thousands of pages of reports and a video showing the engine's separation. They also included a transcript of the black box recordings and a PDF file with a spectrogram, which shows a graphic representation of the recorded audio in the cockpit."
"It's through that spectrogram that people were able recreate the last 30 seconds of the flight, while the pilots were struggling to disable the plane, using artificial intelligence. While technology to turn spectrograms back into audio has existed for a while now, AI has made it easier to do so by anybody who has access to it."
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