LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The National Transportation Safety Board restricted access to part of its website after people used artificial intelligence and image-recognition technology to reconstruct cockpit audio connected to the deadly UPS cargo plane crash in Louisville.
On its website, the NTSB has sound spectrum images, or sound waves, and a written transcript of what the pilots aboard the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 cargo plane said right before the plane went down around 5:15 p.m. Nov. 4, 2025, after its left wing caught fire.Â
The crash killed 15 people, including the three pilots on board.
The agency said people found a way to reverse-engineer that information to reconstruct cockpit audio of the pilots' final moments. Federal law prohibits the NTSB from publicly releasing cockpit voice recordings because of the sensitive nature of the audio.
The NTSB said it takes those privacy protections seriously and temporarily restricted access to its public docket system while it evaluates possible solutions.
This restriction comes days after the NTSB held two days of investigative hearings in Washington this week as part of the agency's investigation into the deadly crash.
The agency did not say when full access to its website will be restored.
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