The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently recommended requiring improved cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) on all new and existing aircraft that currently must be equipped with two-hour recorders.
The NTSB sent the Federal Aviation Administration two recommendations: all newly manufactured airplanes must be fitted with a CVR capable of recording the last 25 hours of audio, and retrofit airplanes required to carry both a CVR and a flight data recorder with a CVR capable of recording the last 24 hours of audio by Jan. 1, 2024.
“Sometimes a delay in reporting an event to the FAA, the NTSB or the operator also results in a significant delay in actions to safeguard recorder data,” the NTSB report said. “Lacking these data means that an investigation may not identify issues that played a role in the event, which could result in a similar — or worse — occurrence in the future.”
The NTSB recommendations came after several investigations that lacked access to relevant CVR data, most recently an April 18 engine fire in Atlanta and a June 21 runway excursion in Chicago.
The recommendations are similar to those the European Aviation Safety Agency adopted and will go into effect Jan. 1, 2021, for newly manufactured, large commercial aircraft.