Cockpit voice recorder (CVR) requirements should be bolstered to provide for a minimum recording capacity of 25 hours, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says in a pair of safety recommendations to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).1
In an October safety recommendation letter, the NTSB cited nearly three dozen events in which the current requirement for a CVR recording covering the last two hours of a flight proved insufficient. In each case, the NTSB said that its investigators did not have access to relevant CVR data that would have aided their work. Among the cited events was an Air Canada Airbus A320’s July 7, 2017, overflight of four air carrier airplanes on a taxiway at San Francisco International Airport (see “’Something Was Not Right’”).2
“CVRs are among the most valuable tools used for accident investigation,” the NTSB said. “Information such as flight crew verbalizations of intentions and coordination, as …
