People used AI to recreate the voices of pilots killed in a plane crash
Key takeaways
- US transportation regulator NTSB pulled its accident reports after the audio recreations were uploaded online.
- As CNN reports, the agency recently uploaded files filled with details about the November 4, 2025 crash involving UPS flight 2976.
- 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.
US transportation regulator NTSB pulled its accident reports after the audio recreations were uploaded online.
Mason Brighton/Shutterstock The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has pulled its docket system offline after people used information uploaded to it to recreate the voices of pilots killed in a plane crash with AI. As CNN reports, the agency recently uploaded files filled with details about the November 4, 2025 crash involving UPS flight 2976. One of the plane's engines separated from the wing during takeoff from Louisville, Kentucky, killing three crew members and 12 people on the ground.
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.