Alaska Airlines Cockpit Voice Recorder Data Was Lost: NTSB

• The cockpit voice recording from Friday’s Alaska Airways incident has been misplaced.
• It bought overwritten after two hours and investigators could not retrieve it in time.
• The NTSB needs that interval elevated to 25 hours, consistent with European necessities.

Information from the cockpit voice recorder of the Alaska Airways flight that misplaced a part of its fuselage Friday has been misplaced, the Nationwide Transportation Security Board mentioned.

Jennifer Homendy, the NTSB chair, mentioned at a media convention Sunday the info was overwritten as a result of it wasn’t retrieved throughout the two-hour window.

Alaska Airways Flight 1282 was within the air for about 20 minutes because it returned to Portland Worldwide Airport shortly after takeoff, per Flightradar24.

A door plug, which coated a deactivated emergency exit on the Boeing 737 Max 9, was blown off and oxygen masks have been deployed. The door plug and two cellphones have since been recovered.

Shortly after the briefing, Homendy returned to announce that the door had been discovered by a college instructor in his yard. It may present key insights for investigators.

Nevertheless, the shortage of information from the recorder may make it more durable to find out what occurred in the course of the flight.

“There was quite a bit happening, on the flight deck and on the airplane. It is a very chaotic occasion,” Homendy mentioned.

She acknowledged that the Federal Aviation Administration had proposed a rule for rising the holding time on cockpit voice recorders from 2 to 25 hours.

That is consistent with what the Worldwide Civil Aviation Group suggestions since 2016, and the European Union’s necessities for planes made since 2021.

The FAA’s rule would solely be for newly manufactured plane. Homendy identified that “you may simply set up a special cockpit voice recorder and enhance the time from two hours to 25 hours.”

“Cockpit voice recorders aren’t simply handy for the NTSB to make use of in investigations, or the FAA to make use of in investigations – they’re essential to serving to us precisely pinpoint what was happening,” she added.