The Nation - News from Aug. 3, 1989

The Air Line Pilots Assn. backed off a threat to order members to turn off cockpit voice recorders after government assurances that a law will be sought to prevent release of the audio tapes. “No pilot wants to hear broadcast to the public the agonized screams of his colleagues the moment before they die in a fiery crash,” pilots union President Henry A. Duffy said. Both pilots and federal safety officials were angered by a court-ordered release Tuesday of tapes of a Delta Air Lines crew joking around just before their jet crashed on take-off in Dallas last August, killing 14 people. The crew survived the crash. The tape ends with a scream and the sound of the plane breaking apart. The tape of Flight 1141’s last 30 minutes includes joking on the taxiway that a crash would one day expose their gleeful cockpit conversation to the public.