The Nation - News from Aug. 4, 1989

Members of the National Transportation Safety Board condemned the public broadcast of a cockpit voice recording from an airliner crash as “lurid entertainment” and a threat to the board’s work. The board voted 5 to 0 to express regret at an order by a Texas judge that led to release of a tape of a Delta Air Lines crash in Dallas last August that killed 14 people. Included on the recording were sounds of the pilots of Delta Flight 1141 joking, as well as screams shortly before the crash. The board’s vote indicated support for Federal Aviation Administration and Air Line Pilots Assn. calls for a law that would bar release of automatically recorded audio tapes recovered from crash scenes. The board did not propose specific legislation.