Aviation

The Federal Aviation Administration wants aircraft operators to do more to preserve cockpit voice recorder (CVR) data following incidents and accidents. In a newly released Safety Alert for Operators (SAFO), the agency laid out steps flight crews and carriers should take to prevent critical audio evidence from being overwritten.

The guidance targets a longstanding problem investigators have flagged for years. When a CVR keeps running after an incident, older recordings get erased. That means by the time crash investigators or safety officials pull the device, the audio they need may already be gone.