US scrambles to stop Internet users re-creating dead pilots’ voices
US scrambles to stop Internet users re-creating dead pilots’ voices
美国紧急采取行动，阻止互联网用户重现已故飞行员的声音
Pilots’ voices from the last seconds of a fatal cargo plane crash have been re-created by Internet sleuths using software and AI tools. The spread of reconstructed audio recordings has prompted a US government agency to suspend all public access to its database of civil transportation accidents—because federal law prohibits investigators from publicly releasing audio from cockpit voice recorders. 在一场致命货机坠毁事故的最后几秒钟里，飞行员的声音被互联网侦探利用软件和人工智能工具重现了出来。这些重构音频的传播促使美国政府机构暂停了公众对其民用交通运输事故数据库的所有访问权限，因为联邦法律禁止调查人员公开驾驶舱语音记录仪（CVR）的音频。
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) usually shares factual reports and evidence gathered from investigations of aircraft crashes and other civil transportation incidents. But on May 21, the NTSB announced that the online docket system containing such information was “temporarily unavailable” as it reviewed the publicly available materials that had enabled people to re-create cockpit audio recordings from aircraft disasters. 美国国家运输安全委员会（NTSB）通常会分享从飞机坠毁和其他民用交通运输事故调查中收集的事实报告和证据。但在5月21日，NTSB宣布其包含此类信息的在线档案系统“暂时无法访问”，因为它正在审查那些使人们能够重现空难驾驶舱音频的公开材料。
“The NTSB is aware that advances in image recognition and computational methods have enabled individuals to reconstruct approximations of cockpit voice recorder audio from sound spectrum imagery released as part of NTSB investigations, including the ongoing investigation of the crash last year of UPS flight 2976 in Louisville, Kentucky,” according to an NTSB statement. “The NTSB does not release cockpit audio recordings.” NTSB在一份声明中表示：“NTSB意识到，图像识别和计算方法的进步使得个人能够从作为NTSB调查一部分发布的声谱图像中，重构出驾驶舱语音记录仪音频的近似版本，其中包括对去年肯塔基州路易斯维尔UPS 2976号航班坠机事故的持续调查。NTSB不会发布驾驶舱音频记录。”
UPS flight 2976 was a United Parcel Service MD-11F cargo aircraft that crashed shortly after takeoff from Louisville, Kentucky, on November 4, 2025, following a structural failure that led to an engine physically detaching as the aircraft left the ground. The three pilots aboard the aircraft, including a relief pilot, were killed. Another 12 people on the ground were killed, with 23 people being injured. UPS 2976号航班是一架联合包裹服务公司（UPS）的MD-11F货机，于2025年11月4日在肯塔基州路易斯维尔起飞后不久坠毁。事故起因是结构性故障导致飞机离地时发动机脱落。机上三名飞行员（包括一名替补飞行员）全部遇难。地面另有12人死亡，23人受伤。
The US Congress enacted a federal law in 1990 prohibiting the NTSB from publicly sharing any part of a cockpit voice or video recorder to protect the privacy of air crews. That law followed airline pilots’ pushback over the controversial TV station airing of a cockpit conversation relating to the August 1988 crash of Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. 美国国会于1990年颁布了一项联邦法律，禁止NTSB公开分享驾驶舱语音或视频记录仪的任何部分，以保护机组人员的隐私。该法律的出台，源于航空公司飞行员对一家电视台播放1988年8月达美航空1141号航班在达拉斯-沃斯堡国际机场坠机事故中驾驶舱对话的争议性报道所引发的强烈抵制。
“It’s been an important factor for decades in having airline pilots be willing to have their voices recorded at their normal workplace, day in and day out, with the threat of being killed during their workday,” Ben Berman, an accident investigator and analyst who previously worked for the NTSB and flew a Boeing 737 for United Airlines, told Ars. “People are horrified with the idea of their last moments being made public and used for anything other than accident investigation, which is why the federal law supports that.” “几十年来，这是一个重要的因素，让航空公司飞行员愿意在日常工作中被录音，尽管他们每天都面临着在工作中丧生的威胁，”曾任NTSB事故调查员和分析师、并曾为联合航空驾驶波音737飞机的本·伯曼（Ben Berman）告诉Ars。“人们对自己的最后时刻被公开并用于事故调查以外的任何用途感到恐惧，这就是联邦法律支持这一规定的原因。”
As a result, the NTSB takes multiple precautions for securing cockpit voice recorders during investigations of civil aviation incidents. Robert Sumwalt, former chairman of NTSB, has described how the federal agency restricts listening access to a handful of people who must first sign a log and nondisclosure agreement, with cellphones being left outside and handwritten notes being destroyed afterward. Transcription of the audio is done manually through constant replays and group discussions. 因此，NTSB在民用航空事故调查期间采取了多项预防措施来保护驾驶舱语音记录仪。NTSB前主席罗伯特·萨姆沃尔特（Robert Sumwalt）曾描述过该联邦机构如何将收听权限限制在少数几个人手中，这些人必须先签署登记簿和保密协议，手机必须留在外面，手写笔记事后必须销毁。音频的转录是通过不断的重放和小组讨论手动完成的。
The Internet does its thing
互联网的“杰作”
The NTSB released written transcripts of the cockpit audio recordings from the crash of UPS flight 2976 during a two-day investigative hearing held on May 19 and May 20. But the agency also publicly shared a PDF with a spectrogram—a visual representation of sound signals—showing the last 30 seconds of cockpit audio recording. That spectrogram apparently enabled a number of individuals to reconstruct audio versions of the pilots’ voices and other sounds from the cockpit voice recording, with examples appearing on social media sites such as X and Reddit. The spectrogram itself has also been posted and distributed across social media. 在5月19日和20日举行的为期两天的调查听证会上，NTSB发布了UPS 2976号航班坠机事故驾驶舱音频记录的书面文本。但该机构还公开分享了一份包含声谱图（声音信号的视觉表现）的PDF文件，显示了驾驶舱音频记录的最后30秒。该声谱图显然使一些人能够重构出驾驶舱语音记录中飞行员的声音和其他声音的音频版本，相关示例已出现在X和Reddit等社交媒体网站上。声谱图本身也已被发布并在社交媒体上传播。
Such audio re-creations frequently rely on the Griffin-Lim algorithm that was originally published in a 1984 paper by Daniel Griffin and Jae Lim. Updated versions of the method have since been incorporated into speech processing algorithms and implemented through programming languages such as Python. Various Python implementations of the algorithm are available on GitHub. 此类音频重构通常依赖于丹尼尔·格里芬（Daniel Griffin）和杰·林（Jae Lim）在1984年的一篇论文中首次发表的Griffin-Lim算法。此后，该方法的更新版本已被纳入语音处理算法，并通过Python等编程语言实现。GitHub上提供了该算法的各种Python实现。
More recently, the widespread availability of AI models capable of retrieving the necessary information and writing code has made it easier for people to re-create cockpit audio recordings. One account on X mentioned taking just 10 minutes with OpenAI’s Codex model to “reconstruct rough audio from the spectrogram” that was initially shared by NTSB. “I was shocked to hear about this, because I hadn’t imagined that it was possible to do something like this,” Berman told Ars. “But all kinds of things are possible now.” 最近，能够检索必要信息并编写代码的人工智能模型的广泛普及，使得人们更容易重构驾驶舱音频记录。X上的一个账户提到，仅用了10分钟，利用OpenAI的Codex模型就“从NTSB最初分享的声谱图中重构出了粗略的音频”。“听到这个消息我感到震惊，因为我没想过竟然能做到这种地步，”伯曼告诉Ars。“但现在什么事情都有可能发生。”
Some cockpit audio recordings have been released after NTSB investigations concluded because of lawsuits related to aviation incidents, Berman said. He pointed out that cockpit voice recorder transcripts have also been dramatized through Broadway plays and TV program reenactments. But those examples don’t bother Berman as much as the AI-assisted re-creations of pilots’ voices based on spectrogram waveforms. 伯曼表示，在NTSB调查结束后，由于与航空事故相关的诉讼，一些驾驶舱音频记录已被发布。他指出，驾驶舱语音记录仪的文本也曾通过百老汇戏剧和电视节目重演被戏剧化。但这些例子并没有像基于声谱波形的AI辅助飞行员声音重构那样让伯曼感到困扰。
It may be too late to stop the spread of re-created audio in the case of UPS flight 2976. But the NTSB’s decision to shut down public access to its entire investigations database while it reviews the materials within suggests that the agency is trying to prevent future incidents. The NTSB declined to provide additional comment when contacted by Ars, but said it would share any updates on its website or through its X account. 对于UPS 2976号航班的案例，阻止重构音频的传播可能为时已晚。但NTSB决定在审查内部材料期间关闭对其整个调查数据库的公众访问权限，这表明该机构正试图防止未来发生此类事件。当Ars联系时，NTSB拒绝提供更多评论，但表示会在其网站或X账户上分享任何更新。
“The NTSB docket system is temporarily unavailable as we examine the scope of the issue and evaluate solutions,” according to the NTSB statement. “We hope to restore access to the docket system as soon as possible.” NTSB声明称：“由于我们正在审查问题的范围并评估解决方案，NTSB档案系统暂时无法访问。我们希望尽快恢复对档案系统的访问。”