It’s not a matter of EITHER completely secret OR completely open.
No, the NTSB is not infallible - but it is not a bunch of knee-jerk analysts, either. Nowhere did I say I was totally opposed to a limited release of information - but I do insist that such information only be released to parties with a real, legitimate interest in the source material, not just any yokel who comes along.
We don’t allow just anyone with a curious bent to observe autopsies, do we? We don’t release morgue photos to the public, do we? Even when such things involve murder investigations. Unauthorized relase of such things can result in prosecution.
“Legitimate interested parties”, to my mind, mean relatives, possibly friends, investigators (NTSB and others, but with proof of credentials) and possibly juries and judges in trial (it can be, after all, evidence of wrongdoing). It does NOT include broadcasting the last minutes of someone’s life on network or cable TV, nor does it include selling such things on CD. Unless you are a genuine investigator you can just be happy with the transcripts - the information is there, after all. YOUR curiousity does not justify release of CVR, any more than it justifies posting nude photos of politicians on the Internet {{{shudder}}}, or a release of a security tape from a Seven Eleven hold up that shows a shotgun blast ripping apart a cashier’s head into bloody gobbets as the remainder of the body dances a brief jig before crashing to the floor. Just be effing happy the newsies report the transcript of the plane crash, the fact the President got head in the Oval office, and some bad@$$ hoodlum blew away the grandfather working nightshift at the local convenience store. There is a lot of stuff you have a right to know about but not a right to directly see, hear, smell, or taste.
Mind you, pilots who fly the big jets know they are being recorded, it’s no secret. That doesn’t mean they like it, or desire it, any more than they enjoy random drug tests. But, since pilots are apparently not entitled to privacy we should video tape them peeing into a cup and broadcast THAT to reassure the public that they are, indeed, being tested for drugs.
And, in fact, it is a double standard, because ONLY the pilots of big jets have CVR’s - private pilots do not suffer that indignity (at least not yet).
But ask yourself this - would you like to have a CVR installed in your car? A black box to record how you drive perhaps? To be used against you in a court of law should you have an accident, or your last screams as you are crushed between two semi-trucks played over the evening news as an interesting soundbite? Maybe a gasping plea for help that never comes? Would that be fair, right, and equitable? Because, after all, driving a car is not a right you or anyone else possesses. Nor do you have a right to privacy while using a public thoroughfare - if you don’t like it, don’t drive. Oh, what was that, you have to drive to do your job? Did anyone force you to pick a job beyond walking distance from your home? No? Guess you willingly choose to drive and you’ll just have to suck it up and learn to love being spied on.
I do not object to real investigators - be they NTSB, FBI, or even more local oufits - listening to CVR’s. It’s like an autopsy - a necessary evil. But, again, releasing a CVR tape to the general public is nothing more than a sick form of entertainment.
I get little tired of pilots being the whipping boy, and it’s certainly due in part to September 11. Too many can’t attack the REAL culprits, so they vent on pilots who had nothing to do with that obscenity. Pilots ARE human beings, with the same rights to privacy and yes, dignity, as any other citizen. The fact that our society has become tolerant of unwarranted invasions of privacy does NOT make those invasions any less repugnant - or any more justified.
