Laments Use Of Recordings As 'Voyeuristic Entertainment'

Over the past decade, we've become accustomed to ubiquitous camera-phones, security and police dash-cam footage used on TV newscasts, and even TV shows based on dramatic video of car crashes and other catastrophic events. But Vanity Fair editors are discovering they've touched a raw nerve by releasing actual cockpit voice recordings of an airliner crew's last few moments alive.

Actual black-box audio was used in Vanity Fair's coverage of a story titled, "The Devil at 37,000 Feet," about the midair collision between an Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet and a Gol Airlines Boeing 737 over Brazil in 2006. That's the infamous case in which two American pilots and four Brazilian Air Force controllers stand charged with the equivalent of involuntary manslaughter in Brazil's courts.

The January 2009 issue of Vanity Fair includes a transcript, and the entire audio recording itself is featured on the magazine's website. In the US, public release of the actual audio recordings would be illegal. As we've come to learn, Brazilian aviation law can be considerable different from US conventions.

The magazine defends its use of the recordings. Spokeswoman Beth Kseniak said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the magazine chose to make the recordings available, "...because they are newsworthy and serve as documentation..."

But Gideon Ewers of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations is outraged that the last few moments of a pilot's life could become a public novelty. "They should never be used ... as a means to provide what can only be described as voyeuristic entertainment to the public at large."

On Tuesday, a Brazilian federal judge dismissed negligence charges against ExcelAire pilots Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino, who were flying the Embraer, but let stand the involuntary manslaughter charges, for which they could face criminal prosecution if they ever return to Brazil.

FMI: www.ifalpa.org