Originally Posted by
28isGreat
Flightaware says that the plane arrived at the gate at 00:17. If accurate, then we may have had 9 minutes of useful data. Unless you're aware of additional facts, I think you're pushing it to assert that AC "knowingly allowed the tapes to be overwritten". A more defensible position might be that "AC and/or the pilots negligently failed to preserve CVR data for what they should have known to be a reportable incident."
Though I'm curious as to what exactly is a "reportable incident", and how well they should have known at the time that they should have preserved the CVR. (Just trying to objectively lift myself out of my comfortable Monday-morning quarterback position!) I would not find it hard to believe that their minds were "somewhere else" after powering down the engines rather than a purposeful cover-up.
If you come, literally, within seconds of challenging Tenerife for the worst aviation disaster in the history of the world, I think it's safe to say that's a "reportable incident"
The next flight for that plane was many hours later. I have a hard time buying the idea that during all that time, it never occurred to a single person over at Air Canada to save the tapes. I don't work in the industry and that was my first thought. Yet these professionals who run a major airline never even thought about it? Can I prove a cover-up? No of course not. But it sure smells fishy to me.