Out of the airlines I've worked for, at least three have fired folks based at least partly on the CVR. One of those was a ground incident where the CA was 100% at fault (left side collision), but the FO was fired because the CVR was very painful to hear. Another crew made an honest mistake, but compounded that by gross SOP and sterile non-compliance... they executed a spectacular save but were fired nonetheless. If they had run some checklists in there and sounded a little more professional it would have been a learning event as opposed to career-termination.

I've had one or two incidents but fortunately by that time I had learned from others and was in the habit of putting on a good show for anyone who might listen in later. In those cases I just called the CP, told him what happened, he said no worries and I went home and slept well. I would not have slept well if I hadn't know that the CVR was "clean".

If you're in the 98% of airline pilots who will never get their CVR pulled, then feel free to disregard this, no need to inconvenience yourself with sterile, checklists or any of that SOP crap.

 

I know we don't like to think about it, but the last words your loved ones may "hear" might be what is on the CVR tape.
Years ago I went to the NTSB hearing for a friend who was killed on his first flight as a captain. I will never forget sitting at breakfast with his widow and her telling me that she was very proud that the CVR was professional. She knew their kids would probably want to see the transcript at some point when they were older.

 

Don’t forget to get “Sir I totally disagree with your actions!” On the tape.

 

I know I've had my share of flights where I joked, we better not crash this thing or we will have far bigger problems. But some people in this profession have the personality of a #2 pencil, so maybe not all can relate.

 

My buddy carries monkey bones he got on trip to Africa that why if something goes wrong he can say how’d that monkey get up here before the crash

 

I am living proof that sometimes God smiles on fools and lieutenants in multimillion dollar aircraft.

 

I think our job definition should be as follows... Our only objective is to make sure that the CVR is never played. You Never know which flight will define your career. That has been w me for a while now. Phone off before the brake is dropped. But, if I go down in a blaze of glory last words will be “Big Ol Ti{%]s” just to make sure those guys in washington have a meeting to say. “uhh, we haven’t s clue.. No idea how we can train crews to make sure this never happens again...maybe pilots just need more money and more time off