Shared-voice communications integrity

Communication integrity for shared voice environments.

Prov-R Technologies is developing software-centered methods to identify, time-localize, and evidence potentially impaired transmissions—beginning with controlled, passive, shadow-mode feasibility testing.

Prov-R: “Prov” as in “providence,” followed by the letter R.

Discuss a feasibility evaluation Request the non-confidential capability brief

Patent pendingPre-prototype R&DAviation and defense focus

A controlled interval can create a clearer record of what the communication chain preserved.

The problem

A transmission can fail without producing a reliable failure indication.

In shared and half-duplex voice communications, overlapping transmissions can mask, distort, or interrupt critical content. Receiver behavior, squelch, gain control, routing, codecs, and recording paths may preserve, alter, or remove the evidence needed to determine what occurred.

The first question is therefore not how to retransmit a message. It is whether an authorized, operationally realistic observation point retains enough evidence to detect and time-localize an impairment reliably.

Pilots and controllers are familiar with stepped-on radio calls. Readbacks, repetition, standard phraseology, and established procedures often expose the problem. But during a time-critical exchange, simultaneous transmissions can erase critical words without reliably alerting the speaker or intended recipient that information was lost.

An Undetected Simultaneous Transmission, or USiT, occurs when overlapping transmissions impair a message without providing dependable notice that it was not received as intended. The result is a critical assurance gap: a message was transmitted, but no one can confidently establish what was received.

Washington, D.C. midair collision | January 2025

In its final report on the collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the NTSB found that a 0.8-second microphone key from within the Army helicopter blocked the crew’s reception of the “pass behind” portion of the controller’s instruction.

67 fatalities.

The NTSB found that the blocked instruction, degraded reception of an earlier traffic advisory, and other incomplete or ambiguous information likely reinforced the helicopter crew’s mistaken traffic picture. Significantly, the NTSB recommended that the FAA implement anti-blocking technology capable of alerting controllers and flight crews to potentially blocked transmissions when simultaneous broadcasting occurs.

Read the NTSB final report

LaGuardia Airport runway collision | March 2026

The NTSB’s preliminary report documents that one airport emergency-response vehicle’s initial call to the tower was obscured by a simultaneous transmission. A different emergency-response vehicle later received clearance to cross the runway and collided with a landing aircraft.

2 fatalities.

The investigation remains ongoing. The NTSB has not determined whether the obscured initial call caused or contributed to the collision.

View the NTSB investigation

View four additional documented cases

Toronto Pearson runway conflict | March 2020

An Embraer 190 crew announced that it was rejecting takeoff just 0.1 seconds before a Boeing 777 crew began reading back its takeoff clearance on the same frequency. The transmissions completely overlapped. Neither the controller nor the 777 crew heard the rejected-takeoff call, and the 777 began accelerating while the Embraer remained on the runway.

0 fatalities.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada identified the undetected simultaneous transmission as a contributing factor. The Boeing crew ultimately saw the Embraer and rejected its own takeoff.

Read the Transportation Safety Board of Canada report

San Diego runway incursion | June 2021

A controller instructed an arriving Southwest flight to go around, but the instruction was blocked and not heard. The aircraft continued its approach toward a runway occupied by a SkyWest aircraft awaiting departure.

0 fatalities.

The NTSB concluded that the controller and Southwest crew likely transmitted simultaneously, causing their transmissions to cancel one another without providing an indication to the controller, the arriving aircraft, or other aircraft on the frequency.

Read the NTSB report

Mildura runway conflict | September 2023

A Dash 8 transmission overlapped a Lancair pilot’s runway-entry call, making the first 10 seconds of the Lancair transmission unintelligible. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau found that the partially over-transmitted call denied other aircraft an opportunity to receive complete information about the Lancair’s location and intentions.

0 fatalities.

Neither crew developed an accurate picture of the other aircraft’s position. Intervention by the pilot of a third aircraft likely prevented a near miss or collision.

Read the Australian Transport Safety Bureau report

Tenerife runway collision | March 1977

The official investigation found that tower and aircraft transmissions occurred simultaneously during the accident sequence. Their overlap produced approximately three seconds of interference and reduced the clarity of critical communications.

583 fatalities.

The report identified the overlapping transmissions as a contributing circumstance, not the accident’s fundamental cause.

Read the official investigation findings hosted by the FAA

Existing procedures depend heavily on a person recognizing that a transmission was blocked, requesting clarification, and repeating the message. That safeguard cannot operate when neither party knows that information was lost.

Prov-R is being developed to address that gap by evaluating methods to determine:

whether a specific transmitted message was impaired;
which portion of the message was affected;
what content the originator intended to deliver;
what evidence should be recorded; and
what alert, confirmation, or policy-governed recovery action should follow.

Prov-R is not presented as having prevented any of these incidents. These official reports demonstrate the underlying problem it is intended to address: a safety-critical message can be transmitted, partially or completely lost, and leave both parties without dependable evidence that delivery failed.

Detecting that two signals overlapped is an important first step. Prov-R’s objective is to close the larger assurance loop around the message itself.

See the proposed evaluation approach Discuss a validation partnership

What Prov-R is developing

A disciplined path from observed impairment to decision-quality evidence.

Prov-R is developing methods intended to associate an observed local transmission interval with authorized channel or session observations, identify a potentially affected interval, and create a time-bounded evidence record with confidence and observation-point provenance.

Evaluation approach

Measure before integrating.

The proposed first program is a passive, shadow-mode feasibility evaluation. It would create repeatable ground truth, compare candidate observation points, test representative operating conditions and confusers, and measure:

Event detection
False alarms and misses
Latency
Affected-interval accuracy
Signature survival through the communication chain
The practical operating envelope

The result is a go, narrow, redirect, or stop decision—plus a scoped plan for any justified next stage. The initial study does not transmit, modify operational audio, or serve as an operational safety control: no experimental signaling enters the operational voice channel.

Initial focus

Beginning with aviation and defense shared voice.

Prov-R is initially focused on bounded aviation and defense use cases where communication integrity, traceability, existing-system compatibility, and disciplined test evidence matter. Related challenges exist in other push-to-talk and shared-voice environments, but the company is intentionally pursuing one sponsor mission and one representative interface chain first.

01One mission

02One representative interface chain

03One bounded study

About

Prov-R Technologies LLC

Prov-R Technologies is a patent-pending R&D company founded by Grainger McKoy to pursue an overlooked communications-integrity problem. The company coordinates technical, operational, integration, acquisition, and intellectual-property disciplines around a falsifiable evaluation plan.

Prov-R is pre-prototype and is not offering an operational or certified product.

Contact

Help establish the evidence.

Prov-R is seeking a mission owner, technical evaluation environment, and appropriate funding path for a controlled feasibility study.

If your organization operates, integrates, evaluates, or funds safety-critical shared-voice communications, contact us to discuss a bounded evaluation.

Discuss a feasibility evaluation contact@prov-r.com