The subject technology provides implementations, which may be included as part of firmware of the flash memory device, that will not solely rely on a flash controller interpreted status but includes additional checks to the returned flash status byte. Each flash read, write, and erase command requires a status read command to determine the state of operation. Depending on the particular command issued, each bit of the returned status has a different meaning. The flash memory device firmware can check whether an illogical or inconsistent status is present. For example, if an overall pass/fail bit indicates a “pass” but a plane pass/fail bit indicates a “fail” then there could be an erroneous detection. Also, for every operation, the firmware can read status twice when the flash memory is ready. If the second status byte fails to match the first status byte then a die may be flagged as failing.