This paper presents a simple and practical error control mechanism that allows multiple-errors and multiple-erasures correction for multitrack magnetic recording systems. The propose mechanism is base on using a simple an fast hash function to locate erroneous tracks in magnetic tape an exploit the MDS property of array codes to correct these tracks as erasures. The mechanism enables MDS array codes with r parity symbols to correct s tracks in error and t erase tracks (s +t \le r) with negligible probability of undetecte error. The propose mechanism reduces the redundancy requirement, for a given degree of reliability, by almost 50 % from that needed by conventional systems. It also reduces the encoding an decoding complexity for multitrack magnetic recording channels.