[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 79 Introduced in House (IH)]

114th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 H. R. 79

 To conduct a study to ensure that enhanced communication is provided 
  between commercial aircraft and air traffic control towers, and for 
                            other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 6, 2015

 Ms. Jackson Lee introduced the following bill; which was referred to 
           the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To conduct a study to ensure that enhanced communication is provided 
  between commercial aircraft and air traffic control towers, and for 
                            other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    The Act may be cited as the ``No Missing Planes Act''.

SEC. 2. STUDY OF TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION OF AIRCRAFT WITH 
              AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL TOWERS.

    (a) Study.--The Administrator of the Federal Aviation 
Administration shall complete a study which shall include--
            (1) the feasibility of providing communication from 
        commercial aircraft to air traffic control towers when an 
        aircraft leaves its flight plan or experiences dangerous or 
        threatening conditions and pinpointing the location of an 
        aircraft that is missing within 30 minutes by disseminating the 
        information globally in less than an hour to rescue and 
        recovery agencies;
            (2) information on the possible transition of black boxes 
        to telematics systems that routinely throughout a flight 
        communicate the contents of black boxes to secure store 
        faculties managed by the National Transportation Safety Board;
            (3) the investigation of the automation of data collection 
        from aircraft while in flight and automate the transmission of 
        data in such a way that the rate of transition is dependent on 
        the speed of the aircraft and the conditions under which it is 
        being operated (turbulence and faster speed would trigger more 
        frequent uplink of data from the black boxes on the flight) the 
        warehousing of data that establishes chain of custody for data 
        if needed as the last official record of an aircraft, and the 
        analysis of the data that is received to identify anomalous 
        data;
            (4) the review of the availability of tamper proof 
        transponders that cannot be turned off in flight and an alert 
        if a transponder is tampered with while in flight;
            (5) the feasibility of securing transponders from being 
        cloned or data being changed from the original designation that 
        is assigned to the physical aircraft it is associated with and 
        the proper safeguards to be sure that use of an assigned 
        transponder identification protocol by another aircraft is 
        prohibited by design and the communication system and requisite 
        protocols that will support the system, including a mechanism 
        to investigate the ability to introduce transponder 
        designations that are not assigned by aviation regulatory 
        authorities;
            (6) the investigation of the means by which the United 
        States could enforce that no airline operating in the United 
        States or operate gates at an airport in the country may have 
        communication technology that does not conform to domestic 
        available communication technology standards; and
            (7) the investigation of how quickly relevant statistical 
        data on commercial aircraft can be shared with the Federal 
        Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, 
        and the North American Command in the event that a flight fails 
        to respond to communication or ceases to be detectable by 
        ground control.
    (b) Report.--Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of 
this Act, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration 
shall submit to the Committees of Transportation, Homeland Security, 
and Armed Services of the House of Representatives and the Committees 
on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs, and Armed Services of the Senate.
    (c) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated to carry out this study, $10,000,000.
                                 <all>