[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3634 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3634
To direct the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration to
issue regulations to improve flight recorder and aircraft crash
location requirements on certain commercial passenger aircraft by
requiring the installation of a second combination digital flight data
and cockpit voice recorder system that enables data recovery without an
underwater search and recovery.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 24, 2023
Mr. Cohen (for himself and Mr. Burchett) introduced the following bill;
which was referred to the Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To direct the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration to
issue regulations to improve flight recorder and aircraft crash
location requirements on certain commercial passenger aircraft by
requiring the installation of a second combination digital flight data
and cockpit voice recorder system that enables data recovery without an
underwater search and recovery.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Safe Aviation and Flight Enhancement
Act of 2023''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Flight data recorder (referred to in this Act as an
``FDR'') data and cockpit voice recorder (referred to in this
Act as a ``CVR'') data, often referred to as ``black box''
data, on commercial passenger aircraft is crucial in all
aircraft crash investigations, providing vital information to
determine the cause of an accident and to prevent future
recurrences.
(2) Underwater locating device (referred to in this Act as
a ``ULD'') beacons generate a low operating frequency to
increase signal detection range and improve signal
transmissibility through aircraft structures to aid in the
identification of aircraft wreckage. Airframe-mounted ULDs with
a minimum operating life of 90 days will improve the underwater
search for aircraft wreckage.
(3) Aircraft equipped with a tamper-resistant method to
broadcast to a ground station sufficient information to
establish the location within 6 nautical miles (referred to in
this Act as ``nm'') of where an aircraft terminates flight will
facilitate a quicker identification of an accident location, a
faster search and rescue response, and a more effective search
effort in remote locations and overwater accidents. Use of an
emergency locator transmitter (referred to in this Act as an
``ELT''), whether as a stand-alone unit or as part of an
automatic deployable flight recorder, can transmit the location
of an accident and provide a homing capability for search and
rescue personnel. In addition, more frequent broadcasts from
data link communication systems are capable of reporting an
aircraft's position every minute to reduce the search area to a
radius of less than 6 nm.
(4) As the aviation environment grows more complex, to
include a surge in air traffic, the integration of new manned
and unmanned aerial and space vehicle activity, an increasingly
dynamic national security environment, and the growth of
extended overwater and remote location flight routes, it is
imperative for air safety investigators to quickly locate a
downed aircraft and survivors, and to have rapid access to
secure black box data to enable and support the early
identification of safety and security issues, and the quick
implementation of appropriate preventative actions to address
potential risks to the commercial aviation fleet.
(5) Air crash victim families deserve assurances that
search and rescue teams will have rapid access to a crash
location's site to speed survivor recovery efforts, and that
victim families will have access to timely and factual
information regarding the cause of an accident and the fate of
their loved ones.
(6) Hundreds of millions of dollars are unnecessarily
expended, and significant time is wasted in efforts to locate
and recover traditional fixed ``black boxes'' in underwater
crash investigations.
(7) Existing, advanced flight recorder technologies are
available today that will aid in the rapid location of an
aircraft and potential survivors, while also providing safety
investigators with timelier recovery of FDR/CVR data by
avoiding accident investigation delays caused by prolonged
underwater and remote location search operations.
(8) Recent commercial passenger aircraft crashes involving
United States and international manufactured aircraft have
demonstrated the significant challenges and unnecessary delays
safety investigators face in trying to locate and recover
traditional fixed black boxes from the bottom of the ocean,
including the following:
(A) On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370,
B-777-200ER, disappeared with 239 passengers and crew.
International search and recovery efforts for the
aircraft and black boxes have involved 29 nations and
hundreds of millions of dollars in resources, becoming
the most expensive search and recovery mission in
aviation history. Nine years later, the aircraft is
still missing, and the cause of the crash is still
unknown.
(B) On June 1, 2009, Air France Flight 447 crashed
into the Atlantic Ocean with 216 passengers and 12
crewmembers. Despite locating aircraft wreckage within
5 days, it still took nearly 2 years and an estimated
cost of over $160,000,000 to recover the FDR and CVR
from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of
12,000 feet.
(C) On October 29, 2018, Lion Air 610 became the
first of two fatal B-737 Max 8 crashes. Despite being
in only 100 feet of water, it took investigators 77
days to locate and recover the CVR, which provided
critical information.
(D) On July 2, 2021, Transair Flight 810, B-737-
200, crashed off the coast of Mamala Bay, Oahu. While
investigators knew the location of the aircraft, it
took 4 months to recover the FDR and CVR from the
bottom of the ocean.
(E) On January 9, 2021, Sriwijaya Air Flight 182,
B-737-500, crashed into the Java Sea in a depth of only
89 feet, yet the recovery of the CVR still took 81
days.
(F) On June 30, 2009, Yemenia Airlines IY626
crashed off of the coast of Comoros, with 152
passengers and aircrew. The sole survivor, a 12-year-
old girl, was found clinging to wreckage after floating
in the ocean for 13 hours. Her accounts shared that
more passengers survived the crash but succumbed to
hypothermia due to the delay in locating the downed
aircraft. The FDR and CVR were not recovered until
nearly 2 months later, at a depth of 3,900 feet.
(G) On January 1, 2007, Adam Air Flight 574,
carrying 102 passengers and aircrew, crashed off the
coast of Indonesia. The FDR and CVR were located within
1 month, but could not be recovered until 7 months
later due to the difficulty of the underwater
environment. The FDR and CVR were found at a depth of
6,600 feet and 4,600 feet apart.
(9) In 2012, the International Civil Aviation Organization
(referred to in this Act as the ``ICAO'') adopted a standard
requiring all aircraft with a maximum certificated takeoff mass
over 15,000 kilograms (kg) for which a type certificate is
issued on or after January 1, 2016, and which are required to
be equipped with both a CVR and FDR, to be equipped with two
combination FDR/CVR recorder systems.
(10) In 2016, ICAO issued an additional ruling that as of
January 2021, all new commercial aircraft types must be
equipped with a means to recover flight recorder data in a
timely manner. The intent for this standard is to enable
authorities to recover at least one set of FDR/CVR data without
the need for underwater searches or prolonged terrain searches.
(11) On October 7, 2014, following the disappearance of
MH370 and the nearly 2-year search and recovery effort required
to retrieve the black boxes from Air France Flight 447, the
National Transportation Safety Board (referred to in this Act
as the ``NTSB'') convened the ``Emerging Flight Data and
Locator Technology Forum''. The forum included government,
industry, and investigative experts to discuss technologies
that could be used to improve the location of aircraft wreckage
and the timely recovery of flight data following accidents in
remote locations or over water.
(12) The NTSB has stated its highest concern is for
aircraft that fly extended overwater operations outside of
radar coverage because timely response and recovery of data are
more challenging when an accident occurs in a remote area.
Currently, aircraft that fly extended overwater operations must
carry additional survival equipment, such as liferafts and
survival-type emergency locator transmitters to mitigate the
risks, and would benefit from the addition of safety technology
outlined in this Act.
(13) As a result of the 2014 safety forum, the NTSB
formally issued safety recommendations to the Federal Aviation
Administration (referred to in this Act as the ``FAA''),
aligning with the ICAO regulations, to require that all newly
manufactured aircraft operating extended overwater operations
and operating under part 121 or part 135 of title 14, Code of
Federal Regulations, that are required to have a CVR and a FDR,
be equipped with a tamper-resistant method to broadcast
sufficient information to establish the location where an
aircraft terminates flight within 6 nm (A-15-001), an airframe
low-frequency ULD that will function for at least 90 days (A-
15-002), and a secondary FDR/CVR system that enables the
recovery of mandatory flight data parameters without the need
for an underwater retrieval (A-15-003).
(14) In support of commercial passenger safety and national
security, it is in the public's best interest that the FAA
initiate a formal rulemaking process to implement the NTSB's
Safety Recommendations A-15-001 through A-15-003 in order to--
(A) provide aviation safety investigators with
critical FDR and CVR data without the delays and cost
of underwater search and recoveries;
(B) achieve redundancy and maximize survivability
of the most important crash investigation tool equipped
on commercial passenger aircraft;
(C) ensure rapid recovery of the FDR and CVR data
for timely safety and security analysis in all crash
scenarios; and
(D) improve timely location of the aircraft,
accident site, and survivors.
(15) The NTSB safety recommendations do not dictate the
technology that must be used to achieve these safety goals but
does cite at least two acceptable technologies to meet the
requirement, to include automatic deployable flight recorder
systems and transmission of flight recorder data systems.
(16) Automatic deployable flight recorder systems combine a
FDR, CVR, and ELT into one crash-hardened, survivable ``black
box'', which releases from the aircraft upon crash impact with
land, or water, and in the event of in-air explosion, enabling
it to avoid the crash impact site and float indefinitely in
overwater accidents. The floating deployable recorder sends a
distress alert tracking signal to the free, global
constellation of Search and Rescue (SAR) satellite transponders
known as COSPAS-SARSAT, immediately providing the position of
the downed aircraft at point of impact to assist in the
location of survivors and the location of the floating
deployable FDR and CVR black box for rapid recovery and
analysis.
(17) Transmission of flight recorder data involves
monitoring aircraft flight parameters and triggering satellite
transmission of critical flight data when the parameters
deviate from their normal operating envelope and can also
assist in identifying the location of a downed aircraft.
(18) Use of either the automatic deployable flight recorder
or transmission of flight recorder data technologies, when used
to supplement the current mandatory onboard fixed FDR and CVR,
will provide investigators more timely access to information,
offering valuable insight into the circumstances at the end of
an accident flight while helping to focus an investigation
during the search for survivors, and recovery of traditional
fixed recorders and wreckage from underwater crash sites.
(19) CVRs provide unique information with which the NTSB
can conduct more thorough investigations to target safety
recommendations more effectively. The current 2-hour CVR
standard recording duration has hampered safety investigations
because relevant portions of the recordings were overwritten.
In 2018, the NTSB issued Recommendation (A-18-30) calling for
the CVR recording requirement to be extended to 25 hours, which
will bring the U.S. into compliance with European Aviation
Safety Agency (EASA) and International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) standards.
SEC. 3. REGULATIONS REQUIRING ADDITIONAL FLIGHT RECORDER SYSTEM AND
OTHER PURPOSES.
(a) In General.--Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment
of this Act, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration
shall issue such regulations as are necessary to require that all newly
manufactured aircraft used in extended overwater operations and
operating under part 121 or part 135 of title 14, Code of Federal
Regulations, that are required to have a CVR and a FDR--
(1) be equipped with a means to recover, at a minimum,
mandatory flight data parameters that does not require
underwater retrieval;
(2) be equipped with a tamper-resistant method to broadcast
to a ground station sufficient information to establish the
location where an aircraft terminates flight as the result of
an accident within 6 nm of the point of impact; and
(3) be equipped with an airframe low-frequency ULD that
will function for at least 90 days and that can be detected by
equipment available on military, search and rescue, and salvage
assets commonly used to search for and recover wreckage.
(b) 25-Hour Requirement.--Not later than 1 year after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation
Administration shall issue such regulations as are necessary to require
that all newly manufactured aircraft operating under part 121 or part
135 of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, that are required to have
a CVR and a FDR be equipped to retain at least the last 25 hours of
recorded information.
(c) Schedule for Compliance.--In issuing regulations under
subsections (a) and (b), the Administrator shall require the
installation of the additional recorder system required under this
section on commercial aircraft that are ordered by an air carrier on or
after January 1, 2027.
(d) Compliant Additional Flight Recorder System.--Compliant
technologies must enable safety investigators to recover mandatory
flight data parameters without requiring underwater recovery of the
recording device. This requirement does not require a third combination
FDR/CVR recording mechanism to satisfy the regulation. Compliant
technologies can include an automatic deployable flight recorder
system, transmission of flight recorder data, and other technologies.
(e) Definitions.--In this Act:
(1) Automatic deployable flight recorder system.--The term
``automatic deployable flight recorder system'' means a flight
data recorder, cockpit voice recorder, and emergency locator
transmitter housed in one crash-protected, floatable unit that
meets the performance specifications for a deployable recorder
system under United States Federal Aviation Administration
Technical Standard Order 123c (CVR), Technical Standard Order
124c (FDR), and Minimum Operational Performance Specifications
for Deployable Recorders under EUROCAE ED-112A, and all
subsequent updates to such requirements.
(2) Commercial passenger aircraft.--The term ``commercial
passenger aircraft'' means all airplanes of a maximum
certificated takeoff mass of over 27,000 kg and authorized to
carry more than 19 passengers as referenced in ICAO Annex 6,
Part I, Chapter 6, Paragraph 6.3.6.1.
(3) Transmission of flight recorder data.--The term
``transmission of flight recorder data'' means a system capable
of monitoring aircraft parameters and providing continuous
satellite transmission or the triggering of satellite
transmission of critical flight data when the parameters
deviate from their normal operating envelope and can also
assist in identifying the location of a downed aircraft. Data
should be captured from a triggering event until the end of the
flight and for as long a time period before the triggering
event as possible.
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