Thu, Feb 24, 2005
NTSB Chairman Ellen Engleman Conners
issued the following statement in reaction to a Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking released today (Thursday) by the FAA, changing current
regulations dealing with flight recorders on aircraft.
"Flight recorders have proven to be such vital tools in aviation
accident investigation that a number of open recommendations
focused on improving these devices have been on our Most Wanted
list of safety improvements since 1997.
"The FAA's proposed rule is addressed primarily to flight
recorder deficiencies pointed out by the NTSB when it assisted the
Canadian Transportation Safety Board in the investigation of the
crash of SwissAir Flight 111 in 1998.
We will carefully review the proposed rule to see whether those
concerns have been addressed. I can say that I am gratified that
the proposed rule will expand the cockpit voice recorder
requirement from 30 minutes to 2 hours, and that independent power
supplies will be required to prevent the loss of data if power to
the recorder is interrupted during the crash sequence, as occurred
on SwissAir.
"The NTSB hopes that the FAA will
address several of its other crucial flight recorder
recommendations that are still on the Most Wanted List. The Board
urges the FAA to act swiftly to rectify the unacceptable FDR data
sampling and filtering issues that impeded the investigation of the
Airbus A-300-600 involved in the American Airlines Flight 587
accident. Similar data sampling issues also affect the popular
regional jet aircraft. The installation of cockpit image recorders,
as recommended by the Board, would also assist in the
investigations of both larger transport category aircraft and
smaller for-hire turbine powered aircraft that may not have any
existing safety recorders installed."
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