WASHINGTON — Federal accident investigators are pushing to retrofit present plane with higher cockpit voice recorders, citing the lack of proof throughout final month’s blowout of a door panel on a jetliner flying over Oregon.
The National Transportation Safety Board stated Tuesday that the Federal Aviation Administration ought to require many present planes to have recorders that may seize 25 hours of audio, up from the present normal of two hours.
The FAA introduced late final yr a proposal to require the 25-hour normal however solely on new planes. Airlines usually hold planes for a few years, a lot of the prevailing fleet wouldn’t be lined.
The FAA stated Tuesday that its proposal is consistent with its counterpart in Europe, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, and the United Nation’s aviation group.
The FAA obtained about 115 feedback about its proposal throughout a remark interval that ended Feb. 2. The company stated it is going to evaluate these feedback earlier than issuing a last rule.
Cockpit voice recorders, or CVRs, are designed to seize conversations between pilots and every other noises which may assist investigators perceive the circumstances of an accident. In the case of the blowout on Alaska Airlines flight 1282 on Jan. 5, nevertheless, the information was overwritten after two hours.
“Our investigators don’t have the CVR audio to fully understand all of the challenges the flight crew faced in response to the emergency,” stated NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy.
The NTSB stated that since 2018, a minimum of 14 of its investigations have been hindered as a result of recordings have been taped over, together with throughout seven runway shut calls in early 2023. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy referred to as that “unacceptable.”
In 2018, a yr after an Air Canada jet practically hit planes on a taxiway on the San Francisco airport, the NTSB urged FAA to require 25-hour recordings on new planes and — by 2024 — additionally on present planes which are required to have a voice recorder and a flight knowledge recorder.
Those two gadgets collectively are often known as the black packing containers, though they’re usually painted orange.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”