NTSB Sees Shortcomings In Flight Recorder Rule

Air Safety Week, Oct 27, 2008

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has told the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that many elements of its new rule dealing with aircraft flight recorders comply with previous Safety Board recommendations, but noted that some of its recommendations have been ignored.

The FAA issued a final rule, titled "Revisions to Cockpit Voice Recorder and Digital Flight Data Recorder Regulations," this past March.

The Safety Board said it was pleased to see that all larger passenger airliners will be required to carry two-hour cockpit voice recorders (CVRs), greatly expanding the current 30-minute requirement. But the rule stopped short in not requiring that older 30-minute CVRs be replaced on existing commuter and corporate jet aircraft.

The FAA did require that newly manufactured commuter and corporate jets come equipped with two-hour CVRs.

The Board had asked that airliners be retrofitted with CVRs that had an emergency 10-minute power supply in case of an electrical interruption, such as occurred on ValuJet Flight 592 in 1996 and Swiss Air Flight 111 in 1998.

The FAA agreed that newly manufactured airliners be so equipped but declined to require retrofits. The Board acknowledged that a retrofit rule might have posed a roadblock for regulatory approval of the rule.

The Safety Board labeled as 'unacceptable' FAA action on a recommendation, which called for certain configurations of microphones and dedicated channels in airliner cockpits, and another advisement, which called for dual combination recorders, one in the front and one in the back of the plane.

"Flight recorders have proven themselves invaluable in providing crucial information during accident and incident investigations," NTSB Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker said.

"While I am happy to see that some of the enhancements we've been advocating for years are being adopted by the FAA, I again urge the FAA to act on the Board's recommendations for cockpit image recorders, which were not addressed in the new rule."

The new rule calls for increased flight control position sampling rates on flight recorders, which should improve the quality of data available to investigators.

Improvements in flight recorders has been on the Safety Board's List of Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements since 1999.

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