While saying that new rules for aircraft flight data records meet its some of its recommendations, the National Transportation Safety Board indicated that the new rules lacked others such as a requirement that commuter and corporate aircraft be retrofitted with two-hour cockpit voice recorders. However, such recorders will be required on all newly constructed regional aircraft.
Improvements in flight recorders have been on the Board's list of Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements since 1999. The new rule calls for increased flight control position sampling rates on flight recorders, which should improve the quality of data available to investigators.
The new rule – Revisions to Cockpit Voice Recorder and Digital Flight Data Recorder Regulations – issued earlier this year, prompted the Board to close two important items on that Most Wanted list classifying them as acceptable actions. However, it also closed as unacceptable action A-96-89, calling for certain configurations of microphones and dedicated channels in airliner cockpits, and A-99-17, which called for dual combination recorders, one in the front and one in the back of the plane.
The 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 by 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. Recommendation A-96-171 was closed "Acceptable Action."
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 for the rule, so classified recommendation A-99-16 "Closed - Acceptable Alternative Action."