NPA 2020-03

Amendment of the requirements for flight recorders and underwater locating devices — Certification specifications, acceptable means of compliance, and guidance material for locating an aircraft in distress

The objective of this Notice of Proposed Amendment (NPA) is to facilitate the implementation of CAT.GEN.MPA.210 ‘Location of an aircraft in distress — Aeroplanes’ of Annex IV (Part-CAT) to Regulation (EU) No 965/2012 (the ‘Air OPS Regulation’). 

This NPA proposes to amend the certification specifications (CSs), acceptable means of compliance (AMC), and guidance material (GM) to support the implementation of CAT.GEN.MPA.210. The scope of this NPA includes air operations (Air OPS), initial airworthiness, and air traffic management (ATM). 

The proposed amendments are expected to increase safety as they will facilitate locating an accident scene, which will increase the chances of rescuing accident survivors and accelerate the collection of evidence, necessary for determining the accident causes. In addition, this rulemaking proposal is expected to ensure consistency with the existing requirements for flight recorders and emergency locator transmitters (ELTs), as well as low-frequency underwater locating devices (ULDs) (8.8 kHz).