Congressman Robert Garcia Passes Amendment Improving Air Travel Safety
WASHINGTON,
D.C. – Congressman Robert Garcia (CA-42) yesterday passed an amendment
to expand preservation requirements for “black-box” cockpit voice
recorders. This piece of legislation passed as part of a group of
amendments into the bipartisan Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
five-year reauthorization bill. This is the Congressman’s first
amendment to pass the House.
“As Mayor of Long Beach, I had a front row seat to the massive
undertaking that it is to run and operate a successful airport. From
beginning to end I was involved in the changes that resulted in the Long
Beach airport being one of the best regional airports in all of
California, and along with that came an intimate knowledge of the
importance of safety measures,” said Congressman Garcia.
“My amendment expands the circumstances under which cockpit voice
recordings must be kept. By having critical pieces of evidence
preserved, future investigations will be even more reliable. This
amendment is a clear step towards a safer future for all travelers.”
Rep. Garcia’s amendment expands the circumstances for data preservation
to include where crew would reasonably believe an aircraft lined up on
an incorrect runway or incorrect taxiway, the aircraft landing at the
wrong airport, the aircraft significantly overpassed the destination
airport, or the crew have been alerted of a possible pilot deviation.
This reflects several problematic real-world incidents where data would
have been helpful for NTSB investigations – such as a 2017 near-miss as
San Francisco Airport (SFO) when an Air Canada A320 flight incorrectly
lined up to land on a taxiway, rather than the runway, and came within
59 feet of striking four fully loaded passenger planes.
While large commercial aircrafts and some smaller commercial, corporate,
and private aircrafts are required by the FAA to be equipped with a
cockpit voice recorder (CVR) – one of the two "black boxes" that record
information about a flight – under current law in the U.S. the recorders
only have to capture the last two hours - the FAA bill expands this to
25 hours.
As Mayor of Long Beach, Garcia had oversight of the Long Beach Airport, which is a municipal department.
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