US regulators have finalised a requirement for new-build civil aircraft to carry cockpit-voice recorders with 25h duration, although an extended compliance period will be granted to lower-weight models.
The rule takes effect on 2 February and the new mandate supersedes the previous requirement for a 2h cockpit recorder.
This change is intended to reduce the possibility that, in the event of a safety occurrence, long flight durations or other circumstances could result in data being overwritten and rendered unavailable to investigators.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency, in line with ICAO, already requires 25h cockpit recorders for aircraft with a maximum take-off weight above 27t.
But the US FAA proposal – originally published in late 2023, and covering operations under Part 121, 125, 135 and 91 – sought to include not only large transport aircraft but also models below the 27t threshold.
This drew concern from business aircraft manufacturers including Bombardier, Embraer and Dassault Aviation, who formally laid out their objections to the proposed one-year compliance deadline.
“Inclusion of aircraft types below this [27t] threshold…presents a big challenge to Bombardier and presumably to other business aircraft [manufacturers] as well,” stated Bombardier in comments to the FAA.
The FAA has conceded the airframers’ point and states that it has “determined a long compliance deadline is necessary” to enable manufacturers to modify certification plans.
Its final rule points out that Part 121 or transport category aircraft with 30 or more seats are mandated to carry a 25h recorder if they were manufactured later than one year after the enactment date of the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act – namely those aircraft built since 16 May last year.
Aircraft operating under Part 91, 125 or 135 with a maximum take-off weight of at least 27t – and which have 29 or fewer seats – will need the 25h recorder if built from 2 February 2027. But this deadline extends to 2 February 2029, giving a three-year window, if the aircraft has a maximum take-off weight below 27t.
While the National Transportation Safety Board had urged the FAA to impose a retrofit requirement for the current fleet, the FAA has not specifically done so.
The NTSB had argued that the FAA’s cost calculation had overestimated the number of aircraft which would need to be covered by a retrofit.
But the FAA – which says 23,300 aircraft would qualify – says the NTSB’s figure of just 13,500 only accounts for aircraft with 10 or more seats, while the FAA’s estimate includes cargo aircraft, as well as six- to nine-seat passenger models certified for two pilots.
These two categories, says the FAA, account for the 10,000-aircraft difference in fleet size.
Although the FAA acknowledges that retrofit might mean the benefits proliferate faster, it points out that the FAA Reauthorization Act effectively features its own retrofit requirement with a six-year timeframe.
“Accordingly [the] FAA is not rescoping the rule to include a retrofit requirement,” says the regulator.
Its final rule also shrugs off objections, on privacy grounds, from several pilot associations, adding that the safety benefit “outweighs the potential privacy concerns” of cockpit-voice recorder data under FAA control.
“Current regulations protect [recorder] information of any duration,” it says.
Altering the length of the recording “will not impact” the FAA’s handling of such information, it insists, claiming that there have “not been any reports” to date of the FAA’s “misusing or disseminating” the contents of a cockpit recorder to non-authorised parties.
