Safety Board, FAA Officials Call for Better Airliner ‘Black Boxes’

Federal regulators called on the aviation industry Friday to join an effort to improve the “black boxes” that monitor airplane performance.

The National Transportation Safety Board had issued an urgent call Wednesday for improved flight data recorders, including upgrading those on Boeing 737 aircraft this year.

The Federal Aviation Administration responded that it is inviting suggestions for how best to upgrade recorders now in use, with discussions planned at a public meeting in April.

“In order to fully respond to the board’s latest recommendations, the FAA will open a public docket and seek comment from interested parties. In addition, we will conduct a public meeting to fully review the recommendations and the actions that industry and the FAA can take,” FAA Administrator David R. Hinson said Friday in a letter to the safety board.

Anthony J. Broderick, associate administrator for regulation, said the FAA wants to move quickly on the issue. However, he characterized the safety board’s call for action on 737s within the year as “extremely ambitious.”

The safety board has complained that early-model flight recorders on some older aircraft provide fewer than a dozen types of information, often hindering investigators trying to determine the cause of a crash.

Installing new recorders that monitor from dozens to hundreds of pieces of information on a plane could not only help find the reason for an accident, but might disclose problems in advance, thus preventing an accident, board Chairman Jim Hall said.

A lot of airlines are keeping planes in service longer than was originally expected, Hall said, and tracking more flight data information will help engineers watch for any developing problems.

Many airliners built in recent years have complex electronic control systems that permit recording of dozens to hundreds of pieces of information about their flights. Flight data recorders that collect a wide variety of information are often already in use in these planes, or could easily be added.

The problem is more complex for earlier planes that used control cables and hydraulic lines; adding more information to their flight recorders could require new sensors, electronics and wiring.