I 
114TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 79 
To conduct a study to ensure that enhanced communication is provided 
between commercial aircraft and air traffic control towers, and for other 
purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 6, 2015 
Ms. JACKSON LEE introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 
A BILL 
To conduct a study to ensure that enhanced communication 
is provided between commercial aircraft and air traffic 
control towers, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
The Act may be cited as the ‘‘No Missing Planes 
Act’’. 
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SEC. 2. STUDY OF TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE COMMUNICA-
TION OF AIRCRAFT WITH AIR TRAFFIC CON-
TROL TOWERS. 
(a) STUDY.—The Administrator of the Federal Avia-
tion Administration shall complete a study which shall in-
clude— 
(1) the feasibility of providing communication 
from commercial aircraft to air traffic control towers 
when an aircraft leaves its flight plan or experiences 
dangerous or threatening conditions and pinpointing 
the location of an aircraft that is missing within 30 
minutes by disseminating the information globally in 
less than an hour to rescue and recovery agencies; 
(2) information on the possible transition of 
black boxes to telematics systems that routinely 
throughout a flight communicate the contents of 
black boxes to secure store faculties managed by the 
National Transportation Safety Board; 
(3) the investigation of the automation of data 
collection from aircraft while in flight and automate 
the transmission of data in such a way that the rate 
of transition is dependent on the speed of the air-
craft and the conditions under which it is being op-
erated (turbulence and faster speed would trigger 
more frequent uplink of data from the black boxes 
on the flight) the warehousing of data that estab-
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lishes chain of custody for data if needed as the last 
official record of an aircraft, and the analysis of the 
data that is received to identify anomalous data; 
(4) the review of the availability of tamper 
proof transponders that cannot be turned off in 
flight and an alert if a transponder is tampered with 
while in flight; 
(5) the feasibility of securing transponders from 
being cloned or data being changed from the original 
designation that is assigned to the physical aircraft 
it is associated with and the proper safeguards to be 
sure that use of an assigned transponder identifica-
tion protocol by another aircraft is prohibited by de-
sign and the communication system and requisite 
protocols that will support the system, including a 
mechanism to investigate the ability to introduce 
transponder designations that are not assigned by 
aviation regulatory authorities; 
(6) the investigation of the means by which the 
United States could enforce that no airline operating 
in the United States or operate gates at an airport 
in the country may have communication technology 
that does not conform to domestic available commu-
nication technology standards; and 
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(7) the investigation of how quickly relevant 
statistical data on commercial aircraft can be shared 
with the Federal Aviation Administration, the De-
partment of Homeland Security, and the North 
American Command in the event that a flight fails 
to respond to communication or ceases to be detect-
able by ground control. 
(b) REPORT.—Not later than 180 days after the date 
of enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Federal 
Aviation Administration shall submit to the Committees 
of Transportation, Homeland Security, and Armed Serv-
ices of the House of Representatives and the Committees 
on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Homeland Se-
curity and Governmental Affairs, and Armed Services of 
the Senate. 
(c) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There is 
authorized to be appropriated to carry out this study, 
$10,000,000. 
Æ 
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