I 
109TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3336 
To direct the Secretary of Transportation to issue a regulation requiring 
the installation of a second cockpit voice recorder and digital flight 
data recorder system that utilizes combination deployable recorder tech-
nology in each commercial passenger aircraft, currently required to carry 
each of those recorders. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 19, 2005 
Mr. DUNCAN (for himself, Mr. BAKER, Mr. GORDON, Mr. ROGERS of Ken-
tucky, Mr. TERRY, Mr. ETHERIDGE, Mr. FORD, Mr. BOOZMAN, Mr. 
PRICE of North Carolina, Mr. CAPUANO, and Mr. PASCRELL) introduced 
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Transportation 
and Infrastructure 
A BILL 
To direct the Secretary of Transportation to issue a regula-
tion requiring the installation of a second cockpit voice 
recorder and digital flight data recorder system that 
utilizes combination deployable recorder technology in 
each commercial passenger aircraft, currently required 
to carry each of those recorders. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Safe Aviation and 
Flight Enhancement Act of 2005’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The events of September 11, 2001, dem-
onstrated that the United States needs to do more 
to ensure the survivability and quick retrieval of crit-
ical flight data and cockpit voice recording units 
aboard commercial aircraft. 
(2) Increased national security threats to com-
mercial airliners demand that the United States do 
everything possible to better secure the safety of our 
passengers by ensuring the quick and complete re-
covery of critical flight data from commercial air dis-
asters for immediate analysis of potential terrorism 
and to avoid unnecessary grounding of our commer-
cial air fleet. 
(3) In light of new commercial aviation ad-
vances, including increased polar flights, increased 
air traffic overwater, and the onset of free flight, 
there is increased potential for more difficult loca-
tion and recovery of fixed flight recorder and cockpit 
voice recorder units. 
(4) Hundreds of millions of dollars are unneces-
sarily expended to locate and recover ‘‘black boxes’’,
especially in underwater investigations, despite exist-
ing deployable recorder technology currently used by 
the United States Armed Forces, which would allow 
us to avoid such unnecessary and wasteful costs. 
(5) It is in the public’s best interest to accom-
plish these improvements by installing a second set 
of cockpit voice and digital flight data recorders that 
utilize a combined cockpit voice recorder, digital 
flight data recorder, and emergency locator trans-
mitter system designed to eject from the rear of the 
aircraft at the moment of an accident, so that the 
system will avoid the direct impact forces of the 
crash, avoid becoming ensnarled in the wreckage or 
fire intensity of the crash site, and float indefinitely 
on water. 
(6) The Navy’s successful experience since 1993 
with deployable technology indicates that transfer of 
the commercial version of this technology into the 
commercial sector provides an obvious way to help 
us meet our goals to increase the survivability and 
retrieval of recorders while reducing the time and 
cost of a mishap, investigation, search, rescue, and 
recovery. 
(7) Valuable time is lost searching for fixed 
flight data recorders in the wreckage of a crash site,
especially at the bottom of the ocean, and critical 
data is unnecessarily lost in incidents in which the 
black boxes do not survive the crash circumstances, 
as is evident in reviewing some of our most recent 
and devastating air incidents, including the fol-
lowing: 
(A) Neither the flight data or cockpit voice 
recorder was recovered from American Airlines 
Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 that 
were used in the World Trade Center attacks 
on September 11, 2001. 
(B) It took 3 days to recover the flight 
data and cockpit voice recorders from American 
Airlines Flight 77 that was used in the Pen-
tagon attack on September 11, 2001. In addi-
tion, the cockpit voice recorder was damaged 
beyond repair, rendering no information. 
(C) It took 13 days to locate the cockpit 
voice recorder and 9 days to recover the flight 
data recorder from the air disaster involving 
Egypt Air Flight 990 in the vicinity of Nan-
tucket, Massachusetts, air disaster on October 
31, 1999. 
(D) With respect to Swiss Air Flight 111 
International in Halifax, Canada, on September
2, 1998, it took search teams 9 days to locate 
the cockpit voice recorder and 4 days to recover 
the flight data recorder. 
(E) In the case of Valuejet Flight 592, 
which crashed on its way back to the Miami, 
Florida, airport on May 11, 1996, it took 15 
days to recover the cockpit voice recorder, and 
2 days to recover the flight data recorder from 
such flight because the underwater locator bea-
con failed. 
(F) With respect to TWA Flight 800 
which exploded and crashed in the ocean in the 
vicinity of Moriches, New York, on July 17, 
1996, it took 7 days to recover the cockpit voice 
recorder and flight data recorder. 
SEC. 3. REGULATIONS REQUIRING DEPLOYABLE RECORD-
ERS AND OTHER PURPOSES. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Chapter 447 of title 49, United 
States Code is amended by adding at the end the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘§ 44729. Installation of additional flight recorders 
‘‘(a) REGULATIONS.— 
‘‘(1) IN
GENERAL.—Not later than 90 days 
after the date of enactment of this section, the Sec-
retary of Transportation shall issue regulations that