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CAA Legislates to Make ELTs Mandatory
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Caa Legislates to Make Electronic Locator Transmitters Mandatory
The Civil Aviation Authority has moved to make Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) mandatory on almost all Australian registered aircraft from July 1.
Under new regulations soon to be introduced, all Austral- ian registered aircraft (except for gliders, trikes, ultralights, balloons, airships, training aircraft which only fly within 25nm of their parent airfield, or at that airfield’s designated training area and aircraft being ferried to have an ELT in- stalled or maintained) will need to have an Emergency Locator Transmitter installed by the somewhat ambitious July 1 dead- line.
A recent spate of General Aviation accidents which have resulted in expensive, time consuming and fruitless aerial searches have illustrated just how important an adequate ELT is. In a country as large as Australia carriage of ELTs makes sense but very few aircraft are so fitted, and even fewer of those that are, are fitted with an acceptable type. When an aircraft crashes in sparsely populated areas (or indeed ditches on water) searching for the downed craft becomes a major undertaking. Even in ideal conditions it is quite difficult to spot aircraft wreckage from the air, particu- larly in forested areas – damage to trees where the aircraft crashed is while not minor, difficult to detect from the air; aircraft wreckage may be strewn over large areas depending on the force of impact; and burnt patches left by an aircraft are quite often hard to detect. Often when an aircraft does crash in a remote area the result is a very time consuming search and rescue mission. In the past large scale searches for missing aircraft have involved as many as 20 fixed and rotary winged aircraft over periods of up to many days. By this stage if the aircraft is located any chance of finding the occupants alive is dramatically reduced, the dangers of exposure and shock increasing rapidly with time.
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