All the general aviation aircraft operated in Russia must be equipped with state-of-the-art satellite tracking systems, which allow tracking the location of an aircraft in real-time mode and quickly finding it in case of a crash, the head of EMERCOM Vladimir Puchkov said, RIA Novosti reports.
He submitted this offer for consideration by the government commission for disaster prevention and emergency response. The corresponding draft legal act should be elaborated by June 30th 2015.
“I suggest making the operators fit the general aviation aircraft with this equipment and use it during flight. This decision of the government commission must be observed by all the operators,” the minister said. Puchkov justified the proposal with the growing potential of general aviation and complexity of search-and-rescue operations.
“The general aviation aircraft fleet is growing. However, the risk of a crash remains while the aircraft’s range increases. It takes us weeks and even months to carry out search-and-rescue operations. We have been searching for one aircraft for 4 months and there was an accident, when we needed 9 months to find a vehicle,” Puchkov said.