The official communique of the Russian Transport Ministry says that consultations were held in Vienna recently between head of the Federal Transport Inspection Alexander Neradko, board director of the Transport Ministry Sergei Sokolov and members of the guiding flight safety committee of the European Civil Aviation Conference .
"The goal of the talks was finalization of the agreement, reached at the preceding meeting in Rome in December 2004, on a transitional period for equipping aircraft of 41 member-countries of the ECAC and Russia, correspondingly, with automatic emergency radio beacons and systems warning of dangerous approach to the ground in line with the ICAO requirement", the document reads.
The mutual-delay compromise helps in avoiding disruption in passenger and cargo carriage between Russia and countries of Europe in 2005 and has given Russian and European airlines an additional opportunity for equipping their planes with the new safety systems.
In Vienna the sides exchanged detailed lists of aircraft registered in Russia allowed to continue international flights in the air above Russia and Europe till the end of 2005. The list numbers a total of over 1,500 planes. By January 1, 2006 all of them shall be either adapted to suit the new requirements, or stand idle.
Ground approach warning systems automatically let pilots know that the distance to the ground is becoming dangerous, which is crucial in landing approach in poor visibility and in the mountains.
The most updated systems (E-GPWS), now installed in new aircraft, enable pilots to see vertically down and several kilometers ahead. For that, special data bases with electronic relief maps are fed in the onboard computer.
Automatic radio beacons (A-ELT) issue onboard emergency signals, which greatly facilitates search-and-rescue operations in the world ocean or, for instance, on sparsely populated areas in the Siberian taiga.
Equipping a plane with the new safety systems will cost airlines over 100,000 dollars.
