"The rules we adopted today aim to address this deficiency and to prevent the reoccurrence of the disappearances of flights AF447 and MH370," EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc said.
The rules require newly manufactured planes to be equipped with "robust and automatic means" to locate the flight’s end point after an accident. Cockpit voice recorders are to extend recording from 2 hours to 25 hours, and flight recorders will be equipped with locating devices with an extended transmission time to facilitate their localization.
"For the general public, it is not understandable that aircraft are not permanently tracked whenever they fly," Bulc noted.
Air France flight AF447 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris plunged into the Atlantic on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people on board. The crash was the worst in the airline's 75-year history, and the world's worst for almost a decade.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 227 passengers on board disappeared in the Indian Ocean in March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
"Only days after the adoption of the new Aviation Strategy and the update of the Air Safety List, these new rules are another concrete step to show that safety of European citizens is an absolute priority of the Commission," Bulc underscored.
The gradually implemented regulations apply to all EU passenger planes carrying more than 19 people and cargo aircraft of over 45.5 metric tons.
