H.R. 3634 · 118th Congress

Safe Aviation and Flight Enhancement Act of 2023

Introduced on May 24, 2023 by Steve Cohen (D-TN-9). 4 cosponsors, 1 of them from another party. Latest action (May 25, 2023): Referred to the Subcommittee on Aviation.

Stage
Introduced
Introduced
May 24, 2023
Cosponsors
4
1 from the other party
Policy area
Transportation and Public Works
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Progress

The furthest stage the measure reached. Simple and concurrent resolutions do not go to the President.

  1. Introduced
  2. 2Reported by committee
  3. 3Passed one chamber
  4. 4Passed both chambers
  5. 5Sent to the President
  6. 6Became law

Official title

To direct the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration to issue regulations to improve flight recorder and aircraft crash location requirements on certain commercial passenger aircraft by requiring the installation of a second combination digital flight data and cockpit voice recorder system that enables data recovery without an underwater search and recovery.

Subjects

  • Accidents
  • Administrative law and regulatory procedures
  • Aviation and airports
  • Broadcasting, cable, digital technologies
  • Department of Transportation
  • Emergency communications systems
  • Transportation safety and security

Summary

By the Congressional Research Service (Introduced in House, May 24, 2023). Public domain.

Safe Aviation and Flight Enhancement Act of 2023

This bill directs the Federal Aviation Administration to issue regulations requiring all newly manufactured commercial aircraft used in certain extended overwater operations to have additional data recovery features.

Specifically, commercial aircraft that are required to have a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and a flight data recorder (FDR) must be equipped with

  • a means to recover flight data that does not require underwater retrieval,
  • a tamper-resistant method to broadcast to a ground station sufficient information to establish the flight termination location within six nautical miles of the point of impact, and
  • an airframe low-frequency underwater locating device that will function for at least 90 days and that is detectable by current search and rescue systems.

Further, the commercial aircraft must be equipped to retain at least the last 25 hours of recorded information.

Commercial aircraft that are ordered by an air carrier on or after January 1, 2027, must have the additional recorder system installed.

The bill specifies that a third combination CVR/FDR recording mechanism is not required to satisfy the bill's requirements. Compliant technologies may include (1) an automatic deployable flight recorder system (i.e., a CVR, FDR, and emergency locator transmitter housed in one crash-protected, floatable unit), and (2) transmission of flight recorder data (i.e., a system capable of providing satellite transmission of critical flight data that can also assist in identifying the location of a downed aircraft).

Sponsor and cosponsors

Cosponsors by party as of the day they signed on. Original cosponsors signed on the day of introduction.

Steve CohenD-TN-9Sponsor

Democrats · 3

Republicans · 1

Roll calls

Recorded votes on the measure. Most measures move by voice vote or unanimous consent, which record no individual positions.

No recorded roll call on this measure: it moved by voice vote or unanimous consent, or has not reached the floor.

History

Every action as published, oldest first. Roll calls link to how each member voted.

  1. May 24, 2023Introduced in House
  2. May 24, 2023Introduced in House
  3. May 24, 2023 · HouseReferred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
  4. May 25, 2023 · HouseReferred to the Subcommittee on Aviation.

Committees

Committees and subcommittees the measure was referred to.

Agencies in its committees' jurisdiction

Analisa's mapping of committee jurisdiction to federal agencies; the bill may touch others, or none of these.

Who lobbied on it

Organizations whose lobbying reports (LD-2) name this measure. Spending is what they reported for those quarters on all issues, not on this measure alone.

  1. Air Transport Association of America, Inc. (d/b/a Airlines for America)5 reports
    $7M reported (all issues)
  2. HAWAIIAN AIRLINES, INC.4 reports
    $670K reported (all issues)Federal contractor: HAWAIIAN AIRLINES, INC$619.5K in contracts, FY2026AI match · 100%

Reports filed in 2023, 2024.

Sources and method

Every figure on this page traces to these records.

  • Bill status: bills and resolutions, sponsors, actions, subjects and CRS summaries (U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo), from Congress.gov (Library of Congress))GovInfo Bill Status bulk data (Congress.gov; summaries by the Congressional Research Service) · data current to Oct 9, 2026 · loaded Oct 9, 2026 · license: Public domain (U.S. Government work, 17 U.S.C. § 105)
  • Members of Congress, their terms, committees and identifiers (The @unitedstates project (from the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress, the House and the Senate))unitedstates/congress-legislators: legislators, committees and current committee membership · data current to Oct 3, 2026 · loaded Oct 3, 2026 · license: CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication)
  • House roll-call votes (Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives)Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, roll-call vote records · data current to Oct 3, 2026 · loaded Oct 3, 2026 · license: Public domain (U.S. Government work, 17 U.S.C. § 105)
  • Senate roll-call votes and DW-NOMINATE scores (Voteview (UCLA Department of Political Science))Lewis, Jeffrey B., Keith Poole, Howard Rosenthal, Adam Boche, Aaron Rudkin, and Luke Sonnet (2026). Voteview: Congressional Roll-Call Votes Database. https://voteview.com/ · data current to Oct 3, 2026 · loaded Oct 3, 2026 · license: Free to use with the required citation
  • Lobbying disclosures (LD-1 registrations, LD-2 quarterly reports, LD-203 contribution reports) (Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives)Clerk of the House, Lobbying Disclosure Act filings (organizations only; lobbyists' names are not loaded) · data current to Oct 9, 2026 · loaded Oct 9, 2026 · license: Public domain (U.S. Government work, 17 U.S.C. § 105)
  • Positions are shown only where a roll call recorded them; voice votes and unanimous consent record none.
  • Money and votes are shown side by side; neither explains the other.