SB 53-AIRCRAFT EMERGENCY RATIONS AND EQUIPMENT  CHAIR EGAN announced SB 53 to be up for consideration. DAVID SCOTT, staff to Senator Donald Olson, sponsor of SB 53, said the aviation industry asked Senator Olson to introduce this bill to update statutes to current industry standards that require more sophisticated safety and locator equipment. Section 1 adds some conforming language relative to section 2 that is new language saying the requirements under (a) in section 1 do not apply to an operator if they are following Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements known in the maritime industry as an emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) and in the aviation industry as an emergency locating transmitter (ELT). 1:34:25 PM SENATOR FAIRCLOUGH asked how the language is being interpreted differently now. 1:34:40 PM MR. SCOTT said the language is ambiguous as to whether it applies to an aircraft that did not start its flight in Alaska and will not end its flight in Alaska but travels through Alaskan airspace. SENATOR FAIRCLOUGH said it seems like they are proposing to not require an airplane to carry lifesaving equipment and asked what kind they carry now. MR. SCOTT answered if there is ever an incident an ELT would activate and emergency operations would get there very quickly - weather permitting. SENATOR FAIRCLOUGH said she was thinking about the life safety of passengers on board any particular aircraft and whether it's good to have this equipment on the aircraft and if so, in what quantity. She understood there was a cost of fuel in carrying excess weight and replacement of food that ages. 1:37:31 PM JANE DALE, Alaska Air Carriers Association, Willow, Alaska, supported SB 53, saying it updates statutes with current technology and practices. 1:39:04 PM BOB HAJDUKOVICH, President and CEO, Era Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, supported SB 53. He said there has been a lot of ambiguity in this law for years, but it was never taken out of context until a couple of years ago when the FAA started to interpret the state law in addition its regulations and started questioning air carriers that were flying over the state's air space as to why they were not in compliance with state law. He explained that state troopers had never enforced the law by inspecting aircraft for survival equipment and that the original intent was to capture non-commercial pilots flying up from the Lower 48 to prepare them for surviving for a week in Alaska if they had to put their plane down somewhere here. As things evolved, the concepts of satellite technology and 406 ELTs that are activated on impact have reduced that worry. Today, the major issue is accessibility to the accident scene. This issue came up because the FAA was specifically holding ERA accountable for their Dash 8 equipment, which has 37 seats, and requiring them to carry a sleeping bag per person. When asked if Alaska Airlines, China Airways, and anybody else that flies into the Anchorage airport have to be in compliance with the same law they were told yes. So, Era took it all the way to Washington, D.C., and was told that it was between them and the FAA, that carriers still need to be in compliance with their state's law. That's when they started trying to clarify this law. MR. HAJDUKOVICH said it's still smart for private pilots in small aircraft to carry survival gear and it's also smart for them to have a 406 ELT. If they do have an ELT, waiving other requirements would be a fair tradeoff, because the best thing that has been done for aviation safety in the last 50 years has been being able to immediately locate a downed aircraft. His only question was possibly defining "real time" in relation to satellite tracking systems in subsection (d). Items (1),(2),(3), and (4) have some redundancy and item (1) could potentially exempt aircraft from carrying survival equipment if there is a void in FAA requirement, so he thought that language could be tightened up. MR. SCOTT said the sponsor was willing to look at those and tweak language if necessary. 1:44:27 PM MIKE STEDMAN, co-owner, Alaska Seaplanes, Juneau, Alaska, supported SB 53. He was also on the Air Carrier Board and said with the advent of automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B), real time tracking of downed aircraft has been greatly enhanced in the last few years. SENATOR DYSON remembered the requirement to carry a firearm and how that caused some trouble when flying into Canada and asked if that was still a requirement. MR. SCOTT directed attention to AS 02.35.110(a) that had a list of requirements and said a rifle was not it. 1:46:37 PM SENATOR FRENCH asked someone to describe what the FAA requires for operations within the state over uninhabited areas, since it goes away if the aircraft is equipped as required by the FAA. MR. SCOTT answered 14 CFR 121.353 entitled "Emergency Equipment for Operations over Uninhabited Terrain" listed those requirements. SENATOR FRENCH read: pyrotechnic devices, survival type emergency locator transmitter, and survival kits appropriately equipped for the route to be flown and the number of occupants on the airplane and asked if there was more of a description for the survival kit, because that could be interpreted as having a Cliff Bar for everybody, but no blankets or snow shoes, fire starter, knife, mosquito netting - nothing. MR. SCOTT said he dug into that but couldn't find out what "appropriately equipped" meant. SENATOR FRENCH asked if you are equipped as in (d)(1)(2)(3)(4), do you have to have each one of those things to escape the requirements of (a) or just any one of them. MR. SCOTT said he interpreted them as "or." SENATOR FRENCH also remarked that there was an "and" on line 20 and that lead to his last question, which is that (4) seems to be a combination of (2) and (3), which seems redundant because it says a real-time satellite tracking system in (2) and a 406 ELT in (3), but then (4) adds "installed and operational" to those two pieces of equipment. SENATOR BISHOP asked if this bill goes to "135 operators." MR. STEDMAN answered that the word "commercial carrier" is part 135 and part 121. SENATOR BISHOP asked if an Alaska Airlines 737 was trying to push back from the gate here in Juneau and either one of those two wasn't operational, it wouldn't leave until they were? MR. STEDMAN said that was correct, but the 406 ELTs are not required for transport category jets. 1:52:07 PM SENATOR FAIRCLOUGH said if they are going to take the time to look at this bill further, they probably need to go back into section 1 and on page 2, line 7, that says a sleeping bag "and" one wool blanket for the smaller planes and maybe change that to "or". She was also wondering why, if they believe the federal government has set appropriate codes for survival, that they are not tying FAA requirements directly to this one, so that when it changes our statutes are automatically updated. "Survival kit" should be described, because they want to make it easy for a carrier to provide safety to those on the plane and eliminate wool blankets and sleeping bags if they are not necessary. 1:54:13 PM CHAIR EGAN, finding no further questions, said SB 53 would be held in committee.