To increase the safety for crew and passengers on an aircraft providing emergency medical services.

Requires a pilot of an aircraft providing emergency medical services to comply with federal crewmember flight time and duty period and rest requirements whenever there is a medical crew on board, without regard to whether there are patients on board. Requires the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to initiate a rulemaking to: (1) require pilots of aircraft providing emergency medical service to use a standardized checklist of risk evaluation factors to determine whether a mission should be accepted; (2) establish performance based flight dispatch procedures for such pilots; and (3) require, after a certain feasibility study is done, flight data and cockpit voice recorders on board such aircraft.

[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3939 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3939

To increase the safety for crew and passengers on an aircraft providing 
                      emergency medical services.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 23, 2007

 Mr. Doolittle (for himself and Mr. Salazar) introduced the following 
    bill; which was referred to the Committee on Transportation and 
                             Infrastructure

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To increase the safety for crew and passengers on an aircraft providing 
                      emergency medical services.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. INCREASING SAFETY FOR CREW AND PASSENGERS ON AN AIRCRAFT 
              PROVIDING EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES.

    (a) Compliance Regulations.--Not later than 18 months after the 
date of enactment of this Act, a pilot of an aircraft providing 
emergency medical services shall comply with the regulations in part 
135 of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, whenever there is a 
medical crew on board, without regard to whether there are patients on 
board the aircraft, unless the pilot and aircraft are operating under 
instrument flight rules, in which case the duty and rest time 
regulations in part 135 of title 14 of the Federal Code of Regulations 
shall apply.
    (b) Implementation of Flight Risk Evaluation Program.--Not later 
than 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator 
shall initiate, and complete not later than 18 months thereafter, a 
rulemaking--
            (1) to establish a standardized checklist of risk 
        evaluation factors based on Notice 8000.301 issued by the 
        Administration in August, 2005; and
            (2) to require pilots of aircraft providing emergency 
        medical service to use the checklist to determine whether a 
        mission should be accepted.
    (c) Comprehensive Consistent Flight Dispatch Procedures.--Not later 
than 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator 
shall initiate, and complete not later than 18 months thereafter, a 
collaborative effort with the air medical community--
            (1) to establish performance based flight dispatch 
        procedures for pilots of aircraft providing emergency medical 
        services; and
            (2) to develop a method to measure compliance with those 
        procedures.
    (d) Improving the Data Available to NTSB Investigators at Crash 
Sites.--
            (1) Study.--Not later than one year after the date of 
        enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall complete a 
        feasibility study of requiring flight data and cockpit voice 
        recorders on new and existing aircraft providing emergency 
        medical service operations. The study shall address, at a 
        minimum, issues related to survivability, weight, and financial 
        considerations of such a requirement.
            (2) Rulemaking.--Not later than 30 months after the date of 
        enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall complete a 
        rulemaking to require flight data and cockpit voice recorders 
        on board aircraft providing emergency medical service 
        operations.
                                 <all>