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Air Medical Service Safety Improvement Act of 2009

Introduced: June 8, 2009 Introduced by: Cantwell, Maria Democratic · Washington See on congress.gov
 Everywhere this bill has been 2 steps
Introduced
In committee
Reported out
Passed House
Passed Senate
To President
Became law
Jun 8, 2009
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Jun 8, 2009
Introduced in Senate
 Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

Air Medical Service Safety Improvement Act of 2009 - Requires helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft certificate holders providing emergency medical services, if there is a medical crew on board, without regard to whether there are patients on board, to comply with federal safety operating requirements governing commuter and on demand operations as well as persons on board aircraft. Prescribes other requirements for such certificate holders when operating under instrument flight rules or carrying out training.

Requires the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to initiate a rulemaking to: (1) create a standardized checklist of risk evaluation factors which shall be used by helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft emergency medical service operators to determine whether a mission should be accepted; (2) require such operators to implement and comply with performance-based flight dispatch and flight-following procedures; and (3) develop a method to assess and ensure that such operators comply with the latter requirements.

Requires, not later than one year after enactment of this Act, helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft used for emergency medical service to have on board a terrain awareness and warning system device, and a means of displaying its information, that meet FAA guidelines.

Requires the Administrator to: (1) require certificate holders for helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft used for emergency medical service operations to report annually on the number of such aircraft used, and number of flights and hours flown, to provide air ambulance services; (2) issue a report on the availability, survivability, and costs of devices that record voice communications and flight data information on existing and new helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft used for emergency medical service operations; and (3) issue regulations to require such devices on board such aircraft.

What's happening now June 8, 2009

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

 Committees of jurisdiction 1