Emergency and Survival Equipment Requirements

Emergency and survival equipment is what an airplane carries for the moments when normal operation has failed: kits for the sick and injured, extinguishers and breathing equipment for a fire, megaphones and lighting for an evacuation, flotation, rafts and survival kits for a ditching or a landing in remote terrain, and beacons that tell rescuers where to look.

For commercial air transport in Europe the requirements are the CAT.IDE.A rules of Part-CAT, Annex IV to Regulation (EU) No 965/2012, with their acceptable means of compliance (AMC). In the United States they are spread across 14 CFR Part 91 and, for airlines, Part 121. Most quantities depend on the passenger seats installed, not on the passengers carried, and on how far the route takes the airplane from land, medical help or easy rescue.

Why the rules exist

The equipment follows the stages of an emergency: fight the fire, get everyone out, keep them alive, get them found. Exam material quotes UK and US data showing that about 88 % of ditchings end with few, if any, injuries, and that where people do die it is mainly by drowning afterward. Flotation, rafts and a working beacon therefore matter as much as the touchdown itself (see forced landing and ditching).

Some items need no formal equipment approval under CAT.IDE.A.100, among them spare fuses, independent portable lights, first-aid and emergency medical kits, megaphones and survival and signaling equipment. Crews are trained to use it: under AMC1 ORO.FC.230 the flight crew's recurrent emergency and safety equipment training includes, every three years, actual fire fighting, handling pyrotechnics, real or simulated, and a life raft demonstration where rafts are fitted. The survival equipment carried is declared in Item 19 of the ICAO flight plan (S for survival equipment, J for life jackets, D for dinghies) so that the rescue coordination center knows what the survivors have.

First-aid kits and emergency medical kits

First-aid kits are counted by passenger seats installed (CAT.IDE.A.220):

The emergency medical kit (EMK) is a more advanced kit for doctors or other qualified people. CAT.IDE.A.225 requires one on airplanes with a maximum operational passenger seating configuration (MOPSC) of more than 30 when any point on the planned route is more than 60 minutes' flying time at normal cruising speed from an aerodrome where qualified medical assistance could be expected. It must be dust- and moisture-proof, carried so as to prevent unauthorized access, and kept up to date; the AMC puts it on the flight deck or in another secure place in the cabin.

Pressurized airplanes flown above 25,000 ft with a cabin crew member required also carry first-aid oxygen (CAT.IDE.A.230) for passengers who, for physiological reasons, may need it after a depressurization: enough for the rest of the flight while the cabin altitude is between 8,000 and 15,000 ft, for at least 2 % of the passengers carried and never fewer than one, with at least two dispensing units. Its AMC lets the supply be calculated at an average flow of at least 3 liters per minute STPD per person (see passenger and portable oxygen and in-flight medical emergencies).

Hand fire extinguishers, crash axes and breathing equipment

CAT.IDE.A.250 requires at least one hand fire extinguisher on the flight deck, suitable under its AMC for flammable fluid and electrical equipment fires, and cabin extinguishers by maximum operational passenger seating configuration (MOPSC):

A galley not on the main passenger deck has one of its own, and so does each class A or B cargo compartment and each class E compartment the crew can reach in flight. The current rule names no agent: each extinguisher must suit the fires likely in its compartment and minimize the hazard of toxic gas. Its predecessor, EU-OPS 1.790, required Halon 1211 or an equivalent in at least one cabin extinguisher with 31 to 60 seats and at least two above 60. In the EU halon may no longer be used in portable extinguishers in cabins and crew compartments after 31 December 2025 (Regulation (EU) 2024/590). Dry chemical extinguishers are not used on the flight deck or in a compartment not separated from it by a partition, because the discharge impairs vision and a conductive residue can interfere with electrical contacts (see fire extinguishing agents and hand extinguishers).

On the Boeing 737 the water extinguisher, water with antifreeze, is for fabric, paper and wood fires only; the Halon or equivalent unit works on all fires, mainly electrical, fuel and grease fires. Before a Halon or equivalent extinguisher is discharged on the flight deck, everyone there goes on oxygen at 100 % with EMERGENCY selected.

Under CAT.IDE.A.255 airplanes with a maximum certificated takeoff mass (MCTOM) above 5,700 kg or more than nine passenger seats carry at least one crash ax or crowbar on the flight deck, and those with more than 200 passenger seats another in or near the rearmost galley. Any stowed in the cabin must be out of sight of passengers. Boeing 737 crews check at the preliminary preflight that the fire extinguisher, crash ax and escape ropes are stowed.

Protective breathing equipment (PBE) lets the crew work in smoke. CAT.IDE.A.245 requires it on all pressurized airplanes and on unpressurized ones above 5,700 kg MCTOM or with more than 19 seats. It protects the eyes, nose and mouth and, for at least 15 minutes, supplies oxygen to each flight crew member on duty on the flight deck and breathing gas to each required cabin crew member at their station. An additional portable PBE is kept beside the hand extinguisher of a galley off the main deck or of a cargo compartment (see in-flight fire, smoke and fumes).

Megaphones and emergency lighting

Megaphones are carried for directing an evacuation. CAT.IDE.A.270 counts them per passenger deck: one for 61 to 99 seats and two for 100 or more, so a single-deck airplane with 60 seats or fewer needs none. An airplane with more than one deck needs at least one whenever its total seating is more than 60, even if no single deck has more than 60.

Under CAT.IDE.A.275 an airplane with an MOPSC of more than nine has an emergency lighting system with an independent power supply to help evacuation. Above 19 seats it includes general cabin illumination, lighting in the floor-level exit areas and illuminated exit marking and locating signs and, depending on the date of certification, exterior lighting at the exits for night operation and floor proximity escape path marking. At night even an airplane with nine seats or fewer needs a source of general cabin illumination. On the A320, electrical escape path or exit markers run from internal batteries for at least 12 minutes; on the E190-E2 the emergency light power units supply the interior emergency lights for 10 minutes (see emergency evacuation).

Life jackets and flotation devices

Under CAT.IDE.A.285 a life jacket, or an equivalent individual flotation device for a child younger than 24 months, is required for each person on a landplane flown over water more than 50 NM from the shore, or taking off or landing where the takeoff or approach path lies so far over water that a ditching would be likely. Seaplanes need them whenever they are over water. Each is stowed within easy reach of its seat and has a means of electric illumination, the survivor locator light, to help rescuers find people in the water. Under Part-NCO a single-engine landplane needs them over water beyond gliding distance from land, and on takeoff or approach where, in the pilot-in-command's opinion, a ditching is likely; any airplane needs them beyond 30 minutes at normal cruising speed or 50 NM, whichever is less, from land where an emergency landing is possible.

A life jacket is put on before a ditching but inflated only at the exit or outside: inflated in a flooding cabin, it pins the wearer against the ceiling. For the same reason a raft is never inflated inside.

Ditching is also limited by certification. CAT.GEN.MPA.150 bars airplanes with more than 30 passenger seats from flying more than 120 minutes at cruising speed or 400 NM, whichever is less, from land suitable for an emergency landing unless they meet the ditching airworthiness requirements.

Life rafts and survival kits

Life rafts depend on how far the airplane flies from land suitable for an emergency landing (CAT.IDE.A.285):

Beyond that distance the airplane carries life rafts for everyone on board, stowed for ready use and large enough to take all survivors if the raft of the largest rated capacity is lost, a survivor locator light in each raft, life-saving equipment including means of sustaining life, and at least two survival ELTs, ELT(S). The AMC's raft equipment includes signaling equipment for the pyrotechnic distress signals of ICAO Annex 2: red rockets or shells fired one at a time at short intervals, or a red parachute flare. On the A320, depending on its overwater configuration, each passenger door carries a single-lane slide or a single-lane slide raft, whose mooring line must be cut once it is disconnected so that the sinking airplane cannot drag it under.

Over land, CAT.IDE.A.305 requires airplanes flown over areas where search and rescue would be especially difficult to carry signaling equipment, at least one ELT(S) and additional survival equipment for the route and the number of people on board. The additional equipment may be left behind when the airplane stays within 120 minutes at one-engine-inoperative cruising speed (for an airplane able to continue with the critical engine inoperative), or 30 minutes at cruising speed for others, of an area where search and rescue is not especially difficult. The AMC's list is 2 liters of drinkable water for each 50 people or fraction of 50, a knife, first-aid equipment and a set of air/ground codes, with snow and cold-weather items added where polar conditions are expected.

Under Part-NCO, beyond 30 minutes at normal cruising speed or 50 NM, whichever is less, from land suitable for an emergency landing, the pilot-in-command assesses the ditching risk and decides on signaling equipment, life rafts and life-saving equipment.

Emergency locator transmitters

An emergency locator transmitter (ELT) alerts search and rescue. There are four types: automatic fixed, ELT(AF); automatic portable, ELT(AP); automatically deployable, ELT(AD); and survival, ELT(S), removed from the airplane and switched on by the survivors. The 406 MHz burst carries a coded identity and is located through the Cospas-Sarsat satellites; the 121.5 MHz signal is for homing, satellites having stopped processing it in 2009.

Under CAT.IDE.A.280 every ELT must transmit simultaneously on 121.5 MHz and 406 MHz. An airplane with an MOPSC of more than 19 first issued with an individual certificate of airworthiness after 1 July 2008 carries at least two ELTs, one of them automatic, or one ELT and an aircraft localization means; one first issued with its certificate on or before that date carries one automatic ELT, two ELTs of any type or one aircraft localization means. Part-NCO lets an airplane certified for a maximum passenger seating configuration of six or fewer carry instead an ELT(S), or a personal locator beacon carried by a crew member or a passenger. The A320 installation transmits on 121.5, 243 and 406.025 MHz, the Boeing 737's on 121.5, 243.0 and 406.0 MHz (see emergency beacons and search and rescue signals).

FAA Part 91 and 121 equivalents

The FAA rules cover the same ground with different thresholds.

Under Part 91, an aircraft operated for hire over water beyond power-off gliding distance from shore carries approved flotation gear readily available to each occupant and, unless it operates under Part 121, at least one pyrotechnic signaling device (91.205(b)(12)). For large and turbine-powered multiengine airplanes, 91.509 adds life preservers beyond 50 NM from shore, and life rafts and survival equipment beyond 30 minutes or 100 NM.

An extended overwater operation is one more than 50 NM from the nearest shoreline (14 CFR 1.1). For Part 121 airplanes on such operations, 121.339 requires a life preserver with an approved survivor locator light for each occupant, and enough life rafts, each with a survivor locator light, for everyone on board; unless spare rafts are carried, the remaining rafts, loaded beyond their rated capacity if necessary, must still take all occupants if the largest raft is lost. Passengers are briefed before each takeoff on the location and use of any required flotation means (121.571).

Under 14 CFR 91.207 the ELT battery is replaced, or recharged if rechargeable, after more than 1 cumulative hour of use or when 50 % of its useful life has expired, and the ELT is inspected every 12 calendar months. The AIM allows operational tests of 121.5 MHz units only in the first 5 minutes after any hour, for no more than three audible sweeps.

Library articles are written for study and exam preparation. They do not replace your aircraft's approved documentation, your operator's procedures or the regulations themselves.