MOSCOW. Sept 26 (Interfax-AVN) - Major General Nikolay Bezborodov, deputy chairman of the State Duma's Defense Committee, submitted a bill concerning aircraft search and rescue to the State Duma for consideration.
"The issue of refining legislation on aircraft search and rescue is of paramount importance to Russia in light of recent events, in particular, the death of Sakhalin Governor Igor Farkhutdinov, as well as the follow-up air crashes," Bezborodov told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
He said that the bill envisions introducing a number of amends and additions to Chapter 13 of the Russian Aviation Code. "For instance, the bill touches upon the problems of funding organizations, carrying out search and rescue operations, aimed at saving aircraft, their passengers, and crews," the delegate said.
He said that the bill specifies financial sources for bodies, involved in S&R operations.
The amends envision compensating expenditures of aircraft enterprises for maintaining readiness of assets, conducting S&R operations, paying them from centralized funds for services, aimed at ensuring flight safety and flights of standby aircraft.
In addition to that, it envisions social security measures and guarantees for S&R participants. The status of a rescuer is defined in the law on S&R services and the status of rescuers.
"However, this law concerned only organic rescuers, rather than all categories of employees, participating in such operations. Now this list is supposed to be expanded," Bezborodov said.
According to experts, the bill proposed will not demand any increase in federal budget expenses.