Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) has requested that airlines and aircraft manufacturers install higher-power megaphones and take related measures.
Following the collision on January 2, 2024 at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport between a Japan Airlines (JAL) aircraft and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft, it was found that the transmission range of the megaphones installed on the JAL aircraft was insufficient. As a result, the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) determined that countermeasures needed to be considered and provided information to the Civil Aviation Bureau of MLIT.
MLIT has asked airlines, where high-output megaphones or additional megaphones can be installed, to work toward their introduction, and to conduct regular hands-on training that involves actually using the megaphones installed on aircraft. It is also encouraging stronger measures by requiring that alternative means be established for issuing evacuation calls and similar instructions so that emergency evacuation can be carried out swiftly even in areas inside the cabin where the megaphone sound does not reach.
MLIT has also asked aircraft manufacturers to consider measures that would allow higher-power megaphones to be installed, such as changing the megaphone options available when purchasing new aircraft or when modifying existing aircraft.
The primary purpose of megaphones is to call on nearby passengers to perform an emergency evacuation. There are no international standards established from the perspective of ensuring communication among crew members if in-flight announcement systems such as interphones fail. The megaphones installed on the JAL aircraft were ACR/EM-1A units manufactured by ACR Electronics, with an output of 2W.
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