Defibrillator Battery Compliance Extended One Year

The FAA extended the deadline from this April 12 to April 30 next year for Part 121 regional and major airlines to equip automated external defibrillators (AED) with approved batteries. Despite several years’ notice, Phillips Medical, the primary manufacturer of AEDs for airliners, only recently applied for TSO C142 approval for its batteries. The application has yet to be approved, and no one has yet produced batteries that comply with the new TSO. Further, the FAA said it does not have “any reliable information” on how many AEDs from different manufacturers are affected by this lack of approved batteries.