The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has proposed new measures to aid the recovery of black box flight recorders from missing planes.

It proposes extending the transmission time of underwater locating devices (ULD) fitted on flight recorders from 30 days to 90 days.

Aircraft which fly over oceans could be equipped with a new type of ULD that has a longer locating range than the current flight recorders' ULDs. Alternatively, planes could be given the means to determine an accident to within six nautical miles accuracy.

The EASA has also proposed extending the minimum recording duration of cockpit voice recorders fitted on new aircraft to 20 hours from the current two hours.

Proposals to bring in new ULDs were originally made following the Air France Flight 447 crash in June 2009, which led to the loss of 228 lives.

Aviation safety has become a priority for officials in the wake of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on March 8th. Efforts to locate the aircraft have so far proved unsuccessful.