Member's Home Forums General Discussion Mexico 406 MHz ELT Extension - June 30, 2018

We were contacted today by the Adjunct Director General of Aviation of Mexico's DGAC to advise us that they are going to extend the deadline for 406 MHz ELT's another 24 months. The current extension is due to expire June 30, 2013. With this additional extension, the deadline is now pushed back to June 30, 2015.

We have been working for many years with the DGAC as well as FEMPPA (The Mexican Federation of Pilots and Aircraft Owners) to provide data and our own analysis to justify why private aircraft should be exempted. (In addition to being the AOPA representative in Mexico, we are also the official FEMPPA representative in the state of Puebla, Mexico). We have also received a lot of support over the years from Kevin Psutka of the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) with information, strategy and advice on COPA's initiatives in Canada on this topic.

What is different about this latest extension is that the regulations themselves are being changed. In the past, this had been handled as a unilateral notice from the Director General of the DGAC. Due to this, the official announcement will come by way of the Mexican Federal Register later this month after it works its way through the legal process. However, The Adjunct Director General has told us that we can proceed to make an announcement to the General Aviation Community so that pilots will know that they will still be free to travel to Mexico with their current 121.5 MHz ELT's.

This latest extension has been the result of a lot of hard work, follow-up, emails and telephone calls by ourselves, FEMPPA and the DGAC over the last 6 months and we are happy to see that steps continue to be taken to facilitate the arrival of General Aviation aircraft to Mexico.