Airliner Tracking to Become Norm

[question everything]

Prompted by the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, government and aviation-industry officials are set to announce global standards calling for airliners to automatically report their position at least every 15 minutes, according to people familiar with the details.

In case of emergencies in which aircraft veer off anticipated flight paths, these people said, the same United Nations-backed group of experts wants authorities to be able to track the location of those planes at least once per minute. Taken together, the moves are intended to put in place the first truly universal, real-time tracking system for commercial aircraft operating over water, isolated polar regions or other areas lacking ground-based radar coverage.

(snip)

Though technically nonbinding recommendations, the task force’s conclusions and list of suggested technologies to accomplish the goals are expected to be embraced around the globe and become de facto minimum requirements for practically all carriers.

The task force, however, has decided against calling for extra safeguards to protect against sabotage or deliberate acts to turn off communications hardware, said people familiar with the talks. The IATA-designated group of experts, they said, won’t push for immediate steps to make satellite-transmission systems or other communication equipment tamper-proof from anyone onboard, a step suggested by many safety experts.

Such protections would require wiring modifications and other potentially costly equipment changes, which task-force members concluded wouldn’t be justified because of the low likelihood that pilots or hijackers will seek to disable communications equipment in the future.

More..

http://online.wsj.com/articles/airliner-tracking-to-become-norm-1416185142

[RB TexLa]

1. And this is because one plane was not found? Do we think we HAVE to find every crashed plane?

[geek tragedy]

2. Yes. How do you prevent plane crashes other than by

evidence of what causes plane crashes?

And the families deserve answers, and closure.

[RB TexLa]

3. It's not like there are that many crashes we don't find the plane. This would be a huge cost

to obtain very little information.

[geek tragedy]

4. Not really a huge cost. nt

[Maven]

6. Yes, we do. Accident forensics has saved countless lives.

What if that Malaysia flight had a mechanical problem that potentially affects all other 777s in service? What if the flight crew made a fatal error which was the result of some previously overlooked weakness in pilot training?

The families of the people who were lost deserve answers, too.

[HeiressofBickworth]

7. It must be something technical

but I don't understand how the proposed flight locator would differ from this website: http://www.flightradar24.com/48.74,29.48/6

Although I'm a non-flier, I've spent time looking at flight patterns on this site. I initially was interested in seeing if any flights were flying over Ukraine/Crimea. From the reports, it looks like a hole in the patterns. So then I started looking at other areas that had more or fewer flights. Anyway, it's a better and more interesting time-waster than playing FreeCell.

[Angleae]

9. That site will only show planes being reported by ATC controllers.

Where there is no ATC radar coverage, there is no aircraft reporting and such radar coverage is rather spotty over the oceans and sparsly populated areas like northern Canada and Siberia.

[SoCalDem]

8. I was surprised that it was not an ordinary procedure already n/t