Flight MH370 and real-time tracking

Posted by admin at May 12, 2014

Prompted by the mysterious disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 from Kualar Lumpur to Beijeng on March 8th 2014, a number of aviation safety organizations and regulatory bodies have now started looking into black box and permanent tracking regulations for operating airlines. The United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organisation is holding meetings to discuss flight tracking and more effective black box recovery procedures. Aircraft manufacturers are also in attendance as well as other international organisations such as EASA and the European Cockpit Association ECA. EASA is spearheading the tighening of tracking regulations for airlines operating with the EASA region. Airline manufacturer Boeing, raised some concerns on the increased cost of operations for airliners and manufacturers resulting from the mandatory installation of additional tracking equipment. Currently, airplanes are factory-fitted with a number of tracking devices, but the issue is that all these tracking devices can be turned off by the pilot, there is currently no involuntary devices that cannot be turned off and the purpose of these meetings is to device procedures that mandate that these devices be installed in airplanes and for airline operators to monitor aircraft fight in real time. This persistent tracking feature was supported by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Australia’s Qantas Airways who urged EASA to ensure a possible new system to locate planes in distress would be hard to turn off.

In addition to this, Independent Civil Aviation Authrorities such as the Indian Civil Aviation Regulatory body has started looking into changing polices to ensure real time tracking of airplanes both passenger and cargo. The DGCA has ordered airlines to track planes from take-off to landing.”Operators have also been advised to devise a procedure for effective tracking of the aircraft while flying over areas where there is no coverage of ACARS/ADS-B,” the DGCA said in a statement. The DGCA has mandated that crew be trained in the use of the ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) a system that monitors aircraft location as well as health vitals, engine status and manufacturer and communicates this information ground control. Several Indian Airlines such IndiaGo, GOAir and Air India are currently using the ACARS.

This is not a news item. I am just interested in learning and documenting what I learn for future reference. At the time of this writing, I currently work for a regional safety organisation and I develop database applications for aviation safety. So this writing article is way of inspiring new ideas from global trends and events. I am particularly interested in the systems that will be implemented for persistent tracking, the ACARs and something called the ADS-B Automatic Department Surveillance.

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