We live in an age where people can easily locate their phones in real time, but the world's most advanced transportation industry is not obliged to do so.
In 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight No. 370 (MH370) mysteriously disappeared and so far has not found a place to raise a series of questions on how to do such things. repeat time However, after four years, the possibility of modern aircraft disappeared in the air can still occur.
Missing mystery
The missing MH370 aircraft has been rated by world aviation analysts as one of the biggest mysteries in the history of aviation in the world. So far, experts have not been able to agree on the cause of the accident for the MH370. What has really happened on that fateful flight?
MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers. Experts have mapped the Boeing 777's random flight path through the Indian Ocean after selecting hourly data connections with satellites.
Some fragments have been picked up in Africa, not found on any of the passengers on the flight. In January, a US company named Ocean Infinity continued its search with a $ 70 million reward from the Malaysian government. However, this is considered to be the last attempt to find the MH370.
In an age where people can easily locate smartphones in real time, the aviation industry with more than 4 billion passengers a year is not forced to do the same. The reason is that there is no international convention that requires aircraft to announce their position in minutes by airborne troubles until January 2021.
Sluggish, impractical
By November, according to new regulations issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the airlines were obliged to track their flights every 15 minutes. So far, some airlines such as Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Qantas Airways and Qatar Airways have met this requirement.
However, at a speed of about 925 km / h, if the plane disappeared between those 15 minutes, it would create a potential search area of up to 170,000 square kilometers, equal to the size of Florida. And yet, with that vast area, the ability to find survivors in time is also very low, especially at sea. Accordingly, if the aircraft signal position in minutes, the search area will also be reduced greatly, only about 748 km2 - 227 times smaller.
Tom Schmutz, Managing Director of Flyht Aerospace Solutions, said aviation was very cautious and took strategic steps to ensure passengers were safe, but did not rush to make changes. This is because they can have a huge impact on profitability. Flyht is a company that offers state-of-the-art satellite navigation technology, very compact, just the size of a suitcase, costs $ 60,000 and automatically locates for 20 seconds. of the aircraft when operating. However, in the world today only 1,800 aircraft use this technology.
Technological backbone and human
For its part, ICAO has "rapidly" developed new regulations shortly after the MH370, and these rules encouraged airlines to re-equip their devices to emit localized signals. by the minute.
With the new rules going into effect in 2021, the navigation system will automatically send minute-by-minute information when it detects problematic aircraft flying through bad weather, technical problems or changes. An unexpected flight, for example, is controlled by the hijackers or if the crew is unconscious and uncontrollable.
Especially pilots can not turn off this system after it's automatically activated, ICAO said. It will automatically turn off when the aircraft is safe to return. However, pilots can manually start or shut down the system manually if desired.
It sounds simple, because we can easily position the smartphone via GPS. But with a very fast-paced airplane, requiring the aircraft to upgrade the computing power of computers and broadband Internet to handle large and complex data. Without stopping there, launching a new satellite and using it only to satisfy these needs is inevitable if the system requires more accurate and accurate data.
So, four years after the MH370 disappeared and the aviation industry has not agreed on the installation of a per-minute positioning system, an imminent struggle is taking place in the world's most modern transportation industry. . The cost to equip navigation systems for all commercial aircraft is expensive - up to $ 1 billion and the MH370 is extremely rare.
Dell, the former chief security officer at Qantas Airways, said: "All the decisions are about trade. Had it been safe for human life, should it justify that the accident would not have happened based on the data? It's about things like the MH370 that will change people's minds. "