Flight
Tracking needed by Global Aviation Community.
Malaysia Recommends Introduction of Real-Time
Aircraft Tracking in Initial Report-1th may 2014
With the ability to display real time aircraft
position reports and real time weather
The purpose to share this article is to provide
more information, what that mean to understand well, what is being considered
for future in Aviation Safety, as ICAO considers the requirements for global
flight tracking, to improve Air Safety. There are a lot of airplanes in the
air, so Aviation Safety it is everybody’s business. Always Fly Safely!!
U.N.: More robust flight tracking needed by
global aviation community
Montreal, Canada (CNN)
-- A United Nations aviation agency agreed Tuesday that global airline flight
tracking is needed in the wake of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's disappearance
and established a September deadline for "near-term implementation plans
for applicable solutions."
Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu,
president of the U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Organization, made the
announcement after officials from more than 40 countries met in Montreal to
examine a framework for worldwide standards aimed at preventing similar mysteries.
"ICAO will
continue to provide the necessary leadership to ensure all issues are
considered expeditiously to enable a 'performance-based' International Standard
for global airline flight tracking," Aliu said in a statement.
"As ICAO
considers the requirements for global flight tracking, we will also be looking
closely at the most effective means of sharing tracking data when needed with
applicable search and rescue and accident investigation authorities," he
said.
Flight 370 has been
missing since March 8 despite an international search.
Global flight tracking
is not a new issue, but there is new urgency as the global aviation community
looks closely at more robust flight tracking in response to the disappearance
of the Malaysia Airlines commercial airliner carrying 239 people.
"Public
perception is that in a world where every move seems to be tracked, there is
disbelief both that an airplane could simply disappear and that the flight data
and cockpit voice recorders could be so difficult to recover," the International
Air Transport Association said in a submission to the meeting.
Flight 370, a Boeing
777-200ER, disappeared on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to
Beijing. Its transponder went off and its maintenance reporting system stopped
functioning.
It lost contact over
open waters between Malaysia and Vietnam. Radar is not reliable over the ocean
or, as is possible in this case, at low altitudes.
It's unclear whether
the transponder -- a radio transmitter in the cockpit that works with ground
radar to identify a plane's position, speed and direction -- and the
maintenance reporting system, which transmits periodic flight data to the
ground, were intentionally disabled or malfunctioned.
The search for the
plane is concentrated in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Perth, Australia.
Damage to search
vehicle
Meanwhile, the sole
underwater vehicle searching for the plane was temporarily taken out of service
because of damage, a U.S. Navy official told CNN.
The tail section of
the Bluefin-21 was badly damaged when it struck the side of the Australian
vessel Ocean Shield in the last 24 hours. But the submersible has been repaired
and probably will be redeployed when daylight arrives in the southern Indian
Ocean, the U.S. Navy official said.
The accident occurred
when searchers, who were experiencing communications problems with the vessel, were
hoisting the Bluefin to the deck to examine it, said Michael Dean, deputy
director of ocean engineering for the Navy.
"They had 20-knot
winds and 3- to 5-foot seas," Dean said. "They got the vehicle on
deck, but in the process of doing so, the vehicle was damaged. They essentially
had torn the propeller, the tail section had ripped away, and so there was some
damage back aft (in the area of) the main electronics bay. There were quite a
few components that we had to troubleshoot.
"The good news is
the vehicle is repaired," he added.
Dean said the Bluefin
was repaired with spare parts loaded on the Ocean Shield during its recent
refueling trip to port.
He said it is likely
the team will wait until daylight before deploying the Bluefin-21 on its next
mission.
The vessel is
"probably more than halfway through" searching the location of
"Ping 1," considered the second most likely place to find the
wreckage of Flight 370.
No wreckage was found
during its search of "Ping 2," considered the most likely location of
the plane.
During the mission in
which it was damaged, the Bluefin-21 never reached the ocean floor, so no data
was collected.
Key topics for the
ICAO
The key consideration
at this week's ICAO meeting was developing protocols for tracking aircraft.
The members listened
to a brief presentation about several flight tracking technologies, but do not
plan to prescribe a specific one.
"Let me also
clarify that performance-based standards differ from 'prescriptive' standards
in that they do not restrict operators to specific technological
solutions," Aliu said. "This systems-based approach acknowledges that
what will best service airlines and manufacturers over the longer term will be
the flexibility to choose from amongst the latest and most cost-effective innovations
that meet their global flight tracking needs."
One potential standard
could be preventing anyone from being able to turn the off flight tracking
systems.
This is not the first
call for such international standards.
Air France Flight 447
crashed in 2009 in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil, killing more
than 220 people. It took five days to find wreckage and nearly two years to
find the underwater debris field.
The French accident
investigation board recommended that authorities "study the possibility of
making it mandatory" for commercial airlines to regularly transmit basic
flight parameters, including position, altitude and speed.
The ICAO changed some
standards after the Air France accident, which will go into effect in November.
In what documents describe as "initial steps," airlines were told to
make better use of existing communication links, introduce mandatory warnings
sent to air traffic control when a plane deviates from the cleared route, and
improve procedures to ensure better connections.
"This was also
identified as a low-cost solution, using existing (equipment) and
technology," the ICAO secretariat wrote in working papers presented to
this week's meeting.
Now the organization
is considering going further, mandating more frequent and more detailed flight
tracking information.
Separately, a
satellite communications company proposed a free global tracking service ahead
of the meeting.
Inmarsat, the company
whose satellite had the last known contact with Flight 370, said the service is
offered to the 11,000 passenger aircraft already outfitted with an Inmarsat
connection.
It said the tracking
would cover "virtually 100% of the world's long haul commercial
fleet."
Source : CNN
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