I find this lost aircraft situation confusing for one reason. Why is it these aircraft don't have a dedicated transponder that continually transmits key flight metrics (heading, speed, location, fuel level, altitude, etc.) to satellites and/or land based antennas so that if I am the airline I can go into my system and at any time find out the exact status of my all of my birds? And presumably they'd also have that system isolated so there's no way in flight for it to be tampered with by the crew or others - and if they somehow did manage to disable it, red flags would immediately go up to let the airline and controllers know to hunt down the plane. What am I missing?
You're missing the fact that it was a South East Asian flight that was going through handoff between airspaces of countries that don't exactly like each other. It also doesn't help that a lot of their stuff is more than a bit behind technology wise, Malaysia while having a space program doesn't really have that many satellites.
They do. It was turned off. They speculate it was turned off right about the time the A/C made a turn off into who knows where. It was also around that time when it went up about to 40K, then down to 26K in drastic elevation changes.
I like Bills link - Ochams Razor..... What's more plausible - fire in the cockpit (flight deck) or huge international conspiracy to steal a jet.
I would go with the fire and an attempt to reset the electronics.
I think what Legendarius is asking is why Boeing isn't installing a transponder that broadcasts the planes serial number, altitude, heading, etc. regardless of ownership or where it is operating. The engine manufacturer has done this.
This isn't about what the Malaysian government can or cannot do, it's about what Boeing can or cannot do. This was a 777 not a DC3
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think what Legendarius is asking is why Boeing isn't installing a transponder that broadcasts the planes serial number, altitude, heading, etc. regardless of ownership or where it is operating. The engine manufacturer has done this.
This isn't about what the Malaysian government can or cannot do, it's about what Boeing can or cannot do. This was a 777 not a DC3
Right, can/does the manufacturer provide such equipment on the aircraft, and does the buyer of the aircraft need to subscribe to a service to access the data/who can see the data? I might see where an airline might not want Boeing to know everything about the aircraft they bought anymore than I want Ford to know my every move in my car, but wouldn't agencies like the FAA or those of other governments require an airline to have data provided to controllers in order to legally fly in their airspace?
Such a system is certainly feasible, but expensive.
First there's the equipment on the plane itself. Not that expensive, but to upgrade an entire fleet, that would be. Delta for example, has 743 planes. While an expensive outlay, I don't think it would be prohibitively expensive.
Second, airwave bandwidth. Long range transmissions tend to be regulated pretty heavily. They can also be regulated differently in different countries. Typically you'd have to buy or lease the airwaves to use them to transmit your data though. Now you have to do that in every country you fly in. Flying over Southeast Asia, you fly over a lot of countries.
Third, the satellites. They aren't cheap to install or replace. Since most signals rely on line of sight, you'll need them overhead everywhere you fly. Being 30,000 feet in the air helps with that, but it's still a lot of satellites. Plus, if you ever need to upgrade the technology, basically that means a whole new set of satellites.
Now, all of this data doesn't guarantee that you find the plane, either, or that once found, it can be recovered. All it really does is make investigations into what caused the plane to crash to resolve faster. There really isn't a financial incentive for the airlines to do this on their own.