Would real-time tracking have helped missing flight MH370?

Continuous communication would be most beneficial to establish the location of any potential crash site but it would also most probably be too cost prohibitive, so once a minute or so would be a compromise without impacting too much on knowing the actual aircraft location.

Any such real-time tracking system would no doubt also mean the launching of additional satellites to ensure global coverage, so the costs of implementation would not be insignificant in any case.

Existing technology
Most of the modern passenger transport aircraft already have the capability to transfer data back to the ground via satellite, although the communication is not continuous.

The Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) allows technical information from the aircraft — such as engine performance data — to be automatically sent back to the airline. In return the airline uses the system to send operational information — such as flight planning information and other advisories — to the pilots.

Flight MH370 was fitted with ACARS. Even though it may have been disabled during the flight the Malaysian report says it was still “logged on to the network.” That means the system was pinging a satellite periodically throughout the flight.

It was the Doppler effect on six of these signals which has been the basis for the Inmarsat analysis which indicated the aircraft possibly flew south west toward the Southern Indian Ocean.

Why not transmit the black box data?
If real-time tracking is to be developed and implemented then consideration should also be given to the routine transmission of key flight data recorder parameters at the same time.

Modern digital flight data recorders can record upwards of 2,000 parameters so cost and bandwidth might be a barrier to transmitting all the information.

But the transmission and remote storage of key flight data such as altitude, airspeed, heading, engine power, fuel remaining, vertical, lateral and longitudinal acceleration and flight control, flap and undercarriage positions would be very useful in cases such as MH370.

There would still be a need to locate the wreckage for moral and humanitarian reasons. But theoretically the more flight data transmitted and stored remotely from the aircraft, the lesser the need to recover the flight recorders.

This would also allow a more comprehensive crash investigation to begin even before the physical site of a crash was located.

But I can foresee issues being raised by flight crew associations globally relating to confidentiality and potential misuse of the data sent from the aircraft, especially if it was to include encrypted and compressed audio files of recorded cockpit voice recorder data.

Safety improvements
There is little doubt that as the search for MH370 continues without finding evidence of the actual site of the wreckage, and the associated search costs continue to rise, changes to air safety will be made.

Already there is a suggestion to increase the duration of the recording time of the cockpit voice recorders from two to twenty hours.

The emphasis on looking for alternate means of tracking transport aircraft, and the interest in establishing systems for routine transmission and remote storage of flight data, will also grow within governments globally.

Geoffrey Dell is Associate Professor/Discipline Leader Accident Investigation and Forensics at Central Queensland University.This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).