Mandatory GPS tracking
It's one thing that Amelia Earhart could vanish without a trace over the Pacific some 77 years ago - but a modern airliner carrying 239 souls in this day and age? (And no matter where, really)
Doesn't it raise the question of mandatory GPS tracking equipment on board all aircraft flying on routes where they will be travelling in airspace not covered by SSR? Or to keep it simple and stupid: All airliners certified for commercial operation?
The bandwidth needed for transmitting what would at the most be an SMS containing the A/C registration number, altitude, speed OTG and coordinates maybe every 2 minutes isn't prohibitively expensive. I'd suspect the cost of this one search for MH370 could pay for the whole shebang for quite some time.
This equipment would have to be somehow NOT connected to the rest of the aircraft's avionics and have an independent back up power supply so as to
be able to operate for ex 5 hours on its own.
It could be jammed of course but at least that would leave the world with a last known position and the knowledge that someone was actively working against being tracked.
Last edited by Backseat Dane; 13th Mar 2014 at 22:11.