Originally Posted by slats11
Then there is MH370. The cost of the search thus far is massive. The human cost to the relatives of not knowing what happened is incalculable. Against this, so what if it is a 1 in a million event. And that is before you consider the possibility that real time tracking (if unable to be turned off) may have prevented MH370 in the first place.
Originally Posted by
cee cee
If the device cannot be turned off, what if it malfunctions and catches on fire, or shorts out the main power bus, taking out all the other equipment?
If it can be turned off, then what is the point? If MH370 was caused by malicious agent(s), the only reason inmarsat tracking worked was because it was a new thing that has not been done before. If anyone wants to vanish an aircraft now, you can be sure that they will pull the breaker to the sat comms.
Please can we get off this hamster wheel?
Aircraft leave the factory with adequate tracking/position reporting capability. Widebodies all have FANS 1/A which provides for ADS-C, CPDLC and ACARS messaging. ADS-C links could have been set up to Air France from AF447 but they were not by human decision as the Senegal system did not have ADS-C. (ADS-C can be active to up to 5 ground agencies). So all that was available were ACARS reports which are through a message switch with no prioritization so the reports can come in at random times.
It was a human decision not to provide tracking information the aircraft itself had tracking capability with ADS-C.
All narrow bodies leave the factory with ADS-B. MH370 had the capability to be tracked using ADS-C and ADS-B and it was also in (albeit poor) secondary radar cover.
ADS-C and SATCOM were turned off by human decision at the airline. It had Rolls Royce
engine tracking capability but this was turned off by human decision at the airline. It had
Boeing continual health monitoring capability but this was turned off by human decision at the airline. MH370 had ADS-B and secondary radar transponder - but
these transponders were apparently turned off by someone in the cockpit who was unaware of the INMARSAT handshake to a SATCOM on standby.
8501 had ADS-B and was using it along with SSR, both these appear to have worked adequately to identify the likely crash site. It is arguable whether a SATCOM, ADS-C capability should be fitted to such relatively short water crossings as this one and the Gulf of Mexico. But as we have seen the wreckage is where it was expected from the last known ADS-B position report - so there is no real benefit from ADS-C.
In short.
there is no need for clever devices, new avionics, gizmos from Radio Shack... ALL aircraft have tracking capability. All that is needed is regulation that mandates aircraft operators use the tracking capability that is already on the aircraft.
Guess what -
mandates are already in place for use of ADS-C, ADS-B and SSR.
Indeed expect these mandates to require retrofit to all the older airframes within the next 5 years.
Tracking exists, it works, aircraft can be tracked with an accuracy of a runway width if necessary anywhere in the world.
So please stop trying to propose more expensive
** hardware be fitted aircraft to replicate what is already completely adequate tracking capability.
/rant
** Yes it may be available for $5 from Radio Shack and on every smart phone on the planet. But if you want to put it in an aircraft it is expensive as it has to be certified as not interfering with anything else on the aircraft. Multiply its cost by at least 1000 possibly 10000 if it is radiating radio signals and linked to the aircraft power or <gasp> has a rechargeable battery.