Malaysia Airlines to use satellite tracking

JUST after midnight on March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport with 239 people on board settling in for what should have been a routine red-eye to Beijing.

The plane never made it to China, instead vanishing somewhere over the Indian Ocean. Its disappearance launched a years-long search, by land and by sea, that was suspended without any conclusions but that cost millions. What happened to Flight 370 remains one of the greatest mysteries in modern aviation.

On Tuesday, more than three years after the tragedy, Malaysia Airlines announced it would be the first airline to begin tracking all its aircraft with spacebased satellites. This will allow it to have access to “minute-by-minute, 100% global, flight-tracking data” for all of its planes, according to the three companies partnering to provide the service: Aireon, FlightAware and SITAOnAir.

“This is the biggest improvement in flight tracking since radar was invented during World War II,” FlightAware chief executive Daniel Baker has said. “For the first time ever, airlines will be able to track their airplanes even in places that aren’t served by current satellite constellations – and it doesn’t matter if they’re flying over the ocean, if it’s over the desert, if it’s over the North Pole, we’ll know where the plane is.”

Such precise monitoring will be made possible by a network of 66 satellites set to be in orbit by the middle of next year. On each of those satellites will be a receiver that can track flights using automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast technology, or ADS-B, a successor to radar.

Many aviation agencies around the world, including the US’s Federal Aviation Administration, are moving away from radar and using real-time ADS-B for airtraffic control. By 2020, the FAA will require planes to have ADS-B equipment to fly in most controlled airspace.

While it’s unclear whether satellite tracking would have changed anything in the aftermath of Flight 370’s disappearance, the developments come amid new rules for how planes must communicate with airtraffic controllers.

Even though flight disappearances are rare, Aireon chief executive Don Thoma imagines real-time tracking would improve the aviation industry overall by allowing planes to fly more optimal routes, something the FAA noted when moving toward ADS-B technology.

“With ADS-B, pilots for the first time see what controllers see – displays showing other aircraft in the sky. Cockpit displays also pinpoint hazardous weather and terrain and give pilots important flight information, such as temporary flight restrictions,” the FAA said.

“Relying on satellites instead of ground navigational aids also means aircraft will be able to fly more directly from Point A to B, saving time and money, and reducing emissions.”

Being able to track planes via satellites in space eliminates coverage gaps even over oceans and remote airspace. – Washington Post