After MH370, airlines ramp up tracking

REAL-TIME tracking of passenger planes will be a legacy of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Airlines are trialling real-time tracking and continuous monitoring of aircrews, but the jury is out on what changes will be implemented, says Ron Bartsch, former Qantas head of safety.

“The issues that have been raised by 370 are still very much under the microscope and are of great concern to the international community broadly,” said Mr Bartsch, chairman of aviation consultancy AvLaw International.

“I think there will be changes as a result because with the technology we have available, continuous monitoring, continuous live feeds, technologically, there’s no problems with that.”

Australia announced yesterday Airservices Australia and its Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts were trialling a new method that tracks aircraft every 15 minutes over remote oceanic areas, compared with 30-40 minutes previously. It will use existing technology fitted to 90 per cent of longhaul aircraft.

Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss is confident this tracking would have triggered heightened surveillance of the doomed MH370 seven hours earlier when it changed direction.

Airservices Australia chairman Sir Angus Houston concedes it is not a “silver bullet”.

“But it is an important step in delivering immediate improvements to the way we currently track aircraft while more comprehensive solutions are developed,” Sir Angus said.

Drom 2018 Australia will roll out its OneSky system integrating management of civil and military air traffic for the first time in the world.

Sir Angus said the $600 million project would mean air traffic controllers would be able to predict plane trajectories in real time, allowing them to co-ordinate flights better and reduce delays.

Mr Truss said the technology would improve surveillance, so an incident like MH370 was known sooner.

“So it would be a substantial advantage in seeking to find the wreckage but it couldn’t necessarily prevent it from happening in the first place,” he said.

International Civil Aviation Organisation members last month backed the adoption of a new aircraft tracking standard, which could be implemented next year.

Global airlines could meet it using available and planned technologies and procedures they deemed suitable an important first step in providing a foundation for global flight tracking.

Ultimately ICAO envisages an aircraft tracking service that provides the plane’s position at least every 15 minutes, but at one-minute intervals in abnormal events, such as going beyond its flight plan or a quick descent.

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 250 airlines, said a number of airlines were tracking their aircraft or planning improvements and working on new methods.

Mr Bartsch said the absence of a cause of the MH370 crash would add to the case for change.

“I believe the longer it goes on before they find out the cause of MH370, I think the less likelihood there is that they’ll ever find a cause and, indeed, ever find the aircraft,” he said.

“They’re issues that are going to probably have bearing on any international associations in terms of what strategies may be implemented as a result of MH370.”

‘The issues that have been raised by MH370 are still

very much under the microscope.’

AVLAW I NTERNATIONAL CHAIRMAN RON BARTSCH