There have been calls for the capacity of black box voice recorders, which currently only record the last two hours of cockpit conversation, to be reviewed. Photograph: Ibrahim Youssuf/AFP/Getty Images
Inside the airline industry it is widely held that the lessons from flight MH370 can only be learned when the wreckage of the Boeing 777 is found – assuming that the black boxes eventually reveal the cause of its disappearance.
That means that so far the manufacture and design of the plane, pilot profiling and other security issues are not currently officially up for discussion.
However, there are already moves to improve the satellite tracking of planes. In Kuala Lumpur this week, Tony Tyler, the head of the global airline association Iata, said there was disbelief that a plane could disappear in the modern world. "We cannot let another aircraft simply vanish," he said. Iata has set up a task force to investigate the options.
According to David Barry, senior lecturer in aviation safety at Cranfield University, that will ultimately mean real-time streaming of data. "In the shorter term, triggered transmissions of flight data as soon as the aircraft experiences something unusual via satcomms to the manufacturer, operator, or accident investigating authorities means you should find the aircraft much faster."
The lifespan of planes means they can quickly lag behind everyday technology familiar to passengers. Barry says: "Aircraft stay a bit static in their development. The actual cost of equipment is negligible. The costly part is getting equipment certified to go on board and installed on an existing aircraft."
For that reason, Rob Hunter, head of flight safety at Balpa, the pilots union, cautions against a rush to fit potentially expensive tracking technology. "Of course better tracking would be good but if there's a finite resource to be spent let's look at what the cause is and then allocate the funds."
Barry says further improvements to emergency locators are likely. Some underwater locator beacons have increased battery life from 30 to 90 days, a development that may also be made mandatory after the search for MH370. Others have called for the capacity of black box voice recorders, which currently only record the last two hours of cockpit conversation, to be reviewed.
Hijacking theories have intensified calls for more targeted, intelligent airport security. Pilots themselves would likely resist moves for further personal scrutiny beyond the current programme of regular health checks, and initial criminal records checks.
The undisputed security lesson was from the two passengers who boarded using fake passports on unusual schedules using tickets bought with cash, without arousing suspicion. Iata has called on governments to make better use of the passenger data airlines now are mandated to collect and submit, and to computerise all systems rather than use paper landing cards.
source from: http://www.theguardian.com/
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