(Newswire.net — December 28, 2014) — The search is on for Air Asia Flight QZ8501. Airbus 320 carried 162 people when lost contact with air traffic control on Sunday. Another disappearance of an Asian aircraft in the same year rised questions whether tracking technology that airplanes use needs a revision.
Air traffic controllers say the moment an aircraft signature is lost on the radar screen is the moment when airplane probably crashes. They say a malfunction of an on-board tracking system, may result only in loosing on-screen identification of the flight, however, not the airplane location and heading because it is followed by ground radars. Therefore, complete disappearance from radar means aircraft is down, and searchers are being deployed to locate crash site. In the cases of the Air Asia Flight QZ8501, same as Air Malaysia Flight 370, there were no crash sites found.
Air crush investigators, in charge for locating the remains of Malaysian plane, claims that if plane crushes, it is impossible that they couldn’t find any trace of debris. Even if plane crash into a deep ocean, there is always something floating up on the surface, they say.
The search and rescue teams, however, never located any proof suggesting even remotely the probable location of a plane crash – it just mysteriously disappeared. It may could have happened once, however, twice within a year, though it is still early for Flight QZ8501 to say, it raises concern that terrorists might hijack planes. If that is the reason planes were missing, than terrorists learned how to disconnect an airplane tracking devices and lend planes on some remote location flying below radar scan.
In the case of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the technology at issue is called ACARS, for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System. The system is a three-way communication between the plane, airline company and manufacturers on the ground who can react on a short notice and provide maintenance if something malfunction.
The sophistication of the service, however, depends on what the airline would like to spend. For example, Boeing promotes a service called custom alerting and analysis, which monitors fuel, flight controls, landing gear, hydraulic power and communications.
John Hansman, director of the International Center for Air Transportation at MIT, says Malaysia doesn’t subscribe to the Boeing program “and that they collect the data for their own use.”
While Malaysia Airlines and its manufacturers aren’t saying what sort of service was used on Flight 370, the Airbus A330 in the Air France crash had sophisticated messaging that reported problems with airspeed and altitude that helped track down the missing plane.
While its rival Malaysia Airlines faces potential collapse after the two disasters this year, AriAsia this month confirmed its order of 55 A330-900neo passenger jets worth $15 billion.