Malaysia to Host Aircraft Tracking Discussion

On March 8, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 went missing from Air Traffic Controller radar coverage. The difficulty in locating the aircraft has highlighted the need to improve in-flight tracking of commercial aircraft, and the ITU is inviting airlines, international organizations, satellite service providers, avionics companies and government leaders to discuss new solutions. 

 

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families affected by the deeply troubling disappearance of flight MH370,” said ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun I. Touré. “As the multi-nation search for the missing aircraft continues, we must undertake immediate steps at the international level to increase efficiency in the tracking of aircraft. This event will serve to accelerate on-going efforts to achieve consensus on real-time tracking solutions for the aviation industry.”

 

Malaysian government officials and Malaysia Airlines representatives will be in attendance.  Subjects that ITU is planning to discuss at the meeting include; geographical coverage of proposed monitoring systems; the type of data to be transmitted to the ground and the required transmission rates; data security, storage and analytics; ownership of flight data; and the costs and changes to business models required to implement such systems on a global scale.  Avionics Magazine recently discussed what several companies already have available to improve aircraft tracking today, which you can read about here.