Planes Should Be Equipped With Tracking Device

23rd Jan 2015

It's easy for many of us to say that 2014 is one of the deadliest years for commercial aviation in history, mainly because it's still fresh to our memory. However, it is the opposite.

According to Safety Aviation Network, 2014 belongs to some of the safest years in commercial aviation since 1942 when commercial flights started to flourish across the world. During that year, a total of 922 deaths were recorded involving only 8 commercial flight crashes. In contrast, 1972 is the most dangerous year in commercial aviation history with 2,429 deaths in 55 deadly crashes recorded.

But despite its relatively low deaths and smaller number of accidents, experts suggest that it is time to make the world's commercial aviation a much safer transport industry. They proposed that modern commercial planes should be equipped with advanced technology that would make it easy for search and rescue teams to locate the wreckage especially when it crashes into the ocean.

The mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 in March 2014 remains to be the world's most baffling air accident (or is it?) in history, as no trace of the plane has ever been found since the frantic search operations started immediately after the plane was reported missing. The plane carried a total of 227 passengers plus 12 flight crew members on board.

The incident last December 28, 2014 involving the AirAsia Indonesia aircraft proved to be a challenge for search teams as it crashed into the waters of Java Sea. The teams were only able to locate the main wreckage after over two weeks of hunting.

The proposal to equip planes with tracking device involves the installation of tamper-resistant transmitters that would enable the crashed plane to send its location every minute using satellite signals.

Investigators also suggested to governments to require their local airlines to equip themselves with low-frequency submarine beacons for easier detection by search vessels.

Moreover, they proposed that flight recorders or black boxes (cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder) should be designed in a way that they can't be disabled by a person or accidental manipulation during high impact crashes.

Perhaps the most important proposal they have ever suggested was the installation of ejectable black boxes with beacons so that searchers will have easy time to find them.

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