A Seminal Event

In the case of Air France 447, in which all 228 people on board died, from the time the debris was spotted in the south Atlantic till the critical flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were recovered spanned an agonising two years.

“We may not have thought it would happen again, but when it happens twice in five years…it’s unacceptable,” says Mark Rosenker, former chairman of the US National Transportation Safety Board.

Now president of McLean, Virginia-based Transportation Safety Group, he says: “We may never know what happened to [the 777-200ER]…That’s absolutely unacceptable with the quality of aircraft we’re running, and their incredible efficiency and safety. When extraordinary things [like MH370] do happen we must understand so that we can potentially prevent the next one. ” In the aftermath of AF447 the French BEA, the Bureau of Inquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation, recommended, among other measures, that the life of underwater locator beacons (ULBs) be extended to 90 days rather than the current 30 and “installed on aircraft performing public transport flights over maritime areas. ” Both the US Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency are moving to triple the life of ULB transmissions. In a statement, the FAA said: “An FAA standard will phase out devices that transmitted for 30 days and replace them with devices that transmit for 90 days. ” This change comes as the result of a Technical Standard Order, or

Clearly, the data points from the digital flight data recorder shouldn’t be too difficult to stream. MARK ROSENKER

TSO. FAA goes on to say: “30-day ULBs cannot be manufactured under the TSO program after February 28 2015. All 30-day devices must be replaced with 90-day devices by 2020. ” BEA also recommended the International Civil Aviation Organization Flight Recorder Panel group come up with proposals “for implementing deployable recorders. ” That means in the event of an accident the recorder would be automatically ejected from the aircraft. It would also float. Attached to an emergency locator beacon, this could give searchers a better chance at actually getting to the black boxes, rather than having to plumb the depths of the ocean.

But the recommendation that’s received the most interest, the one which can be technologically implemented, is BEA’s call to “study the possibility of making it mandatory for aircraft performing public transport flights to regularly transmit basic flight parameters covering such essentials as position, altitude, speed and heading. ” The wording here is important. BEA stopped short of actually advocating “streaming” DFDR (digital flight data recorder) data.

The technology already exists, or soon will.

“The reality is there are technological solutions which are here now,” says Rosenker, “or [will be] in the relatively near future. ” One candidate ready to go is an automatic flight information reporting system, or AFIRS, manufactured by the Canadian firm FLYHT.

“AFIRS is normally installed on aircraft to support communication and operations during routine operations,” FLYHT says.

While not fitted on aircraft solely for emergency uses, the company says the system is “capable of automatically switching to emergency mode streaming when the aircraft is in an unusual state or upon request from the crew or ground. ” FLYHT says if MH370 was so equipped, “we would know where the aircraft was when it last had electrical power. ” Moreover, the company contends, “we would know the behavior of the aircraft at all times leading up that point. ” That includes its altitude, airspeed, heading, engine state and such.

The cost? $100,000 per aircraft.

As for connectivity, the current crop of satellites is limited in terms of being able to continuously stream DFDR data – even Inmarsat’s advanced I-4. “The I-4 uses the L-Band spectrum, which has only a limited megahertz capability,” says Chris McLaughlin, the company’s senior vice president for external affairs.

Right now, streaming data is confined to information derived from ACARS (the aircraft communications addressing and reporting system), such as engine operations. It doesn’t transmit critical information from the DFDR.

ACARS information is delivered in bursts. McLaughlin says: “You only get to the level of being able to constantly stream when you get to [Inmarsat’s new] Global Xpress” satellite, which is set to debut in 2015.

Many experts believe that the technological foundation has been laid for the streaming of potentially life-saving information. “Clearly, the data points from the digital flight data recorder shouldn’t be too difficult to stream,” says Rosenker.

But the cockpit voice recorder may be another matter. There are privacy issues, specifically concerning pilots. Rosenker thinks they can be addressed. “We don’t have to re-invent the wheel” as to privacy law. Nor do you have to transmit all the data. Some DFDRs can record 256 parameters, giving aircraft accident investigators a fine-grain, contextuallytextured picture of just what happened to an accident aircraft.

In a streaming scenario, Rosenker says “we might be looking at 15 to 20 parameters. Basic stuff, essential information, enough to work with til the black boxes themselves are retrieved. ” Rosenker is not advocating the whole civilian airline fleet be fitted with the capability. “I’m not suggesting that every single aircraft in the world have this kind of capability. This would be for long-hauls, [where] most of their routes are going over ocean. That’s where we’re having our problems, finding aircraft when they fall into the ocean. ” Trade groups representing the airlines are cautious about proceeding full force down the path to DFDR data streaming. “Modern aircraft systems record a vast amount of information,” says Perry Flint, the International Air Transport Association’s head of corporate communications for the Americas.

“It would be possible to select a subset of the data and program the systems to transmit the data either continuously or repeatedly in bursts… given the fact that there are almost 100,000 flight sectors flown in a day, we’re talking about an enormous amount of data. ” Asserting that all that information makes it tough to ferret out “critical information or trends,” Flint nonetheless holds open the door that industry players could work together to define a “useful subset” of data and criteria that could trigger transmission of the most essential DFDR information.

In the wake of MH370, Katie Connell, Airlines for America’s managing director for airline industry PR and communications, says, “It’s premature for us to speculate about potential changes to safety and security procedures. ” That is a prescient point, given that early in the mystery huge attention was focused on two passenger passports that turned out to be stolen.

Interpol was able to confirm very early that at least two passports – Austrian and Italian – were recorded in its Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database and were used by passengers on board themissing flight.

The Austrian and Italian passports were added to Interpol’s SLTD database after their theft in Thailand in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

However, disturbingly Interpol said that “no checks of the stolen Austrian and Italian passports were made by any country between the time they were entered into Interpol’s database and the departure of flight MH370. ” At the time of the discovery Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said: “Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol’s databases. This is a situation we had hoped never to see. ” Noble added that for years it had asked “why should countries wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates. ” “Now, we have a real case where the world is speculating whether the stolen passport holders were terrorists, while Interpol is asking why only a handful of countries worldwide are taking care to make sure that persons possessing stolen passports are not boarding international flights. ” Last year over one billion passengers were able to board aircraft without having their passports screened against Interpol databases.

As far back as 2002 following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, Interpol created its SLTD database to help countries secure their borders and protect their citizens from terrorists and other dangerous criminals known to use fraudulent travel documents. Since then Interpol says its database has grown from a few thousand passports and searches to more than 40 million entries and more than 800 million searches per year, averaging 60,000 hits.

According to Interpol, in 2013 the US searched the database more than 238 million times, the UK more than 140 million times and the UAE more than 104 million times.

Unfortunately, few member countries systematically search Interpol’s databases to determine whether a passenger is using a stolen or lost travel document to board an aircraft.

Interpol confirmed that neither Malaysia Airlines – nor Malaysia – checked the passport details of prospective passengers against the Interpol database.

While the role of the passengers with fake passports appears at press time to be that of just illegal asylum seekers they cannot be discounted as being a factor in the disappearance.

Noble added that “for the sake of innocent passengers who go through invasive security measures prior to boarding flights in order to get to their destination safely, I sincerely hope that governments and airlines worldwide will learn from the tragedy of missing flight MH370 and begin to screen all passengers’ passports prior to allowing them to board flights. Doing so will indeed take us a step closer to ensuring safer travel. ” In any case, the revelation has left the airline industry and regulators pondering the gravity of stolen passports.

Just as, five years after Air France Flight 447 people like Rosenker are renewing the call for a higher-tech, real-time way of delivering digital flight data recorder information.

“[MH370] may well be the seminal accident,” in this regard, “the one that attracts the concern of both policy-makers and industry,” Rosenker observes.

The one that says, “enough is enough. ”