iridium satellites

Moving Past the Loss of MH370

January 17, 2017 by Robert Mark

Jetwhine

Moving Past the Loss of MH370

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There’s no small amount of irony in today’s announcement that the search for MH370 has officially been called off nearly three years after that Boeing 777 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lampur to Beijing and the accolades being shared at Aireon HQ in McLean Virginia over Saturday’s successful orbiting of 10 Iridium satellites needed to begin creating the first global aircraft tracking network.

The idea of knowing exactly where on earth the airplanes we purchase tickets on are actually located at any given point in time is a no-brainer conceptually. In fact, if you tell international travelers that while over the ocean or in remote areas of the planet, their airline has only the tiniest notion of their airplanes precise location, they’re shocked. The airlines essentially know where their aircraft should be, but as we’ve seen with the loss of MH370, the words “should” and “are” translate into two very different views of the aviation world.

So thank goodness for Aireon’s foresightedness back in 2011 to begin the effort to create the network that’s expected to be operational by summer 2018.

And no thank you at all to most of the airlines around the world that have not lifted one finger to improve the tracking of their airplanes since the loss of MH370. Sure there have been meetings and proclamations and opportunities through companies like Inmarsat and FLYHT, and certainly ICAO jumped in to the discussions, but not many airlines actually signed up to use any of the tracking technologies.

The reason was simple, money … the airlines couldn’t justify the cost to their shareholders. But let’s be patient and not forget that the poor airlines must make money to stay in business.

I guess some of traveling bumpkins are still naive enough though, to think that the airlines that are all too happy to grab our money, might also be thinking that looking after us a bit more when we’re their prisoner, sorry, I mean guest, might actually turn into a little value added service.

Rob Mark, Publisher

MH370 Two Years Later: Has the Industry Changed?

March 7, 2016 by Robert Mark

Malaysian Boeing 777

MH370 Two Years Later: Has the Industry Changed?

It’s anniversary time, but March 8 won’t be a happy day to reminisce.

Two years ago, Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 (MH370), a Boeing 777, disappeared from the night skies over the South China Sea on what should have been a routine flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. All 239 people aboard disappeared along with the airplane.

Only one confirmed piece of MH370 wreckage has been located, a section of the 777′ s flap that washed ashore near Reunion Island last year, some 4000 miles west of where an intensive search operation has been combing the ocean floor for nearly two years.

The theories about what happened to this airplane are as varied as the beer and wine probably consumed before most of those theories went public. Me, I have no idea what happened to the flight.

Lessons Learned?

What’s crucial for our industry however, is understanding what steps the airlines and regulators around the world have taken over the past two years, solutions to make international travelers sleep a bit easier after their next ticket purchase.

To the surprise of a couple of local Chicago WGN-TV anchors I spoke to last week, the simple answer to what’s changed since March 2014 is not much at all. Another airliner could go missing just like MH370 because although a few plans have been released, tracking the location of an airplane anywhere on the planet is no different today than when we lost MH370.

That doesn’t mean no one is trying to solve the problem of course.

A year after the Malaysian 777 disappeared, most member states of the United Nation’s aviation arm, the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO), agreed that air traffic control anywhere on the globe should be able to receive location updates from an airliner at least every 15 minutes and once a minute if the aircraft were in distress. They’ve also recommended new methods of recovering flight data recorders from downed aircraft. But recommendations shouldn’t be confused with solutions. Some of ICAO’s newest recommendations won’t take effect until 2021. [Read more…] about MH370 Two Years Later: Has the Industry Changed?

Lessons We’ve Already Learned from MH370

April 14, 2014 by Robert Mark

While it may seem to many of you as if the Malaysian Airlines 370 story has been going on forever, we’re really only into the opening scenes of this investigation. Remember it took two years to recover the data recorders from Air France 447.

Malaysian Boeing 777 — Lessons we’ve already learned from MH370

Even though everyone seems to believe we’re close to the area where MH370 hit the water, there still hasn’t been a single ounce of evidence recovered from the ocean’s surface in that area. I would have thought something would still be floating … suitcases, seat cushions, clothing … something.

Be that as it may, even if the boxes are found, they’re sitting on the ocean floor three miles beneath the surface which means the recovery effort is no small task.

The Chicago Tribune last week asked me to write an editorial putting what we know into context. It ran Friday and I focused on the fact that there are already plenty of good people leading the search efforts and the why behind most of this accident will come later. But I do think we have already learned quite a bit about where the airline industry needs to head in the next few years … if we can just convince the airlines of course.

During a radio interview on Friday, the host asked me about Plan B if these signals turn out not to be from MH370. Honestly, there is no plan B …

Because the Chicago Tribune website made it a bit difficult for many of you to read the story, I’ve pasted the text in here, as well as the direct link if you’d like to sign in there to read more. Do tell me what you think.

Rob Mark, Publisher [Read more…] about Lessons We’ve Already Learned from MH370