The painful search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 could have been shortened as a result of recommendations stemming from another tragedy five years ago. The point is debatable. What’s not as debatable is that if recommendations from the June 1, 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 had been fully implemented chances are by now that we would have a better picture of what the mechanics of the Malaysian mystery are – even absent finding of the Digital Flight Data (DFDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVR).
In the case of Air France 447, in which all 228 souls on board died, from the time the debris was spotted in the South Atlantic till the locating of the critical Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder consumed an agonizing 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, LLC, he says, “We may never know what happened to [the 777-200]…That’s absolutely unacceptable with the quality of airplanes 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.”
That’s why 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 airplanes performing public transport flights over maritime areas.”
Both the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency are moving to triple the life of ULB transmissions. In a prepared statement, FAA says, “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 TSO. FAA goes on to say, “30-day ULDs cannot be manufactured under the TSO program after February 28, 2015. All 30-day devices must be replaced with 90-day devices by 2020.”
The net effect? Things are getting better, but it’s going to take a while.
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 airplane. It would also float. Attached to an emergency locator beacon, this could give searchers a better shot at actually getting to the so-called “black boxes,” rather than having to plumb the oft-times daunting depths of the sea floor.
But the recommendation that’s received the most buzz, the one which can be technologically implemented if not exactly instantly then in the near future, is BEA’s call to “study the possibility of making it mandatory for airplanes 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 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. In a written statement, FLYHT says, “AFIRS is normally installed on aircraft to support communication and operations during routine operations.” While not fitted on flying machines solely for emergency uses, the company claims 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’s statement goes on to maintain were MH370 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? US$100,000 per airplane.
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 Digital Flight Data Recorder.
ACARS information is delivered in bursts. McLaughlin says, “You only get to the level of being able to constantly stream when you get to [Boeing’s new] Global Xpress” satellite, which is set to debut in 2015.
Here’s the point: a lot of knowledgeable people believe 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 former NTSB chief Mark 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, contextually-textured picture of just what happened to an accident aircraft. In a streaming scenario, Rosenker says “we might me looking at 15 to 20 [parameters].” Basic stuff, essential information, enough to work with till the black boxes themselves are retrieved.
He says, “Accident investigators would sit in conference and try to come up with what they believe to be best…recognizing that they would be limited” as to what could be streamed from the DFDR.
Rosenker is not advocating the whole civilian airline fleet be fitted with the gear. “I’m not suggesting that every single airplane 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.”
With the globalization of the world’s economy, over-ocean flying is growing fast, much faster than, say, domestic flying in countries such as the United States.
Industry Reaction
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. While saying “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 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 wide 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.”
How Many Times Does This Have To Happen?
Airline accidents are rarely one-of-a-kind occurrences. There’s almost always a precedent as to what might lie ahead. The theory is that lessons learned will be translated into action taken – even if it takes a while. Take wind shear accidents. Between 1975 and 1985 there were three high-profile accidents triggered by vicious, divergent winds. Two happened on landing, one on take off:
– June 24, 1975. Eastern Airlines Flight 66 hits a microburst on approach to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. 113 perish.
– July 9, 1982, Pan Am Flight 759 is done in by a microburst on takeoff from New Orleans International. 153 dead.
– August 2, 1985, Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashes short of the runway at Dallas/Fort Worth International. 137 people die.
Delta 191 was the tipping point. Ten years and 403 deaths later the industry finally moved to take concerted action, developing and deploying ground-based Terminal Doppler Radar systems near a slew of major airports. Airborne wind shear detectors were also mandated for many aircraft.
Now, five years after Air France Flight 447 people like Mark Rosenker are renewing the call for a higher-tech, real-time way of delivering potentially life-saving Digital Flight Data Recorder information. He says, “[MH370] may well be the seminal accident,” in this regard, “the one that attracts the concern of both policy-makers and industry.”
The one that says, ‘enough is enough.’
