It’s been almost a year since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared off radar screen and vanished without a trace. And it took three days of searching for the debris field of AirAsia’s Airbus to be found in the Java Sea when it disappeared en route to Singapore in December.
The lessons from these twin crashes remind us that there are still elements of air travel that remain less than fully covered despite how commonplace and everyday flying has become. That aircraft can vanish for days — or in the case of MH370 for a year now — is certainly unsettling. Technology does exist for real-time monitoring of all aircraft. At present, planes merely check in with radar pings at points along a given path. When those planes don’t ping, then the search is on as the planes are presumed missing.
Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia are jointly testing the real-time monitoring technology. But there must be no delay in introducing the technology across all civilian aircraft. Its installation must be mandatory and part of annual air-worthiness certification. Nothing less will do in the light of the MH370 and AirAsia tragedies.
