Calgary-based Flyht Aerospace Solutions has developed an Automated Flight Information Reporting System (AFIRS) that can be configured to live stream flight data — the same critical information stored in black boxes — to the ground. Photo: Flyht Aerospace Solutions Ltd. A string of aviation tragedies is igniting calls for airlines to adopt technology that can send a plane’s flight data — the critical information stored in black boxes — from the air to the ground in real time.
One Canadian maker of the technology, Calgary-based Flyht Aerospace Solutions, is in the midst of installing live-streaming software in the entire fleet of aircraft for First Air, which flies in Canada’s remote northern regions. But so far, larger carriers have been reticent to jump on board.
Experts say the Malaysia Airline MH370 disaster could have been a very different story if such technology was in place.
“The lay person will say, ‘What can we do with our cellphones? We can track each other. Why can’t we do the same with an aircraft?’ ” said University of Toronto engineering professor Doug Perovic. “The answer is, ‘Yeah, you can do the same.’ ”
Black boxes contain cockpit voice recordings and flight data information — such as the plane’s speed, altitude and location, various sensor readings and positions of flaps — which are vital in helping crash investigators reconstruct what happened.
Calgary-based Flyht Aerospace Solutions has developed an Automated Flight Information Reporting System (AFIRS) that can be configured to live stream flight data — the same critical information stored in black boxes — to the ground.
But as history has shown, locator beacons can’t always be relied upon to recover black boxes when planes crash into the water. It took two years to recover the black boxes of Air France Flight 447 after it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. Investigators have yet to locate the black boxes of Flight MH370, which disappeared in March while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
These incidents have spurred calls for the aviation industry to adopt devices that can transmit black box data up to satellites and then to the ground in real time. The devices can be programmed to automatically begin live-streaming data when an anomaly occurs, such as the failure of an engine or loss of pressure in the cabin.
In-flight data streaming can also be activated manually by pilots or by airline staff on the ground.
Personnel on the ground can quickly evaluate the streamed data and provide support to the plane’s crew or initiate search-and-rescue operations if a crash is inevitable.
Live-streaming technology “looks increasingly necessary,” said an editorial in the trade publication Aviation Week in April, noting that “the equipment for alerting and streaming exists today.”
But at a time when the airline industry is reporting a 2.4 per cent net profit margin — which equates to less than $6 per seat — carriers have been slow to adopt the technology.
Flyht Aerospace Solutions’ Automated Flight Information Reporting System costs about $100,000 to install.
According to Flyht president Matt Bradley, it costs about $100,000 to install his company’s Automated Flight Information Reporting System (AFIRS), and $100 per month per aircraft for use of the service. When the live-streaming is activated, it costs $10 per minute.
That means it would have cost Malaysia Airlines about $4,200 to stream data from MH370 during the seven hours it is believed to have been airborne after losing contact, Flyht officials say.
There are signs that the industry is paying more attention to the issue. In the wake of the MH370 disaster, the International Air Transport Association, which represents over 80 per cent of the world’s carriers, convened a task force to examine options for real-time tracking of aircraft. Draft recommendations are expected by September, said association spokeswoman Mona Aubin.
While real-time data collection has benefits, it also has inherent risks, Aubin said via email. “For the airline industry, those risks include considerations related to data management — who owns it? Who distributes it?” she said. “There’s also the issue of developing a rational business case for the more than 100,000 flights that occur every day that would support real-time data streaming when much of the information about the large majority of those flights is already known from surveillance and other (air traffic management) data.”
Experts, however, point out that airlines can program devices to stream only certain types of flight data.
Dquan@Postmedia.com
No comments:
Post a Comment