Airlines to try plane-tracking technology as MH370 anniversary approaches

Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia will lead a trial to enhance the tracking of aircraft over remote oceans, allowing planes to be more easily found should they vanish like Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Australia’s transport minister said early Sunday. Airservices Australia, a government agency that manages the country’s airspace, will work with its Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts to test the new method, which would enable planes to be tracked every 15 minutes, rather than the previous rate of 30 to 40 minutes, Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss said.

This is not a silver bullet. But it is an important step in delivering immediate improvements to the way we currently track aircraft while more comprehensive solutions are developed.

Airservices Australia chairman Angus Houston

The trial is expected to use satellite-based positioning technology already on board 90 percent of long-haul aircraft that transmits the plane’s current position and its next two planned positions, said Houston. It would also boost the frequency in which planes would automatically report their position, allowing air traffic controllers to better track them, she said. The announcement comes one week ahead of the anniversary of the disappearance of Flight 370, which vanished last year on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

World MH370