Headlines: How Not to Lose an Airplane in Flight?

April 5, 2014 – Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 would not have been lost if the International Air Transport Association (IATA) recommendations that came out of the report into the crash of Air France 447 over the South Atlantic in 2009 had been adopted.

What were some of those recommendations? The ones most relevant to the current airplane’s disappearance include automatic detection technology for use in flights over open water. These would be fail safe systems that could not be disabled by a crew member or passenger while in flight and include continuous data transmission of position, altitude, speed and heading flight parameters. And in the event of the airplane’s automatic systems detecting an imminent crash, ejection technology would be able to release the flight recorders, those all important black boxes that are frantically being sought to help explain what happened to MH370.

The IATA represents 240 airlines and 84% of global air traffic, so you would think that members would have learned from the Air France disaster. But hindsight is 20/20.

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• Global Airlines Call For Better Tracking Method After Flight 370