With last year's disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines flight, the international community has proposed steps to better monitor and track planes using existing technologies and improve flight data recovery, but some stakeholders have expressed concerns about the impacts to cost and safety, congressional investigators observed in a new report.

The Government Accountability Office did not make any recommendation in its April 16 report (pdf) to the Federal Aviation Administration or National Transportation Safety Board given the international efforts underway. But the report, which was publicly released May 18, said that FAA should ensure that any international standard for aircraft tracking and flight data recovery is consistent with a performance-based approach and implemented uniformly and cooperatively across the world.

The GAO report basically provided a rundown of international initiatives different entities have proposed and their assorted challenges.

Following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean, among other recent accidents, an industry task force called on airlines to provide "automatic position reporting" every 15 minutes or more frequently when triggers like an unusual change in altitude occur, GAO said.

Stakeholders said that existing technologies can meet this standard since many domestic aircraft have such equipment, but some organizations may require additional ground infrastructure. However, GAO added that some airlines may face costs to equip aircraft now, although, in the longer term, satellite-based surveillance could provide such global aircraft tracking.

Additionally, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency, has proposed a long-term framework to track aircraft and locate survivors in case of emergencies. That framework includes a proposal for the development of an autonomous distress tracking system that would operate apart from a regular aircraft tracking system.

"This system could be automatically triggered by unusual [altitude], speed or acceleration, failure of the regular aircraft tracking system or surveillance avionics, or a complete loss of engine power," the GAO report said. "In addition, the system would operate independently of aircraft power or other systems, and be tamper-proof."

Regarding flight data recovery, GAO said that low-cost savings are planned to improve the battery life, from 30 to 90 days, of underwater locator beacons, which transmit a ping to help locate flight records.

There are also proposals to develop recorders that would separate automatically before a crash and float, but GAO said some stakeholders have raised issues over safety testing and the high costs to equip aircraft since oceanic accidents are rare. Another proposal is automatic data transmission during emergencies, but some questioned whether that's feasible and raised concerns over data protection.

GAO pointed out that stakeholders have expressed concerns that international standards may be prescriptive. Instead, they prefer a more performance-based approach that calls for a voluntary adoption of such initiatives. The report said such an approach provides industry with flexibility especially since technology rapidly changes.

"Additionally, the safety record in the National Airspace System may make it difficult to demonstrate that the benefits of new equipage on U.S. airlines outweigh the costs as part of a regulatory analysis," the report added.

For more:
- read the GAO report on aircraft tracking and data recovery (pdf)

http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/international-efforts-underway-improve-aircraft-tracking-flight-data-recove/2015-05-19