Leafing through an old copy of New Scientist I came upon this wonderful
idea in the letters to the editor column. It's so simple and elegant in
hindsight - I found myself wishing that I had thought of it.
To give it its due, here's the entire letter sent by Gerry Nolan of Sydney, Australia to New Scientist. (Printed in 16th September 2009 issue.)
"Questions
on the safety of modern aircraft raised in your report on the loss of
an airliner in the mid-Atlantic on 1 June may never be answered if the
plane's "black box" flight recorders cannot be found (13 June, p 19).
The drawback of the current system of on-board black boxes is that they
may often not be found, so valuable information as to the causes of
accidents is lost.
Other reports of the incident
mentioned that before the crash some of the plane's flight data was
sent by satellite. This made me wonder why all flight data can't be
sent by satellite for every flight. This data could then be recovered
from a "virtual" black box, regardless of the physical inaccessibility
of the crash site.
The
Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) that
was used to send data from the doomed aircraft allows only limited data
to be transmitted. But why not combine satellite communication with the
internet to record a much greater range of data? Once the transmission
has been received at an internet node, of which there are thousands, it
immediately becomes available worldwide.
The
technology for this already exists. There are well-established
standards for digitised transmission, and encrypted transmission is
used for many internet communications. If the data were continuously
transmitted and recorded on the ground, the crash investigators would
have instant access to it, and would no longer have to wait for the
physical black box to be found - if indeed it ever is.
Automatic
warnings and alarms could also be added at both ends. What's more, the
exact location of the aircraft would be known, allowing rescue missions
to get under way without delay. For the overwhelming majority of
flights that are completed safely, the recording could be automatically
wiped when the plane lands."
A couple
of points I'd like to add here. The use of a virtual black box
shouldn't always preclude the continued use of on-board black boxes. In
the case of loss of contact preceding a crash, the on-board black box,
if found, can reveal important additional clues as to what went wrong.
It already does that now, but what Gerry's brilliant idea suggests is
that the black box also be continuously backed up using the internet.
Secondly,
while Gerry suggests that flight data of successful flights be wiped
after the plane lands, I find myself believing that storing the data
for a few more flights - possibly with a window of a few weeks - should
instead be stipulated. In the case an aircraft is lost, one can analyse
not just data about its current flight but also see if anything
suspicious cropped up earlier - and if no action was taken by the
airline/operator. (Current black boxes record data for anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours, overwriting earlier data as they go along.)
Simple
and feasible as the idea is, I doubt though that the airlines would be
in a hurry to embrace something like this. As an economist would put
it, there are misaligned incentives at work here. The airline business
isn't flying high at the moment and any expense adding to the possible
safety of flying is just that - an expense with no one to pass on the
bill to.
They find it worth their while to try and sell us on-flight internet access so we can update our facebook pages instead. 
[Original pic by Telstar Logistics]
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