New aircraft tracking system to be trialled almost a year after Malaysia Airlines MH370 disappearance

ALMOST a year on from the bizarre disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, authorities will trial a new system of tracking aircraft over remote oceans.

Credit AP The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER that disappeared from air traffic control screens Saturday, taking off from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France. Photo: AP

AUTHORITIES will trial a “world first” system with Malaysia and Indonesia that increases the tracking of aircraft over remote oceans, allowing authorities to quickly react to abnormal situations such as the disappearance of MH370.

It raises the minimum tracking rate for planes flying over remote oceans to 15 minutes from current intervals of 30 to 40 minutes.

The technology “can increase real time monitoring should an abnormal situation arise,” Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said.

No trace ... an extensive air and sea search has failed to find any trace of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 aircraft.

“In a world first, all three countries will trial a new method of tracking aircraft through the skies over remote oceanic areas,” Truss told reporters.

“Now this initiative adapts existing technology used by more than 90 per cent of long-haul passenger aircraft and would see air traffic control able to respond more rapidly should an aircraft experience difficulty or deviation from its flight plan.”

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The announcement came ahead almost a year after Malaysian Airlines MH370 went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board last March.

A massive air and underwater search has so far failed to find any evidence of the plane.

While the system was “not a silver bullet”, it would help to improve current methods of tracking ahead of other solutions being developed, Airservices Australia chairman Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said.

Mammoth effort ... Australia is part of the search for MH370, headed by program director Peter Foley.

If an aircraft deviates more than 200 feet from its assigned level or two nautical miles from its expected track, the system would automatically monitor the jet more closely, such as every five minutes or almost continuously, he added.

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“This is a big step forward. It’s not just changing things, it’s going to make, I think, the monitoring of aircraft over these oceanic areas much more effective,” the head of the air traffic control body said.

“We will have a datum close to where the aircraft ran into trouble, which is in marked contrast to MH370 where the last known position was in the Malacca Straits.”

Tracking improvements ... an aircraft that strays from its course over remote oceans will automatically be monitored more closely, as part of a new system being trialled by Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia. Picture: AP

The trial, using automatic dependent surveillance contract (ADSC) technology, will commence at the air traffic services centre in the eastern city of Brisbane before being extended to Melbourne in the country’s south and to Indonesia and Malaysia.

Long-haul jets that use the existing technology include wide-bodied planes such as Boeing’s 380, 777, 330, 340 and 350 models, Truss said.