Loss of plane shows lessons were ignored

Indonesia's air force searched the waters of Karimata Strait. Photo / AP

Calls for live tracking were made after Malaysia Airlines mystery.

The airliner was somewhere in water. The search area was widened because surveillance planes could not see tiny fragments of wreckage in choppy waters. And families, once again, did not know how or why their loved ones died.

The events of the past few days in Southeast Asia appeared familiar. Before the finding of debris and bodies last night, the crash of AirAsia flight QZ8501 had taken on the haunting dimensions of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March.

However, both losses took place in very different circumstances. The fate of MH370 remains shrouded in mystery, with general acceptance that the transponder was deliberately switched off to avoid detection, at a point where the jet was out of contact with air-traffic controllers. The AirAsia flight was flying normally above a relatively narrow area of sea, in a region busy with other aircraft. Investigators are not exploring the possibility that the loss was deliberate.

Nevertheless, anger is growing that lessons from MH370 have not been implemented by the aviation community. Some observers believe real-time flight tracking, where the position of each aircraft can be continuously monitored, should have become mandatory after the loss of Air France flight AF447 five years ago.

Technology allowing airlines to track their aircraft is widely available. A Canadian company, Flyht, sells a system that should have enabled rescuers to pinpoint QZ8501.

If an aircraft encounters an emergency, the Automated Flight Information Reporting System streams cockpit voice recordings and flight data to receiving stations in real time. The information, equivalent to that recorded by the plane's "black box", would help investigators understand what caused the loss of the aircraft and where it is likely to be found.

The equipment has been certified for use on the Airbus A320, but is not fitted to AirAsia aircraft.

In May, the UN International Telecommunications Union's secretary-general, Hamadoun Toure, said: "We must make every effort at the international level to develop real-time tracking solutions."
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Flight QZ8501
155
passengers, including 16 children and one infant
7
crew, including two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer
A320-200
Airbus, made in 2008
13,600
Journeys
23,000
Hours in the air
32630sq km
Search area
46m
Mean depth of Java Sea
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But the UN agency responsible for passenger flights, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), has not issued any instructions to airlines to install the equipment.

Scott Anderson, an analyst for the aviation website Leeham News and Comment, said: "It's time for the ICAO to make a decision, and if it doesn't then individual country regulators need to step up and require real-time tracking ... recovering wreckage and the black boxes in a timely manner could lead to safety and operational changes that will save lives in future."

Some experts have speculated that the Airbus was flying too slowly for its altitude, but without data from the black box there can be no certainty.

Attention is focusing on the pilots and whether they may have responded inappropriately to stormy weather. As with AF447, which was bound for Paris from Rio, the AirAsia jet was flying through an equatorial area. The sun's energy creates thunderstorms that can endanger aircraft. The pilots requested a change of direction and height shortly before the jet disappeared from radar. The increase in altitude was refused by controllers because of the presence of other traffic.

- Independent

Safe year for flying - if you don't count shot-down MH17

Despite the huge loss of life in a succession of disasters including Malaysia Airlines MH370, MH17 and, it is believed, AirAsia QZ8501, it has still been a "very safe" year for flying.

Paul Hayes, director of safety at global aviation consultancy Ascend, told the Wall Street Journal that accident rates continue decreasing as more people take to the air.

"It will probably come as a surprise to most people, but really it was a very safe year. "

According to the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents archives, there have been a total of 111 crashes with 1320 people killed - the worst being the downing of MH17 in July, when 298 people died. That number covers all aircraft and incidents, including private and military planes.

The civilian carrier number is far smaller. The Aviation Safety Network has 526 deaths (excluding QZ8501) in 19 accidents, below the decade's average of 676 a year in 32 accidents.

MH17 was excluded because it is believed to have been shot down.

In 1972, 2370 people died, says the ASN, which has recorded fatalities since commercial aviation began in the 1940s.

- Independent