Preamble:
OVER the years since the dawn of 21st century, technologies have been seen as succour over several ailments of human beings, so it was heart-warming that several technologies have been deployed in search of the Malaysian missing plane, MH 370 penultimate Saturday.
However, DigitalSENSE Business News gathers that the world body of Airlines under the auspices of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association of airlines with over 240 members, comprising some 84per cent of the total air traffic; is working towards ensuring that high technologies are used in finding clues to the missing MH 370 plane.
WiFi to the rescue:
According to former Director-General and chief executive officer (CEO) of IATA, Giovanni Bisignani, said this is possible, especially with the avalanche of Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) all over the place, maintaining that he discussed this kind of technology some 10 years ago in 2002 at a high-level meeting of IATA, as reported by CNN.
Although he noted that at that time, it was assumed a very expense technology, but with what is happening now and availability of lots of wireless services, it has become imperative and moreso possible to deploy same technology to assist the aviation industry and humanity as a whole.
For the current DG and CEO of IATA Mr. Tony Tyler, the technology was being developed but did not give further information, stressing that they at IATA are putting all their efforts to ensure this kind of technology is off the ground in a very short time.
Ops conference:
Unfortunately, the missing plane saga is coming at a time when the leaders of IATA members met in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at the 2014 ‘Ops Conference’ which is IATA’s main vehicle to interact with its member airlines, regulatory agencies, and the aviation industry generally on all issues related to safety, operations and infrastructure.
The conference which took place between March 31 and April 2 this year, had a strong operational safety and regional capacity emphasis under the theme: Safety and Flight Operations – Today’s Issues and Tomorrow’s Challenges.
Some of the speakers led by IATA’s Director General and CEO, Tony Tyler featured Andrew Herdman, Director General of the Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines (AAPA), Jeff Poole, Director General of the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), Angela Gittens, Director General of Airports Council International (ACI) and Nancy Graham, Director of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Air Navigation Bureau.
Addressing participants, Tyler said that he was concerned about the safety of the aviation industry and making things safer. He, therefore, called on governments and industry to focus on partnerships, data analysis and runway safety in the ongoing quest to make flying even safer.
Tyler’s call came amid the ongoing search for MH370 and committed IATA to facilitate a unified industry position on global tracking of aircraft and called on governments to make more effective use of passenger data.
2.4m life lost in air accidents in 5 years:
“In 2013, there were over 29 million flights operated on Western-built jet aircraft, with 12 hull losses. That is one accident for every 2.4 million flights and a 14.6 per cent improvement on the five-year industry average. Accidents are rare, but the current search for MH370 is a reminder that we can never be complacent on safety. It may well take a long time before we know exactly what happened on that flight. But it is already clear that we must never let another aircraft go missing in this way. And it is equally clear that governments must make better use of the passenger data that they mandate airlines to provide,” said Tyler.
Partnerships, he said, are driving progress in safety, noting that about 100,000 flights are operated safely each day; pointing out that every flight that takes off involves thousands of coordinated actions across multiple businesses and organizations, insisting that to keep flying safe, “we need not only to understand and work with each other every day. We must also compare notes, collaborate and work together to build the future with a common vision,” said Tyler.
Leave competition out of safety
Equally, he said, no matter how hard the competition has become within an industry sector or how differently individual entities see the world when it comes to thorny commercial issues, “we are an industry that is absolutely unified in its dedication to global standards and safety.”
“That has allowed us to evolve a tradition of transparently sharing information, experiences and best practices to make flying ever safer,” he said.
Effective data analysis, he said, is a driver of safety improvements, adding that historically, the major thrusts for safety improvements have come through the well-established system of air accident investigations, maintaining that accident investigation will continue to play a key role in safety, but with fewer accidents, it becomes increasingly difficult to produce trend data which is so important to managing safety.
“By unlocking data from the millions of flights that land safely each year, we can get insights to drive safety improvements even further. This is just one example of the potential for data to underpin safety programs. The way forward is to collect data from as many information sources as possible, complemented with the well-developed analytical tools to unlock critical information,” said Tyler.
GADM makes a debut
IATA, he notes, has established the Global Aviation Data Management (GADM) project which includes data from over 600 sources, making it the most comprehensive collection of industry information, including the STEADES database, audit data from the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations and the IATA Operational Safety Audit. There are also contributions from many others, including the European Aviation Safety Authority, the US Federal Aviation Administration, and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
“Together, industry and regulators are on the cusp of a great step forward in how we manage safety. We have talked about GADM for years. Now, it is becoming a reality. We need as many stakeholders as possible to contribute their data. An increase in the number of users of the data will transform GADM from insight to real safety improvements,” said Tyler.
Runway Safety
Information analysis is driving change in the area of runway safety. Previously, the focus was narrowed on runway excursions. By broadening the discussion to runway safety, we now are looking at the whole runway environment—a perspective that includes air traffic management as well as the airport and airline.
“About a quarter of all accidents over the last five years were runway excursions. But when we take a broader look at the issue, about half of all accidents in the same five-year period are actually in the runway environment. Therefore, it makes sense to understand not only what happened when the aircraft landed, together with data from the air navigation service provider for the conditions of the landing, but also the airport data for the conditions around that runway” said Tyler.
The latest version of the runway risk reduction toolkit was launched in late 2013 featuring this broader perspective.
MH370
According to Tyler, speculations would not make flying any safer, warning that industry experts should not jump to any conclusions on probable cause before the investigation into MH370 closes. Therefore, he revealed that at least two areas of process needed to be considered in achieving this, namely the aircraft tracking and passenger data; where there are clearly challenges that needed to be overcome.
Aircraft Tracking
MH370, IATA boss said, has highlighted the need to improve tracking of aircraft in flight, especially in a world where every move seems to be tracked, there is disbelief both that an aircraft could simply disappear and that the flight data and cockpit voice recorders are so difficult to recover. Air France 447 brought similar issues to light a few years ago and some progress was made. But that must be accelerated. “We cannot let another aircraft simply vanish,” he declared.
Tyler emphasised that in eagerness to move this along, industry players must also ensure that prudent decisions are made in line with global standards, stressing that this is not the time for hastily prepared sales pitches or regional solutions.
“The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) process is the way to move this forward. I have no doubt that governments are eager to come to a conclusion and take action as soon as possible,” said Tyler, insisting “Industry must--and will--play a role in supporting ICAO in this effort with a united position. IATA will convene an expert task force that will include ICAO participation to ensure that the work is well coordinated. This group will examine all of the options available for tracking commercial aircraft against the parameters of implementation, investment, time and complexity to achieve the desired coverage. This group will report its conclusions by December 2014, reflecting the need for urgent action and careful analysis.”
Passenger Data
Tyler further emphasised that it’s important to remember that airlines are not borderguards or policemen. The checking of passports is the well-established responsibility of governments. The industry goes to great effort and expense to ensure that governments have reliable information about passengers before an aircraft takes off, mostly via the Advance Passenger Information (API). “Governments need to review their processes for vetting and using this data, such as Interpol’s stolen and lost passport database. This information is critical and it must be used effectively,” Tyler asserted.
Deploying high-tech solution for MH 370
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 said good night, then drifted off over the darkened seas, somehow bypassing that vast spiderweb of modern technology that catches every move of worldwide aviation. Yet now, high technology seems the only way of tracking down where on Earth the plane ended up.
Let’s presume the plane did go down in the Indian Ocean, thousands of feet deep with churning currents and treacherous weather. Here are some devices that might help searchers find signs of the plane.
TPL: Towed pinger locator
One of the most helpful devices planes carry is what’s known as the pinger, a “sound” transmitted from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder that can be heard from 2 nautical miles away.
MH370 flight pinger locator explained
“Think of your cell phone ringer. If you lose your cell phone you can call it and you hear your phone ringing, so you narrow down your search,” said Phoenix International manager Paul Nelson. Phoenix International, an American company, owns the TPL-25 system, which dives 20,000 feet below the surface of the ocean for hours and miles at a time.
The U.S. Navy has sent a towed pinger locator, or TPL, to drag behind a ship. The TPL moves at 1 to 5 knots and can recognize the flight recorder’s ping up to 20,000 feet below the surface. But it has limitations. The batteries powering the ping will only last 30 to 45 days, and can be drowned out by weather or noise or silt.
In 2009, the Phoenix TPL-25, in conjunction with technology from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, searched for a ping from Air France Flight 447, which crashed hundreds of miles off the coast of Brazil in 2009. That search didn’t find the plane, but two years later, searchers found the flight data recorder and the bulk of the wreckage using an autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV.
AUV: Autonomous underwater vehicles
AUVs are normally used in the oil and gas industry to conduct deepwater oilfield surveys. But when the pinger of the data recorder is dead, the AUV can narrow the search area of a crash site by mapping the ocean floor.
“The smaller ones are only going to go down to about 5,000 feet. The next class is much more expensive, much larger device. It’s 15 by 25 feet because it adds a lot of battery capability and a lot of hydraulic capability,” said David Soucie, an analyst who said modern technology has greatly improved the search for answers in a flight crash investigation.
One of the most sophisticated AUVs owned by Phoenix International was activated and flown to Perth, Australia, to help with the search for Flight 370. The device is yellow, 17.2 feet long and has an in-air weight of 1,600 pounds. It can be lowered 20,000 feet below the water surface and travels 2 to 4.5 knots for about 20 hours at a time, using side-scan sonar to create a map of the seafloor. The rapidly moving probe is also equipped with a still camera.
“They have their own control system, so they talk to it with an acoustic modem. It’s hard to get sound through the water,” said Jami Cheramie of C&C Technology, whose AUV has been called in to search for plane debris in the past. “We will see waterfalls. A picture will scroll and you will see the seafloor be painted in front of you.”
AUVs are unmanned, so they can be programmed like robots to “mow the lawn,” Cheramie said. They use a grid style pattern to create an image of the deep sea. Sensors around the body of the device help it avoid obstacles that would endanger a diver.
AUVs played an instrumental role in finding the downed Air France flight, the plane wreckage of Italian fashion designer Vittorio Missoni off the coast of Venezuela, and the HMS Ark Royal, a ship sunk by a German U-81 submarine in World War II. The AUV provided black and white images of the wreckage site.
ROV: Remotely operating vehicle
The multimillion-dollar remotely operated vehicle provides the “gotcha” moment that all searches are working toward. But investigators need more than just eyes on the wreckage site, they need to get their hands on the data recorders. An ROV helped retrieve pieces of the most famous shipwreck in history, the British passenger liner Titanic.
ROVs are tethered to a ship, lowered by remote control thousands of feet to the ocean floor by a cable and maneuvered by pilots sitting in a control room. The daily rate for an ROV is in the $150,000 range.
Helix Canyon Offshore gave CNN an exclusive look at its Triton XLS ROV aboard the Olympic Triton off the coast of Scotland. The Triton XLS is equipped with cameras that provide a live feed to the control room. It has arms and jaws that can be controlled by a joystick.
“Not a problem at all for an ROV to pick it up, put it in a basket and recover it back to the vessel,” said ROV superintendent Martin Stitt.
•Ayo Omidele and Nenye Dom with additional report courtesy of CNN
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