Beyond Radar's Edge, Planes On Their Own

Radio Communications Only Way Of Tracking Most Ocean Flights, Like Air France Flight 447

(CBS)  When Air France Flight 447 went missing earlier this week, it left a search area the size of the continental United States. That's because the plane, like most others flying over the ocean, was outside the radar system tracking flights around the world.

Most passengers don't realize planes leave radar range about 150 miles offshore, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

That means there are enormous swaths of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans where the crew is essentially on its own.

"Over an ocean there's no surveillance other than by reports from the pilots on where they are," said Robert Francis, a former National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman.

Pilots are required to radio in periodically to let controllers know when they pass navigational waypoints.

"And based on those reports the controller makes sure there is an adequate amount of time between each flight," said Bill Voss of the Flight Safety Foundation.

But if a pilot gets off course, there's no one watching to tell him.

That's what happened in 1987 when a Delta jet strayed within 30 feet of a Continental jet over the North Atlantic.

An aviation system based on satellite GPS rather than radar would enable controllers to track planes anywhere but Voss said "in lots of areas of the world there just isn't enough traffic to justify the expense of the technology when the old way still continues to work."

There is an oceanic initiative going on to create satellite tracking systems that would "essentially to cover the earth with better communications," Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, told CBS' The Early Show. But those are only present in New York, California and Alaska.

Most of the current technology is still "pretty much like World War II, and that can be a problem, obviously, when you're looking for debris," said Schiavo.

The difficulty of ocean searches also raises questions about how flight data is collected and stored. Currently, accident investigators rely on planes' so-called "black boxes" to reveal information about pilot error or mechanical malfunction. But in some instances, possibly including Flight 447, those data recorders cannot be recovered.

But it's possible, according to Schiavo, for planes to dowload that data directly to servers on the ground, making the physical black boxes unnecessary.

"That's been a big issue. The technology is now there that that can occur. You can download the information, just as this plane did."

One possible sticking point is pilots' concerns over privacy.

"Do the pilots really want airlines to be able to track what they're doing second by second? I think after an accident like this it's time to revisit it. But the technology has arrived."

[andylance1]

Reports of a bomb threat made days before the crash have made things even more menacing. The bomb threat was allegedly made against another Air France plane days before Flight 447 took off, but the bomb threat could establish an intent to strike against one of their planes.

With no other concrete answers coming along in crash updates, the bomb threat theory will gain traction. If we have the technology for commercial airlines to be tracked over the ocean we should insist they install it as soon as possible. The same for downloading info from the black boxes. The terrorists look for vulnerable targets and Air France was easy to destroy.

[rrozsa]

Why can I never get the videos to play on the CBSNews website? The little video window turns black and I always get "Error on page" on the taskbar at the bottom of my browser. I can view videos on other sites. Anybody else have that problem?

[legacyabq]

keeping this plane in better contact would not have prevented an accident, it only would help finding the wreckage. Thats of no use to the dead.

Better to realize that even well-engineered planess cant survive every conceivable situation, like flying into a super-cell on the equator! Poor souls, I hope they didnt suffer.

[cyinzl8r]

Stop speculating on things you don't know about

[I_am_me1953]

by aeasus June 3, 2009 7:16 AM PDT

So an ICBM launched 200 miles offshore can't be tracked until it's within 15 minutes or less of the shore line?

_____________________________

That depends on where it was launched from. If it was launched from the North there are enough radars and other communications in Canada, Greenland, and Alaska for it to be detected much sooner.

When I fly from USA to China the plane usually takes a trip up North and skirts the Canada and Alaskan coast as well as Korea(s), Japan, etc. This provides two functions, one saves fuel by going a high around a smaller circumfrence, two helps avoid drag from the dominant jet stream over the Pacific Ocean, and three helps radar tracking (since they are usually within the 150 miles of the coast) and allows quicker location of the plane should something go wrong. There are plenty of tracking radars in the North.

I am guessing Central and South America(s) have many fewer radar systems.

[aeasus]

So an ICBM launched 200 miles offshore can't be tracked until it's within 15 minutes or less of the shore line?

reports that the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean may make it nearly impossible to ever find the plane
So the plane's ELT, ULB, and black boxes locator beacons aren't working?

[lilbear925]

This in an unfortunate situation, and another tragic 288 votes for equiping all long distance aircraft with GPS tracking equipment. It is such an easy thing to say it's too difficult to recover such an aircraft, but GPS coordinates would at least get the rescue searchers into the immediate area sooner, along with pinpointing the location of any wreckage. I know rescue at sea is bordering on impossible, but had the rescuers known exactly where the plane went down, a rescue could have already been enroute by the time they knew the plane went down.

[Jim1900]

I would think that when they automatically sent the maintenance information to Air France that identified the malfunctions, they would have sent the GPS data too. But apparently not. It is an obvious step to take even if they don't send all the data about everything happening on the plane.

[geminispyder-2009]

"One possible sticking point is pilots' concerns over privacy.
Do the pilots really want airlines to be able to track what they're doing second by second?"

Maybe not. But I'm pretty sure the passengers would want the airlines to track. Bottom line is, just like a passenger in a car, I would like to know how good/bad the person flying/driving me around is.