The $100,000 Device That Could Have Solved Missing Plane Mystery

First time accepted submitter evidencebase writes "How can an airliner simply disappear, leaving no clues? And why do we have to wait until the black boxes are found to learn what happened to Flight MH370? As this article explains, there's no good reason that flight data needs to go down with the plane, because the technology to stream it to ground, from the moment things start to go wrong, is already on the market. It can be fitted to a commercial airliner for less than $100,000. But the industry has decided that it's not worth the expense. Tell that the the families of passengers on Flight MH370."

Comments

Does it really cost $100k?

[jonwil]

Or does it cost $100k PLUS the cost of labor and maintanence to install the device PLUS the huge cost of taking the plane out of service for x amount of time while the device is being installed (even if its installed at the same time as other maintanence is done, its still a non-zero cost)

Re:Does it really cost $100k?

[gnupun]

Nevertheless, $100k is a lot of money. Would the passengers have been willing to pay more for the tickets so that their loved ones would have a slightly better idea where they crashed? Probably not.

No, $100k is not a lot of money. Consider just the fuel cost: 10 hours flying time by a Boeing 747 consumes 36,000 gallons of fuel. That's around $100k or more.

Re:Does it really cost $100k?

[amicusNYCL]

Ultimately let's assume they are looking around $14B initial investment plus $50M/year continuous cost.

Why are we assuming that? A Cessna 172 has a maximum takeoff weight of 2400 pounds, while cockpit voice recorders are required on aircraft with a MTOW of over 12,500 pounds (5700kg). Why are we assuming that this technology to supplement a black box is going to be required on aircraft where a black box is not currently required?

This is aside from my initial point of calling out the parent because he sounds like a black box manufacturing shill opposed to any technology that might some day replace a black box, using easily-fungible terms like "huge cost" followed up by, well, it's at least a non-zero cost.

This is also aside from the fact that a private aircraft owner does not lose anything when his aircraft is "out of service". He's not losing passenger dollars. If I open up my Cessna or Piper for maintenance it doesn't cost me anything other than the parts. In short, exclude aircraft with a MTOW of less than 5700kg from your calculation and it will be much more realistic. Figure out how many aircraft are currently flying around with black boxes and you'll at least be in the neighborhood.

Lat / Long?

[CohibaVancouver]

I can see how a constant stream of telemetry might be cost-prohibitive, but what about a squirt of data consisting of -

- Flight Number
- Lat / Long
- Airspeed
- Groundspeed
- Altitude
- Compass heeding

...sent every five minutes? At least that would give a 'last known' location.

It starts transmitting when something goes wrong

[innocent_white_lamb]

This $100,000 gadget doesn't do continuous data transmission. It starts transmitting when something goes wrong, and that's it.

If something does go wrong and there's time for this thing to start transmitting, then wouldn't there also be time for the pilot (copilot, navigator, stewardess) to get on the radio and say "Hello, chaps on the ground. Something has gone wrong."

If it blows up in mid-air or something like that, you won't get anything more with this device than you get without it.

What do you gain for $100,000, then?

Re:Dumb author...

[Megane]

It also doesn't help that the Iridium network is completely and totally analog. That means good ol' 9600 baud modem tones. The new generation of sats starting next year will support digital communications.