We may never know what truly happened to that Malaysian Air Flight 370 that disappeared over the Indian Ocean in 2014. However, thanks to new technology, we may also never have to worry about a jumbo jet or any plane disappearing ever again.
Panasonic is one of a few companies working on systems called FlightLink and eXConnect - GPS based systems for keeping track of airplanes which, before very recently, haven’t by and large been used.
“It’s a satellite based system, so it works everywhere around the globe, rather than a surveillance based system that requires land based stations to be able to see the aircraft in kind of what’s called a line of sight methodology,” says Jeff Rex of Panasonic Avionics.
"Line of sight" meaning if a plane is somewhere remote, like over the Indian Ocean, most current systems won’t work very well.
Now the question that begs to be asked, if we all have cell phones that have satellite GPS tracking, why has it taken so long for cutting edge commercial aircrafts to have it installed?
“It’s logical to think that, but you also have to keep in mind that your phone is going to change every year, but an airplane’s going to be bought by an airline and it’s going to fly for 25 years,” says Christine Negroni, author of "The Crash Detectives." “So they’re not as quickly modified. There’s also an infrastructure that’s required."
Panasonic’s system is available as a software upgrade on 1,500 commercial aircraft worldwide that already have the hardware on board. At the moment, just a few airlines have signed on, among them Air Asia and Peninsula Air, no big U.S. based airlines just yet. All U.S. based airlines will need to choose some sort of system within the next few years, as the FAA has mandated GPS tracking on all planes by 2020.