Qatar Airways is testing technology to simultaneously record flight data on the ground to enable crash investigations even when a black box cannot be recovered or has been interfered with, the airline’s chief Akbar Al Baker has revealed.
The airline was working with the technology firm behind it and would likely be the first in the world to install such a system, following several fatal incidents, Al Baker said.
“We are working closely with [the creators] to test the system whereby all the flight data that is being recorded in the black-box’s data recorder is also received continuously on the ground in our operation centre during the flight,” Al Baker said, according to local media.
“I hope Qatar Airways will be the first airline in the world to introduce this in all its aircraft.
“As a member of the board of governors of IATA [International Air Transport Association] we are aggressively perusing the matter related to automatic tracking of planes without the control of pilots. There is a task force in IATA to pressure regulators to push for the demand.”
Al Baker said recent incidents, including the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which still has not been found since March, and the AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea late December had heightened safety concerns in the aviation industry.
“After the Malaysian Airline mishap, we are insisting that aircraft should have a system so that they can automatically be tracked from the time of take-off to landing,” he said.
However, during the IATA annual general meeting in Doha last June, Emirates boss Tim Clark told Arabian Business the increased emphasis on creating new technology to track passenger aeroplanes was unnecessary if airlines were properly securing access to on board tracking systems.
He said the aviation industry was being pressured to introduce new technology in light of the MH370 disappearance with 239 people on board, but existing devices worked sufficiently; the issue was simply to ensure no one was able to tamper with them.
“You don’t have to have another satellite; you don’t have to have additional hardware on board the aeroplane,” he said.
“This is a path that people are walking down at the moment – being pushed for reasons I’m not all together clear about.
“Don’t allow anybody to disable a sat-com in flight; don’t allow them access to circuit breakers; don’t allow them into the flight control computers to allow them to deactivate them, and then your problem’s solved.”
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