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I’d like to understand how we keep losing planes. Satellite internet+GPS could enable semi-realtime location tracking for all planes. Instead we get cases like
by nikanj 3y ago
I’d like to understand how we keep losing planes. Satellite internet+GPS could enable semi-realtime location tracking for all planes. Instead we get cases like MH370, where we are completely clueless where a plane went.
- dale_glass 3y agoThe ocean is enormous, featureless, opaque and deep. It also has currents that can easily move something like an airplane. Compared to something like the Titanic, an airplane weighs almost nothing parts can easily end up far away from where it fell.
- hgomersall 3y agoThat's not primarily why MH570 was lost. Nobody had any idea where to begin looking. A GPS fix at the point of crash would have changed the search hugely.
- crote 3y agoA big issue with MH370 is that they turned off the equipment transmitting their location, so the only way to track it was by traditional radar. GPS and satellite internet isn't going to help with that.
- jmkni 3y agoIs the general consensus that the equipment was intentionally turned off, or just that something happened that turned it off?
- phire 3y agoImmediately after the equipment stopped operating, MH-370 made a series of course changes. It did a ~160 degree turn (at a very high angle of bank) and flew along the border between Malaysia/Thailand border (probably assuming that military RADAR operators in both countries would assume the flight belonged to the other country). Once passed Malaysia, it then turned north to avoid Indonesia and flew along the Strait of Malacca. [1] It doesn't show up on RADAR again, but we know it later turned almost directly south after passing the northern tip of Indonesia. This route comes across as so calculated with the explicit intent of going missing, that it's really hard to justify any scenario that doesn't start with the equipment being turned off intentionally and maliciously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#/media/File:MH370_flight_path_with_English_labels.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#/...
- windowshopping 3y agoFor me the final proof was that a very very similar route was programmed into the pilot's simulation software at home days before the fatal flight. With that knowledge in hand I consider the cause of the accident pretty clear.
- bell-cot 3y agoCases like MH370 are extremely rare...but they really mash the human emotional buttons - so they stay in the news, ~world-wide, for decades. Choice: Are we optimizing the air travel system for (1) actual air travel outcomes for air travelers, or for (2) effects on human emotional buttons?
- flir 3y ago(2) because it's a commercial business and perception of safety is more important than safety? (I know, I know, lazy cynicism)
- HALtheWise 3y ago2 because flying is much safer than driving, so people's fear of flying probably causes more deaths than actual aviation accidents.