5 ms·

The claim is that it's way to expensive to retrofit existing planes due to regulations: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2014/03/10/why-dont-we-have-streaming

• foobarqux 13y ago
  I don't think that reasoning is correct. My comment on that blog was: I don’t think the fixed cost should be as high as you suggest because the functionality would (arguably) not be safety-critical, in contrast to your examples, and therefore subject to weaker regulations. Emergency geolocation doesn’t affect flight safety, only rescue operations. What happens if the new GPS location functionality fails? The only deleterious consequence is if the other locations systems fail (ELT) and the error causes, in the event that saving passengers is possible, for SAR to look in the wrong place when they otherwise would have looked in the correct one.
  • einhverfr 13y ago
    > Emergency geolocation doesn’t affect flight safety, I am not sure of that. Consider the implications of an electrical fire. If the system can be turned off it wouldn't have helped here. If it couldn't be turned on then you have electrical fires killing people. I am not sure the problem of this incident can be fixed by looking at the plane. I think we need to know more about who, why, and how first.
    • foobarqux 13y ago
      I don't understand your comment. You need to read my comment in context of the linked blog post I was responding to which addressed only the cost of adding additional emergency geolocation and the reason why it was expensive. I suggest that it shouldn't actually be expensive because the safety impact is negligible.