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Malaysia Airlines didn’t buy $10 upgrade that could have tracked missing MH370

2 points by yeukhon 13y ago

melling 13y ago
I asked this here 4 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7411541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7411541 I'm not sure why it's not repeatedly mentioned. The news talks about the futuristic hardware upgrades with GPS, etc. However, we can solve most of the problem today.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  It sounds unfortunate that if the upgrade was that cheap. Malaysia Airlines said in a statement. “This installation is sufficient to meet all of MAS’s operational requirements and at the same time meets all international requirements that enable us to fly international airways.” This attitude is common, almost an industry standard IMO. I watched a documentary on the Air France and at the end of the documentary Air France claimed their equipments met the regulatory compliance. What they said was "until the Board revises the requirements, [we] won't do anything about it." So unless the regulation said so, or someone brave enough to suggest that has to be done, aviation companies will do less. I was on a flight last summer from NY to SF and the kernel which they used to power the OS is about 5 years old. That's not to say they have to upgrade to the latest kernel but I wonder how old some of those equipments are. Since an aircraft can last for many years, how often do they upgrade software and hardware? What is the regulation like? On the flip side, I wonder how simple a computer upgrade is on an aviation. Do they do testing on a few aircraft before they deploy on every single flight in the airline?
  - jeremysmyth 13y ago
    This attitude is common, almost an industry standard IMO. Common and standard in a hell of a lot of industries too. With something as tightly regulated as air travel, or pharma, or finance, you simply do not add features that are not required unless it provides some measurable competitive benefit. Everything feature or bit of equipment you add becomes something else you have to check, maintain, regulate, replace. You don't do that just because it's a good idea, but because you have to or it makes you more money. Neither of things apply in a situation that arises once in a lifetime, unfortunately.
deleted 13y ago
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2 points by yeukhon 13y ago

I asked this here 4 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7411541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7411541 I'm not sure why it's not repeatedly mentioned. The news talks about the futuristic hardware upgrades with GPS, etc. However, we can solve most of the problem today.

yeukhon 13y ago
It sounds unfortunate that if the upgrade was that cheap. Malaysia Airlines said in a statement. “This installation is sufficient to meet all of MAS’s operational requirements and at the same time meets all international requirements that enable us to fly international airways.” This attitude is common, almost an industry standard IMO. I watched a documentary on the Air France and at the end of the documentary Air France claimed their equipments met the regulatory compliance. What they said was "until the Board revises the requirements, [we] won't do anything about it." So unless the regulation said so, or someone brave enough to suggest that has to be done, aviation companies will do less. I was on a flight last summer from NY to SF and the kernel which they used to power the OS is about 5 years old. That's not to say they have to upgrade to the latest kernel but I wonder how old some of those equipments are. Since an aircraft can last for many years, how often do they upgrade software and hardware? What is the regulation like? On the flip side, I wonder how simple a computer upgrade is on an aviation. Do they do testing on a few aircraft before they deploy on every single flight in the airline?
- jeremysmyth 13y ago
  This attitude is common, almost an industry standard IMO. Common and standard in a hell of a lot of industries too. With something as tightly regulated as air travel, or pharma, or finance, you simply do not add features that are not required unless it provides some measurable competitive benefit. Everything feature or bit of equipment you add becomes something else you have to check, maintain, regulate, replace. You don't do that just because it's a good idea, but because you have to or it makes you more money. Neither of things apply in a situation that arises once in a lifetime, unfortunately.

deleted 13y ago

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