The aviation industry is hoping to set up a minute-by-minute aircraft tracking system to prevent a repeat of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Aviation leaders at an international summit in Montreal this week backed plans for the device that would monitor aircraft in real time.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has been tasked with putting together a proposal, which will be revealed in November this year.
As part of the proposal, airlines will be obligated to start using minute-by-minute tracking from 2016.
Malaysia Airlines’ MH370 incident has the aviation industry looking at real-time tracking devices.
Currently, radars that track planes fade when the aircraft is out at sea or flying at a certain altitude.
New airline rules will require airlines to track their flights using a system that sends their location back to land at 15-minute intervals.
The organisation’s chairman Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu said although global tracking isn’t capable of preventing accidents, it will make it means no lost aircraft, Rappler reported.
Officials also said it was the quickest fix to ease any concerns for air travel.
Currently there is only one airline sending real-time black box data back to land. Image: Wikipedia
At the meeting officials also agreed that airlines should have a second black box onboard that will eject from the plane during an emergency.
Black boxes record any sound in the cockpit, including pilot conversations. The information retrieved is then used to solve issues in times of conflicts.
The ejectable black box would be in addition to the existing box on all aircraft and would be floatable to make it easier to find.
This will be mandatory on new aircraft after 2021.
Currently, there is only one airline in the world that has installed technology aboard its aircraft that sends black box data to ground in real-time.
The device was created by Calgay tech company called ‘FLYHT Aerospace Solutions’ and has been around for almost five years.
According to the company’s president more airlines aren’t using the technology because it is seen as too expensive.