Ten years ago today, one of the most tragic and baffling events in the history of commercial aviation unfolded off the coast of Malaysia. The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 confounded authorities and focused the world on implementing a global system for tracking aircraft in distress. 10 years later the ICAO Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS) is helping to ensure aircraft are always able to be located.
How MH370 changed flight tracking
The initial information provided by Malaysian authorities led to confusion about the possible location of the aircraft. The last ADS-B position report from the aircraft was received by Flightradar24 at 17:21 UTC (1:21 AM local time), about 40 minutes after the aircraft departed Kuala Lumpur. But Malaysia Airlines and Malaysian authorities initially said that they had lost contact with the aircraft long after the aircraft stopped broadcasting ADS-B data at 18:40 UTC. This led to an initial search a long way away from the final signal north of Vietnam. Crucially, it also hampered any reporting on flight activity in the area around the last ADS-B message.
Eventually, authorities, investigators, and satellite operators determined that the aircraft’s transponder had been deactivated at the point of last signal, but that satellite communications equipment continued to perform “handshakes” with the Inmarsat satellites for hours, leading to the current search area in the southern Indian Ocean.
The disappearance of MH370 fast tracked the development and implementation of ICAO’s Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS). This system contains three elements; aircraft tracking, the location of the aircraft in distress and post-flight localization and recovery. The GADSS facilitates the autonomous transmission of information which can determine an aircraft’s position at a certain time. This commonly takes the form of transmitted GPS coordinates or a radio signal which can be triangulated (similar to Multilateration ‘MLAT’ technology used by Flightradar24). The system is designed to continue working regardless of power loss on board the aircraft.
How MH370 changed Flightrdar24
After the disappearance of MH370, we reconfigured Flightradar24 receivers to store all received transponder data locally for as long as possible. ADS-B data is transmitted by the aircraft up to twice per second and in areas of high traffic, the volume of data received by a single receiver can be tremendous. Prior to MH370, data was passed from the receiver to the Flightradar24 network and enough data was stored to adequately track the aircraft. With the reconfiguration of the receivers to store all data received, it became possible to revisit any flight and examine data at a granular level. This is what has made it possible to analyze and publish data on a range of incidents and accidents in the past 10 years.
The search for MH370
As we approached the 10th anniversary, Australia reiterated its commitment to assisting Malaysia in a renewed search for the aircraft. Australia’s transport and foreign ministers said this week marking the occasion, “The Australian Government is supportive of all practical efforts to find MH370. Australia stands ready to assist the Malaysian Government if it considers that Australian agencies are able to offer technical information as a result of their involvement in previous searches.”
