The Aftermath of the Missing Flight MH370: What Can Engineers Do? [Point of View]

Abstract

Abstract-The mystery of missing MH370 flight a year ago is still unanswered: no one knows exactly where the crash was and what caused the problem. In order to answer these questions, a worldwide search has been carried out ever since to locate first-hand evidence which can be found in on-board flight data recorders (also known as blackboxes). To enhance aviation security, a proposal was made to use cloud computing to analyse live streamed flight data. This point of view article elaborates this proposal from an engineering perspective.

Aeronautical $Ad~Hoc$ Networking for the Internet-Above-the-Clouds

“…As an extra benefit, AANETs may allow a minimum safety separation of 5 Nautical Miles (NMs) in unpopulated areas, instead of the current safety separation requirement of 50 NMs. • Tracking of Aircraft: Almost 900 people lost their lives in the aircraft disappearances and aircraft accidents that happened in 2014 [40]. This motivates an AANET-based live-streaming solution for maintaining connection between aircraft and the rest of the world, especially in unpopulated areas.…”

The disappearance of MH370 and the search operations — The role of technology and emerging research challenges

“…While the majority of these studies have focused on journalism, social media [23]- [45], entertainment [46], social factors [47], [48], tourism [49], data mining [50], [51], legal and political issues [52]- [58], disaster management [59], [60], employment [61] and psychology [62], many interesting works have appeared dealing with various technical issues [63]- [65], [20], [18], [66]- [74], [2], [75]- [82], [72], [83]- [86]. However, a review of most of the technologically sound works is presented here.…”

“…Learning lessons from the MH370 tragedy, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is adopting a live streaming proposal in its guidance for future aviation communications [2]. The idea of live streaming was put forward by Kavi [90] at the University of North Texas, Denton, who proposed the "glass box," a system for continual streaming of flight data via satellite to facilitate real-time availability of information.…”

“…The idea of live streaming was put forward by Kavi [90] at the University of North Texas, Denton, who proposed the "glass box," a system for continual streaming of flight data via satellite to facilitate real-time availability of information. Yu [2] has analyzed the live streaming proposal from an engineering perspective, and presented the fundamental requirements for implementation of the technology to enhance aviation safety without compromising security, and discussed some of the challenges ahead. He concluded that transmitting the critical information from flight data and recording it to computers in the cloud is not only feasible, but also more reliable than waiting for the flight data recorders to be found from the debris.…”

“…Flight disasters have been a matter of serious concern not only for the governments and the aviation industry but also for the scientific research community. Detailed accounts of the various airline disasters to date are well documented [1], and a brief history of flight disappearance is provided by Yu [2]. This article focuses on the mysterious vanishing of MH370, which has sparked widespread debates and has opened doors for diverse scientific explorations.…”