Mary-Louise Hoffman
Iridium Communications CEO Matt Desch said the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 incident has prompted the aviation industry to consider using satellite technologies for commercial aircraft tracking, Air Traffic Management magazine reported Tuesday.
Aimee Turner writes Desch told the magazine that air navigation service providers are also moving down a path to implement automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast.
“I am pretty confident that the industry as a whole will improve the real-time situational awareness of aircraft, whether just better basic tracking in the near term or better surveillance in the mid to long term,” Desch added, according to the magazine.
According to the report, Aireon, a joint venture between Iridium and four international air traffic control organizations, is scheduled to launch a satellite in the coming year to support ADS-B systems.
Turner adds the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization proposed a cloud computing system to monitor commercial airplanes in real time as they move around the globe.
