On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines jetliner MH370 with some 239 people on board lost contact with the air traffic control on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Communications with the aircraft were said to have been lost less than 40 minutes after takeoff. But the aircraft was later found to have deviated from the designated flight path, with calculations showing that it probably disappeared somewhere in the Indian Ocean, off the Western Australian coast.
Despite an extensive search, no main wreckage or bodies of the 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board MH370 have ever been found.
With no trace of the aircraft found even after a massive search covering a 120,000 sq km area of seabed about 2,000km off the coast of Perth in the southern Indian Ocean, the plane’s disappearance is likely to remain the world’s greatest aviation mystery!
The loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 sparked a global drive for a system that would make it possible to pinpoint the exact route and last location of an aircraft.
Clearly, the travelling public wants air traffic control authorities to know where all the aircraft are all the time, without fail and without the capacity for anyone to turn the tracking system off.
Following this, the International Civil Aviation Organisation — a United Nations aviation agency — proposed a new standard that required commercial aircraft to report their position every 15 minutes as part of a global tracking initiative.
In the aftermath of the disappearance of Malaysian jetliner MH370, the requirements mandated for aircraft operators by ICAO’s Global Aeronautical Distress & Safety System (GADSS) have come on the spotlight.
Airlines are increasingly becoming aware of how fully accountable they are, not only for the aircraft but for passengers and crew onboard. 
Keeping in contact with the aircraft and knowing where it is at all times, help maintain accountability and transparency.
In March 2016, ICAO announced that GADSS was created to help improve the ability to detect commercial aircraft in remote locations. The key components of GADSS recommend that aircraft report their position to the airline’s operations centre at a minimum once every 15 minutes under normal flight circumstances.
Hitherto, most governments only required check-in during take-off and landing. This will change for all airlines when a worldwide flight-tracking update goes into effect, probably before the year-end. 
Under this, all aircraft must check in every 15 minutes with dispatch to disclose its location. In an emergency situation, the aircraft must check in every minute.
The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) must have a recording duration of up to 25 hours, industry experts say.
The CVR must begin recording prior to the aircraft moving and, if possible, during cockpit checks. It can finish recording when the aircraft lands and after engine shutoff. And if the CVR isn’t deployable, it must have a device that assists in locating it underwater and transmits a signal for a minimum of 90 days.
Flights in excess of 27,000kg must be tracked by an operator from takeoff to landing.
Many airlines already track their planes using satellite systems. An ICAO working paper previously noted that the majority of long-haul aircraft already have systems on board that can transmit their position.
But it also noted that the equipment is not always turned on and that in some locations, including polar routes, there are gaps in satellite coverage.
For example, an in-flight entertainment (IFE) system offering broadband satellite communications could be used to track an aircraft with slight modifications, as could the datalink airlines use to transmit engine performance data to maintenance departments.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), “Many airlines already have the capability in their aircraft, but they don’t necessarily use it. There are systems in place that can help airlines and authorities track aircraft worldwide, following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March 2014. But, this (incident) has galvanised the air transport industry to do more to track aircraft with a particular emphasis over oceanic and remote continental areas.”
Earlier this month, Qatar’s national carrier Qatar Airways crossed a major milestone in global, real-time flight tracking. 
Qatar Airways became the first airline to launch ‘GlobalBeacon’, a key product solution created by ‘FlightAware’ and ‘Aireon’ that provides the national airline with global, real-time flight tracking.
All Qatar Airways flights will now benefit from real-time tracking, further enhancing passenger safety.
And coming back to the need for global real-time flight tracking and the unfortunate incident involving the Malaysian jetliner, whether or not the Flight 370 is found, the real threat to the global aviation industry will arise if a similar accident happens in future — especially if nothing has been done to prevent it. 
But from the perspective of the families and the point of view of the need to understand the real lessons from MH370, ideally the search for the aircraft must continue. The real challenge, however, is where to look for the missing jetliner now.
Obviously, measures to ensure that similar accidents never occur should be a global aviation priority.
Therefore, improved flight tracking should be made mandatory.
Equally important, such systems must be tamper-proof! 


Pratap John is Business Editor and Chief Business Reporter at Gulf Times.