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MH370 fallout
Track flights in real time, DGCA tells airlines
Girja Shankar Kaura
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 7
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) today instructed all scheduled and non-scheduled operators to track all aircraft in real time.

The guidelines have been issued as mystery continues to shroud the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which has been untraceable for two months now. The country’s civil aviation regulator has made it mandatory for airlines and private operators to use all means to not only track their aircraft's flight on real-time basis, but also ensure that necessary devices are functional before take-off.

The regulator has ordered Indian scheduled and non-scheduled operators to track aircraft in real time using onboard Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) or Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B).

The mystery of the disappearance of MH370 jetliner, which had 239 people on board, remains unsolved with the search operations in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Australia and the Bay of Bengal yielding no results.

The directives apply to both passenger and cargo planes. The DGCA said: “While commercial air transport aircraft spend a considerable amount of time operating over remote areas, there is currently no international requirement for real-time tracking of the aircraft.” The regulator said airlines should devise a procedure to track aircraft flying over areas not covered by ACARS or ADS-B. It ordered flight crew must report aircraft coordinates, speed and altitude every 15 minutes while flying over such areas.

“Planes that are not equipped with the ACARS must carry out real-time tracking with the help of the ADS-B,” the DGCA's new Air Safety Circular said. The rules make it mandatory for airlines and non-scheduled operators to ensure that ACARS or ADS-B are fully functional before every departure and the crew is instructed not to switch off such equipment during flight. The regulator said airlines should monitor faults and warning messages of the ACARS and that flight crew must immediately report any issue with the ACARS or ADS-B to ground stations using a voice or data link.

The DGCA said it would review implementation of the directives during surveillance inspections.

Malaysian Airlines' flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared on March 8. Reports said there was no real-time tracking of the aircraft in the last phase of the flight. It is now known that after this plane's ACARS stopped working, the satellite communication system automatically transmitted seven messages that confirmed that the system was still logged on to the network.

The International Air Transport Association has created a Task Force to make recommendations by this year on how to continuously track commercial aircraft operations.

Fresh guidelines

• Airlines and private operators have to ensure that all necessary devices are functional before take-off
• The directives apply to both passenger and cargo planes
• The aviation regulator will review implementation of the directives during surveillance inspections.