The 29 March-1 April International Civil Aviation Organisation high-level safety conference in Montreal is examining issues surrounding the loss of Air France flight 447 over the South Atlantic in June 2009. Topics under the spotlight include long-standing inadequacies in oceanic air traffic control and the recovery of flight data from an aircraft lost in the sea.
The purpose is to develop and recommend a co-ordinated global plan that could be approved at the 37th Assembly in September and October this year, says the organisation.
ICAO sees the major challenges as being "differing regional practices", and the need to develop a compelling business case for investing in technology to track oceanic traffic and to recover flight data from any aircraft in trouble over international waters,
The shortcomings ICAO is attempting to address are illustrated by four facts from French accident investigator BEA's interim report on the accident.
The Airbus A330-200, not within ATC radar coverage, was lost on 1 June, but it took until 6 June to find the first floating wreckage.
The last crew position report was to Brazilian air traffic control at 01:35 GMT and the last automated report at 02:10, but the first alerts to start a search and rescue effort were raised in Madrid and Brest between 08:00 and 08:30
The crew made three attempts to contact the Dakar oceanic air traffic control centre using automatic dependent - surveillance-C (contract), but had not succeeded by the time the aircraft was lost
Neither the flight data nor cockpit voice recorder have yet been found.
ICAO has told the conference that "the precise circumstances and causes of the accident may remain unknown", and that this is unacceptable because technological solutions to the loss of conventional flight recorders could be made available provided global standards for the means can be agreed.
The BEA has suggested that, in the meantime, ICAO and the European Aviation Safety Agency should consider mandating underwater locator beacons with a transmission battery life of 90 days instead of the present 30, and also that commercial air transport aircraft shall regularly transmit basic flight and navigational parameters.
The conference has been urged to seek both short- and long-term solutions to improve flight tracking and communication in oceanic regions, again on the grounds that technology now exists to make it possible.
According to ICAO, critical to the solution of oceanic traffic surveillance and flight data recovery is the formulation of a business case for air navigation service providers and airlines to make the necessary investment in new technology.
ICAO argues: "Such enhancements would increase not only flight safety but also flight efficiency, for instance by enabling reduced separation and optimised flight profiles".
Source: Flight International
