Pressure increases for plane tracking after MH370

Four weeks into the hunt for MH370, pressure is building for better ways of tracking aircraft as regulators wrestle with the Malaysian jet's disappearance armed with only minimal information on the fate of its 227 passengers. As search efforts intensified on Saturday, four weeks after the Boeing 777 went missing, a U.S. pilots association called for existing satellite technology to be made mandatory so controllers can track jets. Until recently, aircraft flying over oceans well outside the reach of air traffic control routinely gave their position through high-frquency radio links that are vulnerable to interference from the atmosphere. Some airlines now use satellite-based voice and text communications, but these are not mandatory and may require a subscription that Malaysia Airlines had not signed up for, according to officials investigating the loss of Flight MH370. Read More http://ift.tt/1oD8MTi