SITA eyes India with blackbox data streaming from flights

Airlines IT solutions giant SITA today said it will soon test streaming of data from blackboxes to help gather crucial information about movement of planes, in the wake of the mysterious disappearance of a Malaysian plane and deliberate crashing of a Germanwings aircraft.
SITA, which has significant presence in India, also hopes to work with Indian carriers for flight tracking system besides incorporating the new "simple" solution.
The streaming of data from blackboxes, expected to be tested as early as June itself, comes amid rising concerns about safety of flights.
The ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared under mysterious circumstances last year with 239 people on board and massive efforts to trace the Boeing 777 have yielded no success so far.

In a separate tragedy on March 24, all 150 people on board Germanwings flight 4U9525 were killed after the pilot intentionally ploughed his plane into the French Alps.
SITA OnAir's Chief Executive Officer Ian Dawkins said streaming data from the blackboxes would be made part of the company's FlightTracker system - that can provide tracking details at an interval of 15 minutes or less for every flight.

The blackbox records all activities of an aircraft and provides crucial information in cases of an accident.
"We are trying to stream all that data (from the blackbox) to the land. We are doing the testing this month with an airline..." Dawkins told PTI on the sidelines of Air Transport IT Summit organised by SITA here.

He, however, did not disclose the identity of the carrier.
Streaming of data from the blackbox would help get more information about a flight as well as bring "more situational analysis to some of the data" that are being used to track planes, he noted.
When asked whether the company is in talks with any Indian carriers for the flight tracking system, Dawkins said they have discussed the matter with one entity but, again, did not divulge specific details.
"Indian airlines, I hope, will adopt this solution as it is simple. We already work with Indian authorities and this will be an extension to that," he said.

SITA OnAir's AIRCOM FlightTracker is a ground-based software upgrade that uses existing equipment to allow airlines to follow aircraft positions and identify any unexpected deviations or gaps in position reports.
Many airlines are already using this system.
SITA OnAir, a subsidiary of SITA, today announced that Singapore Airlines, Royal Brunei and Norwegian Air Shuttle would deploy the flight tracking system into their entire fleet starting this month.