Why hunt for the black box? There's a simpler fix for faster crash probes

In a 1968 bestseller, Airport, Arthur Hailey described operations at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport (“Lincoln International Airport” in the book) during a storm. Hailey lacked imagination, and his writing style would have turned a porn film script into a gynaecological report. But precisely due to these shortcomings, his plots adhered closely to real life. 

One of the subplots in Airport was that of a bankrupt businessman trying to pull off an insurance fraud combined with suicide and mass murder. After taking out life insurance with his wife as beneficiary, he carried a suitcase bomb onto a flight. 

This mirrored a real incident. On May 22, 1962, Continental Airlines Flight 11 from Chicago to Kansas City was blown up by Thomas Doty, killing all 45 persons on board. Doty had taken out insurance policies worth $300,000 (several million in today’s currency), with his wife as beneficiary. He was due to face trial for armed robbery. Investigators worked it out and insurers refused to pay Doty’s claims. In an earlier incident in 1955, Jack Gilbert Graham blew up a flight with his mother on board for insurance. 

In 1985, Khalistani terrorists blew up Air India’s Kanishka, killing 329 people. That led to the induction of more sophisticated systems to check for explosives. The Kanishka tragedy also provided the backdrop for Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. 

In 1988, a Hercules C-130, carrying Pakistan’s President-dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq and the US Ambassador, crashed, killing all 30 on board. US investigators said it was a mechanical failure. Pakistani investigators said there were explosives in a crate of mangoes — a theme explored by Md Hanif in his noir masterpiece, A Case of Exploding Mangoes. 

After 9/11, aviation security tightened further. Chemical sniffers and X-ray machines are backed up by dogs in security checks. Cockpits can be securely locked to prevent hijackings. But pilots don’t need to get past security if they decide to crash an aircraft. 

This may have happened with Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370. MH 370, a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared on March 8, 2014. Radio communication stopped. When last tracked, the plane was heading in entirely the wrong direction. All attempts to contact it by radio and satellite phone were refused. The transponder, which transmits radar signals, was switched off. 

Data automatically transmitted to satellites by the plane indicated engines were fine. The plane flew out over the Southern Indian Ocean until the point when its fuel would have been exhausted. By then, it was thousands of km from the nearest land. 

Despite the very expensive, high-tech searches covering 5 million sq km of ocean, the aircraft hasn’t been found. All 239 on board are presumed dead. The most cited theory is that a pilot incapacitated the crew and the other pilot, or locked them out of the cockpit, and then flew in the general direction of Antarctica until the fuel ran out. There has been endless speculation as to why a pilot might wish to commit mass murder in this way. 

Apart from inspiring literary efforts of varying quality, there’s a lot of money riding on answers to aviation mysteries. Insurers want to know the causes before they pay out. Manufacturers hope that future aircraft sales are not jeopardised. Travellers avoid the aircraft models and airlines in question. It all adds up to billions. 

The cause of the Air India 171 crash is still a mystery. Many theories are being aired, including the possibility of a deliberate crash. The conclusions from the Flight 171 investigation, whatever those are, will not necessarily scotch all conspiracy theories, given the pushes and pulls, and the money and reputation riding on the investigation. 

There is one relatively simple technical fix however, that may reduce the element of mystery in future aviation incidents. Aircraft are equipped with sensors and recorders, which capture everything mechanical and electrical, and record cockpit conversations. Every crash is followed by a hunt for the black box among the debris. 

As the MH 370 incident indicates, aircraft also transmit data automatically to satellites. So why not also stream all that data in real time to multiple recipients to reduce the chance of tampering?  This is technically feasible. Retooling systems to do this would add somewhat to costs, but the expense would be relatively minor in terms of the billions at stake. And, it would make the investigation of aviation incidents much easier and far more transparent.