ITU must facilitate transmission of flight data: Shabery Cheek

KUALA LUMPUR: International Telecommunication Union (ITU) must develop cutting edge technology to facilitate transmission of flight data in real time, especially in cases like the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370.
Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek said the Malaysian government believes data from aircraft, including from the black box could be continuously transmitted and stored in data centres on the ground.
"I urge ITU to work with the industry to develop a better way to constantly monitor flight data and what was happening inside the cockpit," the ITU website www.itu.int quoted him as saying at the opening of the ITU World Telecommunications Development Conference in Dubai, today.
Ahmad Shabery pointed out that with the current advancement in information communications technology (ICT), key players should be able to retrieve and analyse this data without necessarily locating the black box.
"I believe that this simple change may have brought a different outcome today. In this context, I cannot help but note that whilst communications technologies have evolved drastically in the past five years, the story of the black box remains unchanged for more than 30 years," said Ahmad Shabery.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, left the KL International Airport at 12.41am on March 8 but disappeared from radar screens about an hour later while over the South China Sea. It was to have landed in Beijing at 6.30am on the same day. – Bernama