Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has begun tracking part of its fleet every 10 minutes in a bid to prevent a repeat of the mysterious disappearance of one of its jetliners a year ago, a news report said.
“MAS has set 10 minutes of time interval for some of its aircraft to transmit the flight data,” Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, MAS chief executive officer, said in a report published at the weekend.
The Aircraft Communication and Reporting System of the firm’s A380 and A330 Airbus jets as well as its Boeing 737-800 planes were now programmed to transmit data every 10 minutes, instead of every 15 minutes, Ahmad Jauhari said.
Fifteen minutes is the standard set by the International Civil Aviation Organiszation (ICAO).
“The biggest lesson that we have learned is that we need to know our aircraft location and position better. And I think we have done that,” he added.
Jauhari said that for all the airline’s Boeing 777 aircraft, the time interval for data transmission was set at 15 minutes.
Prior to the disappearance of the Beijing-bound flight MH370 on March 8, 2014, the interval for aircraft data transmission set by ICAO was every 30 or 40 minutes.
Sapa-dpa