Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Why no tracking device?

Let's get serious here for a second on Sportsbyfletch. In regards to the Air France plane that went missing en route from Brazil to France(?), how can that happen?

I thought planes had a black box on board? Are you telling me that those things aren't also able to be tracked? Commercial airlines don't put a lowjack-type device in there?

I am not trying to be a smart ass, I am just wondering.

After Castaway and Lost, if I was getting on a plane that was set to go over nothing but water, I'd want my plane to be able to be tracked. Because honestly, I could not survive like Tom Hanks did in Castaway. And, though I've never watched Lost (I guess I'm not smart enough), I think I would be captured by those "other people" or whatever they are called within 8 minutes.

It is just very surprising that planes cannot be tracked like that. If my car with a lowjack can be traced and tracked if ever "lost," they why couldn't a flipping plane have the same thing?

Great mysteries of life, I guess. Kind of like why the opening of a can of tennis balls sounds so neat. And how pirates continue to exist.

3 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

agree with Fletcher. In this day and age it seems unreal that our great technology cannot process such a simple concept. Cars have trackers so why not commercial airliners? All hope now rest on the black box which lies some 4000m below sea. Why cant the information recorded on the black box automatically be recorded in duplicate to a central computer at the port? Or why is the black box not house in floatable material? I guess we have not really advanced much.

sleazy P said...

There are homing becons on black boxes Fletch. Unfortunately it is 13000 feet down on the bottom of one of the most in accessable locales on the planet. Also they only send out signals for 30 days so time is of the essence. That being said I'm sure they are doing all they can to find out the location of the BB's.... it's just a massive search area and it's only been a couple of days.