Technical Issues, Privacy, Data Protection Are All Concerns

Airbus has launched a study for reinforcing flight data recovery, including, but not limited to, extended data transmission for commercial airliners, so that in the event of accidents, critical flight information can still be recovered and released to the investigating authorities.

 Tom Enders, President and CEO of Airbus commented: "Gathering information from accidents is vitally important to further improve the safety of flying. Various technical means for reinforcing flight data recovery and data transmission to ground centers are principally available. We will now study different options for viable commercial solutions, including those where our experience with real-time data transmission from our own test aircraft could support the further development of such solutions."

The study will be conducted by Patrick Gavin, Head of Airbus Engineering, and Charles Champion, Head of Customer Services, and will need to address technological issues as well as data protection and privacy concerns. Airbus will include industrial partners, research institutions, and international airworthiness and investigation authorities in this study.

Retrieving the DFDR and CVR when aircraft are lost continues to be a major challenge for the entire aviation community. Today's existing air-to-ground links for 'Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System' (ACARS) maintenance data transmission do not offer the bandwidth that would be needed for a fully real-time transmission of all the data stored in the DFDR and CVR, Airbus said in a news release.

FMI: www.airbus.com