UK satellite operator Inmarsat is to offer a free, basic tracking service to all the world’s passenger airliners.
The offer follows the case of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared without trace in March.
It was very brief electronic “pings” from Inmarsat equipment on the lost aircraft that prompted investigators to look for wreckage in the Indian Ocean.
Inmarsat says the free service it is offering would carry definitive positional information, the BBC reported.
It would see an aircraft determine its location using GPS and then transmit that data – together with a heading, speed and altitude – over Inmarsat’s global network of satellites every 15 minutes.
“Our equipment is on 90% of the world’s wide-body jets already. This is an immediate fix for the industry at no cost to the industry,” Inmarsat senior vice-president Chris McLaughlin told BBC News.
Cost is one of the reasons often cited for the reluctance of airlines to routinely use satellite tracking.
The London-based company announced its offer ahead of a conference on aircraft tracking being hosted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal today
Both ICAO and the Iata are considering how best to respond to the mysterious loss of MH370.
Investigators’ only clue to MH370’s possible whereabouts was a series of hourly electronic “handshakes” made between Inmarsat equipment onboard the aircraft and ground stations that were automatically checking to see if a satellite connection was still open.