[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 56 (Monday, April 7, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E535-E536]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 7, 2014

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to extend my sympathies to the 
families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew members of 
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which departed Kuala Lumpur enroute to 
Beijing on March 8, 2014, but disappeared somewhere over the Indian 
Ocean and has yet to be found.
  In an age where powerful technology is capable of interconnecting the 
expanses of our world and able to provide real-time information 
globally, the haunting question must be asked: How can a sophisticated 
commercial airliner carrying 12 highly trained crew members and 227 
passengers disappear without a trace?
  Mr. Speaker, we owe it to families of those who appear to have 
perished on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to find answers and to take 
all necessary measures and make all necessary improvements to ensure 
that a tragedy like this never happens again.
  Modern aircraft are technological marvels, capable of unrivaled 
aeronautical feats. The advances in aircraft technology have helped 
make possible many of the smart devices we use daily. But a disaster 
involving the disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 has revealed glaring 
weaknesses in aviation technology areas of flight safety, information 
monitoring, and recovery.
  The modern commercial airliner is among the safest machines ever 
built. Fail-safes, system redundancies, automated controls, and 
sophisticated radar systems ensure that almost any crisis can be 
prevented if the best practices of flight are observed. However, if the 
technology was perfected, disasters like that of Malaysia Airlines 
Flight 370 could be eliminated.
  In the case of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the transponders--
devices important to tracking the aircraft via radar--were disabled, 
effectively eliminating most modern methods for tracking the aircraft. 
Whether the tracking technology was powered down or disabled as a 
result of a catastrophic failure is irrelevant to the question of 
safety. The fact that tracking technology important to the recovery of 
an aircraft can be manually disabled in the air is a technological flaw 
that must be corrected.
  Design processes that do not adequately exploit engineering 
technology or that prevent life-saving recovery efforts and lower 
safety standards need to be fixed immediately. In addition to critical 
safety measures, advanced methods of aircraft systems information 
monitoring need to be employed. Radar and tracking systems are as 
important to aircraft in the air as they are to monitoring systems on 
the ground.
  During the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, experts were 
required to rely on unreliable ``pings'' from satellites that were only 
able to provide poor insight as to the location of the aircraft.
  Mr. Speaker, monitoring information regarding the status of aircraft 
systems is vital in understanding whether operator error or system 
failure is responsible for aircraft disasters. Unfortunately, the 
majority of this monitoring information is stored internal to the 
aircraft, in flight data recorders.
  In the case of a disappearance like that of Malaysia Airlines Flight 
370, system status information is essentially lost with the loss of the 
aircraft, or depends entirely on the recoverability of the aircraft.
  Advanced technology can be employed to send real-time information on 
airborne aircraft to monitoring stations on the ground. If ground 
operators were able to monitor the system information normally 
contained in the flight data recorder, recovery operations would be 
streamlined and yield much more information,

[[Page E536]]

greatly improving future tracking and recovery efforts.
  The importance of aircraft recovery is impossible to overstate. 
Beyond the technological aspect is the human factor. Hundreds of 
concerned and anxious persons were left in the dark concerning the fate 
of their friends, family, and loved ones aboard Malaysia Airlines 
Flight 370, with little hope offered under the current safety, 
monitoring, and recovery standards.
  Additionally, the majority of flight status information, telling to 
an aircraft's fate, is directly linked to the ability to recover an 
aircraft. Recovery hinges on a tight timeline--the longer it takes to 
establish information concerning the route and aircraft system 
configuration, the longer it will take to recover the aircraft.
  The family and loved ones of airline passengers are entitled to 
receive frequent and reliable status updates just as soon as the 
information is available.
  The availability of that information today is unduly dependent on 
technology that is in turn dependent upon the recovery of the aircraft 
but at the same time makes recovery efforts more difficult.
  Mr. Speaker, as a senior member of the House Homeland Security 
Committee, and a former Chair of its Transportation Security 
Subcommittee, I will continue to work with my colleagues, the 
Administration, and responsible officials in the aviation industry to 
ensure that technological weaknesses are corrected and to do all I can 
to ensure a terrible tragedy like that of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 
never happens again. We owe the families and loved ones of the missing 
passengers and crew members at least that much.

                          ____________________