Satellite systems and ground-based cell towers let us stream from the jet stream and tweet from 36,000 feet, but airlines don’t use the same technology to provide real-time data transmission and tracking from airplanes.
No one gives this much thought until something goes horribly wrong. And though2014 was an unusually safe year for air travel, disasters like the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 invariably bring questions about why we’re still relying upon “black box” flight data recorders that must be physically retrieved and analyzed after the plane’s gone down.
The simple answer is because the current system works really well.
More details here.
