An effective solution to never losing a plane like Malaysian Airways 370 has existed for a long time (automatic transmission of GPS location via satellite), but hasn’t been done due to cost. The cost of doing that would be far less than the cost of upgrading all radios worldwide to be digital (remember, it’s not just planes, but ATC, airports, the handhelds used by ground crews, etc).
MH370 is hardly relevant, because something like that was not considered to be a plausible scenario. My point is simply that there are historical precedents demonstrating that, when there is a sufficiently large perceived benefit, the cost of rolling out the change globally is not an obstacle preventing it being done. In the case of radio, we are currently in the situation where there does not seem to be an alternative that delivers a big enough benefit to justify making the switch.
> because something like that was not considered to be a plausible scenario.
Except 12 other planes (among hundreds in the past century) have mysteriously disappeared without recovery since 2000 alone, so maybe it should be considered before more lives are lost?
None of those events were remotely comparable to MH370, which included actions by whoever was in control of the aircraft to disable systems that would have given additional information concerning its whereabouts.
In this thread, you have gone from the position that the cost of retrofitting would prevent the adoption of improvements to radio communication, to a position of advocating just such a change over a different matter. In both cases, the answer is the same: if there is an available solution that is seen to provide sufficient amelioration of a sufficiently serious problem, the cost will be borne, as was so in the case of TCAS.
> to a position of advocating just such a change over a different matter
No, I haven’t, so please don’t put words in my mouth. If you notice, I’ve corrected inaccuracies in your statements, not commented on your core premise. I’m not going to do so again (but could) as we seem to be violently agreeing without you realizing, so as such have a good day!
You are right, and I apologize, but I am genuinely confused about what you are trying to say here. If your question "maybe it should be considered before more lives are lost?" was intended as a rhetorical one, rather than a statement of your position, then it would seem to be in agreement with what I have said on the issue, in that I regard it as something that has effectively been considered, and no sufficiently beneficial solution has been identified for what is regarded (at least for now) as an extremely rare problem. If so, then it does not seem to be relevant to the question of whether cost is likely to be a barrier to the adoption of effective safety measures.
1) It’s not as rare as you seem to think for planes to go missing (there are huge holes in radar and ADS-B coverage), just usually it doesn’t result in significant loss of life like MH370 did. MH370 is not even the only plane that disappeared after having (supposedly, as in none of the cases was it proven) it’s instruments intentionally turned off, it’s just the one most known and with the most passengers.
2) The technology solution exists, but it’s not cheap. Anything that cuts into airline margins without significant benefit to them usually isn’t done unless regulated to do so. In the case of TCAS, it was mandated by the ICAO. There are other things besides TCAS has thought about mandating, but has been successfully lobbied against by airlines.
3) Back to the original point I was making, anything expensive will be vehemently fought against by the airlines. If a regulatory body feels the risk is common enough, it’ll mandate it, but that barrier seems to be very high based on my laymen’s view from outside the industry.
One could argue the severity of the risk is the root cause, but I feel it’s rather the expense involved. You’re free to have your own opinion, but please don’t expect someone to not push back when you present your case with false assumptions.
The case you present for there being a problem, that needs to be addressed, with airplanes disappearing, would be a good deal stronger if you could present other recent examples (Amelia Earhart, for example, is hardly relevant) of airliners disappearing and not being found. Currently, for example, the wreckage of the Chilean C130 that was lost en route to Antarctica has not been recovered, but there was little doubt about where it crashed, as was confirmed by the discovery of floating debris. The same can be said for AF447 - in both cases, the problem is not knowing where they crashed, but that they are at the bottom of the ocean.
What is puzzling here is why this issue entered this discussion in the first place. Apparently I was mistaken in thinking that you, yourself, are of this opinion (an honest mistake, given the way you have presented it), but if not you, then who? Is there any credible body claiming that this is a problem that needs to be solved, and is pushing for a specific solution to be mandated, but is being opposed by the airline industry on the basis of cost? If all three of the above conditions are being seen in a current dispute, then that would make a much better case for your position than anything you have written so far; on the other hand, if this is merely a hypothetical dispute, then it has no relevance even to the issue of the airlines' power to prevent the adoption of safety measures, let alone the original issue in this thread, which is whether the cost alone rules out the global roll-out of safety measures.
I do not dispute that the airlines have often opposed safety measures on the grounds of cost; Ernest Gann complained bitterly about it in 'Fate is the Hunter'. All I did was to point out that cost is not necessarily the deciding issue, using TCAS as an example. The fact that ICAO mandated it does not somehow invalidate it as an example; that is just how these things work.
> If a regulatory body feels the risk is common enough, it’ll mandate it.
That is the one point that I was making in my original post.
> Please don’t expect someone to not push back when you present your case with false assumptions.
