MAH370 Disappearance Proves Critical Data Should Be Somewhere Other Than On The Airplane, Former DOT Official Says

In the wake of the disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370, a former Clinton U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Transportation says that some critical data from airline flight data recorders should be transmitted to "The Cloud" ... or storage servers connected to the Internet.

Oliver McGee helped found the Partnership Possibilities for America after leaving the DOT. He recently told Reuters that "It's time to move the black box to 'the cloud' at least for essential limited flight recorder data for long flights over (areas) like the Indian Ocean, or other remote areas across large land masses like across the Brazilian Amazon" according to a news release.

According to McGee, four 'Big Mega-Technology' trends emerging in airline business operations, cockpit aviation, navigation, and communications, air traffic control management, and international aviation safety and security in the next decade will be:

• Cloud Streaming of limited 'Black Box' data;
• "Big Data" airline business operational intelligence and data analytics;
• Advanced Wireless and Mobile Cockpit Information Management Systems, Mobile Air Traffic Control Systems (at least on some limited tasks and operations inside the airport control towers), and Mobile Working Capital Management Systems for airline business operations, cash management and liquidity analytics, and international financial market communications; and finally
• Social Media-based crisis communications, family-care and mediation, crash investigations and recovery, and media relations management.

 
McGee says these four mega-technological trends embody a simultaneous nexus of egalitarianism (The Cloud), markets (Big Data), communications (Wireless Mobile), and technology (Social Media) applicable to next-generation aircraft, flight supervision, engine performance data analytics, and air traffic control management systems. This nexus is the social, technological, educational, economic, and political challenge presented to all of us, brought about by the "greatest aviation mystery in aviation history."

Aviation and navigation of safer skies is all about being in communication at all times. This requires making advances in an innovative nexus of mega-trends towards seven grand-challenge technologies of (1) information sciences, (2) biosciences, (3) wireless technologies, (4) micro-technologies, (5) nanotechnologies (particularly in molecular computing, so we can model real-time the entire flight paths of thousands of aircraft across the world), (6) cognition research of pilot thinking under stress and crises, and finally, (7) mobility technologies for an aging passenger payload engaging next-generation aviation safety and security.

The Black Box data should not be lost in remote terrains or oceans, but rather should be secured and stored in 'the cloud', he says.

"We need to dig deeper into the technical details of retrieval and storage of cloud data systems, as well as, observe how other industries and firms have transformed how they store and transmit data," advises Peter Stewart, senior vice president for strategy and partnerships at PGi.

In a post on LinkedIn.com, McGee said "Boeing 777 airplanes do not vanish or fall out of the sky. This shocking incident is about how we globally aviate, navigate and communicate across safer and secure skies of international aviation. That is, safer skies over Asia, safer skies over Australia, safer skies over Africa, safer skies over Europe, safer skies over The Americas."

He says a state-of-the-art digital-age transatlantic, transpacific, and transpolar flight monitoring practice, air traffic management system, and airline business operations, which simultaneously and concurrently cloud streams from the 'Black-Box', handles "Big Data" and data analytics, incorporates advanced wireless and mobile communications, and leverages social media, particularly for media relations and family-care, should be the norm in aviation design and flight capabilities going forward.

(Malaysia Airlines 777 pictured in file photo)

FMI: www.olivermcgee.org