Missing Malaysia Airlines plane lacked $US10 upgrade that could have provided crucial satellite data
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
A simple computer upgrade that Malaysia Airlines decided not to purchase would have provided critical information to help find the airliner that disappeared 11 days ago.
The upgrade, which wholesales for about $US10 per flight ($10.90), would have provided investigators with the direction, speed and altitude of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 even after other communications from the plane went dark, said a satellite industry official familiar with the equipment.
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Data from a similar computer upgrade allowed investigators in the 2009 crash of an Air France jet liner to quickly narrow their search area to a radius of about 64 kilometres in the Atlantic Ocean, and in five days they found floating evidence of the crash.
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The new information indicates that had the upgrade for a system called Swift been installed, it would have continued to send flight data by satellite even after the plane's transponder and Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) communications went dead.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-lacked-us10-upgrade-that-could-have-provided-crucial-satellite-data-for-search-20140320-hvkna.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
$US11 per flight. . . .
mini 
done.
