As the saga over the missing Malaysian Airlines flight continues, the Federal Aviation Administration is mandating that all airplanes have GPS tracking systems by 2020.
The system, Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), gives controllers the ability to monitor planes using GPS satellite tracking rather than ground-based radar currently used. The ground-based radar currently being used doesn’t provide coverage to some areas around the globe. ADS-B provides unlimited coverage around the world.
According to aviation expert, Greg Feith, “Right now, a lot of aircraft are being equipped with it. It’s just that we didn’t have the infrastructure built. Now the infrastructure is built to use ADSB here in the United States, the rest of the world will follow suit so that we will have almost worldwide coverage for any aircraft.”