????24日，德國之翼航空公司一架載有150人的空客A320飛機在法國阿爾卑斯山區(qū)墜毀。在面向媒體的聲明中，法國總統(tǒng)奧朗德謹慎地請機上人員的親友做好最壞打算。

????他說：“目前尚不清楚空難發(fā)生時的情況，但現(xiàn)狀顯示可能沒有生還者。”

????現(xiàn)在遇難飛機的一個黑匣子已經(jīng)找到，權(quán)威機構(gòu)更有把握來確定到底哪里出了問題。黑匣子會記錄下無線電通信、飛行員聲音以及飛機的飛行高度和速度等信息。美國聯(lián)邦航空管理局要求所有大型商用飛機上都必須配備黑匣子，對揭曉事故原因，黑匣子通常是關(guān)鍵所在。

????但盡管它們?nèi)绱酥匾?，黑匣子采用的卻并非最新技術(shù)。老式設備用磁帶來存儲數(shù)據(jù)，新一些的設備雖然采用了數(shù)字存儲技術(shù)，但依然只有在事故現(xiàn)場找到才能調(diào)取數(shù)據(jù)，而搜尋黑匣子并非一門精密科學。例如，法國航空447號班機于2009年墜毀，但機上的飛行數(shù)據(jù)記錄儀直到2011年才被找到。

????一家加拿大公司Flyht Aerospace Solutions正在致力于解決這種系統(tǒng)缺陷。它推出了一種自動化飛行信息系統(tǒng)，安裝成本約為10萬美元，可實時傳輸飛機的性能數(shù)據(jù)，并每隔5-10分鐘更新駕駛艙相關(guān)數(shù)據(jù)。最重要的是，該系統(tǒng)可識別航線偏離等異常狀況，，一旦發(fā)生，它會立即傳輸每秒數(shù)據(jù)來報告。

????其他航空公司也在探索類似的技術(shù)升級。1月份，據(jù)彭博社報道，卡塔爾航空計劃為其機組配備一種自動追蹤系統(tǒng)，并希望在全行業(yè)起到一定的推動作用，以避免再度發(fā)生去年馬航MH370航班那樣的失聯(lián)悲劇。

????卡塔爾航空首席執(zhí)行官阿克巴爾?阿爾?貝克對彭博社表示，這項技術(shù)目前正在進行全面安裝前的最后測試，它可將飛機飛行數(shù)據(jù)記錄儀中的數(shù)據(jù)傳輸給航空公司的運行控制中心。

????然而，只有為數(shù)甚少的航空公司打算跟進。美國交通部前監(jiān)察長瑪麗?斯齊亞沃指出，航空公司拖延的原因顯而易見：說白了就是錢的問題。

????她對CNN表示：“除非政府做出強制規(guī)定，否則[航空公司]不可能增加額外的安全措施。”

????此外還有一種更具有成本效益的改進方法值得考慮：即可以彈出機外的黑匣子。

????1月份，路透社報道稱，聯(lián)合國下屬的國際民用航空組織建議全世界的商業(yè)航班采用這種彈出式黑匣子，而且這種設備在美國海軍噴氣機上已經(jīng)是標準配置。但每套彈出式黑匣子的成本約為3萬美元，因此它的推行依舊面臨阻力。畢竟，目前廣泛應用的霍尼韋爾國際公司生產(chǎn)的非彈出式黑匣子價格要便宜一半左右。

????德國之翼航空公司的悲劇遠未落幕，各方確定事故原因或許仍需相當長的時間。而除非整個航空業(yè)采用更新更好的技術(shù)，否則，在類似情況下要想查明問題所在，人們依然要等下去。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????A Germanwings Airbus A320 crashed Tuesday morning in the French Alps, with approximately 150 people on board. In a statement to the press, French President Fran?ois Hollande articulated the worst fears of the friends and relatives of those on board.

????“The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, suggest that there might not be any survivors,” he said.

????Now that one of the plane’s black box recorders has been found, authorities stand a better chance of determining what exactly went wrong. These devices document radio transmissions, pilot voices and such information as the plane’s altitude and speed. They are required on all large commercial aircraft by the Federal Aviation Administration, and they are often critical to uncovering the cause of a crash.

????Despite their importance, black boxes use technology that is hardly state-of-the-art. Older units store data on magnetic tape, and while newer units use digital technology, they still have to be found at the crash site, which is not an exact science by any means. For example, after Air France Flight 447 crashed in 2009, the flight data recorder wasn’t recovered until 2011.

????A company that’s currently addressing the deficiencies in this system is Canada’s Flyht Aerospace Solutions. It offers an Automated Flight Information System, which costs approximately $100,000 to install, can live-stream the airplane’s performance data, and sends updates from the cockpit every five to 10 minutes. Most importantly, the system can recognize such irregularities as deviations in the flight path, and responds by streaming data every second.

????Other airlines are pursuing similar upgrades. In January, Bloomberg reported Qatar Airways plans to equip its fleet with an automatic tracking system amid an industry-wide push to prevent incidents such as the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 last year in the Indian Ocean.

????The technology is being tested now ahead of a fleet-wide rollout. It transmits data from a plane’s flight-data recorder to the airline operations center, Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker told Bloomberg.

????Not many other airlines plan to follow suit, and the reason for the pushback is simple and predictable: money, notes Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the Department of Transportation.

????“[Airlines] simply will not add additional safety measures unless mandated by the federal government,” she told CNN.

????A more cost-effective improvement is also up for consideration: black boxes that can be ejected from the plane.

????In January, Reuters reported that the International Civil Aviation Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, had proposed using them on commercial airliners, and they’re already standard equipment on some U.S. Navy jets. But at approximately $30,000 apiece, there’s still resistance to using them. After all, the widely-used, non-deployable recorders manufactured by Honeywell International cost about half that.

????The Germanwings tragedy is still unfolding, and it’s possible that a considerable amount of time may pass before investigators can determine the probable cause of the crash. Until newer, better technology is adopted across the board in the airline industry, finding out what exactly went wrong in situations such as these is likely to remain a waiting game.