Agarwal sent a message to Tom Enders – CEO, Airbus Group – Email Address that said:
Regarding Aircraft Safety
Dear Sir,
I am a Chemical Engineer. I graduated from IIT, Roorkee in 1974 with Honors. Then I served Heavy Water Board of Department of Atomic Energy of Government of India for 42 years. I retired as Outstanding Scientist and Executive Director (Operation). I was looking after operation of Indian heavy water plants and producing lots of it. I decided to write to you on an important matter pertaining to aircrafts as the leading manufacturer of the aircrafts.
Once in a while we come across incidences of loss of aircraft in the sea and on land. It might take a few hours before loss of aircraft is realized. Then a search is instituted which goes on for months and even longer. Of course no passenger would survive so long after the accident, and large sums of money are spent with no gains. With today’s technological level it should be possible to improve the situation drastically.
My suggestion is as follows.
It should be possible to engineer appropriate devices so that in the event that;
· A flight threatening alarm appears in the aircraft during flight (e.g. engine on fire, loss of fuel, sudden depressurization etc); OR
· There is rapid loss of height of aircraft; OR
· The aircraft descends to low altitude in an area not known to have an airstrip
Then automatic transfer dumping of flight data (including exact position of the aircraft ) should be initiated to data collection centers located at ground. These data collection centers can be made and located throughout the world. The nearest or most appropriate center should start communicating with the aircraft and receive entire flight data of few minutes prior to the incident and all data subsequently in real time. Such an arrangement can be engineered to ensure that exact location of the aircraft as it goes down on land or sea is available and rescue operations to accurate location can be mobilized quickly. It can also announce when the aircraft is going down unplanned. There will be some chance of saving the passengers if action is taken quickly, as well as searches will not cost too much money.
Alternately it will also be possible to receive and record entire flight data all the time aircraft is flying, and announce to ground station when anything abnormal happens.
As I said I am not from the field of aircraft designing, however I believe that the suggestions will be entirely implementable and will bring a big change adding to flight safety.
You may please consider. Kindly acknowledge receipt of this mail.
With Best Wishes
Sincerely
Agarwal
