VOA慢速英语: 专家称成本过高阻碍飞机的自动跟踪系统

Expert: High Costs Prevent Automated Airplane Tracking

专家称成本高阻碍了飞机启动跟踪系统

Military and rescue authorities monitor progress in the search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 inside the National Search and Rescue Agency in Jakarta, December 29, 2014.

It's been 10 months since Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared. Despite search efforts that stretched from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean, the plane remains lost.

马来西亚航空公司370航班已经失踪10个月了。尽管搜索工作已经从南海扩大到印度洋，但是飞机仍然没有找到。

Even in the shallow water of the Java Sea, officials took several days to locate the remains of Air Asia flight8501, about 160 kilometers off the coast of Borneo Island.

即使在爪哇的浅水海域，官方人员用了好几天搜索亚航8501航班的残骸，这片海域距离婆罗州岛海岸线大概有160千米。

With satellites and other technology available, how can large airplanes just disappear?

通过采用卫星定位技术和其它可行的技术，一个庞大的飞机怎么能够消失呢？

Here is a little-known fact about flying: airplanes that are very far from land –crossing an ocean, for example – do not always appear on land radio systems and radar.

下面是关于飞行的一些鲜为人知的事实：飞机飞行远离陆地，跨越海洋，所以不总是能够被陆地上的无线电系统和雷达系统监测到。

Satellite communication and navigation technology, such as the global positioning system (GPS) and satellite telephones, allow us to know planes’ locations. But, the technology isn’t always used.

卫星通讯技术和导航技术，例如：全球定位系统和卫星电话，能够让我们了解到飞机的位置。但是这些技术并不总是在使用。

The reason is cost.

原因是费用的问题。

Michael Braasch is an Ohio University professor of electrical engineering. He says the technology is expensive to use, and until recently, wasn’t seen as necessary.

迈克尔·布拉西是俄亥俄州立大学电子工程系的教授。他说技术使用的费用太高，直到最近，技术也没有被认为必须使用。

“Being able to transmit messages through the satellite communication providers is an expense that, up until recently, there wasn’t a great need for, being able to keep track of the aircraft second-by-second,” Professor Braasch said.

布拉西教授说：“能够通过卫星通讯技术传输信息需要一项花费，直到最近，也没有显示出很大的需求来时刻追踪飞机的飞行。”

But after a bad year for airline safety, that may change. In 2014, the two plane crashes over water killed 401 passengers and crew members.

但是由于飞机事故的问题，这也许会发生改变。2014年，两架飞机坠落水中，401名乘客和机组人员丧生。

Professor Braasch says after the Malaysia Airlines disaster last March, it became clear that something must be done. “We lost a wide-body airplane and we have no idea where it is, and, in this day and age, that’s just absurd,” he said.

布拉西教授说自从三月份马航飞机失联以来，很明显需要采取一些行动了。“一架飞机失联，我们不知道它在哪儿，在现在这个高科技时代，有点荒谬。”

Pilots are required to inform air-traffic controllers of their current location during flights. But during emergency situations that require quick decision-making, pilots are not able to let air-traffic controllers know that information.

飞行员必须在飞行过程中向空中交通管制中心报告他们的飞行位置。但是紧急情况需要快速做决定，飞行员就不能及时向空中交通管制中心汇报信息了。

In both crashes at sea, controllers lost communication with the aircrafts before the pilots reported any problem.

两起飞机坠毁事故，飞行员没有报告任何问题，管制中心就失去与飞机的通信了。

The International Air Transport Association released a report last month on the topic. The report recommended that each airplane have an automated location-reporting system that works if pilots cannot report the plane’s location.

国际航空运输联盟上个月发布一项报道。报道建议每架飞机应该装配一个位置确认的自动报告系统，即使飞行员没办法报告飞机的位置，这套系统也能汇报。

Professor Braasch says the technology for this already exists. But, he says, some airlines do not agree with the recommendations. He says they worry about the costs and the difficulty in agreeing to a standard system internationally.

布拉西教授称这样技术已经存在。但是，一些航线不同意这项建议。他说他们担心费用问题和国际上的标准系统问题难以达成一致。

“It’s mostly just the matter of dealing with the added expense and then putting a system in place that everybody agrees to the format and the standards and things of that nature," he said.

“最主要的问题就是处理额外费用，然后设计一个每个国家都能接受的系统格式和标准。”

Some pilots are also concerned about having an electrical system on board that could not be turned off in the event of a fire. Right now, only the flight data recorder, the so-called black box, is out of the pilot's control.

一些飞行员担心遇到着火事件后，一些电子系统没办法关闭。记录数据信息的黑匣子就失去飞行员的控制了。

For now, the United States and Europe are prepared to use a system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, or ADS-B. The system is designed to broadcast the airplane’s location to air-traffic controllers and to other airplanes nearby.

现在，美国和欧洲正准备使用一种广播式自动回报监视系统，设计这个系统是用来向空中监控中心和附近的其它航班广播飞机的位置。

The system will be required for some aircraft in Europe by 2017 and in the United States by 2020.

在欧洲，这种系统预计在2017年在一些飞机上使用，而在美国预计到2020年投入使用。

I’m Jonathan Evans.

我是乔纳森·伊凡斯。

VOA science correspondent George Putic wrote this story from Washington, DC. Ashley Thompson wrote it for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

____________________________________________________________

Words in this Story

navigation – n. the act, activity, or process of finding the way to get to a place when you are traveling in a ship, airplane, car, etc.

transmit – v. to send (information, sound, etc.) in the form of electrical signals to a radio, television, computer, etc.

automate – v. to run or operate something, such as a factory or system by using machines, computers, etc., instead of people to do the work

surveillance – n. the act of carefully watching someone or something