From the NY Times:
Again, I fail to understand how this would help. The 'ping' signals were from the SATCOM itself keeping a connection with the satellite. The positional reporting (ADS-B or ACARS) was shut down. Decreased positional reporting intervals would not have helped find the plane unless they somehow cause the 'ping' intervals to be more frequent, and, since those systems were shut down, how would they? The only thing that would have helped is if those SATCOM 'pings' were more frequent but I don't think that is what they are proposing.
...in the wake of the Flight 370 disappearance, the airlines and the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations body, have agreed in principle on the need for all airliners to have the ability, by November 2016, to automatically report their position at least every 15 minutes, twice as often as the current average of around 30 minutes.Had those measures been in place before Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur Airport, they may not have prevented the plane from crashing, but the plane would have most likely been found by now and the question of what happened put to rest.
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