VOA慢速英語: 專家稱成本過高阻礙飛機的自動跟蹤系統(tǒng)

Expert: High Costs Prevent Automated Airplane Tracking

專家稱成本高阻礙了飛機啟動跟蹤系統(tǒng)

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.

馬來西亞航空公司370航班已經(jīng)失蹤10個月了。盡管搜索工作已經(jīng)從南海擴大到印度洋，但是飛機仍然沒有找到。

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.

即使在爪哇的淺水海域，官方人員用了好幾天搜索亞航8501航班的殘骸，這片海域距離婆羅州島海岸線大概有160千米。

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

通過采用衛(wèi)星定位技術(shù)和其它可行的技術(shù)，一個龐大的飛機怎么能夠消失呢？

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.

下面是關(guān)于飛行的一些鮮為人知的事實：飛機飛行遠離陸地，跨越海洋，所以不總是能夠被陸地上的無線電系統(tǒng)和雷達系統(tǒng)監(jiān)測到。

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.

衛(wèi)星通訊技術(shù)和導(dǎo)航技術(shù)，例如：全球定位系統(tǒng)和衛(wèi)星電話，能夠讓我們了解到飛機的位置。但是這些技術(shù)并不總是在使用。

The reason is cost.

原因是費用的問題。

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.

邁克爾·布拉西是俄亥俄州立大學(xué)電子工程系的教授。他說技術(shù)使用的費用太高，直到最近，技術(shù)也沒有被認為必須使用。

“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.

布拉西教授說：“能夠通過衛(wèi)星通訊技術(shù)傳輸信息需要一項花費，直到最近，也沒有顯示出很大的需求來時刻追蹤飛機的飛行。”

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.

但是由于飛機事故的問題，這也許會發(fā)生改變。2014年，兩架飛機墜落水中，401名乘客和機組人員喪生。

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.

布拉西教授說自從三月份馬航飛機失聯(lián)以來，很明顯需要采取一些行動了。“一架飛機失聯(lián)，我們不知道它在哪兒，在現(xiàn)在這個高科技時代，有點荒謬。”

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.

飛行員必須在飛行過程中向空中交通管制中心報告他們的飛行位置。但是緊急情況需要快速做決定，飛行員就不能及時向空中交通管制中心匯報信息了。

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

兩起飛機墜毀事故，飛行員沒有報告任何問題，管制中心就失去與飛機的通信了。

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.

國際航空運輸聯(lián)盟上個月發(fā)布一項報道。報道建議每架飛機應(yīng)該裝配一個位置確認的自動報告系統(tǒng)，即使飛行員沒辦法報告飛機的位置，這套系統(tǒng)也能匯報。

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.

布拉西教授稱這樣技術(shù)已經(jīng)存在。但是，一些航線不同意這項建議。他說他們擔心費用問題和國際上的標準系統(tǒng)問題難以達成一致。

“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.

“最主要的問題就是處理額外費用，然后設(shè)計一個每個國家都能接受的系統(tǒng)格式和標準。”

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.

一些飛行員擔心遇到著火事件后，一些電子系統(tǒng)沒辦法關(guān)閉。記錄數(shù)據(jù)信息的黑匣子就失去飛行員的控制了。

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.

現(xiàn)在，美國和歐洲正準備使用一種廣播式自動回報監(jiān)視系統(tǒng)，設(shè)計這個系統(tǒng)是用來向空中監(jiān)控中心和附近的其它航班廣播飛機的位置。

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

在歐洲，這種系統(tǒng)預(yù)計在2017年在一些飛機上使用，而在美國預(yù)計到2020年投入使用。

I’m Jonathan Evans.

我是喬納森·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.

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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