Found inFeature
The Latest Updates in the Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS) Initiative
Momentum builds for the GADSS initiative, with Europe leading the charge to comply by January 2025.
Momentum builds for the GADSS initiative, with Europe leading the charge to comply by January 2025.
It’s been nearly a decade since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared without a trace while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The doomed plane, which claimed the lives of 239 people, was a wake-up call for global airlines to embrace better tracking technology so similar tragedies won’t be repeated.
The crash led to the Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS) initiative spearheaded by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialized agency of the United Nations.
“GADSS is a concept made of three main components—flight tracking, autonomous distress tracking, and post-flight localization and recovery,” says Claude Pichavant, executive expert in Communication, Navigation, Surveillance Cockpit and Platforms – 1YA for Airbus Operations S.A.S. “The first one is deployed, the second one will come very soon on the Airbus fleet, and the third one will be deployed by Airbus on a voluntary basis [as part of continuous safety enhancements], in a couple of years for the long-range family.”
GADSS calls for 15-minute updates of aircraft position in normal operations and autonomous tracking every minute when a plane is in distress, he explains.
Embraced in Europe and in Latin America, as well as parts of Asia (except China), GADSS has gone through two postponements at the request of OEMs that cited the need for more time to get the hardware certified and deployed. The first delay went from 2021 to 2023; the latest extends compliance to 2025 for EASA.
“The difficulty was that the OEMs found the timeline to still be very challenging for putting new equipment onto the aircraft,” recalls Ruben Stepin, director of business development for Kelowna-based SKYTRAC. He expressed confidence that the new timeline will stick.
“It’s going to happen,” he says.
Despite the extension, SKYTRAC remains ready to supply GADSS solutions into the market with the ADT 5000. Stepin states that SKYTRAC "will be able to meet market demand for both line fit and retrofit opportunities."
The latest indication of industry momentum came in November, when the European Union mandated that all new global commercial and business aircraft comply with the new guidelines according to the new timeline.
GADSS’ 15-minute normal tracking standard is already adhered to globally, while many countries still haven’t set out their national regulations in support of the one-minute standard for distress operations.
To comply with the mandate, aircraft with a maximum take-off weight over 27,000 kilograms (60,000 pounds) with an airworthiness certificate issued would have to autonomously transmit position information at least once every minute when an in-flight aircraft is in distress.
The United States and China have declined to meet GADSS’ one-minute distress requirement over U.S. airspace.
When asked for clarification on the FAA’s position, a spokesperson from the agency stated over email, “The U.S. already has a robust surveillance network that satisfies the GADSS expectations, including the deployment of ADS-B in 2020. In addition, all aircraft operating internationally will be required to meet the ICAO standard by the Jan. 1, 2025, deadline.”
The U.S. Coast Guard, which performs aeronautical and maritime search and rescue (SAR) services, sees value in the one-minute automated distress capability recommended by GADSS.
“I'm a firm believer in ADS-B, but as good as it is, we don't want to rely only on it,” says Dave Edwards, a 23-year active-duty U.S. Coast Guard officer and international SAR expert who serves as chair of the joint ICAO/IMO Working Group. In this capacity, Edwards tries “to represent the global community, not just the U.S. perspective.” He works at the intersection of international policy technology standards and how the global community should implement GADSS.
Edwards cites the crash of EgyptAir Flight 804 over the Mediterranean in May 2016 as an example of why redundancy matters. The plane’s ADS-B ceased working once power failed on the aircraft, recalled Edwards. However, the Airbus aircraft was equipped with an emergency locator transmitter that automatically deployed and floated, and continued to emit position information to help rescue teams find the wreckage.
The FAA requires class A, B, and C airspace within the U.S. domestic airspace and all land mass regions to operate ADS-B. It works by broadcasting information about an aircraft’s GPS location, altitude, ground speed, and other data.
According to Edwards, the GADSS initiative initially wasn’t focused on the SAR community, but today its priority is increasingly focused on improving response times of maritime and land-based first responders. He observes that the complexity facing the SAR community when they first are notified of a distressed aircraft can be daunting. This is because alerts may be delayed due to a lack of contact details among the primary stakeholders, including aircraft operators and air traffic services providers, and a lack of prior coordination arrangements amongst themselves.
To support faster response times, ICAO has led the push for a common database for tracking planes called the Location of an Aircraft in Distress Repository (LADR). Built with in-kind and monetary donations, including from FAA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other stakeholders, LADR will provide pre-authorized users in the SAR community, airline operators, and air traffic service providers with a common and real-time picture of an aircraft in distress, with the ability to click to access the database from current operational systems.
With LADR, they gain a “one-stop shop to get information,” say industry experts.
“Originally, we were working to have everything ready by the beginning of 2023, but there’s been a delay in equipage requirements which has bought us some time. We are confident that a functional LADR will be ready by next summer to support operational trials,” says Miguel Marin, chief of operational safety at the Air Navigation Bureau within ICAO.
The main repository will be hosted by EUROCONTROL in Belgium, with a satellite system also being built in the Republic of Benin.
Vendors such as SKYTRAC, ACR Electronics, and Orolia are reporting significant progress with their enabling hardware that will support autonomous distress tracking.
Embraer selected SKYTRAC and ACR Electronics, both brands of ACR Group, to provide an end-to-end GADSS solution. SKYTRAC's ADT 5000 captures aircraft parameters such as position, altitude, and other critical system data and runs it through Distress Detection Logic. The ADT 5000 is a dual-redundancy system so both data acquisition devices within the unit can detect a Distress Condition before generating a triggering command in the event of a distress scenario.
The ADT 5000 solution works with several Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELT)s, including ACR Electronics’ ARTEX ELT 5000 (DT), relaying high-resolution 4D positions of the aircraft in real time.
French-based Orolia received certification from Cospas-Sarsat in October and the EU Safety Agency for its distress tracking emergency locator transmitter. It will supply its ELT-DTs for all Airbus aircraft programs as part of a multi-year program contract.
According to Christian Belleux, director of aviation and defense beacons product lines at Orolia, the company’s new locator transmitter with distress tracking will be embedded on all Airbus aircraft beginning next year.
“We got certification Cospas-Sarsat that satisfies that all beacons will be fully compliant with the requirements of their satellite network. What we are waiting for now is the final compliance from the Cospas-Sarsat for the full compliance of the network—that was not fully completed, but that should be done by the end of this year,” he says.
Jérôme Ramé, Aviation & Military product line director, acknowledged that Orolia is behind the company’s original ramp-up date since the mandate moved. The company is coordinating closely with suppliers to be able to deliver the hardware at the beginning of next year.
“This beacon is a new generation for distress tracking. What is new is that the beacon is constantly communicating with the aircraft. The beacon is talking to the computer, which analyzes the flight parameters in real time,” says Ramé.
Orolia’s is the first ELT that complies with the DO-227A standard for non-rechargeable lithium batteries with a battery system that is permanently installed on the aircraft.
"What is very new and interesting is that activates very fast,” says Belleux, indicating that the beacon transmits every five seconds immediately after activation rather than the required 60-second intervals.
Many industry players would like to fully comply with all the GADSS recommendations, and SKYTRAC anticipates seeing a robust retrofit market blooming even without regulation, especially for airlines that see safety as a priority.
“The whole spirit of GADSS is to save lives. Any initiative that promotes that is for the benefit of all people in using that airline or using the operations,” says Stepin.
Edwards agrees, noting that accidents involving large cargo or passenger aircraft don’t happen that often, but when they do, the public expects the government to have a rapid response “to quickly find the site for rescue of as many survivors and recovery of the remains of the victims to give the families closure.”
