Two planes were lost this year and the black boxes were badly damaged. MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing completely disappeared without a trace prompting months of futile and costly searches. If commercial planes automatically transmit this information to ground stations we would instantly know the last state of the flight instead of having to retrieve "black boxes" from the ocean depths or dangerous war zones after a disaster. We can easily do this using the same technology that enables us to talk to people on the ground and use WiFi during international and domestic flights.



