GADSS

ICAO, which is a United Nations specialized agency, created the Global Aeronautical Distress & Safety System (GADSS) largely in response to the loss of flights AF447 and MH370. GADSS contains Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) that establish what is expected of airlines and aircraft operators for tracking aircraft in normal conditions as well as when an aircraft is in distress.

The normal aircraft tracking SARPs are applicable starting in November 2018 and establish the air operator’s responsibility to track its aircraft throughout its area of operations. Operators are expected to receive positions at least once every 15 minutes whenever air traffic services cannot do so.

The SARPs relating to the location of an aircraft in distress become applicable in January 2021 and establish the requirement for automatically tracking aircraft in distress with position updates at least once per minute.

FlightAware has partnered with Aireon℠ to provide airlines and aircraft operators with 100 percent global flight tracking from Aireon’s space-based ADS-B receivers hosted on the Iridium® NEXT constellation. FlightAware leverages its data processing capabilities to combine position data from Aireon’s network with flight details, making it possible to track more planes than ever before possible. Aireon’s network is the first and only proven solution that exceeds GADSS SARPS for flight tracking.