VOA慢速英语2015 成本问题阻碍飞机自动追踪系统的应用

Expert: High Costs Prevent Automated 1 Airplane Tracking 成本问题阻碍飞机自动追踪系统的应用

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 3 lost.

马航370飞机失踪已经10个月了，尽管从南中国海到印度洋都在进行搜查，这架飞机仍然下落不明。

Even in the shallow water of the Java Sea, officials took several days to locate the remains of AirAsia flight 8501, about 160 kilometers off the coast of Borneo Island.

即使是在爪哇海的浅水区，官方也花费数天才找到亚航8501的残骸，距离婆罗洲160公里远。

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

有了卫星和其他技术，为何大型飞机还是会失踪呢？

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 4.

这里有个关于飞行不为人知的事实：距离陆地很远飞行的飞机，比如穿越海洋的飞机通常并不出现在陆上无线电系统和雷达上。

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.

卫星通讯和导航技术，如GPS定位系统和卫星电话让我们能知道飞机的位置，但这一技术并未全面使用。

The reason is cost.

原因就是成本问题。

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.

迈克尔·布拉希是俄亥俄大学电气工程教授，他说该技术的使用成本太高，知道最近也没有被视为是必须的。

“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.

“通过卫星通讯提供商传递信息到目前仍是巨大的开支，直到最近也没有及时追踪飞机的巨大需求。”

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.

但在航空安全经历这么糟糕的一年后，一切可能会改变。2014年，两架在水面上坠毁的飞机导致401名乘客和机组人员遇难。

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.

布拉希教授说，在去年3月份马航飞机灾难后，显然需要做些什么。“我们失掉了一架宽体飞机，目前仍不知道其下落，在如今这个时代，这很荒谬。”

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.

飞行员在飞行期间必须通报空管人员自己的当前位置，但是在需要快速决策的紧急情况中，飞行员无法让空管人员了解现状。

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

在这两起海上坠毁中，空管人员在飞行员报告问题前已失去了同飞机的联系。

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.

国际航空运输协会上周就该问题发布报告，报告建议每架飞机都安装自动位置报告系统，一旦飞行员无法报告飞机的位置，该系统就能起作用。

Professor Braasch says the technology for this already exists. But, he says, some airlines do not agree with the recommendations 6. He says they worry about the costs and the difficulty in agreeing to a standard system internationally.

布拉希教授说这项技术已经存在，但他说一些航空公司不接受该建议。他说这些公司担心成本问题以及认可国际标准体系带来的难度。

“It’s mostly just the matter of dealing 7 with the added expense and then putting a system in place that everybody agrees to the format 5 and the standards and things of that nature," he said.

“主要问题是处理新增开支，然后将一种格式和标准之类得到大家认同的系统安装到位。”

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.

一些飞行员也对在飞机上安装一种火灾中无法关闭的电气系统表示担心。目前只有飞行数据记录仪，即所谓的黑盒子，但这种仪器不受飞行员的控制。

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.

就目前来说，美国和欧洲准备使用名为广播式自动相关监视（简称ADS-B）的系统，该系统可以向空管人员和邻近飞机广播飞机的位置。

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

到2017年欧洲的一些飞机必须安装该系统，美国飞机在2020年之前必须安装。

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 2 – 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