An Abnormal Flight Monitoring Implementation Employing CMU Database Customization

After the crash of Air France flight AF447 and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the Global Flight Tracking (GFT) has been suggested to be pursued as a matter of priority to provide early notice of and response to abnormal flight behaviors. The importance of flight operation monitoring has also been emphasized for its enabling capability of alerting airlines operation control (AOC) units for abnormal event occurrence in early stage, and hence appropriate support and/or operation risk mitigation can be provided to the pilots. In this paper, a monitoring method using ACARS for abnormal operations during a flight is developed. The implemented triggering logics for the abnormal events include go-around, aborted take-off, airborne holding and excessive descending rate. These triggering logics are implemented by using communication management unit (CMU) user database customization. Validations in airlines' routine operations show that the proposed method is a cost-effective solution for flight operation monitoring while taking full advantage of the fleet's existing avionics.