Air France Crash Suggestion: Have Planes Send Black Box Data by Satellite

When Air France flight 447 crashed on a stormy night off Brazil in 2009, it took its secrets with it to the bottom of the Atlantic. There was no distress call, no sign of trouble before the plane disappeared. The plane's "black boxes" -- its flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder -- were not recovered until this spring: 228 people died.

Now, some companies propose a way to prevent future accidents from becoming so mysterious. They suggest that overseas flights be equipped with transmitters so that planes automatically send information from their black boxes to satellites overhead if they get in trouble. It would only require the addition of a laptop-size blue box, they say, something that some jets already carry.

"The technology is available, people agree it works, every technical issue has been solved," said Matthew Desch, the CEO of Iridium Communications, a firm that provides phones and data transmitters that can reach its 66 satellites in low Earth orbit. "An airplane should not go off the coast without anyone knowing where it is and what's wrong with it."