Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELT) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELT) - Essay Example Technological advances in design of all these modes of transportation have made them far safer than they have ever been since their inception. Aircraft are some of the most technologically advanced systems today, with some having the capacity to travel at the speed of sound, others capable of transcontinental flight, still others practically built to be fortresses in the sky. Ships have become more massive, or more streamlined. They have become floating island cities. Trains nowadays are technological marvels of speed and safety, carrying people from one place to another at a fraction of the time they used to. However, despite all these technological leaps, there have still been instances that disasters strike, and none of these modes of transportation have been spared from the rare occurrences of disaster. Most accidents are external in nature – lightning strikes an aircraft, an iceberg rams a ship, a bridge collapses under the weight of a train. Because of the ease at which these transportation agents bring people to their destinations, there has been a bigger volume of commuters in the world today than ever before. Therefore, there are far more people who start passengers and end up as victims of an accident, and the sad reality is, they could potentially be casualties in the final calculation. Recent accidents like that of Air France 447 where the debris of the ill-fated aircraft, an ultra-modern Airbus A330 jet carrying 228 passengers, have yet to be found, remind us of the importance of having equipment that allows for quick location of an accident. Casualties usually mount as more time passes from the time of the accident to the time rescue teams arrive. There has to be a way to decrease this time because every second literally means lives. To solve this problem, the distress radio beacons or emergency beacons were developed. They are basically tracking