Aircrafts may soon be tracked every 15 minutes instead of the previous 30 to 40 minutes, if a new method to enhance the tracking of aircrafts will be implemented.

The trial of the new method, which will be led by Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia, will be an enhancement of the current tracking of aircrafts over remote oceans.

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Describing the new system as a "world first," Australian Transport Minister Walter Truss said the state-owned Airservices Australia will work with its Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts for the testing of this new method.

With the new method, planes should be more easily found should they vanish, like Malaysia's Airlines Flight 370, which up to now has not been traced.  The Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight, which had disappeared last year, had 239 people on board.

The new method will use a satellite-based positioning technology already found on most planes. The technology transmits the current plane's current and the next two planned positions but it will enable tracking at 15 minutes interval and increased to five minutes or less if a deviation is noted in the plane's direction.

Airservices Australia Chairman Angus Houston explained that the new system will boost the frequency in the reporting of the plane's position and thus allow air traffic controllers to improve their monitoring. 

Houston, however, told reporters that the new system is "not a silver bullet," although he said it is an important step in delivering immediate improvements to the way we currently track aircraft while more comprehensive solutions are developed."

At present, real-time tracking of commercial flights is not required. In the aftermath of the disappearance of Flight 370 on March 8, air safety regulators are discussing the extent of aircraft tracking after an international team of experts found that the plane had traveled for another seven hours before it crashed.

TagsMalaysia Airlines, Flight MH370, missing plane, tracking system, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia