KANATA, ONT.
First Air is living up to its name by being the first in the world.

This First Air Boeing 737, along with 21 other aircraft in the company's fleet, will be the first in the world to get live black box streaming. - photo courtesy of First Air

It will be the first airline anywhere to have live black box streaming of vital information from its aircraft to the ground via satellite.

Over the past nine months, First Air has been working with FLYHT Aerospace Solutions Ltd. of Calgary to add the company's FLYHTStream technology to its fleet of aircraft.

Vic Charlebois, vice-president of flight operations with First Air in Kanata, Ont., explained FLYHTStream can be thought of as a virtual black box, which is a common term for the flight data recorder.

"So any data that's being recorded on the flight data recorder is being streamed to the ground," he said.

First Air is hoping to have the technology activated by mid-May as it is phased into its fleet over the course of a week.

If an aircraft encounters an emergency or what's called a non-normal event, FLYHTStream sends vital data, which is also secured in the black box on the aircraft, to designated sites on the ground in real time.

That capability is an addition to FLYHT's technology known as AFIRS, which stands for automated flight information reporting system, which allows airlines to monitor and manage aircraft operations anywhere in real time. First Air has had AFIRS on its aircraft for about two years.

FLYHTStream can be initiated by the pilot pushing a button, from the ground or when the black box records certain events such as engine failure, loss of pressurization or smoke in the aircraft.

"So if the pilots are busy, have their hands full flying the airplane or dealing with a fire onboard or something like that, they don't even have to push the button," said Charlebois.

"It will automatically start streaming the data and let us know that the airplane has a problem. That's a very good capability to have."

It will start streaming recorded information from a point 20 seconds prior to being initiated, he noted. "It will catch up to its current position in the flight and continue to stream the data until it's told to stop."

FLYHTStream is software that can be added to AFIRS by satellite.

"So nobody has to access the aircraft. There's no maintenance that has to do anything. The pilots don't have to do anything," said Charlebois. "It goes into the AFIRS box on the aircraft and it configures itself to be ready for data streaming. So we've worked on that already and we've found that it's working OK."

The streaming will not involve the cockpit voice recorder.

"We are proud to be industry leaders in adopting the FLYHTStream capability to ensure First Air has the highest level of operational awareness available on any aircraft flying today," said Brock Friesen, the president and CEO of First Air, in a news release. "It is another important step in our continual process of enhancing safety.”

Matt Bradley, the president of FLYHT Aerospace Solutions Ltd., said his company is proud to work with First Air to introduce FLYHTStream.

"They have a very progressive management team that is open to new solutions," he said. "You don't often find that. They are aggressively seeking ways to increase the efficiency and the safety of the airline."

Bradley noted it is exceptional to see an airline be proactive in the interest of safety, instead of waiting for a government regulation.

The FLYHT Aerospace Solutions president said the company is the first in world to have anything like FLYHTStream on a plane and actually working.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

The ability to live-stream black box data off an aircraft has been the topic of international discussion since the still-unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on March 8.

Bradley expressed hope that the disappearance will prompt aviation regulators and the industry to address some of the gaps in information availability that the average person doesn't even know exists.

Charlebois noted that, if FLYHTStream is being used by a lost aircraft like Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, an airline would have a very good idea of where the plane is located.

"Because, until it lost all its power, you would know where it was from the GPS streaming data and you would know if the engines were operating, what altitude it was at, what speed it was doing, where the flight controls were, how the hydraulic system was," he said. "Whatever parameters the black box was recording, you would also have secure on the ground."