Airlines Seek to Improve Aircraft Tracking and Passenger Screenings Following Disappearance of MH370

Airlines are calling for stronger security and passenger screenings in the wake of the incident involving the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that disappeared on March 8. The International Air Transport Association said it is hoping to improve aircraft tracking and screening of passengers.

The IATA also announced that it is in the process of creating a task force that will make recommendations this year on how to continuously track commercial planes, the Associated Press reports.

"We cannot let another aircraft simply vanish," Tony Tyler, the director general of IATA, said. There are 240 airlines that are members of the IATA and carry 84 percent of passengers and cargo across the world.

"In a world where our every move seems to be tracked, there is disbelief that an
aircraft could simply disappear," Tyler said. "Accidents are rare, but the current search for 370 is a reminder that we cannot be complacent on safety."

Officials have spent three weeks searching for Flight 370 without any luck. The plane was carrying 239 people when it disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Several countries have been searching the southern Indian Ocean by plane and boat for the missing jet, but there is no real trace of the plane that may have flown for hours after it was lost from the radar.

Tyler also asked governments to increase the use of passenger databases like one operated by interpol to learn information like if a passport has been stolen. Interpol is a database with 40 million stolen or lost travel documents, however many countries, including Malaysia, don't run travel documents through the computer system.

"Airlines are neither border guards nor policemen. That is the well-established responsibility of governments," Tyler said. "The information is critical and must be used effectively."

A Malaysian minister said that it takes too much time and is too difficult to check Interpol's database, but the agency argued against this, saying it only takes a few seconds to show if a passport is on the list of stolen documents. Countries like the United States, Singapore and others use this system.

There were two men on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight that had stolen passports. They were first thought to be terrorists but they may have just been seeking asylum. However their ability to board the plane with stolen documents is a concern.