马航飞机失联：飞行中可能会遇到的问题

"Including the MAS 777, Ascend Online shows that a total of 46 western-built jet airliners have crashed with the loss of all on board while in the en-route phase. Of these, 13 were caused by sabotage, two more by hijacks and one was shot down. Three more were caused by undetermined causes where flightcrew suicide is suspected."
“包括这次马航777飞机，Ascend网站显示，总共有46架西方生产的飞机在飞行途中完全坠毁。其中13起事故是蓄意破坏导致的，两起是劫机，一起是飞机被击落。还有3起原因不明，飞行员自杀也被怀疑是原因之一。”

And, he notes, "In some cases, in-flight events happen so rapidly that the flightcrew are unable to issue any form of mayday, but it is extremely" unusual.
他还注意到，“在某些案例中，飞行中的状况发生的太突然，以至于飞行员来不及发出任何警报，但这种情况非常少见。”

Pilot's Role
飞行员的角色

When faced with a crisis, the main job of the pilots is to maintain control of the aircraft. That may explain why there was no communication from the Malaysian Airlines plane.
面临危机时，飞行员的主要任务就是保持对飞机的控制。这也许可以解释为什么马航客机没有和地面联系。

"If the pilots are distracted doing something else, then talking to air traffic controllers is not a priority," said John Cox, a former commercial airline pilot who is now CEO of Safety Operating Systems.
“如果飞行员因为做其他事情而分心，那他就不会优先选择和空中交通控制员通话，”安全操作系统的CEO约翰·考克斯说，他曾经也是一名民航飞行员。

Ison notes that in the event there's no communication, it could mean that something catastrophic has happened, or simply that the crew was unaware of what was happening. That was the case, he says, with Air France Flight 447. The pilots "didn't communicate [with air-traffic controllers], even though they had an opportunity to," he said.
艾森注意到，在这起事故中没有任何通信，这也许意味着发生了某些毁灭性的的事故，或者飞行员根本不知道发生了什么。他说，法航447航班事故就是这样。飞行员“并没有和空中交通控制员联系，即使当时他们还来得及这么做。”

The black box recordings in that case showed that the pilots seemed unaware that the plane was going to crash until just seconds before they hit the water.
这起事故中的黑匣子录音表明，飞行员似乎直到飞机坠入海中的前几秒才意识到飞机即将坠毁。

What's Next
接下来该怎样做

The black boxes on that Air France flight were found two years later, and it took investigators until 2012 to piece together what happened on Flight 447. That may also be what's in store for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.
法航事故中的黑匣子两年之后才找到，调查人员直到2012年才推断出447航班上到底发生了什么。也许马航MH370这次也会面临同样的情况。

"Of course, once this plane is found, it'll be much more clear what may have happened to the aircraft," Curtis said. "In any case, it may be months or years before the true nature of this event is understood."
“当然，一旦找到飞机，查明真相会更加清楚，” 柯蒂斯说。“在任何空难中，都需要花上数月甚至数年才能弄清事故的真相。”

Ison, however, said there's no reason why it takes so long to locate an aircraft after it goes missing.
然而，艾森认为飞机失联后要花如此长的时间来确定位置，是没有理由的。

"In this day and age, having no ability to pinpoint these aircraft is really not acceptable," he said. "We have technology to make it happen. We really need to do something ... so we can prevent the loss of aircraft."
“今时今日依然没有能力定位飞机，这简直不可接受，”他说。“我们有技术做到这一点。我们真的需要采取行动，避免这种空难的发生。”

The holdup, said Rosenker, the former NTSB chair, is cost. One recent study said a U.S. airline with a global network would have to spend at least $300 million per year to transmit its flight data.
美国国家运输安全委员会的前任主席马克·罗森克说，这种事故代价高昂。一项最近的研究表明，一家有全球航线的美国航空公司每年至少需要花费3亿美元来发送它的飞行数据。