Several flight tracking services online can detect aircraft in real time, using GPS navigation data transmitted from the aircraft themselves . But in the case of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared from radar screens over 48 hours, a hole in the coverage maps means that even these sites have no answers.
"We lost to follow very soon , " a spokesman told FoxNews.com FlightAware .
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 , a Boeing 777 with 239 people on board, departed from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on March 8 at 12:43 am local time on the way to Beijing , China , according to FlightAware , which published a record of follow minute by minute flight . The plane was at 35,000 feet at 1:01 am on Saturday morning .
A minute later, the site data ends .
" Government regulations prohibit flight tracking live in the area," the company said. "Quickly , after takeoff, which was out of our range of coverage and had no position in vivo. "
Flightradar24 another application tracking flights in real time, immediately sought to analyze the data after the disappearance of the aircraft. The site seems to have a bit more data , monitoring Flight 370 for another 15 minutes or so . However, he could not trace the entire aircraft .
" Between [ 1:19 a.m. and 1:20 am EDT Malaysia ] changing the aircraft was heading from 25 to 40 degrees, which is probably completely according to the flight plan as MH370 both March 4 and 08 March did the same in the same position , "says a post on the Facebook page of the company. "The last two signals are both showing that the plane is heading in the direction 40 degrees. "
Next, the company lost track of the plane. He received no warning " squawk " Emergency.
This data comes from the ADS- B transponder on the plane - the so-called black box - which transmits the location of a plane twice per second . Approximately 60 percent of all passenger aircraft are equipped with transponders to beam this data, the company said.
Flightradar 24 states have a network of over 3,000 ADS- B receivers worldwide receive pings from airplanes. But still, the aircraft location can be a challenge .
" Due to the high frequency used ( 1.090 MHz ) coverage of each receiver is limited to about 150-250 miles in all directions depending on the location ," explains the company. " The farther the receiver of an airplane is flying , you must fly higher to be covered by the receiver. Limit the distance makes it very difficult to obtain ADS-B coverage over the oceans ."
Officers investigating the disappearance of flight have been attacking the South China Sea , where oil slicks were discovered by rescue teams , but ultimately decided not to join the aircraft.
More than 48 hours after the plane disappeared from radar screens , a team of multinational search dozens of ships and aircraft had been unable to find any sign of the plane.
" The amount of water - the distance between Vietnam and Malaysia is probably the size of the state of Pennsylvania , which is actually a bit of water that needs to be investigated," Robert Mark , a commercial pilot and former air traffic controller , said Monday on " Fox & Friends" .