It's been 10 months since Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared. Despite search efforts that stretched from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean, the plane remains lost.
距离马航370航班消失已经有十个月之久。尽管搜索工作从中国南海延伸到了印度洋，飞机仍然毫无踪迹。
Even in the shallow water of the Java Sea, officials took several days to locate the remains of AirAsia flight 8501, about 160 kilometers off the coast of Borneo Island.
即使是在爪哇海的浅水中，有关人员也花了数天才确定亚航8501航班残骸的准确位置，它距离婆罗洲岛海岸大约160公里。
With satellites and other technology available, how can large airplanes just disappear?
现在有了卫星和其他技术，大型飞机怎么会消失呢？
Here is a little-known fact about flying: airplanes that are very far from land – crossing an ocean, for example – do not always appear on land radio systems and radar.
以下是关于飞行的一项鲜为人知的事实：距离陆地很远的飞机 -- 例如穿越海洋的飞机 -- 并非一直出现在陆地无线电系统和雷达中，
Satellite communication and navigation technology, such as the global positioning system (GPS) and satellite telephones, allow us to know planes' locations. But, the technology isn't always used.
全球定位系统（简称GPS）和卫星电话这类卫星通信和导航技术可以让我们知道飞机的位置。但是该技术并未全面应用。
The reason is cost.
究其原因还是成本。
Michael Braasch is an Ohio University professor of electrical engineering. He says the technology is expensive to use, and until recently, wasn't seen as necessary.
迈克尔·布拉希（Michael Braasch）是俄亥俄大学的电气工程学教授。他说这种技术的应用非常昂贵。而直到最近也未被视为必须。
"Being able to transmit messages through the satellite communication providers is an expense that, up until recently, there wasn't a great need for, being able to keep track of the aircraft second-by-second," Professor Braasch said.
布拉希教授说，“通过卫星通信提供商传输消息是一项非常巨大的开支，而截至最近也没有时刻追踪飞机的这种急切需求。”
But after a bad year for airline safety, that may change. In 2014, the two plane crashes over water killed 401 passengers and crew members.
但是在航空安全经历这么糟糕的一年之后，这一切可能会改变。2014年，这两架飞机在海域坠毁导致了401名乘客和机组人员遇难。
Professor Braasch says after the Malaysia Airlines disaster last March, it became clear that something must be done. "We lost a wide-body airplane and we have no idea where it is, and, in this day and age, that's just absurd," he said.
布拉希教授说，在去年三月的马航空难之后，很显然开始有必要采取某种行动。“我们失去了一架宽体飞机，而我们不知道它在哪。在如今这个年代，这太荒谬了。”
Pilots are required to inform air-traffic controllers of their current location during flights. But during emergency situations that require quick decision-making, pilots are not able to let air-traffic controllers know that information.
飞行员在飞行期间必须告知空管人员自己的当前位置。但是在需要快速决策的紧急情况中，飞行员无法让空管人员了解现状。
In both crashes at sea, controllers lost communication with the aircrafts before the pilots reported any problem.
在这两起海上坠毁中，空管人员在飞行员报告任何问题前已经失去了同飞机的联系。
The International Air Transport Association released a report last month on the topic. The report recommended that each airplane have an automated location-reporting system that works if pilots cannot report the plane's location.
国际航空运输协会上月就此问题发布了一份报告。该报告建议每架飞机安装一个自动位置报告系统，如果飞行员无法报告飞机位置该系统就能起到作用。
Professor Braasch says the technology for this already exists. But, he says, some airlines do not agree with the recommendations. He says they worry about the costs and the difficulty in agreeing to a standard system internationally.
布拉希教授说，这项技术早已存在。但他表示，一些航空公司不同意这些建议。他说，这些航空公司担心成本以及达成一项国际标准系统的难度。
"It's mostly just the matter of dealing with the added expense and then putting a system in place that everybody agrees to the format and the standards and things of that nature," he said.
他说，“主要问题是处理新增开支，然后将一种格式和标准之类得到大家认同的系统安装到位。”
Some pilots are also concerned about having an electrical system on board that could not be turned off in the event of a fire. Right now, only the flight data recorder, the so-called black box, is out of the pilot's control.
一些飞行员也对在飞机上安装一种火灾中无法关闭的电气系统表示担心。目前只有飞行数据记录仪，即所谓的黑盒子不受飞行员的控制。
For now, the United States and Europe are prepared to use a system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, or ADS-B. The system is designed to broadcast the airplane's location to air-traffic controllers and to other airplanes nearby.
目前美国和欧洲都准备采用一种被称为广播式自动相关监视（简称ADS-B）的系统。该系统被用于向空管人员和邻近飞机广播飞机的位置。
The system will be required for some aircraft in Europe by 2017 and in the United States by 2020.
该系统将于2017年在欧洲，以及2020年在美国的一些飞机上强制安装。
I'm Jonathan Evans.
我是乔纳森·埃文斯（Jonathan Evans）。(51VOA.COM对本文翻译保留全部权利，未经授权请勿转载，违者必究！)