There is a long history of fatal accidents and serious incidents that are directly attributable to blocked transmissions. Airborne and ground equipment have been developed and both have been fully certified for operational use. Thus Airline and ATC communications can now benefit from this safety enhancing solution. This paper also provides summaries of many incidents involving blocked transmissions. Improving Aviation Safety Much attention in the media has focussed on aviation safety.
Air crashes are big news.
In trying to understand the causes of crashes and to prevent further occurrences, the industry has tended to focus on more complex technical solutions - in an attempt to provide major improvements to improve aviation safety. This focus has assumed that big problems need big solutions. Unfortunately, this approach often means that simpler solutions to longstanding key problems are overlooked or overshadowed. More to the point, their benefits remain less tangible as the rate of aircraft losses continues, with no sign of significant improvement. This is a long-standing vulnerability of the current VHF Radio communications system, which occurs far to often to be ignored.