FOR LESS THAN RM40, MH370 'COULD HAVE BEEN FOUND': Airline accused of stinging on software upgrade

The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is the most extensive and expensive ever undertaken, but it’s been claimed the plane could have been located if its tracking software had been upgraded - something that costs just £6 ($10) per flight.

According to new book Flight MH370: The Mystery, the Boeing 777-200ER had a ‘data package’ that only transmitted the most basic flight information, so authorities weren’t able to get a GPS fix on it.

For just six pounds, however, this package could have been improved, the book says, resulting in far more detailed information about the 777's movements being pinged.

Flight MH370 has been missing since March 8 - but could have transmitted a GPS fix on its location if its tracking software had received a £6 upgrade, it's been claimed

Huge task: The search for MH370 is the most expensive and extensive ever undertaken

Investigation: The book weighs all the theories about what happened to MH370

The book, by Nigel Cawthorne, says: ‘Along with several other carriers, Malaysia Airlines had opted for a cheap data package for its aircraft that transmitted only minimal information rather than pay an additional small fee to transmit detailed flight data.’

The new publication, which weighs all the theories about what happened to the flight, highlights a quote regarding the tracking system obtained by the Daily Telegraph.

‘For US$10, you could have told within half an hour’s flying time where the plane would have gone,’ a source told the paper.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, meanwhile, has called for real-time tracking of planes and improvements to their communication systems to prevent a repeat of the 370 tragedy.

In an opinion piece published on Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, Najib called for changes that would ‘make it harder for an aircraft to simply disappear, and easier to find any aircraft that did.’

‘One of the most astonishing things about this tragedy is the revelation that an airliner the size of a Boeing 777 can vanish, almost without a trace. In an age of smartphones and mobile Internet, real-time tracking of commercial airplanes is long overdue,’ he said.

The Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 people was traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 when it disappeared. The search is focused in the Indian Ocean, west of Perth, Australia, but it has not been found.

Inmarsat Plc, a British provider of global mobile satellite communications services, said Monday it will offer free basic tracking services for planes flying over oceans. The service will be available to most of the world's long-haul commercial fleet.

The Malaysian plane sent a signal to an Inmarsat satellite, but not location data. Engineers conducted a novel analysis of those signals to determine the plane's flight path, but the effort took time.

Australia's Ocean Shield is carrying a robot submarine, the Bluefin 21, to survey the ocean floor for MH370's black box

Najib also urged the aviation industry to consider changing planes' communications systems so that they can't be disabled midair. The government has said someone severed the plane's communication systems with the ground and deliberately diverted Flight 370.

He said the capacity of the cockpit data recorder, one of a plane's two black boxes, should be extended from two hours currently to recording the entire flight, while its location beacons should be made to last at least 90 days, instead of 30 days now.

‘The global aviation industry must not only learn the lessons of MH370 but implement them,’ he added.

Najib reiterated that Flight 370 was one of world's greatest aviation mysteries. ‘Nobody saw this coming, nobody knows why it happened, and nobody knows precisely where it is,’ he said.

He said the government has done its best but admitted there were mistakes in the early days of the crisis, with a disorderly public communication and a slow start to search efforts. He said an independent investigation is ongoing so the government can learn from mistakes.

A Malaysia Airlines employee writes a message expressing prayers and well-wishes for passengers of MH370 at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport mosque

Najib assured families of passengers that Malaysia will ‘keep searching for the plane for as long as it takes.’

Australia is leading the search, which is moving into a second phase in which commercial underwater operators will be contracted to scour a vast expanse of seabed with sonar equipment looking for wreckage for the next one year.

An Australian ship on Tuesday returned to the area where underwater sounds consistent with black boxes were heard in April, the search coordination center said. The ship had returned to port briefly to be resupplied. The Ocean Shield is carrying a robot submarine, the Bluefin 21, to survey the ocean floor. -Dailymail