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Runaway1956 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Alright, so he's not a baby - at 9 years old, he is approaching puberty. But the kid came up with a fairly obvious solution to lost airliners that no one seems to have thought of before:

A young airplane enthusiast received a welcome surprise from a Delta executive after sending the airline a series of suggestions on how to improve safety in the event of a crash.

Laura Treider and her son Ben, 8, were watching a show about how planes mysteriously disappear, which included a segment about the disappearance of Malaysia’s MH370.

“I felt a little sad,” Ben told FoxNews.com. But right away this young inventor got to work, designing an emergency aircraft system he believes would make it easier to locate planes in the event of an ocean crash.

Treider helped her son pen a letter to Delta CEO Richard Anderson.

“We could have a system that has neon orange balloons that rise up to the surface when the plane crashes in the sea,” reads the letter. “And there would be stones at the bottom so they would stay there. The balloon wouldn’t be light enough to float up into the air, and it would have reinforced rubber to withstand a lot of pressure.”

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2015/11/20/delta-executives-consider-8-year-olds-idea-to-improve-plane-safety/ [foxnews.com]

If I can elaborate on the boy's idea - put a mile of wire on a spool to anchor the balloon to the aircraft. The balloon should be lighter than air so that it can float above the water, enabling the radio to reach out and touch someone. I believe that most airlines that go into the water are probably less than a mile underwater. If the water is deeper than that, well, have an automatic mechanism to release the weighted end of the wire, so that the balloon can rise above the water.

Smart kid.

Original Submission