Iridium said it will provide global emergency tracking...

Iridium said it will provide global emergency tracking technology to the aviation community for free. Through its subsidiary Aireon, Iridium will offer the Aireon aircraft locating and emergency response tracking (ALERT) service, letting rescue agencies request the location and last flight track of aircraft flying in airspace currently without surveillance, Aireon said in a news release Sunday (http://bit.ly/1mCF9RX). The service will work with aircraft equipped with 1090 MHz automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) receivers, it said. ALERT will be available after the Aireon air traffic monitoring system is fully deployed, it said. Iridium plans to launch the first payloads in that system next year (CD Feb 19 p10).