Conceptual Modeling of Cyber-Physical Gaps in Air Traffic Control

On March 8, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 carrying flight MH-370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared during its flight. In this paper, we employ a model-based approach to capture and study the chain of events leading to the disappearance of the aircraft. We show that the critical reason for the aircraft’s disappearance was a cyber-physical gap (CPG). The CPG is the difference between the real state of a physical entity and its state as perceived by cybernetic agents. Failure to acknowledge the CPG’s existence, capture it in system models, and incorporate suitable mitigation mechanisms into systems exposed to CPG, has resulted in the past and may result in the future in severe consequences. In the MH-370 case, the plane’s position and adherence to its flight course were misperceived by the air traffic control, resulting in failure to track and find the plane, to this day. Our approach to CPG analysis has been previously shown to assist both designers and users handle emergent situations resulting from CPGs, such as the Three-Mile Island nuclear reactor’s partial meltdown accident in 1979. We propose several mitigation mechanisms, whose integration with air traffic control systems could help prevent similar cases in the future.