[cm2187]

Over the midwest, the chances of survival are much greater than in the sea. Finding the wreckage immediatly is even more critical.

Would a GPS coordinate every minute really be such a strain on the systems?

[msandford]

Make it every 5min or 15min and most of the technical problems drop right out. And it's still super useful for this kind of thing at 20% or 7% of the bandwidth.