I really didn't know where to put this:
China ship hears 'signal'; unclear if jet-related
I hope they look at simple (not huge re-vamps) fixes to help in these instances. For example my phone has an app that sends a gps "flare" if the battery dies. That way I could go to the web and at least have an idea of where it was the last time it was on. I would think that a simple GPS flare idea would be something doable for planes. In cases of sudden loss of altitude, or if at time of landing/crashing if the GPS doesn't match the destination coordinates, it shoots off a GPS flare.
Just something "simple"