MONTREAL, Feb 4 — Jetliners flying over oceans or remote regions should report their positions every 15 minutes under a standard backed by the United Nations’ aviation body almost a year after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Adoption of the new benchmark by the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation may take place by the end of 2015, ICAO Council President Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu said yesterday in a statement in Montreal. Member countries will be asked for comment on the plan later this month, Aliu said.

The recommendations mark an initial response by ICAO to the mystery that gripped the world in 2014: How a Boeing Co. 777 jet vanished en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board. Investigators concluded the plane made a U-turn and flew out over the Indian Ocean before crashing, and that the crew shut off tracking devices on the plane.

“We cannot delay in implementing changes in the way global commercial aviation operates,” Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, head of Malaysia’s civil aviation department, told about 850 ICAO delegates in Montreal today as he urged the group to heed the lessons from the MH370 incident and “fast track” the adoption of aircraft-tracking requirements. “It is now vital to step up the momentum and to take the next steps. We must act now. Anything less is not an option.”

Abnormal behavior

ICAO didn’t specify in its statement whether onboard location-reporting equipment should be made resistant to pilots and others who want to intentionally disable it. Airlines would be able to meet the standard using the available and planned technologies and procedures they deem suitable, ICAO said.

The recommendations come midway through a four-day ICAO safety conference in Montreal, where the organisation is based. It is only the second such high-level gathering in ICAO’s 70- year history.

Once the standard is adopted, ICAO said it plans to coordinate regional exercises to help countries introduce the standards and respond to “abnormal” flight behavior scenarios.

Over the longer term, ICAO will also work to develop requirements and assistance measures for abnormal and distress tracking, “which require more time due to their complexity and potential reliance on new technologies,” Aliu said.

ICAO members also confirmed the planned creation of an online database for evaluating risk in conflict zones. That effort follows the shootdown of another Malaysian Airline System Bhd. plane, Flight 17, by pro-Russian militants over Ukraine. That tragedy killed all 298 people on board. — Bloomberg