Malaysia Flight 370: Major design flaw in location detection of airplane

How is it possible that finding approximately 700,000 pounds of aircraft, passengers, and cargo is so difficult and mind boggling in today’s date? Did we not learn anything from Air France #447 which was lost after takeoff from Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2009? It took over two years to find the wreckage and recover the bodies back then. How is it allowable with the easy twist of the wrist to turn off the transponder in the cockpit? What good reason could there be for not wanting to being located?
I can’t help but think that I can easily locate my father using Find My Friends while he is in a remote location at a think tank for Siemens with fellow software architect gurus within minutes, all 180 pounds of him, somewhere in the mountains of Bavaria. Yet a Boeing 777 is undetectable? I realize there are no cell towers at 35,000 feet, but the technology to locate a plane is available. We just have to implement it correctly for all the eventualities and soon.
In a CNN article by Eliott McLaughlin today, I learned that the transponder fails if it is manually turned off, if there is a catastrophic failure, or if there is an electrical failure. Recent developments report that the engine sent out pings for four or five hours with engine data after losing contact with the airplane. This eliminates the possibility of catastrophic or electrical failure at the time the transponder went off. Obviously this type of occurrence was not taken into account at the design stage. If an engine can continue sending out maintenance data pings, maybe it can serve as a back-up for the transponder in the eventuality it fails. There needs to be a better tracking device that cannot be manually turned off, and a back-up to that device. I feel horribly for the family members still waiting for answers.
I am writing this opinion on Friday March 14, seven days after the plane’s disappearance. It is beginning to look a lot more like the disappearance was an intentional event. I hope by the time this article is printed we will have more answers as opposed to more questions. No matter what we learn ultimately happened to the plane, I hope we learn that this lack of data and information flaw needs to be addressed. No matter what field any of us at Stevens wind up in, we should be grateful for the required Design courses we are obligated to complete, and should take them very seriously.
Chances are high that our designs could have life and death consequences.