Questions I have still linger about AF447...

I have read a lot about the AF447 flight that has dissapeared, and posted these questions on another AF447 thread. I am however, going to post here and see if we can get some answers for them, or even provoke thoughts about this event.


1) There have been a number of reports suggesting that the plane vanished from radar, and that only after the pilots didn't report entry into Sengalese airspace was the alarm raised. This stinks!!!
In the early 80's I recall clearly that a PanAm flight blown up over the UK (Lockerbie) was monitored by a number of tracking stations. As soon as the single radar blip turned into three or four blips (then many) the alarm was raised and actions taken to establish the status of the plane, etc. As such, why is it that there seems to have been an obvious delay of action in this case?

2) The reporters jumped at the chance of telling us all that the plane had entered into bad weather. As a regular flier, I know that pilots fly around storms if they can, especially tropical storms. However, only after numerous pilots have come forward stating that there were no storms in the area have the media backtracked and now say that there were no storms. Yet no mention of why they initially reported storms has come to light. Why?

3) Given the last two points, are we as ATS 'investigators' asking these questions of the media in our local areas? If not WHY NOT?

4) One thing that strikes me as odd are the numbers of German nationals on board the craft. I can give no reasonable explanation of why this strikes me as odd, but it does. I would have thought most Germans on their way home would have booked with a German airline, or at least one that flies direct... any one else feel that this is an odd number of nationals? Perhaps it's just me...

5) If (and it's a big 'if), this plane had been blown out of the sky it would have been tracked on radar as the pieces fell. As I mentioned above with the PanAm flight, the radar monitored the wings, cockpit section, tail section and parts of the fuselage as they fell out of the sky. Radar operators could work out where and when the parts would fall, and could alert emergency services. As I recall this is one of the reasons emergency services could respond so quickly to that particularly terrible disaster. So, why is is that the radar operators responsible for watching this aircraft cannot give us reliable information about where and when this plane went down... if it did?

6) When a plane leaves one airspace for another the radar controlers 'hand over' the aircraft. There is acknowledgement with the pilots and radar operators that this hand over has taken place. There are tapes and records of these events for every aircraft on the planet... Can any of our fellow ATS people get these tapes? Or has anyone bothered to ask their local media to get these tapes?

7) People have mentioned that the lady from Whitby, North Yorkshire, (nor far from where I live) is deluded when she says her husbands mobile phone is still ringing. I say she isn't. Why? Simple, when you ring a mobile phone (registered) in the UK it rings.... then after six rings it goes through to an answerphone of sorts. If the phone is off, they ALL go through to an answerphone without ever ringing. If the phone has just gone out of range, then there is a long delay before it goes through to an answerphone, but never rings. So, that mans phone has either been left in Brazil by mistake, or his belongings are not at the bottom of the sea as is being claimed. Further, for those of you suggesting that a mobile phone could make a call from an aircraft... try it. I have. Once the plane starts to move at flight speed, all signal is lost - even if close the ground, because the phone cannot connect to a signal mast quickly enough before it is out of range... why has this lead not been followed up? We need to try and get in touch with this lady and find someone to triangulate the mobile phones' position... that would give us many many clues to work with. Do we know anyone that can do this?

8) In 2005 Channel 4 (in the UK) played a massive prank on some unwitting contestants. In a show called Space Cadets Channel 4 convinced a group of Brits they were being taken to a secret base in Russia and trained for life in space, in order to actually go up into space too, and become the first space tourists. This was back in 2005. news.bbc.co.uk... The initial part of the hoax, was to load the contestants onto a cargo plane and "fly them to Russia". What actuall happened was that the plane flew out over the North Sea and flew around an elaborate flight path before coming back to land in the UK again... however the passengers on the plane were convinced that they had landed in Russia.... With all of the "important" passengers on this plane, could this have been one of those situations where the plane "dissapears" when in reality it has landed safely somewhere....?


These are some of my questions...

If anyone can answer any of these questions, I would love to see responses. Or if anyone else has sensible questions to ask, then please post them here.

This should not be the place for wild theories (unless there is some evidence to back up the theory). Thanks!

The plane did not dissappear from radar, it simply left the area that was covered by radar. The Atlantic Ocean is pretty big and is not entirely covered by radar.

Another question:

9) Why do people still subscribe to this false claim that the plane was out of radar contact when it vanished? After having spoken to workers at an ATC tower at two airports, and British Airways, Continental and KLM it has been confirmed that all aircraft are tracked all of the time... regardless of where in the world they are - even out over open ocean!

If anyone doesn't believe this, call an ATC and ask to speak to someone that can tell you if aircraft are not tracked over open ocean.... Ask if there are any "blind spots" where aircraft cannot be tracked...

Satellites do most of the tracking now, so we know where and when all flights are - apparently this helps notify ATC's etc. if there are problems with a particular flight.

This means that someone somewhere knows where this flight is, and when (if) it went off course.

reply to post by -Rugged Shark-


See my last post...

As someone else on this site has already stated recently... we are supposed to deny ignorance, instead we seem to be ignorant of the idea of "denying ignorance"... Learn to ask questions, learn to find answers, instead of regurgitating the nasty lies put forth by the media.

reply to post by dampnickers

Satellites do most of the tracking now, so we know where and when all flights are - apparently this helps notify ATC's etc. if there are problems with a particular flight.

This means that someone somewhere knows where this flight is, and when (if) it went off course.

nickers, let's be clear on what you've been told. Please feel free to ask again, and listen to exactly what they say.

IF you are referring to ATC position reporting via SATCOMM, then that is correct. It is STILL the responsiblity of the flight crew to provide accurate and timely ETA info for upcoming waypoints. Again, since land-based RADAR only has a range of slightly over 230 miles, or so (depending on airplane altitude) out to sea, then in OCEANIC Airspace, as it's called, there is no RADAR coverage.

ATC (and the airline's Dispatchers) can query, through the SAT link (if installed) to the ACARS if they desire....but it is not routinely done. EDIT...(it may cost money for each transmission...or they may have a 'frequent-calling' flat rate. VOICE thru SAT is expensive, though. Text messages, less so).

Have you heard of SELCAL? Normally, when ATC wants to reach a flight over the ocean, they send the SELCAL via HF radio. This has been the standard for decades, and is always a fallback, in all cases, in the event of SAT failure, or disruption. In fact, the notion of SAT clearances, and more ATC communications via SAT is fairly new, within the last decade....and still, in some instances, subject to extreme scrutiny. Old habits die hard, and new techniques are adopted slowly, in the interest of safety.

[edit on 6/6/0909 by weedwhacker]

reply to post by dampnickers

One thing that strikes me as odd are the numbers of German nationals on board the craft. I can give no reasonable explanation of why this strikes me as odd, but it does. I would have thought most Germans on their way home would have booked with a German airline, or at least one that flies direct... any one else feel that this is an odd number of nationals? Perhaps it's just me...

It very well could've been cheaper to fly to Paris and then take a train or a cheap airline such as easyJet back to Germany. Unlike when you're flying to/from North America, an airplane coming from South America can't fly over the poles.

2) The reporters jumped at the chance of telling us all that the plane had entered into bad weather. ... Why?

Are you sure that's what the reporters said where you're from? Here, I always heard that it crashed after passing through the Intercontinental Convergence Zone. The pilots that said there were no storms may have flown through after storms broke up. They're not permanent ya know. I saw weather models that showed that basically that whole area between South America and Africa was packed with storms that night.

reply to post by octotom


If the storms were so bad why was the plane allowed to take off? I know they'd lose money but isn't it the pilot who gets the final say and surely they'd check for serious weather, especially if it's a known trouble spot?

Also, other pilots that were in the area, at the same time, claim there weren't extreme storms.

I'm not being sarcastic - genuine questions regarding the weather scenario.

All very confusing and it's not helped by all the misinformation that's been given out since the plane first vanished. Is the misinformation intentional to confuse people so that we'll never really know what happened.

At first, it didn't enter my head that this was anything other than an awful air disaster but there's just been so many statements made, and then changed, that now I don't know what to think.

As ex cabin crew I can still vividly remember having it drummed into us, during training, that "planes don't just fall out of the sky, they never have and never will." On long-haul flights, safety procedures were run through before EVERY flight to make sure everything was in place and everything was in full working order. I don't know........ just all seems very strange. Maybe plane engineering and safety procedures have gone backwards in the last 20 years but that seems highly unlikely.



Are there any pilots, or cabin crew, that have an opinion about what they think happened?

reply to post by Maya00a

If the storms were so bad why was the plane allowed to take off?

I never said that the storms were bad. All I said was that it was impossible for the plane to go around the storms that were present because there simply wasn't a way to do so with storms all across the ITCZ.

reply to post by octotom


Well, this is one of the more curious aspects of this affair.

If the storms were "that" bad, then the pilot, at the very least co-pilot would have been trained to request a detour to a nearby airport, and then delay the journey... Sea captains do it, pilots do it... When there is an impassable danger or a danger of such magnitude, the nearest safe haven is sought.

Not to mention the fact that none of the other planes in the area reported any storms at all... they are required to do that, so as to alert other pilots in the area. Not even AF447 reported a storm to ATC's on either side of the pond. This is most curious.

From the article where the pilot reported the bright flash...

The Air Comet plane was flying some 60 kilometres (40 miles) further north than its scheduled route to avoid stormy weather, Llodra said.

"That night there were intense storms in the area," he said.

Link

I seem to recall another pilot mentioning flying around weather that night.

Screw the details people... the key is in the phone. It was ringing. See my questions in the original OP...

The mobile phone is either in Brazil after being forgotten (amazing twist of fate), or it is on dry land somewhere.

A mobile phone doesn't ring after it has hit the ocean.

A mobile phone doesn't ring, then go through to answerphone if it is switched off, or dead - it goes immediately through to answerphone. At least mobiles for UK phones do.

Something stinks about that fact alone, and we need to be chasing this one up.

The bodies could well be victims from the flight, but the phone is where there are still questions... these should be answered.

ok they have just phoned bodies and debis!
This does not sit right for two unmentioned reasons.
The suitcase was found in a similar location to the body. Both these objects have different densities. You put them both in the ocean the will drift apart. They have been there days no way would they be sitting anywhere in proximity after a storm.
Second reason. I am not going to test it but laptops dont feel like they float to me.
They found a plane wing, i dont know much about plane wings, would such a thing float?

reply to post by purplemer


I work with computers, and no laptop I have ever seen would float. There are too many dense materials in them to allow them to float. I can imagine that if it were a "toughbook" then it might float if it's casing were intact, but after hitting the water at many miles an hour, I doubt it.

You are dead right that something doesn't seem quite right about this whole affair.

Sadly though, it will (like many of these events) be swept under the carpet without a second thought.