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Originally Posted by liandrajade
can anyone verify that these automated messages relay this information or does anyone have working knowledge of the airbus 330-200 software systems? if thats true, why was there a delay in responding to the messages from the aircraft? were they not considered dangerous or was no one monitoring the incoming messages? and when these "automated messages" are received by the system in whatever base of operations, shouldnt certain items throw up a red flag and an engineer or someone be notified?
i'd like to know what the process is, i dont know how that could have helped the poor souls aboard that ship but perhaps the response time could have been shorter and the possibility of finding any survivors would might have existed
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The news says the messages were sent over a 4 minute period. I would say even if someone was flagged by such messages, which they probably were. I imagine they get sent to their dispatchers as well. I have no idea if the position is given along with those messages. Even if it was, over 4 minutes worth of messages could put the aircraft in a 40+ mile range, on or off course. With one of the messages saying an electrical failure one could suggest the plane flew without giving any more updates for some time. Sounds like the air force from Brazil came out along the route and the French sent assets back tracking the route. I would say the search went pretty well, finding the wreckage within a few days. The ocean is a pretty difficult place to search, especially when you are searching a huge grid of where the plane could have gone down. Even if you make it a small 40+ mile grid you need to look left or right of that known position, assuming with a failure they were trying to turn around. That expands your search to probably 100 miles on either side of the route. Even if you get a plane out there and find some survivors, you are now stuck with getting a boat out there, which is still going to take 3+ days. The only help would have been dropping some survival gear.
Either way, I don't think there was any chance of survival for the people on board. It will be interesting to see if they can get the black boxes and figure out what happened. My prayers go out to all the families who lost loved ones.