Breaking: Air France Airbus A330 disappears outside of Brazil

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6-02-2009 @ 6:27AM

Joe said...

Thats a good questions. From what I understand, when doing transatlantic crossings airplanes fly along waypoints and on tracks. Think of 3D slot-cars, for planes. They are separated by a mile horizontally and 1000 ft vertically. The pilot is supposed to deliver a radio report every 30 minutes to ATC letting them know their position and inform them of any deviations. Since radar can't see that far they rely on onboard collision avoidance system (TCAS? i think).

They do have VHF radio where they can talk to their company (medical, technical, legal problems onboard). The band is quite narrow since their are military and rescue considerations above and below it. And really, it's not necessary to give a status report every 2 minutes. That's why the pilot is on the plane and not at a desk driving the plane.

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