May 20th, 2016

EgyptAir Crash: Thoughts

Posted in Aviation News

Here are the Facts on the EgyptAir Crash;

Designation: EgyptAir Flight 804:  Paris to Cairo

Date: Thursday May 19, 2016: 66 crew and passengers on board

Airbus A320: Has an excellent safety and reliability record

Other facts can be found at Aviation Week:  http://aviationweek.com/airlines-airports/egyptair-flight-ms-804-disappears-over-mediterranean

Here are the Thoughts:

How do we keep track of airplanes over the ocean?  Over land, it is fairly simple.  Most modernized nations have an extensive radar system that keeps track of the movement of airplanes with the aid of a device onboard the aircraft known as a transponder.  You can think of a transponder as the unique fingerprint of an aircraft.  We cover the history of these systems and Robert Watson Watt in the DoctorAvation.com series.  Airliners are also in constant radio contact with Air Traffic Control authorities in each nation.

Over the ocean this process becomes more difficult.  Radar coverage is not possible over large bodies of water as there is no place to place the radar emitters and receivers.  Airliners thus rely on relaying their position to controllers through what are known as HF radios.  Hence when an aircraft is lost somewhere over an ocean or sea, trying to pinpoint the exact location is difficult.  Investigators are left with only a faint trail: the last known reported position of the aircraft, the assumed flight path, and estimated ground speed.  It can be like looking for the proverbial “needle in a haystack”.

That is why it was so difficult to find Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 which went down March 8, 2014.  That is why it may likewise take several hours before authorities find the wreckage of Egypt Air Flight 804, though the Mediterranean is certainly a smaller, and better traveled, body of water than is the Pacific.  However, the case will be aided in that the aircraft was relatively close to the Egyptian shoreline (within a couple hundred miles) so some radar tracking could be possible.

EgyptAir A320

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