Google Earth Search for Missing Plane - not required

I recall that not too long ago, Google Earth released the latest satellite photos for an area over west Nevada on 9th September 2007, to help search for the wreckage of renowned adventurer, Steve Fosset, who crashed on 3rd September 2007.

It strikes me that the same thing could be done to search the Atlantic for wreckage of Air France Flight AF 447. I would imagine there are satellite reconnaissance images of the area already from yesterday. If so, the authorities may be advised to hand them over to Google ASAP to populate into Google Earth and maps from the crowd to scour, as they did for adventurer Steve Fosset.

Google, could not and indeed probably would not refuse, indeed it would again be free good PR, not that Google necessarily need PR, however good PR always helps. It especially helps Google live up to that infamous, as they call it, informal motto that plagues them, "Don't be evil". A very theological motto, but in essence a good one, I hope the irony of that statement is not lost on anyone. I hope they do drop it any time soon, but I hope they live up to it as well in the future.

So, how long is it going to take for them to do. Last time it took 5 days.

And if it is not being done, why not?

Finding that wreckage is of utmost importance to 228 peoples' family and friends.

Further finding that record could also perhaps tell us why the aircraft went down. Was it a UFO? Well, mad as that may sound, I stumbled across a Slashdot story on the Real British XFiles related to an article on the The X-Journals which is a blog by various industry professionals that comment on the ever expanding frontier of new and controversial ideas, discoveries and technologies that could profoundly shape the future of this planet. In the article written by Nike Pope, who used to work for the British Ministry of Defense and for 3 years headed up their UFO project. His remit was to investigate UFO sightings reported to the British government, looking for evidence of any potential threat, or anything judged to be of any “defence significance.” He may have left the MOD and started writing science fiction novels and that may sway one into thinking that the man may not be objective. However, his article The Real British X-Files, on The X-Journals is a very well reasoned and indeed advocates a scientific approach to investigating UFO phenomena.

In the article he relates the incident of Al Italia MD-80, which was flying at a height of around 22,000 feet over Kent in the UK. A brown, cigar-shaped object passed so close to the aircraft that the pilot shouted “look out, look out”. This incident had a profound effect on Pope as he realised that a commercial aircraft had come within seconds of a mid air collision. He said take this "illustrated that whatever one believes about UFOs, the phenomenon raises important defence and air safety issues .... This was deeply troubling and convinced me that I should make every effort to ensure that all UFO incidents were investigated thoroughly, in a proper scientific manner" and you cannot relly fault him on that.

He does have a point, even if this is the narrowest of possibilities, surely we need to know. Finding the wreckage is pretty crucial to have any possibilities of determining what may have happened in any aircraft disaster. Indeed in high altitude disappearances. I recall as a young boy in South Africa living through the events of SAA Helderberg, which by the time the first surface debris was located 12 hours after impact, it had drifted considerably from the impact location. Oil slicks and eight bodies showing signs of extreme trauma appeared in the water.

If Google where to publish the latest Altantic satellite photos, it would have to be with a warning that the searcher may encounter dead bodies in the images and indeed a dead body would help narrow the search area.

Considering that the aircraft's last known position seems to be hazy at best and considering it was flying at 35000ft, surely it is possible that the pilot may have glided the plane for a fair distance. Can you glide an Airbus A330? Well apparently you can. On 24 August 2001, Air Transat, Flight 236, an A330-243, performed the world's longest recorded glide with a jet airliner after suffering fuel exhaustion over the Atlantic Ocean. The plane flew powerless for half an hour and covered 65 nautical miles (120 km) to an emergency landing in the Azores (Portugal). No one was hurt, but the aircraft suffered some structural damage and blown tires - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A330).

So why have they narrowed the search areas to only "a few dozen nautical miles half-way between Brazil and west Africa, said Pierre-Henry Gourgeon, chief executive of Air France, late on Monday." Mr Gourgeon has also told the press that (same BBC article), "A succession of a dozen technical messages" showed that "several electrical systems had broken down" which caused a "totally unprecedented situation in the plane", said Mr Gourgeon. "It is probable that it was shortly after these messages that the impact in the Atlantic came," he told reporters at Charles de Gaulle airport, where the airliner had been due to land.

So he knows something that everyone else does not? He must. Why else would they reduce their search area to a few dozen miles, there must be more known about this incident than is being said. Not to say that a UFO was involved, just to say Google Earth may not be needed because they seem to roughly know where it is, or so the evidence would seem to suggests.

http://tinyurl.com/nygr36 for this post.

ANOTHER UPDATE - HERE at 06h37 UTC - 5 June 2009

UPDATE at 12h38 UTC

Having just listened to the commentary on the latest video on the above mentioned BBC page, which I will embed here as the BBC have a nasty habit of removing things off their pages and changing them (with no version history). The commentator reports that the civilian Brazilian pilot, last night reported, "lights on errr .... or uhh, orange spots on the sea, just in the middle of the ocean between Africa and Brazil."

Attemptedly that could be anything, a fishing boat, but where there is hope. International Orange-Yellow is used for life rafts themselves, but there does not seem to be a standard on the colour of survivor locator lights, just that they must be approved under TSO-C85 (historical) or ETSO-C85a (the Euporean version, which seems like some civil servant never got round to finishing.) So a raft could have an orange light I guess.

And the best details found yet from http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20090601-0

Flight AF447 departed at 19:03 local time (May 31) from Rio de Janeiro (GIG).
Last radio contact with the flight was at 01:33 UTC. The crew was in contact with the Atlantic Area Control Centre (CINDACTA III) when the flight reported over the INTOL waypoint, estimating TASIL at 02:20 UTC. INTOL is an RNAV waypoint located in the Atlantic Ocean, 565 km from Natal, Brazil. The TASIL waypoint is located 1228 kilometers from Natal. TASIL is at the border of the Recife FIR and Dakar Oceanic FIR.
At 01:48 UTC the aircraft went out of the radar coverage of CINDACTA III, Fernando de Noronha. Information indicated that the aircraft flew normally at FL350 and a speed of 453 kts.
The aircraft reportedly went through a thunderstorm with strong turbulence at 02:00 UTC. An automated message was delivered by 02:14 UTC indicating a loss of pressurization and failure in the electrical system, the Brazilian Ministry of Defence reported.
A search was initiated by Brazilian authorities at 05:33 UTC

I have not seen the nature of the "technical messages" that were reported to have been recieved prior to encoutering this info from http://aviation-safety.net, a loss of cabin pressure...

But Yahoo have a fairly good article as well, better than the BBCs (goodness what has happened to the BBC).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090602/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_brazil_plane

Anyway, could the pilot have glided her down?

The Brazilian air force have reportedly spotted debris now as well, plane seats and other items were sighted 650km (400 miles) north-east of Brazil's Fernando do Noronha island.