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Old 11th Sep 2010, 23:09
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Soap Box Cowboy
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
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You talk about fuel on the surface of the ocean, even if they had been informed that night who would have gone looking for them?

I've been involved on a few search and rescues out here in Africa, on all occasions it was other companies that put forth their own assets to look for the downed planes.

We never found anyone, though on one occasion the pilot and his passengers survived the ditching and were recovered 23 hours later by local fisherman. On seeing him at the airport I asked him about it all. He told me he'd seen the planes overhead searching for him. One by one they left. Then one turned towards him the final aircraft, he thought he'd been spotted, but it flew overhead and kept going. I asked him the reg number and he told me. Turns out it was mine Never saw him since he was right below us and we'd spent the last few hours overhead doing grid patern search over a ver small area with two other planes.

Plane goes down round here you might not even find anything. If it crashed in the bush it would be stripped within three days. A 737 went down a few miles from the runway, how long did it take to find them?

As for whoever flew out disapearing, it's all risk versus reward. How much was a junk 727 worth and was it worth enough to ditch your family in the states? I doubt it.

From what I hear Angola is pretty tightly controled, rumours of the aircraft almost hitting a fighter went around and it would not suprise me to learn Angolan military engaged an aircraft in their airspace, just ask the poor guys from Botswana, they got a intercepted and engaged even though it was a goverment flight on an official flight plan, fortunatly they all made it with a few injuries.

Just out of curiosity, anyone check if the reg had been repainted before the mysterious departure, if any onboard had any nice big insurance payouts if they disapeared.

I'm still trying to find out what happened to a South African Seneca that left Dar enroute to SA. Aircraft disapeared, no wreckage, all overland.

People say Africa is empty, once you been here a while you realise there is always someone out there. If she came down on land there would be clues, just got to find the right place to look.

As for the inadvertant flight. He taxied onto the runway without clearance or any communication. Manuvering on ground seemed eratic. If he had decided after all that to run the engines and he was charging down the runway and not being able to fly, why not just cut the power, or worse case shut the whole damn thing off and crab his ass and hope for the best rather than get airborne?
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