TRUTHSEEKER ... You are right in saying that the exact route of the aircraft hasn't yet been established. I have assumed and perhaps wrongly, that it flew from Nantes to the reported point of its loss in a straight line, as if we extend that line it appears that it lines up perfectly with Cardiff in Wales, his destination of course.
I wasn't suggesting that there was the possibility that the aircraft had made it to land, it seems that the plane went into the sea to the west of Alderney ... I said that had the pilot chosen to stay over land for as long as possible instead of possibly making a direct flight to Cardiff and which took him over the sea for much of it, then given where the plane was reported to be when contact was lost, they would have found themselves over land or at least within gliding distance of it and capable of making a forced landing in France.
To be clear, had the pilot flown almost directly north from Nantes he'd have been at approximately the same latitude as that indicated by reports of where the plane was 'lost', to the west of Alderney, and still over land. As I've said, this would also have given him the shortest possible Channel crossing, i.e. around 60 miles, changing his heading for Portland in Dorset once he'd started his flight over the Channel.
Last edited by keni010; 29th Jan 2019 at 22:11.