more foxtrot xray
Further to my earlier post....................
If you start with 600XL crossing BRS at 15:56 LT, level at 370, after having just reported into CINDACTA (less than 5 minutes earlier) at 15:51 where it reported level at 370 and note that the ATC record indicates that Mode C continued(reporting 370) until 30nm NW of BRS at 16:02 at which time secondary radar was lost but primary continued, it is clear that all systems were normal up to this point.
At this time there would be no expectation that 600XL would descend to 360 because(1) the pilots had no way of knowing the Mode C was lost and (2) the condition triggering reversion to a flight plan altitude rather than an assigned altitude is loss of communications not loss of altitude reporting. Furthermore, the crew had every reason to believe it was still in "radar contact" and therefore not expected to make position reports.
CINDACTA made no attempt to contact the aircraft until 16:26 (one call) which was not received by 600XL. At 16:48 600XL began calling ATC(12 attempts) At 16:53 the CINDACTA controller called with a frequency change. 600XL received one or more of these transmissions but it was at least partially unintelligible (asked for clarification of frequency change assignment) and its reply was not received by ATC.
At this point, 600XL has heard a response to its calls(or would have every reason to believe that it was in response to its calls started a few minutes earlier) but it is not completely readable. It's now later than 16:53; Do we have lost communications yet??
Impact was recorded at 16:56:54.
The principal problem here is clear.
Let the pilots go home for some cold turkey today; the rest of the turkeys are somewhere else.