Other flights in the area
As previously reported, there were indeed other airplanes nearby, even in the same route.
Closest one was Iberia IB6024 (A340-300) which took off 7 minutes after the AF to a (geographically) similar destination on the same route. They briefly saluted and chatted with the AF crew while getting the flight ready earlier in the airport.
Press reports IB pilot declaring: "We flew about 10 minutes (~80 miles) directly behind the AF, at 35000'... being monitored by TCAS, noticed bad weather ahead and decided to deviate from it an unscheduled 30 miles to the east at about the same time the AF dissapeared from the radar forever..." They never had visual contact. They never picked up any transmissions from the AF around the time the accident is believed to have happened in any of the open frequencies.
He heard the repeated attempts of brasilian traffic controllers to contact the AF after its dissapearance from radars all the way to the entrance to Senegal air space". Iberia flight was totally uneventful otherwise, with nothing unusual about the weather etc (except that there were indeed patches of bad weather around the area at around that time worthit of circunvention).
Last edited by justme69; 13th Jun 2009 at 16:29.