AF447

[xcitation]

Quote:
Some answer about deviation (supposed) there

AF447 : comme Lufthansa, l'avion a dévié à l'Ouest de sa route prévue

A quick summary of what eurocockpit is claiming, for non-French readers:

The last reported position of AF447, at 0210Z, is actually about 3nm west of track, so it is likely that AF447 was in fact deviating to avoid weather. Given GPS etc, this discrepancy is unlikely to be due to poor navigation; nor is it an offset, as that would have placed AF447 1 nm EAST of track.

Thus they place in doubt BEA's finding that AF447 was on track, and AF CEO Gourgeon's suggestions that perhaps the crew of AF447 didn't use their wx radar appropriately.

(Before someone asks, I grew up in France and the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and I'm a pilot (albeit only PPL) and so understand aeronautical French as well as normal French)

Was F-GZCP significantly off course at the actual time of the faults (as opposed the ACARS time stamp)?
If the answer is yes then that has implications. Why was ATC/nearby a/c not notified of the course change. Obviously in an emergency flying comes first so one hypothesis would be that an emergency had already occurred prior to pitots failing.
The BEA interim report does not mention this explicitly (if it does please give page.) I did find this:
(p.68 english copy)

up to the last automatic position point, received at 2 h 10 min 35 s, the flight had followed the route indicated in the flight plan,

Coincidently 0210Z was the time that ACARS alerts appeared and the controls reverted to ALTN LAW there was a GPS position reference. There is some latency which delays the maintenance reports.