From Xcitation
Having read that the US are giving up the search, I hope that the French g'ment does whatever it takes to recover the FDR/CVR. If we can find the Titanic then we can find F-GZCP. Just because the pingers have failed the data is still there in all liklihood.
About the signal from the BB. I've heard on the 02nd just after the press conference from a journalist that hat attended to it that, from the 14th of Juy new method(s) should be deployed to find the boxes and that the searches would be stopped whatever are the results on the 15th of August.
I haven't heard something new since.
Threemiles
SALPU and ORARO position reports
I have found nowhere that these position report were obviously missed. I cannot find that Atlantico said "next report TASIL". SALPU and ORARO arecompulsory reporting points and should have been reported by the crew outside radar coverage. Estimated crossing times from the INTOL report (0133) would have been SALPU at 0148 and ORARO at 0200.
Also Atlantico should have been after these report within a few minutes after they were failed to be reported. It was obviously not.
ORARO estimate was a discussion that I had a while ago with mm43.
I now think that ORARO estimated at 0200 could not be correct at 0.82 and that it was 0204 as shown by the radar traces and Acars messages. May be that the crew has misread an entry in the CDU.
Because the estimate TASIL was not received by Atlantico, it was very likely calculated by them according to what they could see ont their radar at INTOL and (almost) SALPU. I agree that SALPU and ORARO being compulsory, Atlantico should have (Sel)call AFR447 to confirm the position and request also TASIL again. Like mm43, I think that they did not mind because the traffic on this route was not important and, also perhaps because of their working load. I think that controller(s) are making at the same time VHF and HF COM and that time was lacking for them to properly handle all communications with a given traffic. Or may be a poor communication between different ATC sectors.
Assuming that on this route it was not unusual to be unable to establish contact with traffics, they did not get alarmed. Some pilots used to these routes might enlighten us on this.