Originally Posted by ART-DECO
My impression is that BEA has a copy of the telemetry-read out for this date from Inmarsat Noc, otherwise they should ask for a copy a.s.a.p.
Originally Posted by French version p. 50
l’écart observé entre le message de 2 h 13 min 14 et celui de 2 h 13 min 45
est dû, au moins en partie, à une interruption temporaire du lien de communication entre l’avion et le satellite,
A follow up to my post "Mobile OnAir GSM service on board?", which provided an Air France source got deleted for elliptical reasons. May be it wasn't the time for it, as there might be sound tactical reasons not to publish such things too early into the investigation. Now that more than a month passed by, nobody can hinder anymore the investigation by falsy claiming to have received calls or SMS from a passenger during that sad night.
Yet my assumption proved reasonable, as the French version states on p. 71:
il n'y a pas eu de communication téléphoniques par satellite entre l'avion et le sol.
Source: http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp...cp090601e1.pdf
So they probably had Mobile OnAir installed, which is a satelite linked GSM picocell, allowing for inflight use of a cell phone for calls, SMS and internet via GPRS.
Source: http://corporate.airfrance.com/index.php?id=communiques_detail&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2699&L=1&no_cache=1
But even if there actually were no phone calls (possible, during night), it would be interesting when the last SMS got transmitted or received, when the last internet packet got transmitted, and exactly when INMARSAT saw the picocell on board the very last time. This would allow to differenciate the case of more ACARS messages not being sent because there weren't anymore, and the case that the satellite link broke down.