Hi BOAC,
Originally Posted by BOAC
I cannot for the life of me see why those 'extrapolations' are of any value. They take NO account of the 02:10 ACARS reported position, and show an 'Acars position' at 02:15 which I thought there was not?
You are right about that. Tim Vasquez's weather analysis was pretty interesting at some point because it was made few days after the crash but his data on flight plans were not updated with later infos from BEA. As far as your question is concerned, F-GZCP positional report was sent automatically every 10 mn, and the last one was stamped at 02.10. If you want to see the details of the flight plan, look here at the BEA/météo France animated map:
Flight Paths of Flight AF 447 and of the flights that crossed the zone around the same time
This animation is really interesting as:
a) 4 flights (including 3 from Air France) are diverting around the thunderstorm; particularly AF 459, on the same track but behind AF 447.
b) AF 447 is going head on into the storm zone, same for ELY 010 but on the westerly track which seems much less dangerous.
As for AF 447 positions recorded from 0100 to 0210:
0210: 02°58'47"N 30°35'23"W
0200: 01°48'00"N 31°08'59"W
0150: 00°38'23"N 31°45'36"W
0140: 00°29'23"S 32°22'11"W
0130: 01°38'59"S 32°58'47"W
0120: 02°49'11"S 33°36'35"W
0110: 04°01'11"S 34°14'24"W
0100: 05°12'35"S 34°52'11"W
As for theoretical position at 0215, it can be infered from the last flight segment 0200-0210 at an average speed of 473 knots in direction of TASIL: 39.5 nautical miles further.
Positon given by mm43 for
Seabed Worker's search area is (was yesterday):
2°42'37"N 31°12'36"W
This point is 41 nautical miles from 0210 position (last report) but on the other way, in direction of Brazilian coast.
S~
Olivier