Originally Posted by mm43
Quote:
Originally posted by HN39 ...
Take the 35s gap between 2:12:16 and 2:12:51. After this gap, at 2:13:08 and 2:13:14 there are two FLR messages timestamped 2:11. These must have occurred before the 2:12:51 0212 WRN message that takes priority after the gap. Doesn't that mean that there were messages to transmit prior to the interruption of the sequence?
Good point. One would have to assume so, unless there were SATCOM difficulties in the apparently clear slots.
Didn't the BEA believe there were possibly a couple of FLR/Hard messages still in the system? My understanding is that the transmission of those messages is delayed for 1 min from initiating time - or am I wrong?
That is why I can believe your scenario where the aircraft executes a fairly sharp left turn for inexplicable reasons. A heavy enough bank left wing down would take the satellite out of the ACARS antenna beam perhaps past the antenna aiming algorithm's attempts to correct it. A right wing down bank would have had to be more severe than a left wing down bank due to the satellite position.
In either case I believe the bank angle would have to be rather large to cause loss of signal.