Bearfoil (and others), I simply figured that before things pickled it would be a priority for the plane to obtain contact with DAKAR. That way they'd be informed of traffic if conditions changed. DAKAR would not move another plane into their place in the flight path. And possible wx briefings could be passed. And I wanted to amplify that I figured 121.5 was hardly for idle chit-chat. and that I saw reestablishing contact with DAKAR "might" be considered "idle chit-chat."
121.5 is a facility the pilots would have available. And before things pickled there was a small chance having that communications might have saved a large number of lives
(And, it seems you've flown something somewhat more rugged than the modern flying luxury sedans. {^_-} I'm NOT a pilot so there are lacunae in my knowledge base that I'm admitting and in a way begging for both forgiveness and having said gaps filled. I have an active curiosity and love of learning - what I want to learn And I admit to preferring "having learned" over the learning process itself.)
I am also not talking about the ELTs. I'm talking about dialing in 121.5 (or otherwise selecting the frequency) and politely asking for some minor assistance.
Once things pickled I can understand no transmissions. And probably by the time they might have thought of 121.5 just to warn other aircraft they were coming into their paths, perhaps, they were below common flight levels for that path. So "why call" unless there was a desire to let maybe might be rescuers have a clue where they were.
My 121.5 interest is chiefly in the interval from the time of handoff by Atlantico and failure of DAKAR to respond to the time the flight pickled. I am presuming that during that interval 121.5 is a facility I'm surprised was not used. however briefly specifically for establishing contact with DAKAR via a relay through another plane in their "immediate" area. Planes within 400 miles of they surely should have heard them if they transmitted.
With regards to piggybacking a computer detected major fault (erm such as auto-pilot kicking out?) through ACARS is germaine to future instances like this. It might reduce some of the mystery, especially if it moved into a
PR every minute instead of every 10 minutes. It didn't shift to a new reporting mode. But it did report the AP kicking out, and nobody knew this until well after the disaster had taken place. Apparently ACARS is not monitored in real time by any body or thing "interested" enough to have done anything.
I see three distinct interesting intellectual pursuits from this disaster, why and how did it happen, what could be done to prevent the mystery next time, and of critical interest what could be done to prevent it happening again? All three answers are tied to "what in tarnation happened to that flying composite over powered hypertrophied cigar? And I'm not willing to accept the simple answer that the data suggests, so far - that God swatted the plane out of the air for some reason. But it surely looks like the plane was subjected to a high G change in velocity followed by a fall from 35000 feet followed by an unfortunate meeting with the Atlantic Ocean. (Or else things pickled earlier than we think at this time and the slight "off track" last GPS report shows it.)
I feel as though I an trying to add two and two to make three. The sum seems to be less than the known parts. Of course, that means there must be another part por parts to consider. So far the suggested parts add up to oddball values of four when the known parts are examined.
{o.o}