mm43, for that matter the BEA has yet to discuss or release any transcripts of conversations between ATLANTICO and other flights on that track that night. IIRC, AF 447 was the only flight that did not diverge from the track on encountering the mesoscale convective complex.
LH507, which is suspected of being the flight with AMDAR, is mysteriously omitted from the BEA interactive map of the tracks that night. Why? Proprietary data, or does LH507's experience encountering the ITCZ leave too many questions yet to be answered?
Perhaps I overlooked it, but I have yet to find any reference as to when AF OOC looked at the ACARS messages. These seem not to have raised any flags at AF OOC at the time. AF and BREST still seem to be looking for the whereabouts of AF447 through 09h00. It is DAKAR at 09h40 that alerts French Naval Aviation that a plane is missing. French Naval Aviation goes on alert, contacts BREST, and several other centers in France. The BEA reports do not indicate when Brazil was contacted, or by whom, and asked to commence a search.
Asleep at the switch, anyone?
I would expect the BEA to ask the Drift Analysis group to do a re-analysis, and assess and explain why they and their models produced results that were so far off the mark. Until that happens, all the meteorological and oceanographic data on windage and current has to be looked at skeptically.
I increasingly think that French naval aviation and probably Brazil overflew the impact site on June 1 and saw nothing. Its possible that convection in the area later that day meant poor visibility or that parts of the area that supposedly were searched was never truly searched. In that event, the search should have been repeated when conditions improved, but was not. If this is the case, the result was 22 months of uncertainty, millions of Euros spent in wasted effort, and delays in getting to the boxes.