PJ2,
I understand and appreciate that there is a continuing stream of ACARS messages from numerous flights being received at AF, which are then further distributed to various points in the AF network, e.g., destination airports.
I don't know AF procedures, but in this instance, AF OCC sent an ACARS message to AF447 after 04h00 requesting it contact a control center. Would the usual AF procedure be for the crew of the receiving aircraft to acknowledge receipt of such a message? If so, would not AF OCC then be looking for confirmation of message receipt, and if there were none, try to re-contact or go on heightened alert re: AF447?
As the hours continue to go by, when does anyone at AF OCC think to look to see whether there are relevant ACARS messages from AF 447?
One possible answer might be derived from interpolating a sequence of events -- relying on the sequence in the first BEA interim report.
A.) DAKAR at 10h45 clears the French Navy's Dassault Atlantique 2 to Cape Verde, because "This was a pre-positioning choice given the uncertainty about the location of the accident."
B.)
Around 13 h 00, the crew of the Dassault Atlantique 2, en route to position at Cape Verde, received the instruction to proceed towards TASIL descending UN 873 airway.
A possible interpretation of that sequence is that somebody between 10h45 and 13h00 looked at the ACARS message with the LKP sent at 02h10, and passed that information on to DAKAR. The interval between AF459 contacting AF OCC about AF447 not being in contact and the instruction to the Dassault to proceed to TASIL was about six hours.
________________
jcjeant, in this instance, there was no negligence on the part of AF OCC; if there had been survivors, and survivors were not rescued in time, then one would raise the question of negligence.
At 09h45 DAKAR called French Naval Aviation and said a plane was missing. From that time on, the response, from the French standpoint, was quite expeditious. We do not know when the Brazilian Air Force was contacted, nor when its airplane(s) first arrived in the search area. If I interpret the Naval Observatory's calculation correctly, sunrise on June 1 at 3N and 30.30W was 5:51 and sunset was 18:08. So about 2 1/2 hours of light for the Dassault if it remained in the search area the entire time.
The extent of daylight and the prevailing weather during the first day's search have not been described in any detail. The Drift Analysis group found the Brazilian search data to be sufficiently unreliable that it was not used in their calculations.