Originally Posted by walter kennedy
themib
What went wrong when JFK Jnr's plane crashed, then? Something like 6 hours?
1. No flight plan or request for help.
Kennedy never received a weather briefing or filed a flight plan. Except for the take-off portion of his flight, Kennedy did not contact any air traffic controllers; during the flight, he never requested help or declared an emergency. Under the conditions of his flight, Kennedy was not required to file a flight plan, and although he did not,
no one knew his exact route or expected time of his arrival.
2. Wrong frequencies.
When the NTSB examined the wreckage, they discovered that both of Kennedy's radios had incorrect frequencies selected (he had selected 127.25 for Martha Vineyard's AITS instead of 126.25; likewise, he selected 135.25 for Essex County ATIS, but it should have been 135.5). The NTSB did not comment on the contribution this factor had in the crash, if any.
3. No one realized there had been a crash, as no one saw the crash and the radar that recorded the erratic last moments of the flight (~9:30 PM) was not "live monitored". Thus it was not realized there was a missing aircraft until a Kennedy family member reported the plane missing to the Coast Guard at about 2:15 a.m..
After standard checks to see whether Kennedy had landed at another airport (and thus more delay), the Air Force and the Coast Guard launched an intensive search at 7:30 a.m., fanning out 16 planes, four helicopters and several cutters along Kennedy's entire flight path.
Initially, there were reports that an underwater beacon was beeping off the coast of Long Island, and search teams began trying to sweep about 1,000 square miles of ocean. But the agencies focused their search to the north after a preliminary FAA analysis found that the plane disappeared from radar 17 miles southwest of the Vineyard.
So basically, after the FAA & Coast Guard were notified the plane was overdue,
they still had to be sure it hadn't simply landed elsewhere and no one had called to say that, before they could declare it missing and begin a search.
The 30 minute response time is for "you need to get
to this location, right away" calls... not for "he is late and we don't know where he is" calls.