Originally Posted by portmanteau
lonewolf 50. you are the KL radar controller watching 370 on the screen in front of you. you instruct it to contact HCM then watch it continue NE. the moment you see its label vanish ( when the aircraft transponder stops), you reach for the phone to ask HCM atcc fellow controller on a direct line, whether he has ok contact with 370. he says no and may even tell you then that he can see it has turned back. you and he there and then initiate standard search and rescue procedures.
Having instructed many, many, thousands of aircraft to contact the next control agency in my career, I can assure you that from an ATCO's perspective that's it. He's gone, flight strip in bin, screen wiped, Endex.
If we went around calling colleagues saying "Have you got him yet?" There would be no time left to control the remaining aircraft on frequency.
It doesn't happen.