Originally Posted by
atakacs
I muss say I have difficulties in imagining an accidental fire situation where the pilots wouldn't have a chance to transmit a mayday and, at the very least, initiate a diversion.
Unless, of course, it was some incendiary device.
If you go back to the first thread on this aircraft loss, a couple of pilots who fly that route shared their experience that there are comms holes (dead spots?) along that route as one switches over from the Greek to the Egyptian controller frequencies.
As MS804 descended -- even if they sent out a Mayday it might be that nobody received it. (If other aircraft were within range one would think another aircraft might have heard and reported such, so it's also possible that task loading on the flight deck was high and radio calls weren't as pressing as all other tasks).
Quiet area
Normal for that route at that point - well known "dead spot" lasting for about 10 minutes.
Quiet area 2
About the handover from Greek to Egyptian controllers
It's about 175 nautical miles from the boundary between the Cairo and Athinai FIRs at waypoint KUMBI to landfall on the Egyptian coast via UL612; So if reports that LKP was 10nm inside the Cairo FIR are correct, that's 165nm or 305km, give or take.
That position is only about 150nm from the Greek islands to the north and northwest, so a touch closer to Greece than to Egypt, but pretty much in the middle.