Released radar data
 

The single screen shot image released (above) shows what appears to be the last secondary radar return. I say last because of both the time and the altitude displayed.

That fact that here is no other "correlated" secondary radar target in the vicinity on that screen shot means little with regard to:
a. what may have been showing immediately prior to the mayday and start of descent
b. any primary radar returns

grizz

http://theaviationist.com/2014/08/01...dish-airspace/

There have been many cases of airspace violations in the region during the last few years. Pure speculation but if a state operated stealthy drone was transiting the area it's doubtful it would be talking to anyone other than the operator.
Lets hope this is not the case.

If state or military operated, the operator would have full access to information on the traffic occupying that airspace.

I'm not that sure about last statement. In fact I think most of the time we, commercial operators, have no clue about these things unless it's in a NOTAM.

CP

It seems unlikely that a drone small enough not to leave noticeable wreckage would have been flown high enough to collide with an aircraft at FL330 (was it?).

Something such as a Global Hawk would leave a lot of wreckage, when that is the type of drone that would have been up that high.

Interesting discussion , regardless of the real cause of this accident ( and I also personally doubt the UAV theory ) :
Hotel Tango :definitively , however the vast majority of the UAvs accidents is when the operator contact is lost with the UAV a or if the UAV looses GPS contact and start doing things on its own , like descending for instance. And nobody likes to acknowledge they lost a UAV.

Chucks : Both the US and The Russians have small High Altitude UAVs weighting less that 100K Kgs with a ceiling of 50-60.000ft . I've seen photos but not sure if they were prototypes or operational crafts. So technically possible : yes ,likely in our case , I would say no.

Finally for the conspirationists, this occurred at an FIR boundary, always a nice place to run classified missions. especially a NATO border.:hmm:

Somebody claims to be leaking inside info over on the AvHerald comments.

"That region" = over sea east of Sweden. But this was not "that region". It was border-close between Norway and Sweden. Good surveillance, both technical equipment and the will to keep control in the area.




Sweden only fly UAV in active restriction areas in Sweden. Highly regulated and taken very seriously by Swedish armed forces.


As for the radar picture linked in my last reply: In my eyes it sure looks like a raw/primary radar trace. I would guess on a military surveillance radar with both primary and secondary targets shown. For reference, the length of the trace is aprox. 1 minute of flight on the picture but it shows (guesstimated) about 100 radar position dots. The SSR-system, I think, don't produce close to that number of measurements in one minute.
But then, Im not in that bussiness, so I might be wrong about that.

There is no flying Russian UAV that can fly that high... usually service ceiling of known Russian UAVs is about 3000m-5000m / 10000-15000 ft (roughly). There is one that can presumably fly at 15000m (SKAT), but there is only one full scale version made out of wood for presentations and it was presented in 2007 . I am sure that when the time comes for actually flying it, the real service ceiling will be a lot more realistic.

Sunamer : Good, then that narrows it down to one :E

AAKEE : If you are correct then, if (and a big if) a collision occurred it would have almost certainly occur been well before that.
AAKEE what you see here in the photo you published is a synthetic radar picture , like a PC screen. You can put any update rate you want in the " settings " .
SSR returns depends on the number of actual radar heads fed into your system. If you use multi-radar tracking ( most if systems do today) you can have updates every second if you wish. but what you will see will be a calculated mean position, not the actual exact position at a given time . You can also make it a constant moving target , with the software filling the blanks in between returns .
The whole thing is pretty accurate, in the 0,1 NM range, and more than sufficient for ATC purposes .
You can also feed the primary radar returns in that system, but they will be digitized and shown separately from the SRR.

Now I have heard the investigation team has analysed both the CVR which gives a clue apparently,and the FDR, so we should know soon what happened.

Any Info from Bombardier?
 

Hi All
It has been a bit to quiet on this one. Cargo no issue as Norwegian Post has received and destructed what mail the crash did not already take care of.

You Regional Drivers, has Bombardier come out with any teck advice or reminders of sop etc. Check wing nut etc.?

And i understand Xfiles are getting back! Drone ,, Please!
Anyway, no news from Bombardier and or MOT: No teck or structure problem.

I wonder what Murphy is up to this time!
Regards
Cpt B

@ATC Watcher:
Looks like a lot of hits per second. Most times a XPDR only shows returns about one/second ? This area actually is in the middle of nowhere and Swedish ATC only have coverage at high levels about FL100 and above.
I dont Think there is that many SSR-radars covering the area, counting Swedish and Norwegian together.



Yes, they said about one week ago that they got clues from the CVR and was about to analyze the FDR. Preliminay report in a few weeks, i Think the statement was.


For all: I intruded a restricted area yesterday(only by 100 meters in a sharp corner), resulted in UAV couldnt take off due to the Swedish restrictions. Those regulations are kept strict and I think everyone can easy rule out the possibility of a Swedish UAV in that area( disregarding the fact that they cant even reach FL330). Together with what we know from other incidents in the area I think we also know that the primary radar systems in the area are quite good, making the UAV-rumor less probable.

Wrong

The NATO recognised air picture takes feeds from both civ and MIL radar sites. (The screenshot is from that system) I cannot comment on here about the MIL feeds, but I can comment that of the Avinor (Norwegian ANSP) radar sites, at least five SSR/MSSR sites would cover the area at cruise FL, and 3 would cover it down to FL100 or lower. Let´s just say that Norwegian controllers have had way better radar coverage in northern Sweden for the last 25 years than the civ controllers in Sweden.

On that you can add X number of AD radars.

Led by the nose
 

The amount of white noise and conspiracy type theories appearing on these forums is becoming not just annoying. One 'Perhaps ... Can anyone shed any light' comment generates yards of piffle. People who know the aircraft and the environment don't really get a word in edge ways.

Perhaps this is what the "new owners" want. Forums with a professional tag attached to feed tabloid hacks with their next headline ending in a question mark.

The credibility of prune is ... Frankly ... Going to the dogs.

You're about 5 years too late, but in the last few months it really seems to have become a 'spotters' forum.
Then again, this thread is by far not the worst example of that - there do seemt o be some good posts in here.

I agree Nemrytter, I particularly appreciate the comments from people with knowledge of the aircraft type and the locale. Without this thread I wouldn't know that the CVR and FDR were recovered and read. I greatly appreciate updates like that.

Three things cannot be long hidden:
 

the sun, the moon and the truth.

(Buddha)

Don't be so negative, some people are at least learning how a radar system works .:E

I have first hand experience (last summer) with the radar in that area operated by Norway, Sweden, and Finland. VFR below 10,000 feet, I was twice warned well in advance that my track could carry me into another nation's airspace, and this is unwelcomed. I did not violate any airspace, but admit that I was not taking it as seriously as the nations were, and I respect their right to assert their airspace.

For how "out in the middle of nowhere" that area appears, ATC sure know what's happening! We flew on a flight plan down the Russian/Finnish boarder, about a mile inside Finland at their extreme northern boarder, and Finnish ATC requested that I fly farther away from the boarder. I complied.