Chile - C130 cargo plane missing - 38 aboard, Antarctica, 9 Dec 2019

[watcher9]

The Hercules C130 aircraft took off at 4:55 p.m. (1955 GMT) on Monday from the southern city of Punta Arenas in Chilean Patagonia and was heading to a base in Antarctica, but operators lost contact with the plane shortly after 6:00 p.m.

Chile Air Force says missing cargo plane with 38 aboard has crashed

 

[watcher9]

The aircraft was carrying 17 crew members and 21 passengers, and was heading to Antarctica to check on a floating fuel supply line and other equipment at the Chilean base.

Chile loses contact with military plane headed to Antarctica, 38 on board

 

[LietKynes]

Scary.
Hope there's good news soon !
Did the plane come equipped with up-to-date navigation systems ?
A guidance beacon ?
If it crashed over water I hope they can find them, still alive and clinging to wreckage. Doesn't sound likely, sorry to say.
My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those on board.

 

[watcher9]

The aircraft would have been about halfway to the Antarctic base when it lost contact, Mosqueira said, adding that no emergency signals had been activated. On Tuesday, crews encountered low visibility and waves up to 20 feet high.

Holding out hope of survivors, officials said the plane has four rafts that could carry up to 20 passengers each if it went down at sea. The Chilean Air Force said planes from Argentina and Uruguay were assisting with the search.

Chilean Air Force plane carrying 38 believed to have crashed on Antarctica flight

 

[watcher9]

Scary.
Hope there's good news soon !
Did the plane come equipped with up-to-date navigation systems ?
A guidance beacon ?
If it crashed over water I hope they can find them, still alive and clinging to wreckage. Doesn't sound likely, sorry to say.
My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those on board.

I'm thinking the water would be too cold that close to Antarctica for anyone to survive unless they were able to climb on the rafts or something floating above the water.

 

[dotr]

Good morning America, VIDEO.
Urgent search for Antarctic plane with 38 people that disappeared off radar

Chile combs Antarctic seas for missing plane with 38 aboard

In this image made from video, Gen. Eduardo Mosqueira, right, of the Fourth Air Brigade speaks to the media next to a map of the area where the airplane is missing, in Punta Arenas, Chile, Monday, Dec. 9, 2019. (AP Photo)

"SANTIAGO, CHILE -- Search crews are combing the Antarctic for a Chilean military transport plane carrying 38 people that vanished en route to a base on the frozen continent and will tirelessly press ahead as the hunt gains widening international support, officials said Tuesday.

Gen. Eduardo Mosqueira said Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and the United States had each lent planes to the search following Monday's disappearance. At least 13 aircraft and several ships were scouring the area where the plane was believed to be when radio contact was lost."

"We'll continue searching 24 hours a day, both night and day, with the resources at our disposal," Mosqueira told The Associated Press.

Officials said the plane had taken off in favourable conditions Monday afternoon, though it was flying in an area notorious for rapidly changing conditions, with freezing temperatures and strong winds. Seven hours after contact was cut off, the air force declared the plane a loss, though there was no sign of what happened to it."

 

[watcher9]

The cause of the crash was not known and officials acknowledged the chances of finding survivors were slim.
Large rolling waves in the icy Drake Passage and low clouds had complicated the search on Tuesday, authorities said.

Chile expands search over frigid sea near Antarctica for crashed plane

 

[watcher9]

Names of passengers are being released in this article -

Three of the passengers were Chilean soldiers, two were civilians employed by engineering and construction firm Inproser going to carry out work on the military base, one was a student and the remaining 15 passengers were members of the air force, an official said.

Adverse conditions hamper search for Chile plane

 

[LietKynes]

Hoping for closure for the families if the worst comes to pass.
If they didn't deviate from the flight path, maybe recovery of the black box is possible ?

 

[watcher9]

Hoping for closure for the families if the worst comes to pass.
If they didn't deviate from the flight path, maybe recovery of the black box is possible ?

I'm not sure about the recovery. Here's a description of the Drake Passage.

Drake Passage | waterway, South America

 

[Hatfield]

The aircraft would have been about halfway to the Antarctic base when it lost contact, Mosqueira said, adding that no emergency signals had been activated. On Tuesday, crews encountered low visibility and waves up to 20 feet high.

Holding out hope of survivors, officials said the plane has four rafts that could carry up to 20 passengers each if it went down at sea. The Chilean Air Force said planes from Argentina and Uruguay were assisting with the search.

Chilean Air Force plane carrying 38 believed to have crashed on Antarctica flight

Sad to hear about this plane disappearing from radar over frigid waters.

What I dont understand is why in this day and age the FAA and any other airline organizations would not require constant GPS location coordinates to constantly be transmitted to the nearest airport. If that was a new requirement then at least any plane that disappeared would have its exact last location on record.

I know the cost of installing such equipment is always the excuse the airlines would use to argue against installing such a feature on all planes but by golly its not that difficult in this day and age. All it would take is a simple GPS device to communicate the current GPS coordinates and then transmit them via satellite to a common destination. This is not all that difficult. Sure there would be a cost but that cost is well worth it when you look at all the costs that go into trying to search for just 1 of these missing planes. Airlines and governments will easily get their cost benefit back when the next plane goes off radar and they are staring at the exact last GPS coordinates.

Why hasnt this GPS feature like this been required yet of all airlines? We need to force airlines to do it because they obviously are not going to do it themselves without being forced to. So there has to be new legislation or something created to force them to comply.

I sure hope someone with some sort of power can initiate new rules to force airlines to begin transmitting their GPS location like every 30 seconds or something along those lines.

In meantime, for this 1 plane, lets get about 20 planes and ships out there to randomly look around with all the costly resources it will take. With no guarantee they are even looking in the right place. Seems crazy we have not got a better system in place on airplanes.

 

[JerseyGirl]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/chile-combs-antarctic-missing-plane-38-aboard-n1099176

 

[Cryptic]

Scary.
Hope there's good news soon !
Did the plane come equipped with up-to-date navigation systems ?
A guidance beacon ?

Sadly, the plane may have lacked advanced features.

Chile and arch rival Argentina have both fallen from competing regional economic powerhouses to just barely getting by- if that. In regards to military equipment, the economic crisis means using older equipment with less than full maintenance and also needing to use the equipment in very unforgiving environments such as the southern oceans.

Then factor in that both nations purchased pricey western military equipment in their power house days. Thus, unlike with Soviet planes, there are no inexpensive spare parts and equipment maintenance needs are high.

As a side note, Argentina recently lost submarine (older model past its recommended operating life / refurbished on a shoe string budget) with its entire crew that was barely trained. That is a sad decline from the days when well trained Argentinian naval aviators combined courage with Exocet missiles and well aimed bombs to sink six warships of the mighty Royal Navy.

 

[dotr]

Chilean air force finds debris believed to be from missing plane with 38 people
"The Chilean air force has located debris believed to be from a cargo plane that crashed this week with 38 people aboard over a remote stretch of frigid sea between South America and Antarctica.

The debris, which was found 18 miles (30km) south of where the plane last made contact, will be recovered for analysis to determine if it belonged to the Hercules C-130 cargo plane, the air force said in a statement.

The aircraft disappeared shortly after taking off late on Monday from the southern city of Punta Arenas. The air force concluded the aircraft must have crashed early the next morning, given the number of hours it had been missing.

“We will continue the search and hope for a better result,” Gen Eduardo Mosqueira, who leads the search effort, told reporters."

"The flight appeared routine until the moment it disappeared, Mosqueira said.

The region where the plane disappeared is a vast, largely untouched ocean wilderness of penguin-inhabited ice sheets off the edge of the South American continent with depths of 11,500ft (3,500 meters).

The military was using sonar-enabled navy ships to detect irregularities at depth, and that it had established quadrangles to help organize the search, Mosqueira said. Ships from Argentina and Brazil were assisting, he said".

 

[Cryptic]

Why hasnt this GPS feature like this been required yet of all airlines?

I sure hope someone with some sort of power can initiate new rules to force airlines to begin transmitting their GPS location like every 30 seconds or something along those lines.

All aircraft over a certain size operated by airlines are required to have transponders. But.... this was a military aircraft and they are not required to have them. My general understanding is that large military aircraft such as transports often have them.

But.... this C-130 was an older model in the service of a country that has fallen on hard economic times. Therefore, it may not of had one installed. Even if it had a transponder, the Chileans might not of had "radar" coverage in the area is it is off commercial routes.

As a side note, during the boycott and counter boycott stemming from the war in Ukraine Russian military transport pilots deliberately veered into air traffic routes over the English Channel- then turned of their transponders and refused to answer radio calls.

This caused a lot of stress and disruption with British air traffic controllers. They really got stressed after one Russian flight crew started flying the wrong way in the "lane"- then pulled the 'transponder off / radio broken' stunt.

 

[JerseyGirl]

'Human remains found' after Chilean plane crash

 

[Hatfield]

All aircraft over a certain size operated by airlines are required to have transponders. But.... this was a military aircraft and they are not required to have them. My general understanding is that large military aircraft such as transports often have them.

But.... this C-130 was an older model in the service of a country that has fallen on hard economic times. Therefore, it may not of had one installed. Even if it had a transponder, the Chileans might not of had "radar" coverage in the area is it is off commercial routes.

As a side note, during the boycott and counter boycott stemming from the war in Ukraine Russian military transport pilots deliberately veered into air traffic routes over the English Channel- then turned of their transponders and refused to answer radio calls.

This caused a lot of stress and disruption with British air traffic controllers. They really got stressed after one Russian flight crew started flying the wrong way in the "lane"- then pulled the 'transponder off / radio broken' stunt.

Thanks for reminding me about transponders.
Although good to have them on and working, I think all the transponders do is communicate with ground radar which allows the radar systems to know on their screens where a plane is located. I am not sure if the transponder information is as accurate as it would be if we could get a planes exact GPS coordinates.

Something seems weak with them because it seems like whenever we have a situation like this, the search crews go to a "General" location and they dont seem to know exactly where to go. Otherwise it shouldnt take multiple search crews trying to find planes. Having exact last GPS coordinates would allow pinpoint accuracy of last known location. I am not sure if the transponder radar information is accurate to that level of detail.

I tried to look up what the transponder does and it is hard to find specifics other than communication with radar so they know on the radar screens where each plane is.

"Q. What information does a transponder send, and who does it send it to?
A transponder is a radio transmitter in the cockpit that works with ground radar. When the transponder receives a signal from a more sophisticated ground "secondary" radar, it returns a squawk code with the aircraft's position, its altitude and its call sign. It is constantly being radar pinged, helping air traffic controllers on the ground determine the airplane's speed and direction, too."

Malaysia Airlines: What is a transponder? - CNN

 

[Hatfield]

'Human remains found' after Chilean plane crash

That is good they have found remains which means they are in the right area. So maybe the radar transponder information really is equivalent to like having GPS coordinates.

I think I was getting myself confused with how much trouble we have had trying to find the missing Malaysia plane. MH370 flight I think it was. I had forgotten the pilot turned off the transponder in the Malaysia plane incident which has made finding that plane almost impossible to find it.

 

[watcher9]

That is good they have found remains which means they are in the right area. So maybe the radar transponder information really is equivalent to like having GPS coordinates.

I think I was getting myself confused with how much trouble we have had trying to find the missing Malaysia plane. MH370 flight I think it was. I had forgotten the pilot turned off the transponder in the Malaysia plane incident which has made finding that plane almost impossible to find it.

They don't know yet what happened to the transponder on MH370.
Here's a link to that thread.

Malaysia airlines MH370 with 239 people on board, 8 March 2014 #26

 

[Cryptic]

I had forgotten the pilot turned off the transponder in the Malaysia plane incident which has made finding that plane almost impossible to find it.

As a side note, the pilot not only turned off the transponder, but also turned off a back up devise.

The devise does not give 'real time' flight information like a transponder, but would have allowed investigators to recreate the flight route in some detail from electronic signals sent continuously from the plane. The signals are then automatically archived for a period of time by control stations.

Evidently, pilots are not usually instructed on the devise and it is not referred to in their flight manuals. Rather, references to it are buried deep in technical maintenance manuals.

To disable it, the pilot needed to access an obscure maintenance fuse box near the tail of the plane and pull the associated fuse.