What are the chances that those pieces would land on an island (right on the beach, no less), when the plane was flying over the Pacific Ocean?
Don’t know about the mid-air part, but folks sometimes survive. I saw this story on ABC’s GMA this morning:
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20040924_45.html
No one came to rescue them. What happened to flight plans and ‘black boxes?’
That was a small plane, and small planes are often difficult to find when they crash in forested wilderness.
Also, if the survivors had stayed put, they would have been found earlier than they were.
Just for the record, I don’t think most black boxes have transmitters or anything else that would help in finding the plane.
Mostly the black box is to seal and protect the flight recorder, so that AFTER they find the plane they can get some notion of what went wrong.
Ofg course, one could argue that, by definition, we couldn’t know whether an uncharted island exists or not.
However, it seems essentially impossible to me. Even before the most recent technologies (say, satellites) were available, the smallest existing bits of land had been chartered. Not only chartered but were part of the territory of some country (Antarctic excepted). To give an example, amongst the french oversea territories, there’s an island so low and small that it is completely submerged during high tides. The militaries have been involved in dispute over the ownership of islands that similarily are mostly submerged during high tides a couple of times during the past decade (IIRC, but I’m not sure at all, one case involved China and I can’ t remember who else, and the other two arabic gulf countries) Given that, what are the chances that an island large enough for people to live on would have gone unoticed?
IIRC, the last time an uncharted island was discovered was at the beginning of the 20th century, and it was only a “temporary” island created by a volcanic eruption that later collapsed and sank back in the sea. If we’ve been unable to find the smallest uncharted bit of land during the last 80-100 years, and given the progresses of technology, what is the likehood that someone would today?
Now, I suppose you could crash in some chartered, but totally out of the way island where essentially nobody ever come close to. But if it’s unused unpopulated, it’s probably because it’s unhospitable and you couldn’t survive on it.
I’ll second this one. I’ve heard confirmed stories of US missile warning satellites picking up heat signatures from wildfires and such. I would think a downed jet with fuel would burn a helluva lot hotter than a measley grass fire.
But what about the plot of Cast Away? The plane is gone and sunk into the water. They “searched” as best they can. Would Tom Hanks still be missing on that lonely little island with Wilson?
Tripler
I doubt 48 people would be missing, but what about one?
Aw shoot . . .
Mods, can you fix that Spoiler tag?
Thanks!
Trip
The tragedy for those of us who like scripted shows with professional actors is that now, even the scripted shows are aiming to be like reality shows!
“Lost” is just “Survivor” with actors! Every week, someone will get killed instead of being voted off the island, but otherwise, this is a reality show disguised as a drama!
The closest scenario, to my knowledge, would be these:
The plane’s Emergency Locator Transmitter signal should be picked up by satellite within hours, directing rescuers to the crash site.
The ultimate answer to “is it possible” yes, anything is possible.
No matter what situation you present we can also declare it is possible.
Now, in the grand scheme of things this is less possible than a lot of other things, but more possible than some things.
A modern plane is completely the creation of man. Anything man made can fail. Every single system on a plane can fail. There can be freak occurences with the computer systems that are supposed to monitor satellite tracking, so that even if the fire is shown on the systems, the computer is messed up and the people using it miss the info.
Or the satellites themselves could explode and fall from the sky.
So yes, anything is possible. This one isn’t very likely though.
While the movie Cast Away was horrible, it did have a better explanation IIRC.
I think there were several huge storms and even hurricanes in the area shortly after the plane went missing, so rescue efforts were extremely hampered. And after that I think the plane wreckage was found, so that was the end of it, and Tom Hanks was miles and miles away from the plane wreckage. IIRC he was about 500 mi. away from where people were looking.
Not me. I have my tin-foil hat firmly in place.
Sorry - couldn’t resist. Carry on.
just a thought…
would it be feasible to give everyone on a plan some sort of locator beacon that can be worn around the wrist? or maybe one in the seat pocket that they can grab in case of emergency. kinda eliminates the possibility of losing someone. it could have to be activated so as to know when to look.
I’m guessing the ELT is in the tail section of the plane , which may have fell into the ocean.
But I also wonder in the life rafts have EPIRBs on them.
Is it common to have a handheld tranciever in the cockpit? Would it do any good in the middle of the Pacific (VHF is line of sight)
Brian