I listen to liveatc.net from time to time and one thing that I notice is that whenever a plane is passed on from one controller to another they are instructed to contact the new controller right away. Now most of the stuff I listen to is around the airport where a plane might be passed along between 3 or 4 controllers within 10 minutes, but I would imagine the same thing to be true during cruise. Even though a controller sees a plane coming into his zone, I imagine with all the safety rules and such there must be a redundancy to require the pilot to contact that controller and say "hey, look at me, I'm here in your air space." The last ATC transmission from the plane was when they were leaving Malaysia Center. Their next controller should have been Vietnam Center (as far as I remember). When they said good night to the Malaysia controller everything seemed okay... but they never contact Vietnam. That switch in communication takes maybe 5 seconds? 10 at most. The fact that they didn't contact Vietnam right away tells me that whatever happened must have happened in those 5 to 10 seconds. Now, we know that this wasn't some sudden and catastrophic BOOM since systems stopped working over a period of minutes (either intentionally turned off or damaged by something on board like a fire). That doesn't explain why they didn't contact Vietnam. Fires don't spread that quickly, and the timing would have had to have been perfect.

Does anybody know what the procedure is for communication with an area controller when being passed from one controller to another during cruise? I know during approach, landing, take off, and departure, they're communicating right away.

Like...

"Air Canada 123 cleared ILS approach runway 23, contact tower 123.1"
"Cleared ILS 23 switching to tower Air Canada 123, good day."
and then literally 5 seconds later
"Tower, Air Canada 123 with you on the ILS for 23"

Does the same happen during cruise? I imagine it must, but I haven't been able to find any confirmation.

Thing is the fact that there are gaps in communication does happen. Especially a night time flight, I'd imagine it would take some time for the comm centers to notice, especially of the airspace was borderline.

It's not that the ATC didn't notice. It's that the airplane never transmitted anything. They would have recordings of all radio traffic coming into the ATC center. And if the pilot's transmission wasn't received he would have transmitted again.

I meant no one on the ground noticed anything was amiss.

but flying from malaysia to china, wouldn't you need to know like nineteen some odd languages to be able to speak with the air traffic controllers in the thirty three some odd countries it flies past?

Buddy, all Air Traffic Control is conducted in English, I believe.

really, us western white folk get to determine that between russia and china, they all dun speak english?

if, dare i say, i fly planes from north korea to iran.. they won't follow, you know, UN mandated non proliferation treaties, but they'll certainly tow the party line when it comes to air flying and communications there within?

what i want to know is WHYYYYYY are transponders able to be turned off? why aren't they perma-on?

i know we got to, after ww two, we got to force the world to trade oil in usd.. but even then, if i'm russia and you're china.., what is our benefit of trading (ie why do we continue to agree to it?), what forces us to buy or sell oil in usd?

or am i entirely misinterpreting a nineteen fifties mentality??

the whole of this question relates to why on earth hundreds of non english speaking countries would then be forced to use english as a means of communication?

because if landed at an airport, trife, and you had thirty planes in the air, and thirty on the ground, and they all looked the same.. i think more atc's would shoot themselves in the head than they already do :(

you can always turn something off if you like disconnect the hardware and fluff, i understand of the two transponders that went off one of them was really hard to turn off like that, but it happened just the same. could've been someone who practiced a lot to do it, or, like, a fire or something.

so theres been reports that the turn was programmed into the computer somewhat in advance, right? like before they said their "alright, goodnight." is that correct or have they changed that story already?

anyway one thing i dont really get is that if that's true, it sort of starts ruling the 'fire' explanation out, but then why divert a plane exactly after the change in airspace boundaries just to fly it toward antarctica for 7 hours before crashing in the ocean, wtf

during cruise it's not as important to communicate with atc as during the more critical periods of flight

of you check airlines.net, there's a brand new trip report there by Sam Chui about an Aerolineas Argentinas flight from Buenos Aires to Sydney, he goes to the fluffpit and talks to the pilots and they say that the plane spends about 2 hours so far from places that they can't even radio anyone on the normal frequencies (maybe they have some sort of emergency radio though for special cases?)

blid - here's a very nice article that sums up how this could have been the pilot diverting to the nearest airport due to a fire or other on board emergency. That would explain the turn to the West. The timing would have had to be perfect such that the pilot didn't contact the next controller.

http://www.wired.com/...03/mh370-electrical-fire/

PP - I posted my question on liveatc.net and so far the only person to reply is one of the mods who confirmed that at least in NA regulations require the pilot to contact the new controller as soon as they're passed off, and, the controller sees them coming and if they don't receive any communication they'll try contacting the plane or the previous controller to check what happened. He believes that the same rules apply around the world, and they apply regardless of the stage in flight.

To my knowledge the difference between radio transmissions during cruise is that they use HF (high frequency) radio instead of VHF (very high frequency) radio. But they're still tracked, controlled, and in communication with ATC throughout the entire flight. The folks on airlines.net might be referring to HF radio which has a much longer range and does not require line of sight to communicate.

Yes, all pilots of large commercial planes, meaning basically any 7*7 knows English. It is the international standard for international flight communications.

Yes the worlds airline pilots all speak english

So why cant fluffing americans learn Metric!!!!!

yeah ive seen that, but not only does it demand the timing to happen immediately after they left malaysian airspace, if the turn was programmed in the computer before the good night sign off it again doesn't work.

Because a 35 inch fluff sounds greater than a 15 centimeters one.
I wonder where and when they are going to find this plane.

It's clearly a setup by the US.

Both Iranians with the fake passports are nuclear scientists. Given the flight path of the plane over the Maldives at low attitude, the only place for the plane to be is on the US military base just below Maldives called Diego Garcia.

Not just large commercial planes. Basically any international flight... be it a private jet, a private pilot, or anything. Often times local pilots will speak the local language with their controllers while they're in local airspace (e.g. if you listen to an ATC frequency in Romania you'll often hear Romanian pilots speaking to Romanian controllers in Romanian), but as soon as they move over to another controller it's always English.

I think you have a very bad comprehension of metric to standard conversion rates.

aliens...

Leviathan came and took them to Babylon.
This time it's serious.

Cthulu

hidup bn bonus post

to anybody who answered me seriously, what is their interest in speaking english during international travel? why do romanian pilots and, i don't know, lets arbitrarily call it pick a random asian country romania may fly to.. why is it english?

if russia and china fly flights back and forth, do they speak english? iran and north korea, they speak english? i ask, not tell..

Because you may need to converse with other pilots from other countries in the nearby region? I see having English as a required common language between all pilots in the air/controller as a good thing, so that other pilots on other flights that are also listening in knows what is happening in the same airspace.

ok, but now i run an english speaking, human rights respecting democratic country.. but you speak a non english non democratic country, non human rights accepting country..

if you sit there and say, you know what? yes, it does benefit us to speak english.. why do you not then take that same logic and apply it to the rest of your country?

i mean, if ""the west"" or ""america"" is so good we can all speak ""english"" if we want to travel anywhere while not touching the ground, why does every idiot on the planet not agree that ""the west"" or ""america"" is better than any of the rest of the third world?

English is the official language of aviation. If you're flying to or from any airport in any airspace controlled by an air traffic control system, you must speak English during all communications - because not only are all ATCs certified in this language, but all conversations are recorded and it's a requirement that any radio communication be conducted in English. Can you imagine the chaos if this rule weren't in place? 'Hmmm... where am I again? What's the official language here?' Or worse yet... 'Wow, my wing just fell off. Which language should I pick to tell the ATC where I'm going down?' Sure, they're gonna get the message translated quite often (and to be honest, a lot of final crash communications are in the pilot's native tongue) - but there has to be a standard, and they chose English.

Braden - accepting English as the language of communication in aviation has nothing to do with accepting "Western values" or forcing your entire country to learn English. English is the standard language of communication in aviation probably because English is the most spoken language by countries that have large fleets of airplanes and by pilots. Yes, Mandarin is the most spoken language world wide, but the majority of those speakers are still in mostly rural and developing communities. So English is the most widely spoken language among countries that do most of the flying, so it makes sense to have a standard language of communication for aviation.

To answer your question about a flight from China to Russia - as I said, pilots and controllers can communicate however they want. But you would need a controller in Russia to speak Chinese, or the Chinese pilots to speak Russian. Also, during any flight, you're likely passed along between a dozen or more different controllers. You've got the clearance controller on the ground, then the ground controller, then the tower, then departure, then the center, then various area controllers while you cruise, then the next center, then approach, then tower, then ground again. You would need ALL of those controllers to all speak whatever language your native language is. Given that almost all countries in the world have English offered if not mandatory as part of their education system, and given that the majority of international flights fly out of or into countries where English is widely spoken, it makes sense to have English as the international language of aviation.

Patty - I'm not sure that English is mandatory. It might be in North America, but from what I hear on liveatc.net in Europe it's not. Pilots in Europe consistently communicate within their own country in their own language. Maybe certain aspects of the communication need to happen in English (perhaps direct instructions to climb/descend/turn/speed up/slow down) but I often hear pilots speaking to ATC in their native language when making requests and stuff like that. Which I guess makes sense. Information that other pilots might need to be aware of happens in English, while communication that doesn't have a direct impact on the movement of the airplane could occur in the local language.

You just answered your own question there. If they are in their own country, of course they speak their own language. But if they're flying internationally, they don't have to think to themselves "gee, I hope the ATC at this place knows what I'm saying" because all they have to do is use their brains and speak the bit of English they know to properly communicate with the ATC.

It's not that simple. Often times communication between one particular airplane and ATC could contain information that other aircraft need to know. That communication should be made in English. And obviously international pilots won't expect controllers to speak their language. I never said that. I was responding to Patty's assertion that English is mandatory, always, everywhere.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (a division of the United Nations) mandated in 2008 that English be used for ALL international flights, with a recommendation that all pilots and ground controllers worldwide be tested and certified fluent in English and use it for domestic flights as well. In 2011, this recommendation was adopted to include domestic flights with one caveat: while it's still technically acceptable to communicate in a native tongue within country boundaries, BOTH THE PILOT AND GROUND CONTROLLER ARE REQUIRED TO SWITCH TO ENGLISH if either requests it.

Don't mess with me. :p

*messes with patty*

yeah Patty - we agree. They must all be fluent in English. They must speak English if the communication is vital to other aircraft. They must speak English if either of them initiates communication in English. But there are cases in which they may speak another language.

The search area for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has shifted some 680 miles (1,100 km.) to the north after a fresh “credible lead” was received by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

lol makes it seem like all that debris theyve been looking is just random trash

i heard they found the wings. though mr and mrs wing had no clue where the plane itself was