I'm not certain about over in this particular area, but in the US, ATC might not have primary radar coverage of an area. What they rely upon is the aircraft to have a transponder. The transponder receives a signal from some other transmitter and then responds with the squawk code that is set on the transponder. As such, if the transponder stops working, then it would appear that the aircraft just disappeared from the sky to ATC. Now, these days they also have ADS-B, but it is similar in that if it quit transmitting, then the aircraft would appear to just disappear. The military might be more inclined to have primary radar since they are concerned with enemy aircraft that by their very nature are not going to be broadcasting their current position.
It does seem a bit odd that all data from the aircraft just stopped without any sort of distress indication from the aircraft.
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Return to “Malaysia Airlines Flight Vanishes”
- Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:39 am
- Forum: Off-Topic
- Topic: Malaysia Airlines Flight Vanishes
- Replies: 341
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- Mon Mar 10, 2014 1:29 am
- Forum: Off-Topic
- Topic: Malaysia Airlines Flight Vanishes
- Replies: 341
- Views: 80928
Re: Malaysia Airlines Flight Vanishes
Submariner saying:surprise_i'm_armed wrote:Fighter pilot saying:
"There are 2 types of aircraft: Fighters and targets." :-)
"There are 2 types of ships: Submarines and targets."