User:Ursula Hofbauer

Hello and welcome stranger!

I´ve been looking up and checking one particular riddle concerning AF 447 "Last ACARS 0214 UTC" position (lat/ lon coordinates) for a while. English and German Wiki and a lot of other "sources" in the net say this last message was sent from 3°34'40"N, 30°22'28"W - I can´t figure where this information originally came from. If you have any good idea: please let me know! Thank you!

I´m puzzled by the different lat/lon positions of "Last ACARS 0214Z" used in different maps, charts and data from Brazilian Air Force and others. I think this is important, because Força Aérea is referring to that position measuring distances, e.g. of debris found. Here at Wikipedia and in other discussions there are conclusions drawn from this distances - e.g. if the Airbus could have been broken in high altitude or not and in what weather conditions AF 447 really was at 0214Z.

I found different data concerning last ACARS:

1/ Wikipedia, PPruNe:

Last ACARS 0214Z

3°34'40"N, 30°22'28"W

2/ Last Report ref. to Brazilian Air Force

"Ultimo Reporte"

3°16'28"N 30°22'28"W

English and German Wikipedia do not provide a reference for this particular information. I also could not figure out a reliable source in many days of research. Not even where this "information" first occurred. It has been assumed that lat/lon position is data coming with the ACARS by satellite transmission, but I cannot find a reliable source for this assumption either. Brazilian Air Force uses different positions for "Ultimo Reporte" in different plotting they provide, one of them suggesting "Ultimo Reporte" being in about 167km distance from TASIL: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/376433-af447-49.html#post4986435 (see lower picture).

Thus I have the following 2 questions:

Do/could ACARS messages technically include information about lon/lat position? Are the ACARS messages that have been published truncated in a way that would suggest Air France to have additional information about exact position transmitted by satellite?

Any contributions? Comments? Sources?

Alles Liebe, Ursula

--Ursula Hofbauer (talk) 09:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey Ursula, It is tradition on wikipedia that people talk on their talk page, I placed a response to your question.PB666 ^yap 12:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)