Flight Tracking Over Oceans and Emergency Landings

[psilyguy]

Here's the bombshell!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG4FiwOat_w


The largest company that tracks flight information, 260 million aircraft positions per day, states at the 1:34 mark they do not use satellite tracking ["there is currently no satellite based tracking system for aircraft"]. That brings to the table the Australia to Chile flight would be impossible on the globe model. As I've said from day one nothing self orbits because this is not a globe.

TWCobra I know you take this flight quite often, however it's obvious the data you are handed and the supposed flight route appears you are on a globe. What would happen if you had to make an emergency landing and found yourself somewhere else than what the (NASA) data told you? There's plenty of examples of this.
Just Google: 'emergency air landings flat earth'

 

[cloudspotter]

Satellite ADS-B is available however

In 2018, Aireon will provide the first truly global air traffic surveillance system using a space-based ADS-B network that makes it possible to extend visibility across the entire planet. Aireon will enable real-time transmission of ADS-B reports from equipped aircraft to Air Traffic Management automation platforms and Air Traffic Controllers in every Flight Information Region throughout the world.

https://aireon.com/services/

What is Space-Based ADS-B?
(Also called "Satellite-Augmented" or "Satellite-Retransmitted" ADS-B)

We call our version of Space-Based ADS-B the ADS-B Link Augmentation System, or "ALAS". With it, an aircraft can be securely tracked in real-time most anywhere on earth.

There is nothing "virtual" or "planned" about ALAS - it was the first Space-Based ADS-B system and it has been flying since 2010!

http://www.ads-b.com/space-based.htm

 

[mik]

That brings to the table the Australia to Chile flight would be impossible on the globe model.

This does not follow

The largest company that tracks flight information, 260 million aircraft positions per day, states at the 1:34 mark they do not use satellite tracking.

Whether or not aircraft can be tracked 100 percent of the time bears absolutely no relevance to the possibility of flights. The distance or time an aircraft is allowed to be out of range for landing sites is more about engine reliability.

As I've said from day one nothing self orbits because this is not a globe.

A flight tracking service not using satellites is not disproof of satellites. ADS-B satellite relays are still a very very new and emerging thing.

 

[Trailblazer]

The largest company that tracks flight information, 260 million aircraft positions per day, states at the 1:34 mark they do not use satellite tracking. That brings to the table the Australia to Chile flight would be impossible on the globe model. As I've said from day one nothing self orbits because this is not a globe.

TWCobra I know you take this flight quite often, however it's obvious the data you are handed and the supposed flight route appears you are on a globe. What would happen if you had to make an emergency landing and found yourself somewhere else than what the (NASA) data told you? There's plenty of examples of this.
Just Google: 'emergency air landings flat earth'

Have you actually looked at the photos and videos from the plane on the flight in question? Photos which clearly show ice-covered ocean, and can be matched up with satellite pictures showing that they are from south of 70 degrees? Photos that are clearly not taken anywhere along the supposed flat earth route?

Have a look at this thread by @TWCobra. https://www.metabunk.org/a-flight-over-the-antarctic-sea-ice-from-chile-to-australia-qf28.t8235/

That demonstrates that not only does the flight cross the Antarctic region, but also that satellite imagery of the ice matches the view from a plane, and therefore satellites do exist.

You seem to imagine that the only information people have on their position is via navigational software. But planes have windows.

 

[AdamP]

There seems to be some confusion about GPS and flight tracking. A GPS satellite sends it's location and time. A GPS receiver uses that info to calculation the position of the receiver. If I have the receiver I can know my location and navigate independent of the tracking system. That doesn't mean that anybody else knows where I am though. In order for me to be tracked, my location needs to be known by someone else, transmitted, received, and plotted. Presently, our GPS system can not track because GPS satellites only transmit the satellites location. They cannot receive and relay a location of a GPS receiver. Today, our location relay system is ground based via radar and transponders. Aircraft pilots do not need this tracking system to navigate.

 

[Trailblazer]

What would happen if you had to make an emergency landing and found yourself somewhere else than what the (NASA) data told you? There's plenty of examples of this.
Just Google: 'emergency air landings flat earth'

The first results I get when I do that are about a China Airlines flight that made an emergency landing in Alaska in October 2015 after a passenger gave birth on board. (Some reports incorrectly state that the flight was from Bali to Los Angeles.)

There's a good reason they diverted to Anchorage: because it is the nearest convenient place to the great circle route:

The video not only plots a straight path on an equirectangular map projection, it also has the wrong route marked (the flight should start at TPE in Taiwan, not DPS in Bali).

 

[Mick West]

There's a good reason they diverted to Anchorage: because it is the nearest convenient place to the great circle route:

It's even closer on the Flat Earth route (red line):

As you get closer to a trans-polar route in the North the actual great circle route more closely resembles the FE route. But yes, either way Alaska would be the closest.

Better examples are found in the Southern Hemisphere:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/video/wat...ced-to-make-emergency-landing-in-perth/#page1

A Qantas A380 flying from Dubai to Sydney had to make an unscheduled landing in Perth early this morning after the plane suffered a problem with a fuel pump.

https://www.metabunk.org/flat/

 

[Mick West]

http://www.traveller.com.au/too-far-qantas-747-forced-to-land-for-more-fuel-on-dallas-route-1fdl1

Qantas is assessing the operation its new Australia-Dallas, Texas, route after a jumbo jet ran low on fuel trying to make the non-stop leg to Brisbane yesterday and had to land on a Pacific island to fill up.

Pilots landed the Boeing 747-400ER in Noumea for an unscheduled pitstop after battling stronger than expected headwinds after leaving the US, a Qantas spokesman said.

 

[Rory]

Just Google: 'emergency air landings flat earth'

In actual fact, psilyguy, you're a bit behind times with all this "southern hemisphere flights don't exist" business: as far as I can see, flat earthers have now come to accept that they do exist - there are 70+ direct flights per week across the southern hemisphere - and are now focusing more on similarly convoluted explanations, such as maybe the planes fly at twice the speed as other aircraft and nobody's quite noticed; that sort of thing.

Also, the Taiwan-LA emergency landing is a pretty old story, and well debunked by now. I'd be surprised if leading flat earthers were still pushing that.

For my own side note: I got chatting to an Australian girl the other day who frequently travels in South America, and mentioned living in Chile. Yup: I met my first ever passenger on the famous QF27/28! Naturally, she had no idea these flights were of such fascination, in such a strange subject. It was kind of a thrill.

Anyway, following your advice to google, it seems there are six cases of emergency landing being put forward as evidence of a "globe earth conspiracy", detailed in this video here:



The flights in question are:

#1) China Airlines from Taiwan to Los Angeles, emergency landing in Alaska
#2) Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, emergency landing in Alaska
#3) Qatar Airways from Chicago to Doha, emergency landing in Moscow
#4) Emirates from San Francisco to Dubai, emergency landing in Moscow
#5) Lufthansa from Shanghai to Munich, emergency landing in Moscow
#6) PIA Pakistani Airlines from Islamabad to London, emergency landing in Moscow

As noted, #1 has already been explained as to why landing in Alaska makes perfect sense.

Alas, I'm on the road at the moment, so will have to get to looking at the other five some other time (unless someone gets in there first).

Cheers!

 

[Mick West]

I'd imagine QF27/QF28 (Santigo to Sydney) has never made an emergency landing at anything other than the starting airport, simply because there's nowhere to land.

 

[Mick West]

The flights in question are:

#1) China Airlines from Taiwan to Los Angeles, emergency landing in Alaska
#2) Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, emergency landing in Alaska
#3) Qatar Airways from Chicago to Doha, emergency landing in Moscow
#4) Emirates from San Francisco to Dubai, emergency landing in Moscow
#5) Lufthansa from Shanghai to Munich, emergency landing in Moscow
#6) PIA Pakistani Airlines from Islamabad to London, emergency landing in Moscow

As noted, #1 has already been explained as to why landing in Alaska makes perfect sense.

Alas, I'm on the road at the moment, so will have to get to looking at the other five some other time (unless someone gets in there first).

Cheers!

#2 is basically the same as #1

The emergency landing in Moscow are all just routes that went near Moscow, or trans-polar routes, like San Francisco to Dubai, that come in over Siberia, Making Moscow the only sensible city.

Again though the routes are similar for FE and the real world in the northern hemisphere. Better examples in the south.

 

[Mick West]

#1) China Airlines from Taiwan to Los Angeles, emergency landing in Alaska

In the video he makes much of "6 hours into the 19 hour journey", and says it would make more sense land in Asia if they were only 1/3 of the way across the ocean. However the 19 hours is a mistake based on a Journalist ignoring the time difference. The actual flight takes 11.5 hours, so they were more than half way there. They were also only three hours from Alaska, so that's where they went.

And that flight WAS tracked during the diversion:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/CAL8/history/20151007/1550Z/RCTP/KLAX

 

[Trailblazer]

Again though the routes are similar for FE and the real world in the northern hemisphere. Better examples in the south.

Yes, the "flat earth map" is basically equivalent to the "top-down" view of the globe for places in the northern hemisphere:

If you cut the "FE map" off at the Equator, then you can see that directions are generally going to be pretty similar. Once you get south of the Equator things are rather different.

 

[Mick West]

If you cut the "FE map" off at the Equator, then you can see that directions are generally going to be pretty similar. Once you get south of the Equator things are rather different.

Indeed. Compare two equal length routes north and south of the equator.

The more south you go, the more north the FE planes have to fly. The great circle (green) route is the same length north or south.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Also, the Taiwan-LA emergency landing is a pretty old story, and well debunked by now. I'd be surprised if leading flat earthers were still pushing that.

Here's something I made with Google Earth two years ago.

But since FE believers prefer real objects this YT video author uses a string on a globe. The string should be stretched a little bit tighter but this physically demonstrates that a great circle is the shortest route between two points on the surface of a sphere.

 

[MikeC]

Yes, the "flat earth map" is basically equivalent to the "top-down" view of the globe for places in the northern hemisphere:

If you cut the "FE map" off at the Equator, then you can see that directions are generally going to be pretty similar. Once you get south of the Equator things are rather different.

Pffft.... hemispherists - the REAL FE map is thsi one:

 

[TWCobra]

Pffft.... hemispherists - the REAL FE map is thsi one:

I think this is where Flat earthers come undone. If you draw a line between Sydney and Santiago on that map it's pretty much what we fly. Hemispherism clouds the mind.

The other is semantics. We aren't "tracked" per se as that implies radar or something else. The aircraft simply reports its GPS position and related data periodically, about every 14 minutes, via satellite.

Oceanic ATC controllers can request position updates at closer intervals than that if required. If we wish to go around weather for instance, they will check the aircrafts position and other nearby aircraft to maintain proper separation.

 

[TWCobra]

Here's the bombshell!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG4FiwOat_w


The largest company that tracks flight information, 260 million aircraft positions per day, states at the 1:34 mark they do not use satellite tracking ["there is currently no satellite based tracking system for aircraft"]. That brings to the table the Australia to Chile flight would be impossible on the globe model. As I've said from day one nothing self orbits because this is not a globe.

TWCobra I know you take this flight quite often, however it's obvious the data you are handed and the supposed flight route appears you are on a globe. What would happen if you had to make an emergency landing and found yourself somewhere else than what the (NASA) data told you? There's plenty of examples of this.
Just Google: 'emergency air landings flat earth'

To get back to the OP you have some incorrect assumptions. NASA is not involved in operational Air Traffic Control, nor does it operate the GPS systems. ATC is a function of different country's civil air system, FAA in the US, Airservices in Australia etc etc.

The GPS system is owned and operated by the US Department of Defense. The are other GPS systems like the Russian GLONASS system and they all do the same thing. They transmit a precise signal that is used by GPS receivers to derive a position, and from that, other functions.

Trailblazer makes a very good point when he says, "But planes have windows". They do. Most of the tracks we fly are confirmed visually. So when the flight plan to Santiago take us over New Zealand, right on schedule New Zealand turns up.

Mick is correct about diversion airports on this route. Between Christchurch and Easter Island there is nothing. However if a diversion to to say Christchurch became a necessity it is easily accomplished and the last thing on our mind is whether the NAV system will work.

Even if the GPS system wasn't there, we would use our inertial navigation systems which are perfectly accurate for the operation we do. These systems can accurately navigate without update for extended periods and they do it simply by being initialised on the ground at a known latitude and longitude, such as a parking bay, and sensing the aircraft's movement from then on. There is no external input.

Over land they can update from ground radio aids but over the ocean they cannot. They are very accurate and reliable and also have nothing to do with NASA.

 

[Whitebeard]

Pffft.... hemispherists - the REAL FE map is thsi one:

OMG on that map Iceland and Greenland do not exist? Where the hell then did I go to on holiday in 2000?

 

[MikeC]

Greenland is there.... are you blind as well as er...... blind to the truth??

Iceland is just too small to feature - but since it is on the other side of the map from Greenland it is clearly impossible for the vikings to have gotten there - it's all lies.

for people who really fall off the edge the ropes are there

 

[Whitebeard]

What would happen if you had to make an emergency landing and found yourself somewhere else than what the (NASA) data told you? There's plenty of examples of this.
Just Google: 'emergency air landings flat earth'

The rules governing what plane can fly where, emergency landing plans and the like are explained pretty well here...

The Melbourne to Santiago route is discussed at around the 6:25 mark

 

[Rory]

What would happen if you had to make an emergency landing and found yourself somewhere else than what the (NASA) data told you? There's plenty of examples of this. Just Google: 'emergency air landings flat earth'

Are the examples you're talking about the ones in the video that I mentioned above? That guy's "globe earth" flight paths are all over the place, and bear no relation to reality.

Has he not heard of transpolar flights? The black line, especially, is nowhere near the actual flight path, and appears completely arbitrarily drawn.

 

[Mick West]

An interesting diversion in progress right now. New York to Hawaii, diverted to Seattle.
https://www.flightradar24.com/HAL51/da139c5

Interesting because they are flying to Seattle when there are several major airports that it could land in. So the problem must not be something that requires immediate landing. The choice of airports is likely due to logistics. They may need to change planes.

The point being that an "emergency" landing might not always be a "get on the ground ASAP landing".

Updated flight track:

 

[Ross Marsden]

Boeing keep a large stock of spare parts for Airbus planes in Seattle for just this eventuality.
pffft

 

[WeedWhacker]

The rules governing what plane can fly where, emergency landing plans and the like are explained pretty well here...

YES!! You have it well explained, in terms of modern ETOPS. But, this thread is diverging....One way to bring it back....airline pilots, and
generally everyone else know that the Earth is a sphere....AND when an airliner is Flight-planned to a particular destination, its Route is based on this knowledge. Emergencies may happen, and diversions from a planned route can occur, BUT that is what we are trained for, and plan for....contingencies....

 

[WeedWhacker]

The point being that an "emergency" landing might not always be a "get on the ground ASAP landing".

Mick, these flights dispatched to airports in Hawai'i? IF diverted, then something might have happened in Hawai'i....

 

[EricL]

The largest company that tracks flight information, 260 million aircraft positions per day, states at the 1:34 mark they do not use satellite tracking ["there is currently no satellite based tracking system for aircraft"]. That brings to the table the Australia to Chile flight would be impossible on the globe model.

I see two major problems with your logic here. First, you provide no evidence that planes operating outside of zones where this independent tracking company can continuously monitor where they are must necessarily be someplace other than where the airline companies say they are. Second, this video consists only of tiny segments of what surely was a longer video put out by that tracking company, so if you want to draw conclusions about locations on the earth where tracking info isn't available, the source to go to for explanation would be that company, not "some guy on the internet" with an agenda.

The result of your approach is that all you are actually telling us that you have taken a big leap of faith, since the only evidence you included was indicated as being ancillary, which you indicated we should check for ourselves (which others here have done and shown to be perfectly logical in globe-earth terms (the stuff about unplanned landings)). If there is something you can say which actually explains your logical connection between the first and second statements quoted above, by all means do so.

 

[EricL]

Has he not heard of transpolar flights? The black line, especially, is nowhere near the actual flight path, and appears completely arbitrarily drawn.

This gets at the heart of what I find so frustrating in even trying to approach this subject. What good can it do if our explanations rely on facts which can be verified with earth-based measurements when flat-earthers feel perfectly free to reach conclusions without any reliance on people who know actually know how maps are made?