[MilCom] Air France inflight emergency 11 NOV 2005

[Ron]

While not mil air related, this proves how you can use the Passuer system
located at various airports to possibly review and track an intercept
situation of a hijacking or 'escort' by Military aircraft.... Practice now
means less frustration later!

Background:
    An Air France Air Bus takes off for Charles de Gaulle Airport from
Boston's Logan International Airport (BOS) on Friday 11 NOV 2005 at 18:13:29
EST from Logan Runway 4R(ight). It is Flight  AF337 From BOS to LFPG,
scheduled departure 17:30 EST,  arrival LFPG on 0620 local 12 NOV
2005....NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

    Aircraft takes off from Runway 4R approx 18:13:28 EST and heads NNE.
About 18:14:42 it turns E towards the Gulf of Maine due to Logan departure
rules for noise avoidance then turns N towards Gloucester, MA. About this
time (approx 18:19, 15 or so miles to the NNE of BOS) the Aircraft declares
an in-flight emergency, reports smoke in the passenger cabin, and requests
immediate return to BOS.
    Aircraft is directed to do a 180 degree turn to the W and heads straight
back to BOS. Evidently it is decided that it isn't that critical and it is
vectored off a straight back/in return to BOS and over to the
Arrival/landing queue coming in from the south of the airport, landing on
Runway 4R at approx. 18:33:38 local.

    WHAT THE HECK HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH MIL AERO MONITORING!!!!, you ask?

  Why the "Tracking" of civilian aero traffic that is involved in a
Military intercepts, my dear fellow.

    Passuer systems (or the FAA) started stripping military flight data off
their 'displays' about 2 years ago. But the civilian aircraft that are
INTERCEPTED by military aircraft aren't. Like those up around George W's
father's spread  in ME or during CAPs involved in Presidential visits around
major airports that have Passuer system tracking. So though the hawk may not
be visible on the radar screen because he's 'stealthed', the chicken he is
(or DID) bounce(ing)  usually IS!
    For today's lesson, open the three following urls in separate windows,
and set them to cascade. First link is the Logan Passuer page which we will
be 'practicing' with and the other two show Logan Airport info that makes
things a little simpler.




Passuer Logan page           http://tinyurl.com/dm8om

AirNav Logan page       http://www.airnav.com/airport/BOS
Logan Runway diagram     http://tinyurl.com/aok6t


 Bring the Passuer Logan window up front, maximize it and take a look at it
closely. Variables we can control are:
    Date and time of the playback
    Starting, pausing and resetting the 'playback'
    Speed of the playback
    Area of the playback from the airports center
    And by clicking on any aircraft on the display (other than 'real time',
actually about 12 to 30 minute delay from real time and ID feature is
delayed approx to playbacks at least 60 minutes behind real time) and you'll
get Aircraft ID, type, Altitude and From/To data.
    Feel free to familiarize your self with this a bit before we continue.

    PRACTICAL EXERCISE

    Ready? OK, Sherman, let's go play with the Wayback machine...

    Set the MAP RANGE to '4 miles', DTG to NOVEMBER, 11, 2005, 18:13 and hit
'START'. Leave speed at 'NORMAL' and put your cursor at the top of the page
over the 'PAUSE' button and Watch the 'Date/Time' window in the 'Flight
Information' table. As the display approaches 18:13:29, watch the end of the
right side runway of the two parallel runways going kinda north/south and
when a 'plane' appears there, hit 'PAUSE'.
    Now move your cursor over the plane at the end of the runway R4R and
'click' on it until it turns 'RED'. Look to the 'Flight Information' table
and it should identify your 'bogey' as 'AF337'.

    Now hit 'RESTART' and watch the flight path of 'AF337' fly north, then
east, then pull a 180 to the west and head back to the airport from  about
15 miles north and then vector in to the pattern and land. Hopefully, I
don't need to tell you to zoom the range in or out as needed. You can speed
up the replay to '10X' to avoid falling asleep if you want.


    All I had to go on to reconstruct the incident was a 15 second local
news video this AM of  a plane at Logan in the dark with lots of emergency
equipment around it. They said it was an Air France flight that had to
return to Logan. No flight number or when it happened. No other info on it
in the online Boston papers today or other TV News shows. I went to the Air
France site and looked up flights to France from Logan next Friday (plus or
minus one day in case the flight leave O'dark early Saturday AM) and
narrowed it down to two possible. Went to the Logan Passuer site and was
lucky on the 1st flight out on Friday evening after allowing for at least a
15 minute delay of take off from the 'departure' (read 'pushback from the
gate') time.
    With just a little info, I was able to waste several hours online today!
    Hope you find this little exercise helpful in the future of the tracking
and escort of civilian airliners with possible 'undesirables on board.


    And now we return you back to your regularly scheduled posting, already
in progress....

    Ron in NH