Is there a chance they might never find the plane?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Is that a realistic possibility?

[unblock]

1. they found the titanic, they can find this.

might take a while, that's all.

[Nye Bevan]

3. They pretty much knew where the Titanic went down (nt)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. There were rescue ships in the area./nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Hmmmm/NT

[liberal N proud]

8. It still took them years to locate the wreckage on the bottom of the sea.

[Kelvin Mace]

2. A chance?

Yes.

Likely?

No.

[Blue_Tires]

5. I guess one in a billion is still technically "a chance"

Don't worry, it will be found

[MADem]

6. Someone call Herve Villachez, he'll tell us where it is!

I really do wish this was their fate....it would certainly be a better one than what is likely.

If they didn't survive, I hope they lost pressure and everyone just "went to sleep" from lack of oxygen, and flew on, kind of like the Payne Stewart death, rather than being terrorized over the course of hours...

For those who don't know what I'm referencing:

At 9:33 AM EDT the pilots did not respond to a call to change radio frequencies, and there was no further contact from the plane. The plane was, apparently, still on autopilot and angled off-course, as observed by several U.S. Air Force (and Air National Guard) F-16 fighter aircraft[25] as it continued its flight over the southern and midwestern United States. The military pilots observed frost or condensation on the windshield (consistent with loss of cabin pressure) which obscured the cockpit, and no motion was visible through the small patch of windshield that was clear.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators later concluded that the plane suffered a loss of cabin pressure and that all on board died of hypoxia. A delay of only a few seconds in donning oxygen masks, coupled with cognitive and motor skill impairment, could have been enough to result in the pilots' incapacitation. The NTSB report showed that the plane had several instances of maintenance work related to cabin pressure in the months leading up to the accident. The NTSB was unable to determine whether they stemmed from a common problem – replacements and repairs were documented, but not the pilot discrepancy reports that prompted them or the frequency of such reports. The report gently chides Sunjet Aviation for the possibility that this would have made the problem harder to identify, track and resolve; as well as the fact that in at least one instance the plane was flown with an unauthorized maintenance deferral for cabin pressure problems.
According to a USAF timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to the stricken Lear, beginning with an F-16 from Eglin Air Force Base, about an hour and twenty minutes (9:33 EDT to 9:52 CDT – see NTSB report on the crash) after ground controllers lost contact. The plane continued flying until it ran out of fuel and crashed into a field near Mina, South Dakota...

[GeorgeGist]

7. Yes.

On March 15, 1962, a Flying Tiger Line L1049H Super Constellation plane flying from Guam to the Philippines vanished from existence and no trace of it was ever seen again. According to an Examiner.com article, the plane was ferrying American Army personnel on a clear night when contact was lost. There was no distress call and only unconfirmed reports of tankers spotting an explosion in the sky.

Nearly 52 years later, no sign of the plane or the 107 people aboard has ever been found. The plane likely crashed into a stretch of the Pacific Ocean known as the Mariana Trench – more than six miles deep in some places – the Examiner.com report added.

http://www.examiner.com/article/47-year-old-crash-remains-mystery-shootdown-sabotage-or-something-else