"Missing Flight's Co-Pilot Tried To Make Cellphone Call [Report]"

[applegrove]

Missing Flight's Co-Pilot Tried To Make Cellphone Call [Report]

by Stuart Grudgings at Reuters/Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/mh370-call-2014-4

"SNIP.....................


KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Investigators probing the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 suspect that the co-pilot of the jetliner tried to make a call with his cellphone after the plane was diverted from its scheduled route, Malaysia's New Straits Times reported sources as saying on Saturday.

The newspaper cited unidentified investigative sources as saying the attempted call from co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid's phone was picked up by a cellphone tower as the plane was about 200 nautical miles northwest of the west coast state of Penang. That was around where military radar made its last sighting of the missing jet at 2:15 a.m. local time on March 8.

"The telco's (telecommunications company's) tower established the call that he was trying to make. On why the call was cut off, it was likely because the aircraft was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one," the New Straits Times cited a source as saying.

Government officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the report. The New Straits Times quoted acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein as saying that the report needed to be verified.



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[Agschmid]

1. Who knows what to believe... But kick nonetheless.

[Ohio Joe]

2. 200 nautical miles away... And it reached a cell tower?

No... I think not.

[HooptieWagon]

3. Maybe.

If cells transmit line of sight, the altitude of the plane will extend range by a lot.

[Ohio Joe]

4. Max range I can find is 45 miles...

A typical cellphone has enough power to reach a cell tower up to 45 miles away. Depending on the technology of the cellphone network, the maximum distance may be as low as 22 miles because the signal otherwise takes too long for the highly accurate timing of the cellphone protocol to work reliably. Usually cellphone signals don't reach anywhere near these maximum distances. Typical cell size outside of urban areas means cellphone signals may have to travel up to several miles.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/far-can-cell-tower-cellphone-pick-up-signal-32124.html

They do travel in line of sight... The issue is power though and well over 200 miles is just not happening.

[Drew Richards]

5. 45 is a good max estimate. True values are 35 miles max between two PTP land based towers

Your dealing with a few factors that can boost the signal quite a bit but there is a TDM limitation of slippage between channels that even on a plane with their 300 watt boosted GSM system they cant over come...which is why they have SatTel on the plane as well.


That said...if a coastal dish 300 watt GSM not TDM 8ft diameter 300 ft above obstructions pointing out to sea and a plane flying low 5000 ft traving at say 260mph away from the cell site tried to establish a call...max range is between 35-45 miles...anything further would only be the SIM AT/SID/NID connection tones that can carry as far as 300 miles basically a multi channel beep and possibly SID AUTH digits But no established two-way conversation.

Maybe just maybe at 20,000 ft they could on a clear night with low humidity extend that to 80-100 miles but the math doesnt work out for even establishing one phone call at that distance let alone 200 miles...

If it was actually a SATTEL call that got cut off that makes a hell of a lot more sense.

[mackerel]

6. "The newspaper cited unidentified investigative sources as saying"

says it all really...