The Missing 777 and the strange case of air cadet Frederick Valentich

Started by Cindi, March 12, 2014, 02:16:35 AM

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Cindi

I have been following the strange case of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777. Hopefully, they are looking at the right place now to search. I guess I can blame my interest on the Civil Air Patrol. Decades ago I was sent to Malaysia for a month on the International Air Cadet Exchange program. The year was 1969 and Malaysia and Indonesia were new to the program. Malaysia was experiencing terrible and historic race riots that summer between the ethnic Malays and the more wealthier Chinese and Indians. My parents were wondering why Malaysia as there were all these killings there. One call to our handy wing air force liaison officer Major Bassett settled the matter: They were not killing Americans! Next stop KL (Kuala Lumpur). But my travel arrangements were screwed up and I missed my MATS flight from Travis. I ended up flying alone to Bangkok and finally got to KL. I was befriended by a friendly Chinese gentlemen at the airport and stayed at his house till I got a hold of the air attache at the embassy in Kuala Lumpur. They even sent a car over to pick me up. Well it was one hell of a month.

I missed the tour of the Batu Caves but I have had to live with that. In this mining town of Ipoh, I was embarrassed to discover as we left this bar plus that it was a house of ill repute! Everyone was laughing at me. I wondered why this girl was playing with my watch. I do remember flying in a Cessna with a gentlemen from the Royal Selangor Flying Club and just missing by 500 feet a Malaysia Singapore airliner just above us. Our pilot looked surprised to see the airliner. Our experiences included getting covered by leeches, stalked by a tiger and even being offered opium by one kind Chinese fellow. We all respectively declined. I often wondered if I would of said, "Hell yes, fire that pipe up!" lol.

Many of you folks have been to Australia on IACE and are familiar with the Australia Air Cadets. Well, on October 21, 1978 Australian Air Cadet Frederick Valentich suddenly disappeared in his Cessna 182. No sign of wreckage was ever found. His story is more mysterious than even the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner Boeing 777. Someday we will be able to talk to you about the secret space program, but until then we have Freddie's story. Cadets, don't let this happen to you!:









The Valentich disappearance refers to the unexplained disappearance on 21 October 1978 of 20-year-old Frederick Valentich while piloting a Cessna 182L light aircraft over Bass Strait in Australia. He intended to land at King Island to pick up three or four friends and return to Moorabbin Airport.
During the 127-mile (235 km) flight, Valentich advised Melbourne air traffic control that he was being accompanied by an aircraft about 1,000 feet (300 m) above him. He described some unusual actions and features of the aircraft, saying that his engine had begun running roughly, and finally reported that the "strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again. It is hovering and it's not an aircraft."
Valentich and his aircraft were never found, and an Australian Department of Transport investigation concluded that the reason for the disappearance could not be determined.
Belated reports of a UFO sighting in Australia on the night of the disappearance led Ken Williams, a spokesman for the Department of Transport, to tell Associated Press that "it's funny all these people ringing up with UFO reports well after Valentich's disappearance."
A pilot with a Class Four instrument rating and 150 hours of flight experience, Valentich filed a flight plan from Moorabbin Airport, Melbourne, to King Island in Bass Strait on 21 October 1978. Visibility was good and winds were light. He was flying a Cessna 182-L, with a cruising speed of around 256 km/h (160 mph). He departed Moorabbin at 18:19 local time, contacted the Melbourne Flight Service Unit to inform them of his presence, and reported reaching Cape Otway at 19:00.
At 19:06, Valentich asked Melbourne Flight Service Officer Steve Robey for information on other aircraft at his altitude (below 5000 ft, 1524 m) and was told there was no known traffic at that level. Valentich said he could see a large unknown aircraft which appeared to be illuminated by four bright landing lights. He was unable to confirm its type, but said it had passed about 1,000 feet (300 m) overhead and was moving at high speed. Valentich then reported that the aircraft was approaching him from the east and said the other pilot might be purposely toying with him.
At 19:09 Robey asked Valentich to confirm his altitude and that he was unable to identify the aircraft. Valentich confirmed his altitude and began to describe the aircraft, saying that it was "long", but that it was traveling too fast for him to describe it in more detail. Valentich stopped transmitting for about 30 seconds, during which time Robey asked for an estimate of the aircraft's size. Valentich replied that the aircraft was "orbiting" above him and that it had a shiny metal surface and a green light on it. This was followed by 28 seconds silence before Valentich reported that the aircraft had vanished. There was a further 25-second break in communications before Valentich reported that it was now approaching from the southwest. Twenty-nine seconds later, at 19:12:09 Valentich reported that he was experiencing engine problems and was going to proceed to King Island. There was brief silence until he said "it is hovering and it's not an aircraft". This was followed by 17 seconds of unidentified noise, described as being "metallic, scraping sounds", then all contact was lost.
A Search and Rescue alert was given at 19:12. Valentich failed to arrive at King Island by 19:33, and a sea and air search was undertaken, and two RAAF P-3 Orion aircraft searched over a seven-day period. Search efforts continued until 25 October 1978. Analysis of a fuel slick found roughly near where Valentich had last radioed Robey proved that it was not aviation fuel, and no trace of the aircraft was found. The aircraft was equipped with four life jackets and an emergency radio beacon, and was designed to stay afloat for several minutes.
A two-week long Department of Transport (DOT) investigation into Valentich's disappearance was unable to determine the cause, but that it was "presumed fatal" for Valentich. A report published on 27 April 1982, summarised the radio conversations on the evening of 21 October 1978 between Valentich and Robey.
After news of Valentich's disappearance became public, a number of individuals reported witnessing unusual activity in the area. Some people claimed to have seen "an erratically moving green light in the sky" and in one instance witnesses, located about 2 km west of Apollo Bay, Victoria, stated that they saw a green light trailing or shadowing Valentich's plane, and that he was in a steep dive at the time. Ufologists said these accounts were significant as most were recorded several years prior to the 1982 release of transcripts in which Valentich had described the object above him as having a green light.
According to an Associated Press report, Guido Valentich, the father of the missing pilot, said "he hoped his son had been taken by a UFO and had not crashed. 'The fact that they have found no trace of him presents a possibility that UFOs could have been there.'"; Guido Valentich also told the AP that "his son used to study UFOs as a hobby using information he had obtained from the air force. He was not the kind of person who would make up stories. Everything had to be very correct and positive for him.'"
Several explanations have been put forward for Valentich's disappearance:
The possibility remains that Valentich staged his own disappearance: even taking into account a trip of between 30 and 45 minutes to Cape Otway, the aircraft still had enough fuel to fly 800 kilometres; despite ideal conditions, at no time was the aircraft plotted on radar, casting doubts as to whether it was ever near Cape Otway; and Melbourne Police received reports of a light aircraft making a mysterious landing not far from Cape Otway at the same time as Valentich's disappearance.
Another proposed explanation is that Valentich became disoriented and was flying upside down. What he thought he saw, if this were the case, would be his own aircraft's lights reflected in the water. He would then have crashed into the water. This was ruled out by aviation authorities, as the Cessna 182 has a high wing with a gravity feed fuel system, making prolonged inverted flight impossible in this model.
In 2000 a private investigation of the incident concluded that Valentich had become disoriented and experienced engine and radio problems that caused him to crash into the sea. It further suggested that the Bass Strait's strong prevailing currents might have carried his relatively light aircraft a long distance before it finally sank.
Unconventional explanations for Valentich's disappearance include speculation by ufologists that the unexplained aircraft with the green light that he reported was an extraterrestrial vehicle, which in turn either abducted Valentich or caused the destruction of his plane in some fashion.
Speculation that a UFO was involved has been fueled by a number of factors, including Valentich's last transmission, in which he described the aircraft shadowing him as "hovering" and "not an aircraft", the unexplained sounds that were heard at the end of his transmission, and a rash of UFO reports from the area.

The following is a transcript of the exchanges between Valentich and air traffic control, from the first three pages of the Australian Department of Transport report:

19:06:14 DSJ [Valentich]: Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet. Is there any known traffic below five thousand?

FS [Flight Services; Robey]: Delta Sierra Juliet, no known traffic.

DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, I am, seems to be a large aircraft below five thousand.

19:06:44 FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, What type of aircraft is it?

DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, I cannot affirm, it is four bright, and it seems to me like landing lights.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet.

19:07:31 DSJ: Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet, the aircraft has just passed over me at least a thousand feet above.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, and it is a large aircraft, confirmed?

DSJ: Er-unknown, due to the speed it's travelling, is there any air force aircraft in the vicinity?

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, no known aircraft in the vicinity.

19:08:18 DSJ: Melbourne, it's approaching now from due east towards me.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet.

19:08:41 DSJ: (open microphone for two seconds.)

19:08:48 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, it seems to me that he's playing some sort of game, he's flying over me two, three times at speeds I could not identify.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, what is your actual level?

DSJ: My level is four and a half thousand, four five zero zero.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet and you confirm you cannot identify the aircraft?

DSJ: Affirmative.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, stand by.

19:09:27 DSJ: Melbourne, Delta Sierra Juliet, it's not an aircraft it is (open microphone for two seconds).

19:09:42 FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, can you describe the - er - aircraft?

DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, as it's flying past it's a long shape (open microphone for three seconds) cannot identify more than it has such speed (open microphone for three seconds). It's before me right now Melbourne.

19:10 FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger and how large would the - er - object be?

19:10:19 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, Melbourne, it seems like it's chasing me.[16] What I'm doing right now is orbiting and the thing is just orbiting on top of me also. It's got a green light and sort of metallic like, it's all shiny on the outside.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet

19:10:46 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet (open microphone for three seconds) It's just vanished.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet.

19:11:00 DSJ: Melbourne, would you know what kind of aircraft I've got? Is it a military aircraft?

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, Confirm the - er ~ aircraft just vanished.

DSJ: Say again.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, is the aircraft still with you?

DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet; it's (open microphone for two seconds) now approaching from the south-west.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet

19:11:50 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet, the engine is rough-idling. I've got it set at twenty three twenty-four and the thing is (coughing).

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet, roger, what are your intentions?

DSJ: My intentions are - ah - to go to King Island - ah - Melbourne. That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again (open microphone for two seconds). It is hovering and (open microphone for one second) it's not an aircraft.

FS: Delta Sierra Juliet.

19:12:28 DSJ: Delta Sierra Juliet. Melbourne (open microphone for seventeen seconds).

Video: The Disappearance of air cadet Freddie Valentich, part one - UFO CAPTURES PLANE (Frederick Valentich)

Video: The Disappearance of air cadet Freddie Valentich, part two - UFO CAPTURES PLANE-Part-2 (Frederick Valentich)






C/Awesomenesss


Panache

Indeed, pretty creepy.

One thing that I have always found interesting about these type of UFO stories (not just this one) is this:  if the aliens from Alpha Centuari have these ultra-tech aerospace craft with amazing capabilities, and their intention is to snatch a human for some good ol' fashioned probing... why do they never jam his radio communication?

Cindi

The Valentich case is indeed strange. So is this missing Boeing 777. Now they are saying the plane turned around and flew back over the Malay peninsula and so they are searching in a completely different place, west of Malaysia instead of east of Malaysia.

Internet users around the world are looking at detailed satellite images and are helping with the search. Internet users help with the search but they need the right area to search or looking at satellite images is a waste of time.

The Air Force has had problems in the past with UFOs interfering with their ballistic missiles in Montana. If you see something strange in the air it should be reported. In the past the Air Force has issued regulations for reporting UFO activity:
 
AIR FORCE MANUAL 55-11 (AFM 55-11) OPERATIONS - AIR FORCE OPERATIONAL REPORTING SYSTEM
20 MAY 1968: http://www.cufon.org/cufon/AFM55-11C.htm

FROM THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF - JANAP 146(E), CANADIAN - UNITED STATES COMMUNICATIONS INSTRUCTIONS FOR  REPORTING VITAL INTELLIGENCE SIGHTINGS - 31 MARCH 1966: http://www.cufon.org/cufon/janp146e.htm

Just because you see a large black triangle with 3 lights on it hovering over your house does not mean its of extraterrestrial origin. If a strange craft does crash in your backyard, you should probably just get a hold of your nearest air force installation. 

UFOs are no big deal. Here astronaut Gordon Cooper describes how a UFO landed at Edwards Air Force Base when he was with a film crew. They just calmly filmed the craft and filmed it take off and they sent the film by airplane to Washington. All in a days work:
Astronaut Gordon Cooper describes his experiences with UFOs.

SarDragon

Quote from: Cindi on March 12, 2014, 04:30:18 AM
The Valentich case is indeed strange. So is this missing Boeing 777. Now they are saying the plane turned around and flew back over the Malay peninsula and so they are searching in a completely different place, west of Malaysia instead of east of Malaysia.

Internet users around the world are looking at detailed satellite images and are helping with the search. http://youtu.be/drN4fQ6ZB90

That worked really well in the Fossett search.

Not.
Dave Bowles
Maj, CAP
AT1, USN Retired
50 Year Member
Mitchell Award (unnumbered)
C/WO, CAP, Ret

Cindi

Quote from: SarDragon on March 12, 2014, 04:33:58 AM

That worked really well in the Fossett search.

Not.

If I recall correctly, they were concentrating their efforts on Nevada when Fossett went down in California near Mammoth Lakes. I am not sure they were looking at satellite imagery of the Mammoth Lakes region.

Should we train Civil Air Patrol searchers remote viewing?


Remote viewer Ed Dames (Dr. Doom) told us Steve Fossett crashed in the Sierra Nevadas in California and
died. Well yeah, Ed....that area was part of the predicted area the Civil Air Patrol said he went down in. The rest of the area was mostly desert in adjacent Nevada where they would of spotted the plane by the time Ed gave out his prediction. Ed does not tell us he was way off on the exact area of the crash. Also telling us Steve was dead weeks after the crash was not very enlightening, what did Ed think Fossett did, land his plane and was camping?

The map Dr. Doom does not want you to see, well to Ed's credit he had the right state: Where Ed Dames said Fossett crashed (A on the map) and where they found the plane wreckage (B on the map).  When you think about the statistical probabilities of where Fossett could of crashed, Ed Dames was way off:



Remote viewer Ed Dames claims to know where safe locations are for people to live but when he had a remote viewing training class in a casino in Sparks, Nevada the place was shot up by some waring motorcycle gangs. Ed ended up living in Kiev in the Ukraine. His apartment was like two blocks from where some of the major demonstrations and killings were going on.

bosshawk

Having spent over 40 years of my life looking at satellite photos, I can assure you that finding small bits of a crashed aircraft is not an easy task.  We aren't looking for a 777 parked on a ramp, but bits and pieces floating on an ocean or tucked away under some tall jungle canopy.  Add to that looking at tens of thousands of square miles and you simply will be extremely lucky to see anything.

Fossett: Google Earth imaged a large area of Nevada and California, just not the area where the plane crashed.  I know, I looked at a lot of what was imaged.  I later had access to hand-held photos taken of the crash site from a hovering helicopter.  From what I saw, it would have been almost impossible to have identified the crash site, even if it had been imaged from space.
Paul M. Reed
Col, USA(ret)
Former CAP Lt Col
Wilson #2777

Private Investigator

Quote from: Cindi on March 12, 2014, 02:16:35 AM
I have been following the strange case of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777. Hopefully, they are looking at the right place now to search. I guess I can blame my interest on the Civil Air Patrol. Decades ago I was sent to Malaysia for a month on the International Air Cadet Exchange program. The year was 1969 and Malaysia and Indonesia were new to the program. Malaysia was experiencing terrible and historic race riots that summer between the ethnic Malays and the more wealthier Chinese and Indians. My parents were wondering why Malaysia as there were all these killings there. One call to our handy wing air force liaison officer Major Bassett settled the matter: They were not killing Americans! Next stop KL (Kuala Lumpur). But my travel arrangements were screwed up and I missed my MATS flight from Travis. I ended up flying alone to Bangkok and finally got to KL. I was befriended by a friendly Chinese gentlemen at the airport and stayed at his house till I got a hold of the air attache at the embassy in Kuala Lumpur. They even sent a car over to pick me up. Well it was one hell of a month.

I missed the tour of the Batu Caves but I have had to live with that. In this mining town of Ipoh, I was embarrassed to discover as we left this bar plus that it was a house of ill repute! Everyone was laughing at me. I wondered why this girl was playing with my watch. I do remember flying in a Cessna with a gentlemen from the Royal Selangor Flying Club and just missing by 500 feet a Malaysia Singapore airliner just above us. Our pilot looked surprised to see the airliner. Our experiences included getting covered by leeches, stalked by a tiger and even being offered opium by one kind Chinese fellow. We all respectively declined. I often wondered if I would of said, "Hell yes, fire that pipe up!" lol.

Cindi, that was an interesting tale. Thank you for sharing   :clap:

A.Member

Quote from: Cindi on March 12, 2014, 04:40:52 AM
Quote from: SarDragon on March 12, 2014, 04:33:58 AM

That worked really well in the Fossett search.

Not.

If I recall correctly, they were concentrating their efforts on Nevada when Fossett went down in California near Mammoth Lakes. I am not sure they were looking at satellite imagery of the Mammoth Lakes region.

Should we train Civil Air Patrol searchers remote viewing?

Short answer:  No!'

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-dont-google-maps-113708717.html#OcEukkR

Unless you plan to have updated satellite flyovers with update imagery of search areas...and even then...probably not.  Finding missing aircraft/vehicles/etc via satellite is a dream that is quite a ways off.
"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Cindi

Quote from: A.Member on March 12, 2014, 04:43:39 PM

Short answer:  No!'

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-dont-google-maps-113708717.html#OcEukkR

Unless you plan to have updated satellite flyovers with update imagery of search areas...and even then...probably not.  Finding missing aircraft/vehicles/etc via satellite is a dream that is quite a ways off.

Just to clarify Major Dames is an expert in remote viewing, but they don't use satellite imagery. They just use their mind.

Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using subjective means, in particular, extra-sensory perception (ESP) or "sensing with mind".
Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person or location that is hidden from physical view and separated at some distance.  The term was coined in the 1970s by physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, parapsychology researchers at Stanford Research Institute, to distinguish it from clairvoyance.
Remote viewing was popularized in the 1990s following the declassification of documents related to the Stargate Project, a $20 million research program sponsored by the US government starting from 1975 in order to try to determine any potential military application of psychic phenomena. The program was terminated in 1995 after it failed to produce any useful intelligence information.

Now they are looking for the Boeing 777 in the jungles in Vietnam. Maybe its time to use remote viewing to find this aircraft. Earn your CAP remote viewing badge and get a find ribbon!
Video - How to remote view, step by step: Remote viewing from the comfort of your dining room table. Tools required: pencil and a piece of paper

bosshawk

I once knew an Army two-star who got retired in a big hurry, partly due to his fascination with remote viewing and bending spoons.  He once ordered his staff(lots of Colonels) and their wives to participate in a remote viewing seminar at an off-post location for a weekend.  That didn't help his cause at all.

BITD: I looked at a lot of the VN jungle on aerial photos, trying to find a POW camp.  Not easy and takes endless amounts of time.
Paul M. Reed
Col, USA(ret)
Former CAP Lt Col
Wilson #2777

Cindi

Quote from: bosshawk on March 12, 2014, 05:12:55 PM
I once knew an Army two-star who got retired in a big hurry, partly due to his fascination with remote viewing and bending spoons.  He once ordered his staff(lots of Colonels) and their wives to participate in a remote viewing seminar at an off-post location for a weekend.  That didn't help his cause at all.

BITD: I looked at a lot of the VN jungle on aerial photos, trying to find a POW camp.  Not easy and takes endless amounts of time.

I suppose its not a good idea to have the members of your squadron remote view this Boeing 777 at the next squadron meeting. They don't even know now which side of the Malay Peninsula the plane ended up on. They need to get a hold of this Army two-star you are talking about. I used to bend spoons when I would dine out but it required me to steal a spoon first and cut it just above the bowel. The heavier the spoon the better. If someone said do something magical, I was prepared. It would look like I was slowly melting the spoon before the bowl finally detached itself and dropped on the table. Of course, I put the spoon back together again like new. That beats just bending a spoon any day!  >:D

Before we remote view this missing 777, lets remote view something simpler like this camel. I need the latitude and longitude of her location:



I remote viewed the location of the 777, here are my results. It definitely is in the Northern Hemisphere, perhaps inside the red box which means the plane did not turn around but was way off course. My session had a lot of interference, I kept remote viewing a major earthquake in the Puget Sound area near Seattle.



Where they are searching now, not even close to where I think she went down at:



Get out of Dodge while you can Fido!


Spaceman3750

 Because the whole satellite imaging released to the public thing worked so well for Fosset... Problem #1 is that the general public doesn't understand that a crashed airplane doesn't look like an airplane, or not a fully intact one anyways.

Private Investigator

Exactly. Last night on CNN, nine of the ten experts were talking about a 79 foot by 72 foot piece of debris. The 10th expert asked the others, what part of the Boeing 777 is 79'x72'?

I have my own opinon on what happen but I am waiting for Monday morning to officially, "Monday Morning Quarterback".  8)

a2capt

Yes, considering when I saw that nearly square image .. "looks like a blurred oil platform", or a "cloud feature" . but with the horizontal stabilizer being 60 feet high, including the distance from the ground, that's about the flattest piece on there. The likeliness of a wing breaking into a near perfect square?

Flight 19.. ;-)

PHall

Quote from: Private Investigator on March 13, 2014, 07:41:48 PM
Exactly. Last night on CNN, nine of the ten experts were talking about a 79 foot by 72 foot piece of debris. The 10th expert asked the others, what part of the Boeing 777 is 79'x72'?

I have my own opinon on what happen but I am waiting for Monday morning to officially, "Monday Morning Quarterback".  8)

The only place on the trip seven that would be 79' x 72' would be the center wing area where the fusealage and the wings meet.

SunDog

The camel is at 34 degrees 06 minutes north, 117 degrees 14 minutes west. . .he's a mascot for a bond drive, for a broke municipality.

Cindi

Quote from: Cindi on March 12, 2014, 05:18:54 PM
Before we remote view this missing 777, lets remote view something simpler like this camel. I need the latitude and longitude of her location:



Quote from: SunDog on March 14, 2014, 04:07:15 AM
The camel is at 34 degrees 06 minutes north, 117 degrees 14 minutes west. . .he's a mascot for a bond drive, for a broke municipality.

Congratulations Sundog, you are very, very, very close!.....the camel is on the old golf course at the now deactivated Norton Air Force Base in California....the camel is named Jezibel from Virginia City, Nevada. Consider yourself now a member of the First Civil Air Patrol Remote Viewing Team! Who needs pilots? We just need remote viewers and drones! It's time we shut down the flying clubs and set up a Remote Viewing Academy to be taught by a retired army 2 star general. The savings on aircraft maintenance and fuel costs will be huge!

Virginia City Camel Races....

Cindi

CAP joins search for missing Malaysian airliner, Thursday, 13 Mar 2014,  CAP VolunteerNow:

    This is an example of how the CAP Radar Analysis Team is able to take radar data and visually show searchers where to look. On this particular mission, the wreckage was found within 65 feet of the estimate.

    "It's a normal search and rescue mission," Lt. Col. John Henderson said of Civil Air Patrol's role in the search for missing Malaysia Airline Flight 370.

    Henderson, a radar analyst for the U.S. Air Force's 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron (RADES) at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is vice commander of CAP's 10-member National Radar Analysis Team.

    "CAP brings different and unique tools to the table," said Henderson, who is working 24/7 to narrow the search area based on the airline's radar forensics information.   

    "We have a lot of experience using different types of radar data, and our software tools are designed to use a lot of different formats of radar data. The goal is to utilize the radar data and radar signatures from the aircraft to determine its ultimate flight path," he said.

    "Between the 84 RADES and Civil Air Patrol, we have a very robust capability to reduce radar data into usable and actionable forms, to include stitching together tracks from multiple radar systems," said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Ian Kemp, commander of the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center. CAP performs 85 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the AFRCC.

    Henderson's SAR track record is impressive. In 13 years, he has participated in more than 600 CAP radar analysis missions with "well over 150 finds" and about 45 lives saved, he said.

    In 2007 he helped narrow the search for Adam Flight 574, an Indonesian B-737 that went missing during a flight between Surabaya and Manado with 96 passengers and six crewmembers aboard. Recruited by the U.S. State Department for assistance after a massive effort to find the jet failed, Henderson was able to direct searchers within a mile of the crash site in 6,500 feet of water in the Makassar Strait.

    "Searchers were having a hard time picking up the black box pings, and the more time that goes by, the weaker it becomes," he said, adding, "My analysis got ships in a very close position so they could pick up the pings." 

    "The black box is really key to knowing what happened, besides finding the wreckage," he said.

    Radar analysis "can be extremely accurate," Henderson said. In the CAP team's case, "over 90 percent of the time we narrow the search area based on forensics information. We've come within 65 feet of where a crash occurred and sometimes miles. It depends on the radar environment." 

Cindi

How can a plane go missing? Civil Air Patrol officials weigh In....