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I asked a family member in Air Traffic Control (ATC) on what happens from an ATC perspective when this type of thing happens. It just happens that my family member knew the protocols and could share what is available publicly since they were working at the time of the accident.

They were under the Houston Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON). This facility handles aircraft after departure usually up to 17,000 feet and arrivals descending from 17,000 feet. On the ATC tapes, you can hear them call “Giant 3591” several times but no response. Then they ask a United flight if he was picking up an ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter). After a crash, the aircraft automatically sends a signal on a dedicated frequency so that it can be found. Additionally, we would call any nearby aircraft/helicopter to report coordinates and what they see to initiate response teams.

https://flightaware.com/live/f...

Am I the only one that still uses the original Raspberry Pi?

Nope, I still have five or six...

Though the newer Raspberry Pi B+ models have an improved "hat" hardware interface. which wasn't as robust or standardized with the original Model B.

CPU speed has never been the selling point of em to me.

The improvements are far more than the SoC powering the Pi 2 & 3:

The Pi 2&3 are also able to deliver more power to audio/video interfaces, to USB devices, and to attached Hat's. I don't have to worry about plugging in a USB device and the Pi going into an unusuable state due to the USB device drawing power.

The Pi 2&3 have better network performance. The Pi 3 even allows network booting (say goodbye to endless boot cycles when the SD card fails).

The SoC's in the Pi 2&3 use more modern processes, and use less power per unit of work done.

The Pi 3's SOC (and GPU) is much more suited to running Wayland, and it also has Bluetooth, which opens up a range of IoT devices to fiddle with.

If you are interested in CPU's, though: I use a Pi 3 to run PiAware, which is an aircraft transponder/ADSB receiver. The original, single-core Pi doesn't cut it, but a multi-core Pi 2 (or Pi 3) runs it without any problem.

I think it's pretty cool and way overdue for the satellite tracking to finally happen. I have my own ADS-B ground station running PiAware. I'd be interested to see what planes are tracked only via satellite when out of ground station range. http://flightaware.com/adsb/pi...

I'm sorry, but who gives a shit? ADS-B is totally public info broadcast over an open standard and available to anyone with an antenna. The software is bog-standard and all this has been doable for at least 10 years. It's so bog-standard there's a large community doing this on a routine basis for more than 2 years (and that's only one example).

Of course, before that you could tune to the local ATC frequency (it's just an AM radio) and listen to position reports.

Next this guy will be listening to the local cab dispatch frequency and telling us he can find people who have called for a ride.

FlightAware's PiAware software and FlightAware's FlightFeeder hardware both allow access to unfiltered access over TCP ports 10001, 30002, and 30003 as well as a live web interface on port 8080.

FlightAware, for years, has offered APIs and data feeds: https://flightaware.com/commer...

FlightAware makes it available in data feeds and APIs: https://flightaware.com/commer...

I didn't even know FlightAware had a program like their ADS-B FlightFeeders I checked their map, and I'm a bit farther North in my area than the nearest feed, and there's a large gap to the next.

I have some questions for you. Hopefully you read this. What services accept hobbyist input, besides the ones in the article? Is there hardware you recommend for cheap and reliable?

I only took a quick look through, so I have more reading to do. Is there a software that reports to multiple services? Like Cumulus for my PWS reports to 5 plus two of my own personal feeds.

I've had a weather station up for a few years, and it's been feeding off to APRS/CWOP/FindU, MetOffice.gov.uk, PWS Weather, Weather Underground, Weather Underground, and my own twitter feed and web site. It's nice putting up a resource that can be useful to everyone. As I understand it, that data is in turn aggregated by major weather services to give better weather reporting and forecasting. It helps the weather stations report with resolution down to "It's raining on X street, but Y street is still dry."

It's also useful so family and friends can check on the weather here. Not just "some reporting station within 50 miles, here", but "right at his damned house, here". When I'm away from home, I can check the weather there, so I know what I'm going home to.

http://flightaware.com/adsb/pi...

Build your own for under $100, raspberry pi, dtv reciever, internet connection.

Even if the police make this data private, the general population will jump in to make this (and most) data such as this freely available. A small box located near your mailbox will be able to record every car that drives by and capture video of anyone walking by.

This technology is already available in the flying world-- where FlightAware makes a plane tracker that publishes flight data from the skies to the public.

Take away lesson is your data will be mined. If you think license plate data is a breach, just wait for ubiquitous facial recognition data going to the public domain.

Brave new world!

I don't think the real issue here is in regards to the availability of the data. Your license plate data is a matter of public record and information can be requested via the DMV. I think the issue is more that the data is being retained in databases and can be analyzed to determine patterns of behavior. Thus one can use the data not just to see where you live but establish what you are doing over time. For example, if it can be established from the LPR database that a person visits a bar frequently (maybe not to drink but because they like the food) then it may be deduced the person has a drinking problem. If that person was be investigated for a clearance they need for work it might be declined on that basis.

This technology is already available in the flying world-- where FlightAware makes a plane tracker that publishes flight data from the skies to the public.

Take away lesson is your data will be mined. If you think license plate data is a breach, just wait for ubiquitous facial recognition data going to the public domain.

Brave new world!

I don't how great a source it is

Apparently not a very good one. Google maps says that the optimal driving distance from SF to BOS is about 3000 miles, which, on a 30mpg car, results in 100 gallons of fuel burn. Gasoline is typically around 0.75kg/L, so that comes to 284kg of fuel. Unless your vehicle manages to break the laws of physics somehow, you're never going to emit 930 kg of just greenhouse gases per vehicle. Now the same trip using a plane is about 2700 miles (from a real flight plan). A typical Airbus A320 or Boeing 737 comes to about 0.03L/km/seat, and given that Jet-A is typically around 0.82kg/L, this comes to ~100kg per seat.
So it really comes down to occupancy. A nearly fully-booked plane wins over a single-occupancy car hands down easily. The break even point is at about 2-3 passengers per car, so a car can be more efficient, assuming you car pool. One thing frequently forgotten in these comparisons, though, is the cost of time. The flight is 6 hours. The drive is 4 days of non-stop driving. In any case, just wanted to let your know that the source you cited is quite off.

It's right here.
http://flightaware.com/live/fl...

Flight MH370 however has yet to be found.

Fair point - they do have that timestamps, etc - however they don't use their hi-res data when rendering the track - they also insist on draw points that are unknown - hence the utter confusion being caused (especially with those with an axe to grind*).

* I've been called a shill, but nowhere have I made an assumption over who was responsible - MH17 appears to have been shot down (there's evidence of shrapnel in multiple photos). Whether it was a SAM or AAM, I don't know. I do however get pissed of when people don't think about the information they're looking at, and post it without considering how valid it may be.

Also, you'll notice from the 16th July data pretty much the whole flight from the Poland-Ukraine border to India is estimated (great circle between two known ASD-B points). The FlightRadar24 data has ADS-B data all the way from Amsterdam to Turkmenistan - then they have a gap in their data (which they don't draw, as drawing points you don't know is bad practice) until Pakistan. From what I can tell, FlightRadar24's coverage is far better.

I've also watched [on Russia Today's youtube channel] the Kremlin's presentation on how MH17 was diverted. That diversion wasn't reflected the ADS-B data (although Russian military's should be more accurate**) - it'll be interesting to see what the FDR comes back with.

** What I'm struggling with is the orientation of the chart shown - if it's North-Up, then they're saying MH17 was flying due west when it was directed out of the corridor, where as the ADS-B data show it flying a "fairly" consistent 118 deg.

Doesn't FlightAware have the same data, including time-stamped lat/long, altitude, speed, etc.? For example, the July 17th flight has this info:
http://uk.flightaware.com/live...

I've realised why people keep saying this - they're using FlightAware, which uses low resolution data, unlike FlightRadar24 which uses 1 minute resolution data. So, people have the choice of using low resolution lat/lon pairs, or 1 minute timestamped lat/lon data which also contains course, speed, altitude and ATC zone. Whether people are are using rubbish data to support their hypothesis out of ignorance or malice doesn't matter - it's rubbish data.

If you now look at FlightAware's website - they show the known track in green, and fill in the unknown track with a great circle. In fact their [ADS-B, I think] data appears to stop around the Poland-Ukraine border in all cases:
15th May
16th May
17th May

Compare this to the high resolution data I downloaded from FlightRadar24 - I overlaid all the tracks in Google Earth:
All MH17 flights since 14th May
You can see from the image a myriad of data-points, something that is missing from the FlightAware data.

As for the altitude - FL350 was requested and refused - I can't comment on why, but there are plenty of reasons - congestion, weather, etc. However if you're planning to shoot down a civilian airliner with an SA-11 (which has a altitude range of 60 - 25,000 metres), then a difference of 600 metres isn't going to make a difference.

I've realised why people keep saying this - they're using FlightAware, which uses low resolution data, unlike FlightRadar24 which uses 1 minute resolution data. So, people have the choice of using low resolution lat/lon pairs, or 1 minute timestamped lat/lon data which also contains course, speed, altitude and ATC zone. Whether people are are using rubbish data to support their hypothesis out of ignorance or malice doesn't matter - it's rubbish data.

If you now look at FlightAware's website - they show the known track in green, and fill in the unknown track with a great circle. In fact their [ADS-B, I think] data appears to stop around the Poland-Ukraine border in all cases:
15th May
16th May
17th May

Compare this to the high resolution data I downloaded from FlightRadar24 - I overlaid all the tracks in Google Earth:
All MH17 flights since 14th May
You can see from the image a myriad of data-points, something that is missing from the FlightAware data.

As for the altitude - FL350 was requested and refused - I can't comment on why, but there are plenty of reasons - congestion, weather, etc. However if you're planning to shoot down a civilian airliner with an SA-11 (which has a altitude range of 60 - 25,000 metres), then a difference of 600 metres isn't going to make a difference.

I've realised why people keep saying this - they're using FlightAware, which uses low resolution data, unlike FlightRadar24 which uses 1 minute resolution data. So, people have the choice of using low resolution lat/lon pairs, or 1 minute timestamped lat/lon data which also contains course, speed, altitude and ATC zone. Whether people are are using rubbish data to support their hypothesis out of ignorance or malice doesn't matter - it's rubbish data.

If you now look at FlightAware's website - they show the known track in green, and fill in the unknown track with a great circle. In fact their [ADS-B, I think] data appears to stop around the Poland-Ukraine border in all cases:
15th May
16th May
17th May

Compare this to the high resolution data I downloaded from FlightRadar24 - I overlaid all the tracks in Google Earth:
All MH17 flights since 14th May
You can see from the image a myriad of data-points, something that is missing from the FlightAware data.

As for the altitude - FL350 was requested and refused - I can't comment on why, but there are plenty of reasons - congestion, weather, etc. However if you're planning to shoot down a civilian airliner with an SA-11 (which has a altitude range of 60 - 25,000 metres), then a difference of 600 metres isn't going to make a difference.

I've realised why people keep quoting this. FlightAware provides a low resolution track of the flights - about 100 points* for a flight between Amsterdam and KL. FlightRadar24 provide a track with a 1 minute resolution (~600 points, with large sections missing where there is no ADS-B or MLAT coverage).

* They now seem to have slightly improved resolution, but now highlight where the track is actually known. Check for yourself - the tracks where data is available is in green, then they draw a great circle where the track is unknown.
MH17 2014-07-15
MH17 2014-07-16
MH17 2014-07-17

This is the data I originally compiled from FlightRadar24 - All MH17 flights since 14th May - and as you can see, they have data points provided every minute, as opposed to guessing where the aircraft was.

Basically, you've a choice of using a website that provides low resolution lat/lon pairs (FlightAware), or a website that provides timestamped lat/lon data, along with speed, course, altitude and area (FlightRadar). If you're going to use rubbish data to support a hypothesis, you'll end up with a rubbish hypothesis. In fact, you're doing it wrong if you need to use rubbish data to "prove" your hypothesis.

As for the altitude, it's true that the pilots request FL350, but were refused - this could have been for any given reason - congestion (apparently there have already been reports of near misses over Russia due to congestion due to aircraft avoiding Ukraine airspace - I'm trying to find where I read that), weather (which has been suggested by a pilot's group). However seeing as an SA-11 has an altitude range of 60 - 25,000m, 600m isn't going to make a difference if you're attempting to shoot down a civilian airliner.

I've realised why people keep quoting this. FlightAware provides a low resolution track of the flights - about 100 points* for a flight between Amsterdam and KL. FlightRadar24 provide a track with a 1 minute resolution (~600 points, with large sections missing where there is no ADS-B or MLAT coverage).

* They now seem to have slightly improved resolution, but now highlight where the track is actually known. Check for yourself - the tracks where data is available is in green, then they draw a great circle where the track is unknown.
MH17 2014-07-15
MH17 2014-07-16
MH17 2014-07-17

This is the data I originally compiled from FlightRadar24 - All MH17 flights since 14th May - and as you can see, they have data points provided every minute, as opposed to guessing where the aircraft was.

Basically, you've a choice of using a website that provides low resolution lat/lon pairs (FlightAware), or a website that provides timestamped lat/lon data, along with speed, course, altitude and area (FlightRadar). If you're going to use rubbish data to support a hypothesis, you'll end up with a rubbish hypothesis. In fact, you're doing it wrong if you need to use rubbish data to "prove" your hypothesis.

As for the altitude, it's true that the pilots request FL350, but were refused - this could have been for any given reason - congestion (apparently there have already been reports of near misses over Russia due to congestion due to aircraft avoiding Ukraine airspace - I'm trying to find where I read that), weather (which has been suggested by a pilot's group). However seeing as an SA-11 has an altitude range of 60 - 25,000m, 600m isn't going to make a difference if you're attempting to shoot down a civilian airliner.

I've realised why people keep quoting this. FlightAware provides a low resolution track of the flights - about 100 points* for a flight between Amsterdam and KL. FlightRadar24 provide a track with a 1 minute resolution (~600 points, with large sections missing where there is no ADS-B or MLAT coverage).

* They now seem to have slightly improved resolution, but now highlight where the track is actually known. Check for yourself - the tracks where data is available is in green, then they draw a great circle where the track is unknown.
MH17 2014-07-15
MH17 2014-07-16
MH17 2014-07-17

This is the data I originally compiled from FlightRadar24 - All MH17 flights since 14th May - and as you can see, they have data points provided every minute, as opposed to guessing where the aircraft was.

Basically, you've a choice of using a website that provides low resolution lat/lon pairs (FlightAware), or a website that provides timestamped lat/lon data, along with speed, course, altitude and area (FlightRadar). If you're going to use rubbish data to support a hypothesis, you'll end up with a rubbish hypothesis. In fact, you're doing it wrong if you need to use rubbish data to "prove" your hypothesis.

As for the altitude, it's true that the pilots request FL350, but were refused - this could have been for any given reason - congestion (apparently there have already been reports of near misses over Russia due to congestion due to aircraft avoiding Ukraine airspace - I'm trying to find where I read that), weather (which has been suggested by a pilot's group). However seeing as an SA-11 has an altitude range of 60 - 25,000m, 600m isn't going to make a difference if you're attempting to shoot down a civilian airliner.

Incorrect. If you compare the flight trajectory of this particular flight:
http://flightaware.com/live/fl...
And its own flights on other days, as well as flights going similar routes, you will find that all flights actually avoid conflict zones by going about 100km south of the region over Crimea.

For example, same flight two days ago (this is a daily route):
http://flightaware.com/live/fl...

Incorrect. If you compare the flight trajectory of this particular flight:
http://flightaware.com/live/fl...
And its own flights on other days, as well as flights going similar routes, you will find that all flights actually avoid conflict zones by going about 100km south of the region over Crimea.

For example, same flight two days ago (this is a daily route):
http://flightaware.com/live/fl...

That's a good point, if you look at the previous routes of the plane you'll see that it is usually much more to the south, even above Crimea: http://de.flightaware.com/live...
But today it looks different: http://de.flightaware.com/live... Much more to the north.

That's a good point, if you look at the previous routes of the plane you'll see that it is usually much more to the south, even above Crimea: http://de.flightaware.com/live...
But today it looks different: http://de.flightaware.com/live... Much more to the north.

I am confused: here is the route of that flight: http://de.flightaware.com/live...
But if you look for older dates, you'll see that the route is much more to the south, almost above Crimea (about 300-350 km deviation depending on the date you choose), e.g. http://de.flightaware.com/live...

Are such deviations normal or could the flight be directed that far to the north by ground control? (Not an expert, just curious).

I am confused: here is the route of that flight: http://de.flightaware.com/live...
But if you look for older dates, you'll see that the route is much more to the south, almost above Crimea (about 300-350 km deviation depending on the date you choose), e.g. http://de.flightaware.com/live...

Are such deviations normal or could the flight be directed that far to the north by ground control? (Not an expert, just curious).

Recorded flight path: http://flightaware.com/live/fl...

Bubble and froth: http://www.airliners.net/aviat...

You're looking for the wrong flight. It's MH370 that went missing. MH770 flies from Kuala Lampur to Karabi.

responding to my own post because I looked at the data.

At 1500 feet they were descending at 2220 feet per minute. I assume this is when ATC freaked out. By 800 feet they were 'only' descending at a rate of 1920 feet per minute. By 600 feet they were still descending at 420 feet per minute. The next measure they were still at 600 feet but ascending at 900 feet per minute. So somewhere between 600 feet and going down and 600 feet and going up, they were below 600 feet. The data resolution is every 15 seconds, so roughly speaking they probably hit 500 feet on the way down.

Assuming the decrease from 2200 FPM to 1920 FPM is the first indication of a correction, it took them 1000' of altitude to correct their rate.

So, based on their initial rate of 2200 FPM and a 500 foot "cushion", it looks like they had 13 seconds "extra" to spare, and at that we need to figure in how much higher the transponder is than the landing gear and figure in wave height. Somebody buy that ATC a beer (after work).

11:54PM 37.5516 -122.2160 298° West 167 192 2,500 -840 Descending FlightAware
11:55PM 37.5571 -122.2290 298° West 166 191 2,300 -1,200 Descending FlightAware
11:55PM 37.5629 -122.2420 299° West 174 200 1,900 -1,560 Descending FlightAware
11:55PM 37.5687 -122.2560 298° West 180 207 1,500 -2,220 Descending FlightAware
11:55PM 37.5747 -122.2700 298° West 182 209 800 -1,920 Descending FlightAware
11:56PM 37.5800 -122.2830 297° West 166 191 600 -420 Descending FlightAware
11:56PM 37.5858 -122.2970 298° West 173 199 600 900 Level FlightAware
11:56PM 37.5922 -122.3120 298° West 188 216 1,100 2,340 Climbing FlightAware
11:56PM 37.5950 -122.3190 297° West 187 215 1,500 3,600 Climbing FlightAware
11:57PM 37.5981 -122.3270 296° West 199 229 2,000 2,700 Climbing FlightAware
11:57PM 37.6047 -122.3450 295° West 224 258 2,600 1,500 Climbing FlightAware
11:57PM 37.6116 -122.3630 296° West 230 265 2,800 720 Climbing FlightAware

According to Flight Aware. (see around 11:56PM in the log), the airspeed was 166-173 kts when they were at 600' before climbing again.

I'm using a website to track the Moscow-Havana flight right now, and it clearly overflies the US; look for yourself - http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130624/1005Z/UUEE/MUHA

Will the US force the plane to land? Will the plane experience "technical difficulties" forcing it to make an emergency landing on US soil? The current plane is an Airbus so the US knows everything about its avionics... click, click, click and a warning light comes on.

Who knows, but if I were Snowden, I'd make sure I steered well clear of the US and remained over International waters. Maybe Kim Dotcom can charter a plane for him, he still has a few scores to settle with the US government.

Oh FFS! The flight also goes through US airspace!

If the US were to force a scheduled Russian commercial flight to land just because there might be a certain passenger on board that the US doesn't like, the backlash would be greater than any damage Snowden might or might not have done. We could say goodbye to a huge number of important and sensitive treaties that US carriers depend on for their international services. The proper way to do it would be to get a few agents on board and have them fake a medical emergency since a simple bomb threat call to Aeroflot might be too obvious.

Here is that URL as an actual link, since the parent commenter apparently forgot to make it a link.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE272/history/20130405/1800Z/KPAE/KPAE

BOE272, since submitter apparently forgot that link.

I find maps endlessly fascinating. I routinely access FlightAware for information on commercial flights I've taken, then visualize the route in Google Maps.

When I flew to visit family over Christmas I got the flight plans (and later tracking data) from FlightAware and drew maps with the results, though "CYVR V347 GARRE SEATN J534 CYWL" may not mean much if you're not a pilot.

On a night flight back from Dallas (via Phoenix) in October I solved a mystery with FlightAware and Google Maps. At one point we flew just east of a prominent city with several obvious suburbs. Way off in the distance was a very large urban area, right on the horizon. My first thought was Salt Lake City, but that was way east of the great circle route. I knew we were west of the great circle route to avoid the restricted airspace north of Las Vegas (including R-4808N, i.e. Area 51). I had made a note of the time of the Big City, so I got tracking data from FlightAware, figured out how far the horizon was at our cruising altitude, fed the results in to Google Maps and found that the city was Reno, while the lights off in the distance were the central valley of California, from Sacramento down to Stockton.

...laura

you can't fly to cuba from the US directly anyway, so canadian flights for example must go around US airspace.

Flights between Canada and Cuba are not required to travel around US air space. That is not at all required.

One example is a recent Air Canada flight from Toronto to Havana. I'm not sure how long this link will work beyond today, but the flight clearly travels over
New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.

That is interesting, were you able to save the data and plot it later? While at a airport, I asked a pilot what is typical climb rate, he said 2000fpm. I asked what can the aircraft do if not have to deal with noise and fuel, climb rate 6000fpm. One one flight I had my laptop (and paying $10 for wifi) I viewed our flight on http://flightaware.com/ (not sure how accurate it was) while going from Dallas to La Guardia. It was interesting to see where we were and if I could recognize any land features (I could not, it was night and not sure about what cities we were passing). It didn't seem that much of a delay though had to put laptop away during landing.

Hmm, looks interesting, but even though I'm a Google fanboi, I'll probably stick with:

http://kayak.com/ for searching flights (check out http://kayak.com/explore ! )
http://flightaware.com/ for tracking flights (what is that plane that just passed overhead? Where is my connecting flight arriving from?)
http://tripit.com/ for itinerary scheduling / calendaring / alerting

All have pretty nifty Android / iOS apps as well... Google Market doesn't list anything for their Flight search as of this my lunch break :P

I wonder if the tracking site can stand up to Slashdot? We'll see...

Phlly has the same thing with 26, 27R, 27L, all at 267.7 degrees (or 9R, 9L, 8 all at 87.7 if the winds aren't where they usually are).

http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/PHL/APD/AIRPORT+DIAGRAM/pdf

I suppose they might have done 27R, 27C, 27L instead, but I'm noft sure what the criteria is.

You know fuck-all about what you are talking about,

dude, shut up:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AWE808/history/20101109/1955Z/PHNL/KPHX

For anyone still reading this, or for archving purposes....

It was US Airways flight 808
AWE808

Sort of like what Gulfstream Aerospace did on one of their Gulfstream V test flights.

probably so you can do things like In-flight tracking and other handy things. Now that doesn't mean they can't design their network in such a way to make it so such attacks on the actual air traffic system are impossible.

Looking at that flight plan makes me a bit nauseous. If all flights on the dreamliner go like that, I think I'll drive instead. That distance appears to be less than 40 miles, yet it took over 3 hours; I can do better on my bicycle. On the plus side the flight arrived over 2 hours early so I guess that wasn't too bad.

There is nothing to be baffled about.

The auto pilot simply maintained the last course, speed and altitude it was ordered to fly at, hence it was not off course.

There is a silent (but my guess is not for much longer) alert on the primary flight display telling the pilot that the autopilot no longer has a waypoint in which to continue on to so the autopilot does what it is programmed to do, keep flying the airplane straight and level.

Now depending on how the AP is setup for a particular flight is will use a pre-loaded approach to an airport and begin the approach based on airspeed, altitude and winds to ensure that the aircraft descends within acceptable parameters.

Every commercial airport has published departure and approach routes, the enroute portion of the flight can be most anything. If you are curious about the various approaches and departures this link has a listing of all IAP's (Instrument Approach Procedures) and STARS (Standard Terminal ARivalS) for KSFO (San Francisco International) and most any other commercial airport.

And yes I am a pilot.

I like to use FlightAware for realtime/historical tracking maps/stats of flights. I wish there were a way to mash up these delay data services with FlightAware.

If a Google Maps layer stream were as popular an API as RSS has become, we might see all kinds of data sources integrated into really helpful visualizations.

Airbus A330-200 dimensions:
Overall length: 58.8 m
Fuselage diameter: 5.64 m
Wing area: 361.6 sq. m
Total silhouette area (target area for meteorite): 58.8 x 5.64 + 361.6 = 693.232 sq. m

FlightAware says there are about 5000 airborne commercial aircraft flying into or out of U.S. airports right now. For arguments sake, let's assume 5 times that amount for total currently-airborne global commercial flights (25,000 planes in the air).

Let's also assume (for arguments sake) that all those airplanes have the "target" area of an Airbus A330-200 (total target area of all airborne planes then equals 18,080,000 sq. meters, or 18 sq. km).

Let's also assume (however absurd) there has been this many planes, of this size, in the air since 1959.

Taking the high-end estimate (approx. 84,000/yr, or 4.2M since 1959) for the number of meteorites greater than 10 grams that strike the Earth's surface each year (assuming, of course, that all of these would bring down an aircraft with any contact) and given the surface area of the Earth at 510,072,000 km, the chance that a meteorite would hit any (as in, just a single) plane within the last 50 years would be about 13.8% (or .138) whereas there have been over 1900 non-meteorite-caused major commercial accidents since 1959.

The upshot of all this, even working with absurd (in the meteorites' favor) numbers, the odds of the Air France Flight 447 accident being caused by a meteorite are astronomical .

I would say that Google's Cache is a singleton, but--thanks to an extension in Firefox called "Resurrect Pages" https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2570 --there appears to be several websites that cache older versions of websites, although The Internet Archive seems to be the only place to save multiple versions of the same page and not just keep the latest version. (There are probably other extensions that do similar, but I've not cared to search for any others).

I would have mentioned Flight Aware http://flightaware.com/ as a web singleton, but there is another site, Flight View, http://flightview.com/ that does the same thing (let you track airline flights and their ETA, and even their position on a map!)

I haven't found a site similar to RepairPal http://repairpal.com/ where you can find approximate car repair costs.

Sheesh! Air controllers don't land planes, stricken or otherwise. Aircrews land airplanes. The airplane will land (and fly) just fine without an "air controller".

Air traffic controllers _clear_ airplanes to land. This involves traffic de-confliction and statistically improves safety but there are plenty of non-towered airports where the aircrew routinely lands without benefit of Air Traffic Control.

For instance: http://flightaware.com/live/airport/KPUW
At Pullman/Moscow Regional Airport, a non-towered field near Pullman, WA, Horizon Airlines makes almost a dozen arrivals and departures a day _after_ they leave air traffic control.