Here’s How 2 Pilots Can Quietly Fly Out Of ATC Range Without Noticing

Simple Flying

The aviation industry, especially the commercial sector, is built on layers of redundancy. Two pilots monitor each other, multiple radios connect aircraft to controllers, and air traffic control (ATC) sectors are designed to hand flights from one controller to the next. But every so often, an airliner temporarily becomes unreachable during cruise, leaving controllers repeatedly calling an aircraft that never responds. To passengers, such incidents can sound mysterious and dangerous. In reality, they are often the result of a surprisingly predictable chain of small human errors, rather than catastrophic events such as medical emergencies, mechanical failures, or hijackings.

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