Talk:Trixie Disaster/@comment-166.137.136.95-20141203022114

The aircraft that crashed into the Ogden Marsh, Iowa reservoir is a C-130J, identified by having 4 engines, with 4 bladed propellors. Also, the communications antennas, and GPS antennas on the upper part of the fuselage.

In the event of a Air Force MAC (Military Airlift Command) flight going down, all US military aircraft are equipped with a ELT (Emergency Location Transmitter)GPS transmitter. It is highly practiced, and normal procedure during heavy aircraft maintenance to test these systems, verifying they activate by use of a shock/impact dynamometer. They are autonomously activated during a crash, or rapid deceleration exceeding 3.5 to 5.0 G's in less than 10 miliseconds.

This ensures that the aircraft can be found, via either satellite, or radio frequency transmission, as long as the systems batteries last, generally once activated, 3 to 5 days, even when submerged completely under water.

The air traffic controller, monitoring the airspace over central Iowa would have known immediately, via Emergency radio traffic, and loss of flight following Radar contact with the aircraft, when the plane did begin experiencing problems, and crashed. The immediate reaction protocol following a scenario similar to this, is to notify other aircraft in the area, and the FAA, NTSB, and responsible US military installation the aircraft departed from, in order to alert the Squadron C.O. (Commanding Officer), at which point an EAP (Emergency Action Plan) would go into effect.

The EAP, depending on related cause, such as the aircrafts cargo, would stipulate a subsequent search for the crew, aircraft, and recovery of any uncontained cargo.

The events of the movie, beyond this are fairly accurate.