I posted a search area of Flight 188 if it really went missing a few days ago and wondered why exactly a passenger jet plane could lose radio contact with Air Traffic Control towers and be “lost” for so long without any kind of military response.

Well today the FAA announced that air traffic controllers are now on notice to only let 10 minutes go by before notifying the military. Flight 188 went on for 77 minutes without contact, so that’s a big improvement. But when these jets have a cruising speed of Mach 0.78 (0.78 mach = 593.74 mph) and a max speed of Mach 0.82 (0.82 mach = 624.19 mph), that’s still a LOT of ground they can cover in 10 minutes. Around 99 to 105 miles.