I flew the area between MSP and SD several times but it has been years ago so I forget where the line is between the centers.
But the flight was at 37,000 if the media reported correctly.
Which means Denver center normally would turn the flight over to Minneapolis Center and and then turned over to MSP approach after getting assigned a lower altitude.
So the guys in approach would do nothing until they got the hand off from center.
Once it was determined the flight was not acting normally, then everyone would alert everyone else and ask each to attempt contract.
But there again, I don’t know where the boundaries are. Too many years have passed.
Just for the heck of it I’ll try to get ahold of my pilot friend and see if he knows, well he should know he flies in and out of DEN regularly for Southwest. I’m curios where the DEN center cutoff is too. Then with that I can figure the miles they were out of contact too.
Here is a map of the center boundaries from Wiki. ZDV being Denver, ZMP being Minneapolis. Boundary between is basically right down the middle of Nebraska.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Tfrmap.jpeg
I haven’t been in a front seat for 20 years, but I seem to recall that the guy handing you off to another approach center always wanted an acknowlegement that you heard the new frequency.
