And the other part of why no one contacted could be because they were unaware. The FTSB French guy said during the presser that they did not hear screaming until just moments before the crash - it was a gradual descent so I think no one knew until it was too late. But then again, couldn’t they hear the pilot pounding on the cockpit door? Maybe they WERE just out of cell range - they were in some pretty remote mountains sounds like. The FTSB guy said they can’t even land a helicopter, they have to load each dead person one at a time so it’s going to take a long time to get the area cleaned up.
This is weird to me too.
I’m a nervous flier, and the moment we start to make an ascent or descent when we’re at cruise altitude I know it and freak out. You can bet I would notice immediately and have my cellphone out and calling the second I got a signal if we were descending 3,000 feet a minute in the middle of a flight with no notice from the flight deck as to why...