Fred,

Thanks for your thoughts.
You first wrote:
The ASG 29 was transponder equipped. I did not find out yet if it was
turned on or off. If it was turned off, that might be bad news for
Hirao.
Then you wrote:
I know, he should have had
it turned on and everything else. For some reason he did not.

So did he or did he not turn on the transponder?
I suspect this confirms my finding (using TPAS) that many transponder
equipped gliders are not turned on or turned off after some time from
various reasons.

Ramy