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Mystery of Flight 370; Will NASA Images Help Search?; Radar Tracked Change in Altitude and Sharp Turn
Aired March 23, 2014 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: We will be live for you until 9:00 p.m. Eastern and then we'll be back after that from 10:00 to midnight as well.
The next hour of the CNN NEWSROOM" starts right now.
You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. It is the top of the hour. I'm Don Lemon. And all this hour we are fast-forwarding to the week ahead, tackling unanswered questions about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. And our questions in just a moment. But first I want to get you caught up on the very latest on this story.
It's a dawn of a new day. Monday morning on the other side of the globe and we are now at 17 straight days of nothing. Seventeen straight days of nothing. No emergency pings. No radio contact. Lots of hopeful sightings and fruitless searches.
We are no closer to knowing where this airplane is than we were 17 days ago. And hold on. Something new, though, is spotted in the water. French officials say one of their satellites picked up what might be debris in the Southern Indian Ocean.
Airborne search crews are heading to that area to check that out. And the Malaysian government today cast doubt on the theory that someone punched new flight directions into the airplane in midflight. They say the last communication from the flight deck showed a normal programmed route to Beijing, Flight 370's intended destination.
That brings us to the question, question number one in your week ahead. How does Malaysia's update affect the ever evolving timeline from Malaysia Airline Flight 370?
I want to bring in now CNN aviation analyst, Miles O'Brien, also a pilot.
So, Miles, break this down for us if you will. This update of the ACARS data, does that have any significant meaning to you?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It's a big deal for us on the outside of the investigation. We've been operating under the assumption for quite some time based on obviously some bad information that there was this other path that was programmed into the flight management system. And it had several waypoints that would send it off into the direction generally where the search is occurring right now. And now we're told that was not the case at all. That this plane was, in fact, headed to Beijing. So that was like the prime piece of evidence that made all of us think that somehow that the crew might have been involved or maybe they were -- maybe they were hijackers who were forcing this issue. But most likely the crew.
Take that away and we really don't have any evidence that the crew was doing anything nefarious. There might have been something catastrophic that occurred after that good night that might have put them in a scenario -- excuse me, where they were trying to keep the plane flying. Trying to get it to a lower altitude and a decompression situation. And perhaps in the confusion of all that, either lost or unable to get a radio call out or transponder change. I realize that's a lot of what ifs but, you know, you have to consider it.
LEMON: Miles O'Brien, see you throughout the evening here on CNN. Thank you, sir.
Search planes heading back to scour the Indian Ocean, looking for any sign of Flight 370. So here's question number two. Will the U.S. send more resources?
Lieutenant David Levy joins us now. He's on the phone to answer those questions. He's onboard the USS Blue Ridge in the South China Sea. More resources?
LT. DAVID LEVY, USS BLUE RIDGE: Good morning, Don. There are plans in the works to have some more resources available in case some of the aircraft debris is located. You know -- speculate that this deployment is in addition to U.S. assets being made because we have new information or because new debris field has been located. This is simply just a prudent effort to preposition the equipment and train personnel so that we're able to respond more quickly if debris is actually found.
LEMON: So, Lieutenant, can you tell us or would you know how long the Navy will stay committed to the search?
LEVY: We will stay on the search as long as we're needed. Right now we're focused on -- on the mission itself, the crews from the P-8 and the P-3. These are long days for these pilots and air crews. But these are dedicated professionals that will continue looking as long as we're needed.
LEMON: Are all U.S. assets directed to the search near the Australian coast or are there more places along the arc?
LEVY: The P-8 flight out of Perth is directed to the -- the identified search area by the Australian authorities. The other aircraft, the P-3 that's flying out of Malaysia is still searching another portion of the Indian Ocean. But, you know, we're directing our efforts wherever they're needed.
LEMON: All right. Lieutenant David Levy, thank you very much. We appreciate you joining us. You know, this week NASA is rolling out a new plan to help -- to help look for missing Malaysia Flight 370.
Will space agency technology be able to boost a search for debris? The answer is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The search to find the missing Malaysia jet grinds on. And the result so far pretty much the same. Nothing. Which brings us to question number three for the week ahead.
Now that NASA is helping with the search will their satellite images provide a clearer picture of potential debris?
Joining me now CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. And also pilot, CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien.
Chad, to you first. How effective are NASA's images?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, certainly they're better than the images we're seeing here which is my -- you know, my NOAA satellite that can see clouds. The focusing is the problem and the location of the satellite. People have been tweeting hey, you can read my license plate but how come you can't find a plane?
We can read a license plate, or they can, they say they can, that if they really focus the lens in one spot. But then you wouldn't get any coverage because you're only looking at a license plate.
Miles, this is -- you have to move satellites to the right places. And, you know, a lot of our stuff is geosynchronous. What do you give this? What kind of theory you'd give this?
O'BRIEN: Well, you know, the ideal satellites from this mission are polar orbits satellites. In other words you go north -- orbiting North to South Pole, and the earth rotates beneath them. But of course that means they only have a couple of -- you know, the windows are minimal on the location as the earth spins beneath them.
There aren't a lot of -- because there's not much there, there's not a lot of stuff that is permanently trained on the southern ocean. So that's part of the problem here. But, you know, commercially available satellites, this stuff you see from Digital Globe, are one meter resolution or sometimes less. That means three feet -- an object three feet long or sometimes less can be resolved by even commercially available satellites.
So, you know, NASA is not in the business of identifying pieces of debris on the surface of the ocean. They have a lot of scientific satellites which analyze ocean currents and so forth. I'm not exactly sure how much resolution they have. But as you point out, Chad, very correctly, if you're using too much of a telephoto here you're kind of defeating the purpose.
You need a little more of a wide angle or at least the standard lens, if you will, the 50 millimeter to sort of find something to look at and then you zoom in.
LEMON: That leads me to my next question then. Either of you can answer this. So if they do find debris, right, let's just say, are they able to zero in on a little bit more with the satellites, right? They do find debris, the smallest of it, can they identify from even small debris? What will they glean from that?
Obviously if it's a big piece of the plane and it has the logo on it, you can tell. But if it's just small debris, what can they -- what can they do?
MYERS: After 17 days, Miles, this is pretty broken up.
O'BRIEN: Yes. This is the problem. I mean, how much of this really would be floating at this point? You know, seat cushions, maybe. But you could come up with a scenario where if the plane hit the water in a certain way, there might not be much that even surfaces. So, you know, this is -- this is the tricky part. Is what would float, how big would it be, you know, in the case of the Air France crash you had a big composite vertical stabilizer which broke off and because it's composite it has this honeycomb inside it.
It's filled with air. And it floated. And that was a big -- that was very helpful to the search, obviously. In this case you've got a virtually all aluminum airplane. And there's not a lot that floats except for seat cushions and bags. And that is obviously what they're looking for.
MYERS: Don, I'm getting all kinds of questions, Don, about --
LEMON: GO ahead.
MYERS: Why are we just finding this debris in the ocean now? Why didn't we find this years ago? Because we never looked. There was no reason to focus down there and spend all this eye time, people time and satellite time looking down there. That's why we're just finding it now.
LEMON: Yes. I mean, why spend that money for a cargo container, right? You just replace it and just let it go because as we have been -- it's obvious the ocean is a vast, vast place.
Well, 17 days now. And people are asking as well about salt water and erosion of evidence. This would be pretty quick to start eroding, wouldn't it?
MYERS: Miles, go ahead.
O'BRIEN: Yes. I mean, salt water, the depth, I mean, certainly if it's down at, you know, 9,000 or 10,000 feet with the pressure. But, you know, bear in mind that the real evidence is in those black boxes. And they are designed to withstand this.
LEMON: Right.
O'BRIEN: So let's stay focused on that. They -- it's highly likely that they survive the impact. They're designed to do that and they're designed to go down at least 20,000 feet of depth in the ocean.
LEMON: But Miles?
O'BRIEN: So -- mm-hmm?
LEMON: But absent of that, I mean, the thing that a satellite is going to find -- the ocean is so deep. Let's say they don't hear the pinging. The chances -- their chances may be better to find a bigger piece of debris, and that's why they're looking? The satellite obviously would not pick up, you know, the black boxes or the flight -- the data recorders because they're so small.
O'BRIEN: Right, right. No. They're not going to see that. I see what you're saying. As far as stuff that's floating --
LEMON: Right.
O'BRIEN: You know, it's turbulent seas. We've established that fact. You know, it's very likely that there's not a lot on the surface. And we still can't say with any certainty that they are searching in the right place.
LEMON: Yes.
MYERS: If we get a better focus, Don, a smaller area, not, you know, a million square miles, wherever we still are at this point in time, there will be sonar ships out there looking for something metal on the surface of the ocean. No matter how deep it is, it will ping differently than the muck that's down there.
LEMON: All right. See you guys in a bit. Thank you.
We move on now. Remember these pictures from five years ago? Air France Flight 447. Another plane that was on radar when it suddenly -- when suddenly it wasn't. So after another flight vanishes, will anything change? That's our question, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
LEMON: CNN breaking news. Remember when we told you about this plane when it all of the sudden going towards Beijing and then it makes a sudden turn to the left, to the Strait of Malacca? There's new information about the altitude of that plane or we should say the change of altitude.
In Kuala Lumpur right now, CNN's Saima Mohsin with the new information.
What do you have?
SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, while we've just got this, and we really wanted to share it with you, we understand from a source close to the investigation that says that the military radar that detected this aircraft just as it made that turn had dropped to 12,000 feet. Now this is significant because it raises so many more questions as to why it dropped shortly after making that turn.
So what we know now just adds more information to our timeline. We know already that Malaysian authorities believe that at 1:07 when it made that last ACARS transmission identifying itself at MH-370 it was still bound for Beijing. Let's not forget that. Then when it made the turn after 1:19, it then dropped altitude. Now so many questions raised -- Don.
LEMON: Yes. Absolutely. Saima -- you can bring that in for me, please. New information. I think it -- it adds so many more questions as you say. But I think it might explain a little bit.
Saima, don't go anywhere because we want to keep you here on this breaking news. But I'm going to go to CNN's Miles O'Brien, our aviation expert here as well.
Miles, you hear what Saima is reporting. She's saying that military radar tracked Flight MH-370 between 1:19 and 2:40, it showed that the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea as it headed towards the Strait of Malacca. Down to 12,000 feet. So 777 pilot Les Abend said if that did happen, he's saying that there was some sort of crisis in the cockpit, probably a fire in the cockpit.
And they were trying to get down to a lower altitude so that they could get the bad air out or the smoke out of the cabin. And they became overwhelmed. Does that -- are you gleaning from that information?
O'BRIEN: It totally jives. Yes. Absolutely. That's exactly where I am on this, Don. Now, first of all, just a word of caution here. This is a primary target at this point. And that means the transponder is turned off. So that's the difference between something in two dimensions, actually really one dimension, as opposed to something that has three dimensions, really. The transponder provides information on the speed of the aircraft, the type of the aircraft, and the altitude.
That's the key point. So at primary, which the military uses, for obvious reasons the military wants to know if any intruder is coming in what the altitude might be. But it's not as accurate as what you would get if that transponder is on. So 12,000 give or take. If you're in a situation where you have a rapid decompression, 10,000 feet is a magic number. You want to get down to 10,000 feet because that is when you don't have to worry about pressurization. You have enough air in the atmosphere naturally to keep everybody alive.
So it -- part of the procedure for a rapid decompression, for a cabin altitude problem as they called, it's called a high dive. And you go as quickly as you can down to that altitude. So this supports what I've been talking about, about a possible catastrophic situation and they're trying to get down to a safer altitude.
LEMON: All right. Is Saima still there?
Saima, this explains -- it explains what happened. But it doesn't explain why it happened, that new information. Correct?
MOHSIN: Yes. That's right. The source we've been speaking to said, you know, that's what they're trying to work out, Don. What exactly went on onboard in that cockpit that made the pilot or whoever was in the cockpit, let's remember, we still don't know who made that turn. We now know that it wasn't preprogrammed. So this lends itself to the notion that perhaps this was because of some kind of catastrophic failure onboard.
The pilot, co-pilot trying to save the event or someone entering the cockpit and doing this deliberately. Either way, there was a deliberate turn. It dropped to 12,000 feet. And there are a range of possibilities here, of course, Don. A fire on board. Were they trying to go low down to -- because of rapid decompression as we've discussed? What happened onboard that made the pilot go so low?
A lot of people are raising also questions about -- and we've heard this over the last few weeks, would the plane have been able to go below a radar? Well, actually, no. 12,000 feet simply isn't low enough, Don, to avoid any kind of military radar for sure. And commercial radar, we understand. So crucially all we know right now, and this is a crucial piece of information, of course, as we're trying to piece this jigsaw puzzle together, Don, that the plane made a deliberate turn that was not preplanned or preprogrammed.
And at that point, shortly afterwards, because of this military radar, the source that has spoken to CNN has told us that it dropped down to 12,000 feet. What went wrong on board Flight MH-370 to make whoever was onboard do that -- Don.
LEMON: All right. Stand by, Saima Mohsin, Kuala Lumpur with our breaking news.
In case you're just joining us, we're just getting breaking news here on CNN. And I'm going to read it for you. It say, "Military radar that tracked Flight 370 between 1:19 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. showed that the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea and as it headed toward the Strait of Malacca." And that it was flying as low as 12,000 feet at some point before it disappeared from radar.
And that is a source close to the investigation into this missing flight. That's what they're telling CNN. The official not authorized to speak to the media told CNN that the area MH-370 flew in after the turn is heavily trafficked -- a heavily trafficked air corridor. And that flying at 12,000 feet would have kept the jet well out of the way of that traffic.
Sources have said that the sharp turn seemed to be intentional because it would have taken the Boeing 777 two minutes to execute it. A noticeable time period for anyone on board to notice. Also had there been a fire on the flight, the pilot or co-pilot would have triggered an emergency signal, which didn't happen. That's what the source says.
We have Les Abend here who is a 777 pilot. You have been saying all along, you believe there was something catastrophic that happened in the cockpit, i.e., a fire, and that they were trying to get low enough to take care of that and to get the toxic air out of the cockpit and out of the cabin. Correct?
LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: That may be part of the procedure. It was obviously an urgent situation. If that's indeed the case. Now once again, we've got military radar that we've kind of been skeptical on whether it's accurate, 12,000, this kind of feeds into my scenario a little bit. I'm not doing an I told you so thing because the investigation process is ongoing.
LEMON: And your scenario is?
ABEND: And my scenario is the fact that they were dealing with a potential fire situation.
LEMON: And let me put this -- we're saying the scenario is, Les is a 777 pilot. So if something -- this is what you would do.
ABEND: Correct.
LEMON: As a pilot. So what would you do in the situation? Exactly what happened here?
ABEND: What would happen there is once I've established that I've got smoke in the cockpit the first thing we're trained to do is put on that oxygen mask.
LEMON: Right.
ABEND: And the 777 it has integral goggles to it. So now we've got smoke in the cockpit. It's a very high stress situation. I would say that I have the airplane. I would have put in that diversion airport which is what apparently occurred. I would have started the airplane down once I realized that we've got to get to that airport and get down to get to that airport.
Whether it is a result of a checklist and the smoke, it's anybody's guess on that. If that, indeed, is the scenario. A co-pilot would be working with a checklist. Maybe the smoke removal checklist. Very confusing in that cockpit. As far as communication, which seems to be the point of contention, the communication part of it would be tough to get out. Maybe the radios were no longer operative because of the fire.
Maybe there's a possibility that in addition to the radio -- if the radios weren't knocked out, that area is not in VHF contact where they were in Ho Chi Minh Center.
LEMON: Right.
ABEND: The Vietnam air space. So they may have not have been able to get it out. There are other confusing things and other priorities to establish during that emergency.
LEMON: Former inspector general of Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo, joins us now.
Mary, what do you make of this new information, the turn, and then rapidly going to a lower altitude, 12,000 feet?
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I think it points very clearly to some kind of a very large, catastrophic mechanical event on the plane or possibly an explosion that depleted the cabin of the pressurization. The standard operating procedure for a depressurization is a turn and a drop in altitude. And I think the drop in the altitude had to do with getting oxygen. And certainly not to avoiding radar. Because you're still visible on radar at 5,000 feet much less 12,000 feet.
So this points to a catastrophic mechanical event and the pilot's response to that to turn back towards the airport on that heading was a very long runway. Unobstructed. And the dive was to get down to an area, down to an altitude where they didn't have to have pressurization. That's what I think.
LEMON: Mary, why no emergency call? So far there's no evidence of it.
SCHIAVO: Because they are incredibly busy. If they had -- at 35,000 feet, if they had 30 seconds they were lucky to get the mask on. And that would also explain if the timing is right, now we've had such terrible time with information from the authorities on timing. But if the timing's right, there was also an attempt by another plane to contact them. And they said all they heard was some of the garbled, staticky message. That would explain that.
You have an oxygen mask on. And you have probably something else going in the cockpit. But I think this points clearly to a catastrophic event on the plane such as a decompression, explosion or a fire like Les said. Les knows his planes.
LEMON: Yes. All right. Stand by, everyone. I want to update our viewers if you're just tuning in.
CNN has some breaking news now. And this is according to a source close to this investigation. Military radar, they're saying that tracked Flight 370 between 1:19 a.m., 2:40 a.m. it showed that the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea and it is headed toward the Strait of Malacca. As it was flying as low as 12,000 feet at some point before it disappeared from the radar. A source close to the investigation is telling that -- CNN that.
Do we have Steve Wallace on? Investigator Steve Wallace? Steve Wallace is on now.
Steve, you've investigated -- you know, actions like this. You've investigated crashes, disappearances of airplanes. What do you make of this new information?
STEVE WALLACE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Not much. I mean, I understand everything Captain Abend said. And that to me is one scenario that remains on the table. But, you know, among the -- there's been a pattern here, unfortunately, of evidence changing. Like suddenly the 12 minutes in advance programming of the FMS is suddenly today in the last sentence of the beautifully scripted report from the Defense minister says that's not true.
And now I have to say this primary military radar, which is designed to detect intruders, may be out near the end of its range. These altitude -- sudden altitude changes, I have no idea of the accuracy of that. I would hope that that data is presented to the best radar experts. And I know we sent them over there to assist with this investigation.
One more thing, Don. One piece of evidence that I -- I think most of us put a lot of stock in were those continuous ping handshakes from the Inmarsat satellite. That resulted in those two --
LEMON: Right.
WALLACE: That resulted in those two arcs and that -- this would seem to send that out the window.
LEMON: Miles O'Brien, you've heard just about all the information. I read it a little bit earlier. Your assessment?
O'BRIEN: Three things to think about here. First of all, a two- minute turn is probably more than 90 degrees. It's probably closer to 180-degree turn. So the plane could have been turning right back to land in Kuala Lumpur.
The second thing here is we still have not seen the maintenance records of this particular aircraft. There were some significant airworthiness directives that actually related to the oxygen system that the crew would be using. There's a wire bundle that had to be changed out. We don't know that that got done. That's an important question.
And number three, with this information, it seems to me that authorities should revisit the idea of searching that particular area. Wherever this plane went down to 12,000 feet might be a good place to look.
LEMON: Here's my question, though. So if the plane goes down to 12,000 feet in this particular scenario, right? And so, you know, Miles, you just mentioned maybe they should search that particular area because that's where my question is going.
What about this Southern Indian Ocean? Would the autopilot, once if everyone on board is not conscious including the pilots, asphyxia, right? Whatever you want to call it, or hypoxia. Does that -- would the autopilot revert back to the original destination or what would happen in that particular incident?
ABEND: Well, you know, it could be anybody's guess, Don. If, you know, you go with my fire scenario or Miles' scenario with hypoxia, it depends upon how degraded the autopilot system was. If it managed to maintain altitude and course, whatever was put into the plane management computer, whether it's Kuala Lumpur or some other alternate airport, the FMC is programmed to go to that destination. If it has nothing else to go to, it'll maintain a heading and continue on that heading.
LEMON: That's the question. So if they were -- so were they not on autopilot at that point? So at this point, if something like this happened, which this -- which the information we're gleaning from this, as if that something happened in the cockpit. They were trying to get lower in order to take care of it. To find another airport or to get to air where -- to a spot where they could clear the air, so to speak, in the airplane. So then the question is, they're not on autopilot at that point. Correct?
ABEND: No.
LEMON: They are?
ABEND: I'm sorry. I didn't make that clear. They are on autopilot. My -- my contention is that they began the decent. The captain prior to beginning descent had put in the diversionary alternate. Whether it's Kuala Lumpur or whether it's another alternate airport.
LEMON: All right.
ABEND: So the airport -- the airplane is still on a lateral turn by the autopilot. And they are directing a descent that they may have put in the mode control panel, selected 12,000 feet, if that's accurate, of course. And then they would have descended to 12,000 feet in the auto pilot and headed toward that waypoint being an airport.
LEMON: I would love to see what this looks like in the simulator with Martin Savidge. Whether, indeed, this would work. But my question is, so if you, again, who's steering the plane at this point? Even if the autopilot is on and he has put it in the autopilot. Can the pilot still override that just from -- just by steering the plane?
ABEND: Any crew member can or any pilot can disconnect the autopilot from the control wheel, certainly.
LEMON: Right. OK.
ABEND: Yes.
LEMON: So if he disconnects, right, and then he passes out.
ABEND: He passes out.
LEMON: What happens?
ABEND: Then it's anybody's guess. Then that airplane is going to seek its own level of stability. And it depends -- if the airplane is in a turn, an electronically guided airplane, it may just keep continuing the turn. It's --
(CROSSTALK) LEMON: The autopilot doesn't kick back on, danger, if something is happening, no one -- we're going into dangerous territory here. So then that would mean that the autopilot, if it did, it continued to go and did not go into the ocean, at that point where they were, it would mean that the auto pilot was on?
ABEND: If they disconnected it and became incapacitated it's anybody's guess.
LEMON: Anybody. OK.
Mary Schiavo, do you get the gist of my question? I'm trying to figure out who's steering the airplane at this point if this is indeed -- you know, again, we're just gleaning information from the latest -- the information that we have gotten here from sources who are close to the investigation about this military radar saying that the plane dropped to an altitude of 12,000 feet.
So if there is, indeed, something catastrophic that happened onboard, I'm trying to figure out who, indeed, would be in control of the airplane and whether or not this airplane would end up over -- why it would end up over the Indian Ocean where we're looking or would it be in the Strait of Malacca.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
SCHIAVO: Well -- right. And in some previous ones, for example, in Helios, they had entered a holding pattern and the plane continued to do the holding pattern. The plane just continued to do that. And go around in the holding pattern. And Payne Stewart it just kept the last known heading. In both cases autopilot.
LEMON: Right. Right.
SCHIAVO: In both cases the plane looked for its -- you know, its last instructions and followed them.
LEMON: Yes. That's the question. Did it look for the last instructions? That's what -- she's just kind of --
ABEND: Well, in a way, it's looking for its last known instruction. If it heads to a waypoint and it says, hey, I've got nothing else in front of me, I'm just going to maintain the heading. And I think the last point that was in there, assuming it's a diversionary airport that was put in or some other waypoint that brought you closer, whatever that last waypoint was and it sees nothing in front of it or another waypoint, it's just going to -- it just will hold that heading. Assuming the autopilot is on.
LEMON: In the autopilot, the original heading would be Beijing?
ABEND: No. I'm saying the original heading to the diversionary airport.
LEMON: Before the diversion what would be -- because they would put in the autopilot, right? ABEND: They would -- they would have put in a four-letter identifier to a particular airport. Let's say it's Kuala Lumpur.
LEMON: OK.
ABEND: OK. It would head to Kuala Lumpur. Once it got over Kuala Lumpur, whatever that heading was, whether it's south --
LEMON: No. If it's taking off from Kuala Lumpur.
ABEND: Correct.
LEMON: And it's headed to Beijing, what goes into the autopilot?
ABEND: An entire route all the way to Beijing.
LEMON: OK.
ABEND: But once you enter a new waypoint, and chances are the captain just entered a -- if the scenario, once again, is correct, the captain --
LEMON: Yes. What I'm saying is if it's -- if he has entered Beijing, right, and this happens, he clicks off the autopilot.
ABEND: Correct.
LEMON: Right? And then starts to steer himself to get it to where he wants to -- wants it to go. Does that happen or no? Does it go through the autopilot?
ABEND: Procedurally, we would do it through the autopilot.
LEMON: Got you. That's my question. OK. Breaking news here on CNN. This is what we're learning. The newest information is that military radar tracked Flight 370 between 1:19 and 2:40 a.m., 2:40 in the morning, as it took off from Kuala Lumpur. It showed that the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea headed toward the Strait of Malacca. Was flying as low as 12,000 feet we're told at some point before it disappeared.
And again, this is a source close to the investigation. The source said that it flew on after that turn in a heavily trafficked air corridor and that flying 12,000 feet would have kept the jet well out of the way of that traffic.
Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, is saying even flying at 12,000 feet, even 5,000 feet, it would still be available to radar in that area. Mary?
SCHIAVO: That's right. You'd still be seen on radar. So I was dispelling the notion that they dropped -- that they turned and dropped low to disappear from radar. That's just -- that's nonsense. That isn't the purpose of the decrease in altitude because it wouldn't work.
LEMON: Shawn Pruchnicki who is an aviation safety professor joins us here as well.
So, Mr. Pruchnicki, you heard the latest information about it dropping to a lower altitude of 12,000 feet. What do you make?
SHAWN PRUCHNICKI, AVIATION SAFETY PROFESSOR: Well, I certainly agree with what everyone has said so far. That that would support the idea that -- that there could have been something catastrophic onboard.
I think here's what's really important about that, Don, is the fact that if the radar is accurate, if that data -- there's data points that we're now finding out about, and I agree with the gentleman earlier about how, you know, information has changed the one from -- you know, from being accurate to not accurate.
But if that is accurate, the idea is that it looks like it could have been a controlled descent. And I think that's important as opposed to the aircraft just descending as if it's crashing, so to speak, or intentionally dropped to 12,000 feet by the pilots.
LEMON: OK. Stand by. Les?
ABEND: Well, it's -- it's a great point. I think that if there was some compelling reason to get down lower, albeit loss of pressurization or a fire, you know, to evacuate the smoke, there was a very compelling reason to do it, it probably still would have been done on the autopilot using the mode control panel that's in the glare shield. They would have dialed down the altitude and hit a button called flight level change which would have rapidly brought the airplane down. Still under automation.
LEMON: Yes. You know, Mary mentioned the time. Mary Schiavo mentioned the time. She said at that point, she said, why no distress calls. At that point she said that they are working so feverishly, so frantically to try to correct the situation that they may not have time. How much time do they have here?
ABEND: Well, you know, it depends upon whether their situation was uncontrolled. If it was dire, there's only two people in that airplane that are going to be able to save everybody. And those are the two guys up front.
LEMON: Steve Wallace? Steve Wallace, are you there? Apparently we don't have -- we do?
Investigator Steve Wallace, you're hearing what Les said and you hear from Mr. Pruchnicki said, it appeared to be a controlled turn, a controlled descent? Do you agree with that?
WALLACE: Well, you know, we're really off on speculation here a bit. I mean, every scenario is possible and it's on the table. Captain Abend, you know, describes perhaps, you know, it could be a massive fire in the avionic space except for that apparently the flight management system was still working. And so, you know, I might suggest that if the pilot were in an emergency -- had enough time to program a diversion waypoint, he might have time to program an emergency squawk in the transponder which, you know, the timing of the loss of that transponder signal is -- is somewhat suspicious. Again, I think everything remains on the table here.
LEMON: Yes. Absolutely. So Steve Wallace, you know, that's a good point.
Mary Schiavo, Steve Wallace's point is that, you know, there's been so much misinformation coming from the Malaysian authorities. We hear one scenario. We hear one thing. We get, you know, evidence and clues to one thing. And then all of a sudden they contradict themselves, Mary. That's a problem.
SCHIAVO: Well, that's a problem. But, you know, I guess they're contradicting themselves. At least they're fessing up and they're putting out new information. What I would really hate to have happen is they got their ways set in one way and then they tried to make the data fit what they assumed would happen. And that's actually a common phenomena in an investigation. The investigators get one thing in mind and that's it. Everything has to fit that data.
And they originally said they thought it was nefarious activity. This is different. So I give them credit that they aren't falling into some traps in investigation where they try to make the evidence fit the theories. And here they're apparently saying, well, that was wrong. Let's try this. And that's actually encouraging.
LEMON: New evidence coming in on missing Flight 370. More right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: This is breaking news into CNN and it's coming from a source close to the investigation. It says military radar that tracked that missing Flight 370 between 1:19 and 2:40, it showed that the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea as it headed toward the Strait of Malacca. As low as 12,000 feet. Which is leading our 777 pilot here to believe that there was possibly a catastrophic event inside the cockpit.
Les Abend joins us. Steve Wallace is an investigator, he's going to join us in just a second. Also Sean Pruchnicki will join us, he's an aviation safety professor. And of course Mary Schiavo is a former inspector general for the Department of Transportation.
So as we talk about these things, you go through a specific checkpoint. As we're sitting here, we have our wits about it. So we can look and armchair quarterback this and say, OK, this is the checklist, this is what we should be doing. Does it necessarily happen that way in real life?
ABEND: No. And it doesn't happen when I go to recurrent training in the simulator. I -- sometimes we have a good idea what the scenario may be among many others. And very often I forget the entire thing. And when it comes to changing the transponder code to emergency, I don't know what good that would have done anybody. I would rather stay on a discreet code that's already been assigned to me because other controllers will be able to pick me up. That being said, it's a very easy item to forget because I'm so busy following a checklist in addition to the confusion of the oxygen mask being on with -- you know, with the goggles. Smoke in the cockpit if that's the scenario. Even if it was a hypoxic situation where it was explosive depressurization, that's even more confusing. Stuff comes out of that cockpit that you haven't seen since the airplane has been built.
And it goes everywhere. So it's a very -- that scenario, as well built as that Boeing 777 is, I'm not big on it, but it's possible. Window could have cracked and something like that.
LEMON: OK. So you said things are coming out since it was built. You mean debris, dust.
ABEND: Debris, dust, yes. Anything that's dropped in that airplane that's never been, you know, picked up or vacuumed, you know, in the normal manner. Yes, absolutely.
LEMON: And the reason we're saying this about this particular scenario that we're talking about now with the plane dropping to 12,000 feet is because, according to our pilots and all of our safety people here, all of our investigators are saying this points to some sort of catastrophic emergency failure of the airplane. The pilot, co-pilot trying to get the plane to a new runway that's long enough to support a landing.
And also trying to get to an altitude where they could clear the cockpit of whatever air or gas or whatever it is that's filling up the cockpit or smoke at that particular point.
Steve Wallace, you heard what Les Abend had to say. What's your response to him?
WALLACE: Well, I don't disagree that, you know, dialing in that emergency 7700 squawk might be a low priority. And -- but what troubles me is that the transponder was simply apparently, and there are two of them on the airplane, turned off. So that's what makes it a little harder for me to reconcile. And, again, the -- we all got pretty locked on to these Inmarsat pings. And I can't reconcile this -- this notion that it went down and west with those Inmarsat pings. Unless it did something else afterwards.
LEMON: Yes. CNN's Miles O'Brien also standing by has been listening to this breaking news.
Miles, we're talking about the altitude change here and the sharp turn. According to Les Abend, who is, you know, our 777 pilot here, still flies, he's saying, listen, when you're in a particular situation, the possibility that something catastrophic happened on board the plane, you have all these checklists, or what have you, doesn't necessarily happen in real life. We have emergencies.
We have certain things we're supposed to do -- during breaking news that are checklists and whatever. Sources say all of that. But when it's actually happened sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. O'BRIEN: Yes. I mean, crews train these so-called red box items -- Les can tell you all about this, where they have -- and this is a red box item, meaning you shouldn't have to pull out a checklist. This is something you should do from memory. And they drill it like crazy. There's no question this is something that you get in simulator sessions all the time.
If I could throw out one important question, and I'm not sure we have the answer. But I'd like to get it out there to see if we can get somebody on the ground to get the answer. A really key question, and Les, bear me out on this. Captain John Rigas, a friend of mine who has a lot of experience flying various aircraft, said a standard descent from 35,000 feet to 12,000 would take about 69 miles. He did the math on that.
So a key question here is, how -- what was the distance between the last transponder hit and this primary hit we're talking about at 12,000 that the military got? That distance will tell you how fast it was dropping. And that will tell us an awful lot what was going on onboard that aircraft. If it was a gentle descent, what we're talking about isn't true. If it was -- if it took 69 miles, in other words.
So I'd love to get that information. I don't know if somebody on the ground in Kuala Lumpur can help us with that.
LEMON: I'm sure our folks are listening and will try to get it for you. But, Les, do you agree with that?
ABEND: I do. That rough calculation is true in the distance. Yes.
LEMON: All right. All of our experts, please stand by. Again, military radar tracking this flight between 1:19 and 2:40. They're saying that it made a sharp left turn, then a rapid descent down to 12,000 feet.
What happened? We are trying to figure it out. And we're working on more information on this missing flight, Flight 370, right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: I'm Don Lemon. The breaking news here on CNN is that military radar, according to a source close to the investigation, tracked missing Flight 370, Malaysia Flight 370, between 1:19 and 2:40, showing that the aircraft did a change in altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea, as we have been reporting, except for this rapid change in altitude as it headed toward the Strait of Malacca, flying as low as 12,000 feet.
Joining me now is Mary Schiavo. She's a former inspector general of the Department of Transportation. Steve Wallace is an investigator. Les Abend is a 777 pilot. Shawn Pruchnicki is an aviation safety professor. And Miles O'Brien is an aviation analyst and expert here on CNN.
So you heard what Miles said. It takes, what, about 69 miles? ABEND: It's a rough calculation that we use to do a normal descent rate at a 3:1 ratio.
LEMON: Right.
ABEND: Just -- with a power back. And that's a normal descent. We just calculated it in our head. However, if this was an emergency situation, that would go out the window. And we would be pulling back speed breaks which destroys the lift on the airplane and getting the -- the airplane would come down somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 feet a minute. It would be a very noticeable descent.
LEMON: So it would be a very quick -- very quick descent. Obviously the passengers in the back would notice. But then --
(CROSSTALK)
ABEND: It'd be uncomfortable, yes.
LEMON: How quickly does that take you down from 35,000 feet to --
ABEND: Well --
LEMON: To 12,000?
ABEND: You're asking me to do math as a pilot.
LEMON: Yes.
ABEND: But, you know, if you assume 5,000 feet a minute, OK, and you have to lose 23,000 feet, you know, that's -- you know, that's about five minutes. A little less than five minutes.
LEMON: A little less than five minutes to get down to that.
ABEND: Yes.
LEMON: In this particular situation you would think that that's -- you said the speed brakes, is that --
ABEND: Speed brakes, yes, you pull the speed brake lever by the center console. And that activates panels that come out of the wing and destroy the lift on the wing for right -- for the right purposes. And the airplane just sinks.
LEMON: It just sinks after that.
Miles O'Brien, you want to continue on? You were talking about -- particularly you said you wanted someone on the ground to know how long does it take to do that turn. You said -- it's usually about, you said 69 miles to make a turn to the left like that or just to turn the aircraft?
O'BRIEN: For the standard descent.
LEMON: Right. O'BRIEN: The back of the envelope that we did.
LEMON: And that's what you're saying. Right.
O'BRIEN: Treat it as you would if you were flying a typical flight, would be about 69 miles. So if we can find the distance between those two points, the last transponder we had and where the military radar put it at 12,000 feet we're going to learn a lot.
LEMON: Right.
O'BRIEN: About what was going on with that airplane. And we should be able to get that information. And another thing that's --
LEMON: And Miles?
O'BRIEN: Yes. Go ahead.
LEMON: Sorry. But you heard what he said. He said, listen, if there -- if something is happening, they're going to hit that speed brake. And he said that --
O'BRIEN: Oh, yes. Yes.
LEMON: The plane is going to descend much quicker than that.
O'BRIEN: It's going to be a lot less than 69 miles. And again, I don't -- like Les I don't like to do math in public but I will tell you.
(LAUGHTER)
It would be a lot less than this. And that would tell us -- we could do the math on what the descent rate was. And that would tell us whether -- what was going on if there was an emergency situation right away.
LEMON: Mary Schiavo, hang on. Hang on.
Miles, you said number one. Number two, you continue your thought. I'm sorry to interrupt you.
O'BRIEN: Well, the one thought I'd like to bring out here is, OK, there is -- I'm going to take the stance here that the captain was flying this plane manually. But he still -- he still could have had it -- first of all, he could have set the altitude at 10,000 which would be procedure. So that would be in the box. And he still could have it on heading mode. And so what -- that sets up a scenario where if the crew did, in fact, become incapacitated the plane would hold that heading and hold that altitude until the tanks were dry.
And that puts us right back where we were deep into the Indian Ocean. But suddenly -- as Mary was saying earlier, I feel like the pieces are coming together a little better. We've been really stretching before. And this --
LEMON: Right.
O'BRIEN: You know, the old Occam's razor idea, go for the simplest scenario, this is starting to fit.
LEMON: Yes. And, you know, you bring up a very good point here, Miles. And I'm going to go to Mary next because, you know, Mary, we've been talking about different scenarios. But that's what investigators do as you're trying to figure out what happened. You're trying to piece it together. Investigators put in certain scenario. Many people call it speculating. Whatever you want to do. But you have to set up certain scenarios to try to come down, to try to figure out exactly what happened.
SCHIAVO: Exactly. And I was at an air crash investigators conference this weekend. That's one of the first things we discussed. If you don't have hypothesis and theories, some people call it speculation. We call it theories. You never solve the mystery. And here's another one, by the way. Did this plane have an emergency descent mode? Maybe Les knows this because some very advanced aircraft you don't even have to do that.
They have an emergency descent mode in their computerized program. And so the pilot would have been -- it would have been faster for him to program that end. And the plane would do what it had to do to get you down as fast as possible and try to save everybody's lives and this plane is a good one.
LEMON: All right. Hold that thought, Mary.
Les?
ABEND: In response to Mary, the Boeing 777 does not have an emergency descent mode. It gives us a lot of options to make an emergency descent. But it doesn't -- it doesn't have a specific descent mode.
LEMON: And Mary, that would say, then, if it doesn't have a specific -- emergency descent mode would be what? Just a press of a button or --
ABEND: Press of a button or manually in the computer.
LEMON: So what? So that means that the pilot and the co-pilot are working feverishly to try to do things manually which --
ABEND: Could be manual. They could have done it with automation through the mode control panel also. Yes.
LEMON: Mary?
SCHIAVO: That's right. They would have had to work -- since they don't have this EDM, they would have had to do it either entered in the computer or take several steps. So they'd be very, very busy.
LEMON: And, Mary, you said you were at a conference this weekend. Is this -- you know, what we're talking about now with this new information, as the new information comes in about this turn and about rapidly descending to 12,000 feet, is that what you discussed at this conference?
SCHIAVO: No. This conference was on air crash investigators. I was asked --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Do people -- do people talk about it? What I'm wondering is if people were talking about this particular situation if you're at an air investigators conference.
SCHIAVO: Oh, yes. I mean, you can't help but try to want to help people solve the mystery. And since there were a lot of pilots and air people there, they were more on the mechanical side but, yes, everyone wants to help solve it. The whole world wants to help solve it.
LEMON: Yes. Yes. Go ahead, quickly.
ABEND: Let's just remember every accident has multiple causes to it. So there's never just one. So let's not -- I don't want to get us all going in the direction where there's only one cause.
LEMON: Right.
ABEND: Something -- if, indeed this happened mechanical, there's got to be more reasons than just one that this all happened.
LEMON: Simple deduction.
Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Stand by, everyone. It's the top of the hour.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
