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Unusual they would go out over water, if youre routing particularly since when you look at the route, look where they were they would have been on a straight in to dusseldorf. that doesnt concern me i dont think that was necessarily an indication they had strayed from their flight path. >> were getting a statement here now from airbus the makers of the a-320. that was involved in this crash. we know that the aircraft the specific one was 24 years old. the statement from airbus which is based in ...

Passenger or baggage issue or whether perhaps there was some technical issue right at the start of the flight. also in terms of the nationalities aboard barcelona, of course a very cosmopolitan city. we know germans were on board. we know spaniards were on board. so far lufthansa not confirming the nationalities on board. they say they must look at the list of the passengers that were booked the list of passengers that checked in and look at their passports as well. >> that will take time. obvio...

To be something else involved. ive flown over that area, low levels when i was flying 111s in europe. as well as f-16s. thats why i think that something else has to be involved with it. >> like what? >> what do you think? >> well, you dont know if its weather. you dont know if its a fuel problem. contamination in the fuel that had a problem on the other engine. and so there are a host of things that could have been involved. but the 320 is a safe airplane that can fly on single engines. thats wh...

Its going to be a catastrophic. event. >> all right. if youre just joining us we are following breaking news right now on msnbc. a 320 german wings aircraft from barcelona to dusseldorf, traveling from barcelona to dusseldorf, has crashed in southern france in a town it appears about 30 miles away from marse. there are 150 onboard this plane. 142 passengers and a crew of 8. german wings is a subsidiary of lufthansa, the safety record on this plane is very good according to initial reports. we ar...

Of the people on the wing. all 155 people on board survived after evacuating that aircraft on the water. july 2007 flight 3054 crashed in sao paulo, brazil. the plane shot past the runway and crashed into a concrete building and caught on fire. an image here of the aftermath of that crash. to june of 1988, a crash during an air show. air france flight 296 failed to gain flight and crashed into trees. three people were killed. 133 passengers survived that crash. initially pilot error was blamed b...

Theres two opposite things going on here. in my mind, the plane was descending on an autopilot and somebody set that, but there was no communication. why was that the case? hopefully the voice recorders will tell us something, but we still need other investigative information from the site to tell us more about exactly what happened. >> kitty, let me ask you about this plane in particular. it just had a maintenance check yesterday. what can you tell us about the safety record of this particular ...

Family of a-320 aircraft which encompasses, the a opinion 3 20rks the a-319. they might have a few a-321 as well. they have a full airbus fleet. all of them fairly small aircraft. but they have a lot. they are one of the premiere low-cost carriers in europe. one that is known to have a very good safety track record. and the very interesting thing, flying over europe today as i did. there didnt seem to be much adverse weather over the continent. certainly flying over europe today i can tell you a...

And using a joystick that doesnt automatically go or the command does not automatically control the wing. it goes into a computer which interprets the pilots input and that information will then whether its a turn or if its a command to change the direction of the plane, that computer must first interpret the pilots input. we do know that specialty as it relates to the airbus a-320, carol. >> rene marsh, many thanks to you. as i go to break, i want to take you back out to nice where a staging ar...

Spains prime minister says 45 people on board are believed to be spanish. as you might imagine, in germany, they are waiting for information. french president said there are no survivors. the air bus that went down is a work horse of modern aviation. its a singleale twin engine jet that is used to connect cities that are between one and five hours apart. world wide there are more than 3,600 of these planes in operation. thats the word from air bus which also makes the smaller but nearly identity...

>> thats correct. statistically, yes. >> under normal circumstances an hour and a half into a two plus hour flight, would they still be on autopilot? >> well, most likely. again, its hard to know once we have the recorders and black boxes, more information, clearly will be available. but the 320 is widely used here in the united states as well as world wide, so theres going to be keen interest in finding out as quickly as possible what happened to this aircraft. >> german wings, a low cost carri...