Page 4 - Acars System News Today

This solidly, they got it. some of the other things; youre right, it was will of the wisp information and speculation, and so forth, but this one you can hang your coat on that. >> so regarding how they came to this conclusion, take us through just quickly here the process of determining where the flight was and that it was incapable or did not have enough fuel to make it to any land around there. >> well, so youve got this acars system in the cockpit, which sends data down, its a messaging syst...

This came from. authorities said today the last transmission from the plane at 1:07 a.m. the night it disappeared showed nothing unusual and the plane was still heading for beijing. that appears to undermine the theory the planes computer he was reprogrammed to take a different route. im joined by jim clancy live in kuala lumpur. the latest from the capital of malaysia. as we hear that word from malaysian investigators about the last communication, no evidence of preprogramming of the flight pla...

And the acars system but stops short of destroying the aircraft or the autopilot. so you have to have the perfect fire. >> fascinating. thank you. i want to get back now to my panel. this one is for you, tim tilmon from derek. he says do pilots know their flight schedule out a month or it is a routine schedule for the pilots? >> every airline is a little different, but most airlines give you a bid sheet a month in advance, and you just use your seniority to achieve a line of flying that you want...

>> differ between the acars system. >> it is nothing anything in the cockpit. not like a cctv camera in the cockpit that they tape over to avoid them being spotted. the greatest thing a hijacker would be worried about would be the satellite would somehow see what was going on. thats not the case with the acars at all. >> so far and maybe im cherry picking from the columns that i read from you, you are not casting aspersions on the pilots. >> in this case, it is swung to the technical. what i hav...

Thats a new development. that actually could play into the theory there was this spontaneous explosion and maybe thats why the acars system was left on. maybe it wasnt exploded. i still dont understand, bob, why, and this is what he said, why there was a deliberate turning off of the transponder. not once but twice. no mayday call, and that deliberate turn west after they said good night very calmly. that does not add up in the minds of pilots. >> the other thing that happened is they looked int...

Flight to beijing, this aircraft would have flown straight for seven hours until it ran out of fuel and ran straight into the ocean. >> and martin, the pilots have said that the priority is to stabilize the plane and navigate before they communicate back with the ground. but would there not be any opportunity in there just to make it clear to those on the ground that something was happening or would there even with be an automatic signal to the ground that there is an emergency on board? >> well...

In that theory, does the fire do serious damage to the structure of the aircraft? because if the smoke and fumes are so bad, surely there could be structural -- the structural integrity of the plane could be at risk and the comms box, which we can you earlier in the week, wouldnt they be affected, too? >> yeah, of course. if youre talking about a fire like that, structural damage is going to factor into this equation. >> reporter: you want a fire that knocks out the crew, knocks out apparently t...

Have to give it more cable. you can as much as 55,000 feet of cable to get down to 6,000 feet, which is the maximum depth of operating. the remus 6,000 is much deeper than that. the problem with doing that is you have to have more cable. so by the time you get that much cable out and make a turn -- >> we were talking about something during the break relating to the elt conversation. we dont know for a fact -- we were trying to figure out why didnt this elt go off? we dont know for a fact that ma...

So-called acars system that weve heard a lot about in this investigation that allows the system to communicate with ground control. that was shut down on this aircraft. but you have managed -- your satellites managed to continue to communicate with the airplane anyway, how? >> okay, in very simple terms just like a cellular phone system if you imagine the satellite network, whoever you choose, the box on the plane, the classic arrow product from inmarsat, is the project, and then there are vario...

Authorities today confirmed there were lithium batteries in the cargo hold, which werent regarded as dangerous, although they can be prone to overheating and have been known to catch fire. is this the kind of detail that raises any red flags for you? >> in my mind, nothing is off the table. there are some possibilities that a fire could have been onboard, but theres evidence that says probably not. that is the fact that electrically, we know the airplane continues to function. we know that throu...