Page 31 - Acars News Today

Just two minutes after that very standard conversation, at 1:21 a.m., someone in the cockpit turned off the transponders that send speed, location, altitude, and heading information. soon after that the plane turned around. at 2:15 a.m. the last radar contact in the strait of malacca headed north. over the next six hours the plane transmitted one ping an hour to an orbiting satellite until 8:11 a.m. when the last ping was received. that puts the plane somewhere along these two arcs as far north ...

We call it a high dive in the simulators. and the first thing you do is put on your oxygen mask. so they would be able to now get the airplane off its intended course, get it down and turn it, if wanted, to an airport suitable for its landing. but they also would have communicated an emergency to air traffic control either via radio or via acars or via the transponder. >> it looks like this, the depressure nob, if you will. and do you buy the notion that there could have been a fire in cabin? >>...

Capable of doing that. we know the transponder was turned off and the acars system did not transmit. so in my mind its just clarifying -- the malaysian government is just clarifying that it could be that it was just sent here and it was sent here. they cant verify that it was truly turned off with a switch. it doesnt mean it wasnt off. >> you can jump in on this, jim tilmon or anybody, if these instruments, the transponder, the acars are so vital, why do they have an off switch? >> you want an o...

Communications addressing and reporting system" and investigators are trying to determine when exactly the system was turned off on flight 370. i guess more importantly, by who. we heard that from jim clancey. right now they simply dent know the answer. martin savage shows us what the acars does and how it works. >> reporter: with this particular airline mystery, a lot of people are learning a lot about technology that up until now most of us knew nothing about. case in point, the acars system. ...

Communications. thanks very much. let me start with you, math. its pretty significant. if this system -- the whole management system was readjusted before -- at some point to go west as opposed to continuing to go towards beijing. if that was done, how do you know it was -- how do you get that snfgs? how did the investigatings art chully learn that somebody reprogrammed that system inside the cockpit? >> well, ofl, im not really sure to be honest with you. the only way you really could know that...

Doing that. if the acars had been turned off, it wouldnt have been capable of doing that. we know the transponder was turned off and the acars system did not transmit. so in my mind its just clarifying -- the malaysian government is just clarifying that it could be that it was just sent here and it was sent here. they cant verify that it was truly turned off with a switch. it doesnt mean it wasnt off. >> you can jump in on this, jim tilmon or anybody, if these instruments, the transponder, the a...

The transponder turned off? two minutes after. what does it suggest? >> it certainly would suggest somebody reached down and turned off the switch. >> all was calm, no chaos on board, it certainly seems a pilot was involved. would two minutes be enough to get the pilots under control, the cockpit under control? turn off the transponder? >> well, we strongly suspect that in malaysia, they are not very disciplined with the cockpit doors, we are very disciplined with it. >> but if they turned off t...

Because there would have been more information, perhaps easier to finding and we would have found it by now. >> one of the important things is, if there had been a fire, if there had been something failing, acars would have reported this. we saw this in 447. the first thing of anything wrong was 24 messages. a lot went on acars told the ground. a flag came up on the pilots display, acars told the ground. anything that happens in that cockpit where they are at the moment, martin, acars will tell ...

Daddy! youre not just looking for a house. youre looking for a place for your life to happen. welcome back. bill weir in for piers morgan tonight. i want to go back to this timeline as it relates to acars. we got new word that there is confusion. a conflicting report between what the malaysian government was saying yesterday and now what the chief executive of malaysia airlines is saying today. we all now acars, weve kind of learned that this is this system that lets planes communicate with ea...

In this case theres two brands you can use. it happened to be turned off or at least the acar system was turned off so there was only handshaking going across. frankly, i dont really know -- >> would the acar system have been able to transmit that information? >> it would if it were turned on. but if you turn the system off, then really there isnt anything to be sent through the data link. so at that point i dont know how they would know that it was preprogrammed somehow into the a contraction a...