Page 39 - Acars News Today

Explosion or fire couldnt the plane have -- >> not necessarily. >> even for hours? >> weve had catastrophic where hawaiian air half the fuselage were gone. if it were a slow explosion you could disable acars and the transponder, the pilots could have been disoriented, yet the plane if they made that turn and that heading the plane could have continued on its own. whether or not the issue of the pilots, something nefarious going on. >> and michael schmidt, youre about to report in "the new york t...

By a route, i would type in my destination and that 77 will take me exactly where i want to go, not over conventional way points. >> i want to make sure that our audience is really up to speed. this is very very arcane stuff and for people hearing about acars, thats an acronym in connection with the plane vanishing. effectively it is aircraft communication addressing and reporting system. >> pretty simple. >> im putting it up, the abcs of it if you will, how planes communicate directly with peop...

There is a hijacking because the pilot could enter a code. it transmits. on the ground, thats recognized. thats what mitchell is talking about. one of the first things they would do is lets get somebody up on that plane. >> that may have happened. the malaysian government is not telling us. tell us that again. if the data reporting system shut down and also the transponder shut down, there would be many things happening on the ground. what would be happening? >> they would be aware on the ground...

Slow enough to keep them in the air and yet send them off course. lets look at some maps now. this is where the search started. this was the original path of the plane and then came the left turn that weve been fascinated by that gives some indication that somebody was at the stick of that plane and changing things. first of all, explain these pings. are these coming from satellite pinging off of the plane or is the plane sending out some sort of a signal? >> so its not entirely clear to me but ...

It makes sense to me that the pings are still occurring for one reason. if youre going to -- the average pilot would know how to disconnect all the communications equipment on that airplane except for one thing and thats the acars system. because theres a circuit breaker. when you pull the circuit breaker that says acars on it, it doesnt turn off the transmitter. its like not turning off the wi-fi but turning off the computer. it stops the data stream from coming. it stops the computer which sto...

And once a second it broadcasts out a little e-mail message that says heres my location. heres my location. heres my location. thats being used commonly around both the u.s. and around the world as a backup or a new sort of surveillance system to back up the radar. what the acars system is is actually an airline internal communication system. originally was sort of like a simple text message that you could get from the cockpit. but over the past few years its been automated so things like automa...

The hijacker terrorism scenario, if were talking mechanical, it has to hit the electrics and the acars system. >> and the acars and the transponder are not considered essential components on the airplane. theyre not the things you absolutely have to have to navigate and to fly the aircraft. so theyre going to be on an electrical bus that the primary navigation radios of your primary navigation and radios systems. because a fire in one spot, cockpit fills up with smoke, incipient, comes on slowly...

Actually an airline internal communication system. originally was sort of like a simple text message that you could get from the cockpit. but over the past few years its been automated so things like automatic engine reporting is put onto the acars link. acars can use one of two frequent sa frequencies. the normal voice frequencies when youre line of sight over land. but if the airplane is equipped it can link the information up through a satellite link. it only does it at a low period or not ve...

There is no account that signal was ever sent. >> at 1:07 on saturday, the data reporting system was shut down and 14 minutes later, that trance ponder was turned off. tell us about the data responding system. >> there are a lot of things on this airplane that are sending out data. that can be a little broad in that term. sometimes it has been confusing. we are not sure what it is. mitchell, explain, what are the various things transmitting out information. >> you have acar to send short but vic...

Equipment that runs these transponders were talking about that basically talks in radar terms. a radar hits the plane and says i see a plane. this essentially responds and says yes, you do see a plane and the plane is malaysian air and this is where we are and this is where were going anderson. right up front you have a lot of systems communicating with the ground. >> theres obviously the flight data recorders. but at this point theyre not any help, right? >> reporter: theyre not any help at all...