Page 109 - Coordinates News Today

Would they have had the fuel capacity, that seems to be at the maximum level -- distance level of that aircraft? >> as it turns out, we got the last ping, seven hours after takeoff. for whatever reason, they apparently had put more fuel into it, it may be there standard prak sis, so they dont have to buy fuel in beijing, it may be more expensive, i dont know. im taking the data that says they got a ping -- their last ping was seven hours after. >> how long would that flight have been, just to gi...

Sticking to the known facts rather than all of the hypotheticals that are coming through. and the malaysian government has been slow to release the facts and contradictory throughout the course of the investigation. what is it that we know? we know that the specific flight track that the aircraft took. we know that that information must have been enter flood the navigation system known as the flight management system. we know that had to be done by human hands. the question is -- was it the pilo...

Night management system? how complicated a process is it? >> reporter: well, if you know what youre doing its pretty easy. let me point it out to you, show and tell here. this is the flight management system. one of the consoles here. actually three of them right in front of us. but this thing does a lot of things on this airplane. it primarily makes the job of flying for the pilot and co-pilot easier. think of it really in this sense as a gps, really beefed-up gps. prior to takeoff you would ha...

Co-pilot easier. think of it really in this sense as a gps, really beefed-up gps. prior to takeoff you would have loaded in all the coordinates that were necessary, the waypoints for this aircraft to go from kuala lumpur to beijing. every turn, every aspect of that flight would be here. however, once in the air you could alter it. you could change it in fact, mitchell, you can point out how simply thats done. >> very easily, martin. this magenta line here indicates the path that the aircraft is ...

Is war looming? we are live. good morning, welcome to "early start." im christine romans. its very early. ive got the 4:00 a.m. voice this morning, john. >> youll work through it, ill work through it. >> john berman. >> its march 18th, 4:00 a.m. in the east. and we begin with the latest on the search for malaysian airlines flight 370. its been 11 days since that jet went missing, and this morning, malaysian officials are admitting theyre simply not sure what happened in the cockpit. its not clea...

On the screen. all these triangles are waypoints. im going to type this in here. uvuno. okay. then i just put it into where the waypoint i should be going to is. it asked me to confirm the coordinates. i do that. i execute with the execute button here. you can see now the airplane is taking this course off my regular path. >> so just a series of eight or nine key strokes that will send this plane on a complete areally different course. it can do it in the way the passengers arent necessarily goi...

Lets not jump to conclusions. if he was flying the auto pilot instead of flying the airplane, he would punch in coordinates. auto pilot gives a better ride, more efficient. companies encourage pilots to do this. he may fly the auto pilot back by punching in coordinates rather than grabbing the wheel and turning around. >> with the idea of the picture behind you of what the system looks like to punch in new coordinates. for people at home. lets play in terms of testing this information. if acars ...

Coordinates for it to head west from its course that it was over the gulf of thailand. now, how that information was transmitted, that simply i dont know and thats one of the investigations that this brings up. they do know with certainty that the aircraft veered from its course on its way to beijing and did so on purpose because someone changed the heading in the computer system, jake. >> rene, whether or not that was conveyed through the acars system, thats significant. explain to us why? >> w...

We start going down personally -- >> watch the full interview on "erin burnett out-front" 7:00 eastern on cnn. right now i want to take a minute to show you how someone would reprogram a flight. martin savidge is back in that simulator. so, martin, take it away. >> reporter: to so many of us who are just passengers, the whole cockpit is a land of magic and mysticism. so really, spending so much time up here has really been enlightening because ive learned so much. today lets focus on this thing....

For what purpose, that certainy is up for grabs at this point. >> and beyond just taking its the yoke and turning it to the left, someone was punching in coordinates. lets bring in the rest of our panel, jim tilmon, david soucie, spider marks. were going to get into the simulator and into his -- in the pilots house. but this "all right, good night," i saw some questions today. we actually got one from a veteran pilot, also an american pilot, who says thats not how pilots talk to each other, that...