Page 2 - Decompression Event News Today

Do you read anything to that? do you take that as any indication that potentially passengers were trying to exit the aircraft if it did successfully ditch into the water? >> its tempting. its tempting. but i think we should resist the temptation because it is just two data points. yes, perhaps you can imagine a scenario when the plane ditched and the door opened. but it could also have been separated at a decompression event at altitude and so theres multiple reasons that you could get that same...

Look, theres various reports about altitude changes, some down to 12,000 feet, maybe lower, to do with a decompression event. the reality is this, for the plane to have gone from the straits of malacca, down to the southern indian ocean, where we understand that it is, it would have had to have climbed back up to 35,000 feet. its cruising altitude, approximately 30 to 35 thousand feet. otherwise, it would not be able to, with the fuel on board, it would not have been able to reach so far south. ...

They have every right to look into it. >> they must. >> jeffrey thomas, youve spoken to an expert about what would have had to happen for this plane to take this course. what did they tell you? >> look, theres two elements to this. first of all, theres the course change that has to be human input. it cant be anything else but human input. reprogramming the flight management computer, it has to be done manually. the other thing we -- has been told is there is altitude changes. the detail of that ...

Some decompression event that causes a lot of what we have seen. so, yes, it is quite a stretch because you have lost all of that communication capability and you have this rapid dissent apparently, quick turn around back to land. but you can still come up with a scenario where some sort of mechanical failure would cause that. i think it is unwise to rule that out at this point. >> what mechanical scenario would have all of these pieces still fit in? it is not so bad to call a may day. you turn ...

To suggest one direction or another. theyve all got to be checked out to see which of those actually leads to the truth. right now, isolated data points and a lot of theories. >> isnt it true that a dramatic turn like the one that is hypothesized could have been done by a pilot just as easily as auto pilot? >> i think thats correct. but again, we dont know. look, i learned in my old profession in intelligence theres a difference between a secret which is something you really learn hard to discov...

What do you make of it? >> well, what i make of it is there is probably some justifiable outrage. if youre there, youre in charge of the investigation -- now, certainly, the malaysian investigation is not a model so far, although we dont know everything, but if youre there trying to do the investigation and then rolls royce and boeing are there with you and you get news from the "wall street journal," you know, a very major news source, that their information is different than what the parties t...

Try to speculate or until its verified fact, it really doesnt mean much to you, unless youre looking at expanding that model. >> so, how far can you go based on what we know? >> basically what i would say at this point is if the intent was to mask that aircraft, which it appears to me that there is -- some intent had been made to mask the aircraft, to turn off the transponders. i dont think its likely there was a failure on board the aircraft that would cause those transponders to go out. >> bec...

You speak to? >> reporter: pistorius was expressionly as they talked about the missing pieces from the bullet-riddled bathroom door, the door pistorius broke down with a cricket bat to reach his girlfriend after shooting her several times. >> for you to have stated under oath that nowhere that any of those exhibits appeared in sab-13. it can only mean one thing, that it was checked and it could not be found there. >> during the conversations i had, i could not determine where it was. >> reporter...

If that is accurate, what would that suggest to you? >> well, if the transponder is off, it can suggest a number of things happening. it could suggest a security problem in the cockpit, it can suggest a catastrophic electrical failure. there has been a history of cockpit fires and smokey conditions in this aircraft. and it could suggest that the pilot actually intentionally shut it off themselves. >> but the four hours, specifically, that it would be flying four hours, and we now know that the u...

As relates to the second black box theyre looking for, the flight data recorder which looks similar to the first one, this is 1300 pieces of data on that fdr, altitude and speed, vertical acceleration heading, pitch, roll all of the parameters, flight parameters engine performance that tell us what was going on in the plane as well as whether there was any sort of decompression event. >> captain cox, let me bring you in. looking at the debris field, hearing the description of pieces being in som...