Page 6 - Electronics Failure News Today

Off intentionally, or go off? >> well, its truly an incredible morning because you have these two pieces of information. the transponder turned off and then the plane flying level flight or descending flight for such a long period of time. which at least starts to eliminate some possibilities, right? because one of the first things we were talking about early on, was there a sudden explosion that made this plane disappear? it doesnt appear that that happened because it went on flying for another...

Those long runways. if they were looking for somewhere to land, they would have known. certainly a captain of 18,000 hours experience would have known the territory upon which he was flying. so, again, i urge you -- and i know its not very sexy in a way, i urge you to just think of this as a piece of the jigsaw that has been put on the table rather than the picture itself. >> youre urging caution, richard quest. >> i always urge caution. the temp indication -- all right, if you look at what weve...

Are still on, theyre still working, of course, keeping the information. but why would the transponder go as well? >> not an expert on the 777. i am on the 757, the 767, and the 747 because i flew all of those airplanes extensively, thousands of hours. but there is no separate and independent backup battery for the transponder system. its one of those things, its not considered that important, if youve only got enough things to fly the airplane and youre down to the battery only with 30 minutes o...

Of knowing exactly where they were, depending on how catastrophic the electronics failure was, they may not have known exactly where they were. at this stage, all conjecture. but certainly, youre right. there were plenty of alternative airstrips to put down in. >> andrew stevens in kuala lumpur. andrew, were going to need you, so stand by. thank you very much. cia not ruling out terrorism here. were talking live to a former fbi agent about what could have happened aboard that plane. [ male annou...

Because perhaps his navigation equipment wasnt working. again, speculation. but not gone off into the sea. this is the question that i have now. >> okay, stand by. richard? >> the issue of why and where and how, we dont know. to the point that nick is saying, if there was a mechanical failure and the pilot had turned back, did he realize where he was? yes, he would have flown across the peninsula at its narrowest point, but they could have been dealing with all sorts of issues. for instance, one...