Page 6 - Flight Level News Today

We are told it broke loose from its moorings sometime and somewhere over maryland, flying now somewhere over pennsylvania. f-16 jets have been scrambled so i have with me major general spyder marks. let me just begin with general, how the heck do they bring this thing down? >> but we first have tom seder who is standing by in the cnn weather center. tom, let me go to you. how big is this blimp? >> i believe its 230 feet. this is big. >> whoa! >> and its large and white and only half the distance...

Intense last night. >> i heard this is the lowest pressure ever seen in a hurricane. people who have been doing this for a while say theres been nothing like this since hurricane andrew and we know the damage that caused. what does this all mean? >> well, its the lowest pressure ever recorded in the eastern pacific and the lowest for a hurricane. and it had a very intense wind at flight level. we saw over 200 miles an hour, up to 220 miles an hour was the highest we saw at flight level. now, lik...

Meteorologists by surprise. during our 10-hour flight, hurricane danny strengthened into a category 3 which was not in the forecast, then it weakened later to a category 2. and as we discovered for ourselves, in vivid detail, the fiercest part of the storm is just outside of the eye. the perilous journey began under clear skies, and after meticulous planning, churning 600 miles offshore hurricane dannys right now the worlds fiercest storm. noaa hurricane hunters are flying through the middle. sa...

With us mary schiavo. any reason to do what this man did to keep setting the descent to 100 feet and cancelling it. >> its a two-step process when you select an altitude. the first process is to select the altitude that youre clear to and second process is how do we get to that altitude. there are various ways to do it. theres vertical speed mode. theres flight level change mode. he probably had already established the airplane in a descent. there was clearance involved down to 25,000 feet. judg...

Air traffic control tried to reach the cockpit 11 times. we know that military got involved tried to contact them three times. why would that will have happened? what role would these agencies have played there? >> well theyre responsible for separating traffic. they need to know where it is. of course on their radar screens, they see the pilot and the plane are not responding. they would have seen on the radar tracings that its altitude its flight level was decreasing. they have a job to do too...

Airports in the area. without a may day call, i thought that was a very important development that french air traffic control said it was they who tried to contact this aircraft as they should because the aircraft was descending for six minutes leaving the flight assigned flight level. it was leaving that level. air traffic control should have been trying to talk to them. why are you desecending without permission. pilots didnt have time to communicate or they were not able or didnt realize they...

Getting that it had reached an altitude of 38,000 feet and then in a period of seven minutes, went to 24,000 feet. the rate being 3440 feet per minute. describe to people what would be ordinary and what that suggests. >> thats a pretty fast rate of descent, but its not a rate of descent that would cause damage to the plane. the plane can take that thats near its outer limits, that would be that would be somebody descending in a hurry. 3,500 without causing a plane to come apart. the recommended ...

>> correct. its the angle of the wing in relation to the air passing over it. the critical angle of attack is the angle at which theaerodynamic stall. >> that is what the pilot decides or is it on autopilot? because autopilot, wouldnt it make the decision automatically in terms of angle? >> the computers on the plane would help with that. whether the pilot is hand flying it, which at flight level 370, 380, would be a little bit dicey for pilots to do. because that margin of safety between air sp...

Big piece like that survive. >> mary remember when when we talked about this. for mh-370. people were asking -- is there a chance? that it is fully intact on the bottom of the ocean? how might that happen? even itch itf it is a large chunk of the plane. it seems not entirely possible. that that could happen. thats what at lest for 370. at least for 370. seemed to be the expert opinion. it wouldnt beep possible possible for this to happen. >> for 370. i think everyone was assuming. there wasnt an...

Like it normally does. >> one of the things they said wag in 8501 cleared. and then its 8501 its unintelligible. flight level 2401 initial do you want alpha departure squawk. is that what -- >> yeah. they were giving them the departure. and thats very standard. and the readback was clear, concise, and to the point like it should be. >> mary, theres 30 minutes of this. will we learn anything from this, possibly? >> well, from the part we just heard it sounds very typical. i agree with les complet...