Jeff Les News Today

Be 20,000 feet or higher to be visible by radar. >> when the -- les, when the black boxes, the data recorder et cetera are found and the cockpit voice recorder are found. it could take years, it could happen this week. but when it happens, what is the single most critical information we can glean from that? >> i would start with altitude. what the variance was between the time that altitude was requested and then we lost contact with them when that request was denied. or they were given that cle...

A -- the ability to float, a boat if you will for a little while. youre a commercial airline pilot. yes, it happened here on the hudson river, the miracle on the hudson. is it possible in the java sea with those weather conditions? >> of course its possible but not likely with the success that captain sullenberger had. the ditch switch what it really does primarily is it closes the outflow valves which are responsible for pressurization they open and close according to pressure. and actually cap...

Weve discussed military airplanes have a deployment system where they -- where the elt, the emergency locator transmitter, physically comes out of the airplane and they can find it floating. but at this point commercial aircraft dont have that system. >> and, jeff, this question comes from chaz tweeted us is it possible the plane made a safe landing on the sea but was taken away by a wave the emergency door was opened, right? they are talking about the emergency door was found and the slide was ...

Now, these black box pingers dont always work. they didnt work in the case of air france 447. >> it took two years. >> and thats why it took two years. >> yeah. >> we cant assume that they work but you should be listening. so yes, 30 days is the lifespan of these -- the batteries, the power of the batteries. >> got about three weeks left. >> should be plenty of time. it cant be very far. >> jeff les, good to have you on. thank you for being here. thank you for joining me. im poppy harlow in ne...

Navy ships and other ships that were there. but they successfully ditched with i believe all surviving passengers. >> because one of the theories here that some people are talking about is that if it did that then it could have floated for a while but could have been overcome by a big wave given the weather situation there. is it even responsible to be talking about this as a possibility? >> it seems a little implausible with the sea conditions and the weather that were talking about. you know, ...

Area with 12 divers. >> those sonar images are not very clear at all. i mean its very hard to tell. do you think it is jumping to conclusions to say these are most likely part of this aircraft, jeff? >> i have to say yes. that is my reaction. as we were talking about before the break, if a wing came off this plane everything should be pretty closely together. and i didnt see anything that looked like a fuselage a tube cylindrical kind of thing. i didnt see anything that looked like landing gear ...

Week. >> right. where they thought they had found it with sonar and the company said not yet, exactly. >> until we get eyes on it be it a camera or human eyes. i dont want to jump the gun on it. an object that size could be a wing a portion of the fuselage. >> that makes sense for an a-320? >> it does. it does. it makes absolute sense. it might be, you know a larger portion of it, you know the fact that we initially recovered two or three victims right off the bat that seemed to be in proximity ...

Dont have knowledge. >> it did. >> it did, okay. so that is available. in other words, its a matter of equipping it to make the transmissions. >> should it be mandated jeff? >> well you have to ask yourself, well, in what situation would it be -- provide information that we wouldnt otherwise have. in this case we have all the information that air traffic kroers normally have the plane. the transresponder as les has been talking about. and the question thats been very interesting for me is why di...

Disproven and the families it was heart-wrenching for them. >> but let me say thats part of the investigation process. you follow a lead and it goes nowhere and you start over again. >> true. >> so hopefully this is a piece of the airplane. >> les and jeff stick with us. well talk with you a lot more this hour. its been online all week. weve been reading your questions. youve been tweeting us. please send us your questions about this flight air asia 8501. well answer them #8501qs.

Any idea about where the breach was on the fuselage? >> absolutely. i think that would be a reasonable. again we dont want to jump to conclusions but you might expect if the hull fractures at a certain point that people who are sitting close to that event would more likely wind up, you know free. like in the case of air france 447, some bodies floated free. some remained fastened in the seat belts in the structurally complete part of the plane on the seabed. that would be a clue. but, again once...