Page 398 - Katc News Today

Simple as that. >> reporter: and were already starting to move down in the simulator. >> just because i did that action and pulled this button two steps, the airplane is now descending. >> reporter: it is such a simple move. >> it is. >> reporter: do most flight attendants know if theyre standing there, its at a crisis would a flight attendant know to turn it back to 38 thoub? >> a flight attendant would not touch this panel. i will tell the flight attendants were changing altitudes. i will say ...

This march toward passengers planes that are automated will be very slow. >> thank you very much. robert you think this technology might work and could be effective in preventing another tragedy like the one we saw. that would mean in these 8 to 10 minutes, pilot not responding someone from the ground would have been able to take that plane over pull it up and avert the disaster? >> thats exactly right. it has descended without getting clearance from atc to do that. at that point when they weren...

Locate the other in the debris field, but certainly if they targeted one, they want to get that back to the lab as soon as possible. the french authorities have a lot of experience with the recorders and they should be able to download that information and audition it within a few hours of getting it into their labs. >> obviously, the central history, debra, on this is why there would be eight minutes seemingly sort of steady deskrent that took place into the alps right now and no december call....

Puzzling crash investigators is why the crew never radioed a mayday. >> they didnt provide a distress call indicate in any way, shape or form a problem with the aircraft unusual given they were at 38,000 feet. they would have been in complete communication with air traffic control. >> reporter: among the scenarios invest get a investigateors consider, a fire, or smoke, or sudden loss of cabin pressure but if that was the problem the pilots should have leveled the plane out at 10,000 feet where t...

Side of a mountain from where he lives. >> nbcs keir simmons, thank you. and as keir was saying the investigation is now under way to determine what exactly caused this crash. for that lets bring in nbcs tom costello. tom, what are the most pressing questions at this point? >> reporter: yeah. hi mika. good morning. this morning still just as many questions as we had yesterday but i think the key questions as relates to the investigation really are, what did this plane descend rather rapidly, a c...

Descent, it does appear obviously that that was an unusual event and that something very compelling caused the crew to make the decision to start down but during that eight-minute time frame there should have been adequate time more than enough time to even get a quick message out about why they were descending. if they had experienced a pressurization problem, this is pure speculation, but if they had a pressurization problem we have an actual checklist that we follow to get the aircraft safely...

Seemed if indeed they were in a controlled descent, believe me that is a fair amount of time to descend. its not an unusual rate of descent. its a descent that indicates some sort of problem to me on board and they were attempting to rectify it through check lists. but the fact that theyre in a very sophisticated area of radar control. ive flown out of barcelona. youre constantly talking to air traffic control. the fact they didnt even have a chance to get out one mayday signal, if indeed thats ...

Pingers, only to find out that one of the pingers may not have been operable its interesting that a year later were finding this out. why didnt this information come out before? because that may have altered the course of where they searched and how they searched. >> a year later, have they corrected the gaps in communication between those atc groups? >> thats a hard question to answer andrea only because we dont know what theyre doing. we know what they said theyve done. we know that they are c...

It doesnt answer atc or the other one is it grossly departs from its aerodynamic envelope and the pilots have no transmissions. then it starts transmitting. it doesnt need to be on all the time. those two reactive forces instead of, you know any time an airplane crashes a mayday, or it crashes and maybe you start getting the signals, but by then the airplane is overdue so you find it and maybe find the debris. thanks. >> thank you very much, leland. >> shannon? coming up, he somehow got to the...

Time i do not know. >> maybe you said this before and i wasnt listening did the plane reach complete takeoff or just takeoff and call shortly after takeoff about a problem? >> the question was had he just taken off. my understanding is and all i know is that i heard the atc recording on the news. and the pilot reported that he had an engine failure and was returning to the airport. its not immediate at this point. >> from the distance -- how high -- what do you think the altitude was? >> i canno...