Mark Gerchick News Today

Without a passport or even a ticket, a mysterious man with apparent ties to Russia slipped onto a flight from Copenhagen to Los Angeles, hiding in plain sight until he was apprehended after landing in Los Angeles, an extraordinary federal criminal filing reveals.

Under presidents george h.w. bush and bill clinton, and attorney specializing in transportation litigation. and mark gerchick. aviation consultant and author of the book "full upright and locked position." not so comfortable truths about air travel today. mark, i want to begin with you. the most incredible fact here is the tail of this plane appeared to snap off and only two fatalities. what does it say about the engineering, the simple engineering, the structural integrity of this massive vehic...

Altimeter. >> its possible there are mechanical problems here as well. mark, my question to you is how do we understand the safety revolution that has happened in commercial air? i mean, it just seems to me when youre thinking about this as a problem to solve, you have so many moving parts. i dont mean the moving parts of jet airlines going at hundreds of miles an hour. i mean, you have different governments, right? a plane has to go in south africa and in germany and in buton and all sorts of d...

Buildings. approximately 40 people in that town are still, as of this hour, missing. for that horrific stomach-churning accident, and other transportation accidents, simply dont bring out the same response of us. on cable news or in society as a whole because there is something unique about plane crashes. there just is. something about them that stokes our deepest fear, something that provoked us as a society to marshal the manpower and resources so making sure getting on a commercial flight is ...

Water. a 17 mile straight-in final is a long way, but they had to cross a body of water. you have a greater sink rate over a body of water. >> you go down faster. >> right. you go down faster. its possible the flight got away. of course, its still possible they had problems with the altimeter. and the airspeed indicator. >> its possible there are mechanical problems here as well. mark, my question to you is how do we understand the safety revolution that has happened in commercial air? i mean, i...

The no-fly list has expanded dramatically. before 9/11 we didnt have much of a list so things have become sophisticated. >>brian: as we watch these airlines go belly up or forced to merge we thought we might be getting a better deal. were getting a worse deal and there is no one to bid these seats down. >> the question is whats in it for the traveling public now that the airlines are doing better and becoming more stabilized an more financially successful? in terms of seats, you can buy more spa...

Department of justice, and the s.e.c. to investigate for perhaps insider information. brian, over to you. >>gretchen: check out your screen. weapons like the one you see there were this close to being allowed back on united states flights, but after an airline uproar, the t.s.a. is taking back that decision to allow small knives on airplanes. >>brian: here with more is the former chief council of the federal aviation administration and author of "full upright in locked position." mark, im glad...