Page 4 - Scratch Pad News Today

Youve got people screaming in the airplane at that point. thats how dramatic it is. >> from your experience, does this suggest -- we dont know the why. but does this suggest what investigators have said all along a lot of this came because of deliberate action in the cockpit? does this need to be deliberate? >> to me it does more than suggest it because to program something like that it would go down to 5,000 feet and back up again would take some planning, it would take the ability to preprogra...

Plan. >> so youd have to say im going to drop to 5,000 feet, then go back up to 35,000 feet, and you would have had to have done that at the beginning. >> at the beginning or you could have done it after you made that turn. you have a little time there, you could have programmed that in or put it into what we call the scratch pad. you transfer that information in. thats only going to have one-way point or very little information on a scratch pad. its not something you could put a whole flight pl...

Scratch pad? >> the scratch pad son lie enough to put in maybe your first and last name. 18 way points wouldnt fit in the scratch pad. >> reporter: the other thing ill point out its a long way this plane deviated. it to be with equivalent of going from new york to chicago. almost 800 miles out of the way by this course. >> and, miles, if it did, in fact, skirt indonesian airspace the whole idea it was trying find some place to land or it would nullify that whole concept. >> yes. that concept goe...

Marty, i got a quick question for you. for you and mitch. how long did it take you, mitch, to put in those way points, and is it possible you could have when programming before the flight you could have put it on the scratch pad but only executed once you were in the air? >> it took me a minute-and-a-half, richard, to put in those way points. >> reporter: a list of them. >> its quite a long time. could it have been done beforehand? it could have in theory. the other pilot would have noticed it o...

Airport. as soon as we get to a point of no return, im gonna put in the scratch pad of this device, they have the ability to have kind of, you know, rough notes, with these waypoints to get me to that airport and i wouldnt have to think much about it if i had an emergency. pilot does this all the time, they are constantly thinking about these things. its possible that those were put in and ended up flying that route and could be a pilot who made a terrible mistake, too. >> and miles, i want to j...

Car. in this case it was programmed to go from kuala lumpur to beijing with waypoints within it. as mitchell can show us, its easy to alter the flight. how would a turn be put? ? >> very simple. this shows our flight path. this is us. all you have to do to change course, a couple of key strokes. if you know where you want to go, the waypoint, its a matter of punching into the scratch pad here, the area below here. we put it in the flight plan. we execute that flight plan. now you can see outside...

To light in the upcoming tax season. the good ol irs commissioner is warning that if congress does not extend the alternative minimum tax patch, millions of taxpayers might have to wait to file their 2012 returns next year. wendell goler is live with his scratch pad at the white house. so why the delay, wendell, and what is this alternative minimum tax anyway? >> reporter: this is part of the fiscal cliff negotiation as you might suspect, jon. the amt limits value of deductions for people making...