but all of this at least supports the theory and it is just a theory that at some point, this pilot felt like he had no choice and he started trying to very dramatically ascend to try to get out of the trouble of the weather around him and in doing so maybe stalled the aircraft. just a theory right now. this is not a theory we know he was at a lower altitude than he wanted to be in the midst of this storm. tom foreman, thank you for that. let s talk about this and the significance of that request with our aviation and safety analyst, david soucie and jeff back with me. we re going to know more when this is found, the flight data recorder. the significance to change altitudes. the fact that that was denied some have said why didn t he focus more on going around the storm since the ceiling was over 50,000 feet? your take. right, commercial pilots who want to avoid the danger of a thunderstorm go laterally around it in general. and tend to go above it to try to get an increase in alti
simulations in weather equal to that? that the pilot reported? and also how quickly can they get into trouble in a situation like that? very quickly because what typically happens, or what has happened in these types of storms, is that the area that looks most clear, and the area that looks the safest to go through, is actually the worst because that s where these updrafts that jeff had just mentioned occur. that s where the hot air is coming up out of it to feed the storm. and so when pilots see that they re mistakenly thinking that maybe that s the best place for them to go. so if they had made an attempt to go into one of these holes, it could be just devastating for the aircraft because of the updrafts and downdrafts that occur in that particular region of the clouds. they would be trained not to do that right? and go through simulations when that s an option and told not to do that? is that right, david? yeah they are, but remember
competition with differing airlines stl ss there. when this plane was flying around at 32,000 feet and encountered a great big storm, he had company out there. storm 200 square miles, 52,000 feet up in the air, towering up there, could be producing big winds, 70 80 90 miles an hour. who knows. microbursts. all sorts of issues. we know though he wasn t the only plane. at the time he disappeared, there were at least five other flights 2,000 feet above and within 124 miles. that may seem like a long distance but planes traveling this fast it s not that long of a distance so the determination was he could not rise into that airspace. he definitely wanted to. he was at 32,000. he had requested to go up to 38,000 and had been told he could not. there was an approval right near the end of about 34,000 feet to let him come up some. it s not clear whether that was fully communicated to the plane or not. or if the plane had already disappeared.