Page 10 - Acars System News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

That's a new development. that actually could play into the theory there was this spontaneous explosion and maybe that's why the acars system was left on. maybe it wasn't exploded. i still don't understand, bob, why, and this is what he said, why there was a deliberate turning off of the transponder. not once but twice. no mayday call, and that deliberate turn west after they said good night very calmly. that does not add up in the minds of pilots. >> the other thing that happened is they looked into the background of virtually everybody on the plane, most of whom were chinese, and they found ...

So-called acars system that we've heard a lot about in this investigation that allows the system to communicate with ground control. that was shut down on this aircraft. but you have managed -- your satellites managed to continue to communicate with the airplane anyway, how? >> okay, in very simple terms just like a cellular phone system if you imagine the satellite network, whoever you choose, the box on the plane, the classic arrow product from inmarsat, is the project, and then there are various apps that may include different text messaging of different sorts that go through that box. now,...

Aircraft might be headed but also the point at which it would run out of fuel, right? >> exactly. let me take you back to the map here. you'll notice at the center of the map here what we have here is a satellite. i'm going to draw a line out from that sat, and each one of these lines is equidistant from the satellite. so as the plane was sending data back and forth using what's known as the acars system, a passive system on board the aircraft that sends back bursts of data saying here's our p how our engines are running, this is the kind of fuel we're using, there were very good engineers who...

The same time their loved one is under suspicion. apparently, the investigators are citing or investigating as to whether or not anyone deliberately turned off the transponder, deliberately disabled the acars system, deliberately maneuvered the aircraft off route. >> reporter: aviation attorney michael verna said this case sun precedented. 13 days after vanishing, no side of the plane. >> i've been involved in virtually every commercial aviation accident in the world in the last 20 years and i've never seen anything like this. as things stand right now, we don't even know if there's been an ac...

The trouble with that decision, of course, would be if this doesn't turn out to be related to flight 370, well, then, they'd have made that move for all of the wrong reasons. >> right. >> reporter: the painful thing about this, chuck, they've been waiting through all these days. now, they have to wait again. >> yeah, and wait and wait and wait. all right, keir simmons in kuala lumpur, thank you very much. i want to bring in aviation expert and former airline captain john cox along with nbc justice correspondent pete williams. john, let me start with you. if this is where the plane went down,...