Page 19 - Acars System News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Coordinates for it to head west from its course that it was over the gulf of thailand. now, how that information was transmitted, that simply i don't know and that's one of the investigations that this brings up. they do know with certainty that the aircraft veered from its course on its way to beijing and did so on purpose because someone changed the heading in the computer system, jake. >> rene, whether or not that was conveyed through the acars system, that's significant. explain to us why? >> well, you know, jake, i have spent the day talking to a lot of people familiar with the acars syst...

It would have had to have been a snap, boom, and it's over. >> mitchell, aren't there different -- just to confuse things all the more. aren't there different levels of acars that airlines can subscribe to and malaysia didn't subscribe to the more advanced one? am i correct in that? >> we talked about this, didn't we? >> that's right, we did. we talked about this. anderson, that's absolutely correct. some airlines -- actually most airlines in the world, malaysia airlines is the only one that i know of that doesn't do this, subscribe to a system whereby the information that they send to satelli...

Capable of doing that. we know the transponder was turned off and the acars system did not transmit. so in my mind it's just clarifying -- the malaysian government is just clarifying that it could be that it was just sent here and it was sent here. they can't verify that it was truly turned off with a switch. it doesn't mean it wasn't off. >> you can jump in on this, jim tilmon or anybody, if these instruments, the transponder, the acars are so vital, why do they have an off switch? >> you want an off switch on anything you can turn on in that cockpit. i don't want to fly a cockpit that has el...

>> the acars -- last acars transmission was 1:07. okay. we don't know when the acars was switched off after that. it was supposed to transmit 30 minutes from there another transmission, but that transmission did not come true. that was the very last transmission was 1:07. >> reporter: okay. didn't come true. but here's the point. the pilot said "all right, good night" at 1:19. we know that the transponder went out at 1:21. we don't know that acars was still operational. we don't know that it had been switched off by the pilots. everybody has been pointing a finger at the pilots because they th...

Doing that. if the acars had been turned off, it wouldn't have been capable of doing that. we know the transponder was turned off and the acars system did not transmit. so in my mind it's just clarifying -- the malaysian government is just clarifying that it could be that it was just sent here and it was sent here. they can't verify that it was truly turned off with a switch. it doesn't mean it wasn't off. >> you can jump in on this, jim tilmon or anybody, if these instruments, the transponder, the acars are so vital, why do they have an off switch? >> you want an off switch on anything you ca...