Page 21 - Acars System News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Dramatic happened that it -- that it literally cut it off. but here's the problem with that theory. a i can advance any theory forward and backwards, but eventually you can come back to the same problem. if there had been a fire or if something had failed on the plane or anything like that, the acars would have noticed it and would have reported it. that's the problem with the mechanical theory. it would have had to have been instant. it would have had to have literally disabled -- a good question for the captain there, isn't that one of the issues, though, when we look at the mechanical probl...

A key reporting system, we've been hearing it on cnn, acars. >> we know all about acars, yes. >> and that began the sequence of events that led up to the transponder being deactivated. what was not clear at that point was what information the malaysian officials had to suggest why exactly they thought the acars system had been shut down. there was some confusion about that. the defense and transportation minister stated the following day that in fact the situation was, yes, that was the order. the acars had been shut down. the final call had been made by the crew and the transponder shut off. ...

Airline pilot, it is hard to visualize what might have gone on inside the cockpit of flight 370. martin savidge is back inside a flight simulator to walk us through some of the details. richard quest also joins us, spent time with malaysia airlines before this incident. martin, you've been taking a closer look at the maintenance information system known by the acronym acars. tell us more about it. >> yeah, this is one of those things that up until now the average flying public knew nothing about but of course any pilot at least on an aircraft like this would know. acars. think of it as an alte...

We're on the ground. after you're on the ground and land and taxi off the runway, you're no longer a factor for any traffic so there's no point in you being on the screen, you turn it off and save the air traffic controllers the hassle of trying to declutter the screen. >> but never in the air, only once on the ground and the flight is over. >> richard, the fact that the acars was not functioning, again, we don't know why, what does that tell you? >> what it tells me is that either it was disabled and degraded or something so dramatic happened that it -- that it literally cut it off. but here'...

It can also be set by a pilot who knows that's the way to the fastest airport. he's just had a major mechanical breakdown and he needs to get his plane on the ground. what happens after that? we have no idea, but there are a lot of theories out here. you know, what we're hearing about the investigators and all of this about the pilots, it all presupposes the pilots had a reason to take this plane off course, that somehow, they were involved. problem is, john, we don't have a shred of evidence yet from them as to a motive with either one of these pilots. back to you. >> no, we don't. we don't k...