Page 22 - Acars System News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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. arounds 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 satellites and vice versa is more robust. it's protected more and there's more information passed. you have to pay...

He said they now can no longer say that the acars system was turned off before the last point of vocal contact. they simply don't know if it was before or after, but it's very possible there was voice contact between the co-pilot before the acars system -- that's a data transmission system -- was somehow disabled, before the radar was somehow disabled. but this defense official went on to say that in no way affects where they are now searching for this flight, because that doesn't impact this satellite system that detected it flying for five to seven hours afterwards on one of these two giant ...

From your investigative background more likely that there was some sort of human-caused problem here? >> yes. a human hand turned the plane and did this series of events. we know that from the evidence that's been released by the malaysian government and the reporting on it. but i would bracket what we know now, the radio call from the co-pilot, the transponder two minutes later, the manual press in of the new direction and western travel, and then the acars system is disabled. and then japanese air pilot makes contact with the cockpit by radio and says he only hears murmuring. the japanese pi...

Is what a lot of people thought early on. that seems to be ruled out if you believe the satellite data that this plane was flying around for hours afterward. but there could be some kind of mechanical failure, fire on board, for instance, which gradually shut down systems or the pilots felt dolike they hado shut down systems, correct? >> anything is up for grabs at this point. we can go back to twa 800 where it was attributed to fuel pumps in one of the tanks, because of dry tanks to ignited the vapors. that could be a possible scenario. i very much doubt it because these airplanes have been m...

Aircraft in the world to search every inch of it. if you take a map of the united states, superimpose that stretching from the north to the south indian ocean, it's kind of like saying, all right, i want to find a person somewhere between new york and california. i just don't know where they are. so that's the challenge here. >> it's extraordinary when you put it like that. commander marks, i appreciate you being on, thank you. good luck to all of you out there searching. thank you. and the search continues. unless you're a commercial airline pilot, it is hard to visualize what might have gone...