Page 26 - Acars System News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Richard quest joins us now by phone from new york. so, richard, that the communication system was disabled and that, according to malaysian authorities, this voice was able to say, "all right. good night." you were telling us earlier that's a radio frequency. that's radio conversation, and that's why that information was able to be transmitted, but is it possible that that pilot, if that was the pilot's voice, didn't know that the communications system was disabled? >> well, when you say communications system, you're talking about a particular communication system. about the acars system. the ...

Information, detailed information, being disseminated from it? >> not much but the aircraft communication and reporting system is designed to provide that information. what we're relying on now as i understand it is the satcom, the communication part, the antenna. it's talking but it doesn't have any information going because the acar is not sharing that information. it's not designed to give a lot of information just from a satellite look. so now if we had acars data, we don't know if we have or not, hopefully they do have some, if that transmission is coming across and giving them informatio...

Management computer. >> someone has to go back eight feet behind the cockpit, open up something, get down into the belly of the plane to do that? >> right, if you wanted to pull the circuit breakers on acars. you can't turn the acars off from the cockpit. it's always operating. it's also in a passive state sending a signal. >> how difficult is it to land that plane? this is relative to the fact this last ping, tom, we hear came at 8:11 in the morning. that's daylight. presumably it's a difficult plane to land in the night. >> the 777? >> if you're not on a landing strip -- >> no airplane is di...

Game changer in this investigation. so i think we just have to back up a little bit. we have a plane that took off from kuala lumpur in the middle of the night. the middle of the night is the least traveled time for airplanes, the least time that air traffic controllers are manning the stations. things are much more relaxed. 45 minutes into this flight we now know from the prime minister of malaysia that it was either the transponder or the acars system. i'm not sure which one, was turned often, and then you have a communication, which is, all right, good night. now, with all deference to mr. ...

At the pilots. >> there is no question at this point when you look at the sequence of events beginning with the time that the plane left kuala lumpur at 12:30, it is the dead of night, and air traffic control is quiet, and there are not a lot of planes fly flying. 45 minutes out, we know from the prime minister of malaysia that the transponder was likely turned off, and the acars system was likely turned off, and now we know that okay, good night is spoken. >> and not only do we know that, jeff, but we know it is turned off in the key areas where it would not be detected and where nobody would...