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As you probably know, it went down in the french alps on a flight from barcelona to dusseldorf, germany. the plane descending 27,000 feet in nearly 8 minutes and apparently flying straight into the ground. tonight, there is new focus on a key safety feature on airbuses that can sometimes under rare conditions put them into a descent that can hard to stop. airbus knew of the problem, and the european aviation safety agency the equivalent of america's faa issued a warning about it nearly four months ago. rene marsh has been working her sources on this. she joins us momentarily, but first, how th...

Planes pilots, procedures, when they're all in flux that's a perfect storm. management needs to be involved to make sure accidents don't follow. >> now that we've scared everyone from flying what will you say to the average commuter about the state of air travel to or from the u.s. today? >> it's funny that you mention commuters because it's regional planes in the united states that have had crashes in the last years and the majors have not. this is a will beup call for the majors -- a wake-up call for the majors. they fly the big boeings and air buses and have a terrific safety record in gene...

Wouldn't worry about altitude he would worry about attitude how stable is his airplane in terms of his horizon. >> what do you make jeff? >> well airbuses are built with something called envelope protection. when you're flying them around normally the plane will not let you put it into a situation beyond its flight envelope or to stall, for instance. you can get into situations -- this happened with air france 447 where if the sensors get clogged for instance and the computer isn't able to make sense of what it's doing it will turn itself off and hand itself over to the pilot. in a normal situ...

Black boxes were recovered. although we did have some indication from the wreckage that the plane belly smacked on the surface of the ocean. both aircraft were heading into turbulence. both are airbuses and both rely quite a bit on computers to fly the plane. one of the things that i wonder about is that handoff. there was an issue in the air france 447 case. the handoff between the computer and the pilots. so when the computer said i can't figure this out, you fly the plane. in that case they were unable to fly it. not only that but they were totally preoccupied in the cockpit to the point th...

Talking about the comparisons with air france. they were both in thunderstorms. both airbuses and people say, well there was no pan pan call, no mayday call. pan pan by the way is less severe distress call. so it was none of. that it must have been this catastrophic accident. what if these pilots were really fighting this thing all the way into the water? your thoughts? >> well that is a very real possibility. and the reason why i say that is, in october this past october, eaas, issued a directive against the a320 air craft the same tubes with the problem with the air france in very similar ci...