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Explain that to us. basically not just the net air speed. >> yes. the indicated air speed, i think, and maybe jeffrey can help me with this but i didn't see that we knew the indicated air speed there. so what we're talking about is the distance that it traveled from one point to another and how far it went on the ground speed, indicating -- help me understand this but it looks like the aircraft was then at an extremely high descent rate which would make sense, but at the same time we're saying it was an ascent rising too. so help me understand that part too, jeffrey. it doesn't seem to make se...

I think what we're missing out of the equation here is over what kind of time frame did they go from a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet down to an extremely low altitude for an aircraft like this of we were just calculating how long, mitchell, it would take if you did it at a reasonable descent rate. >> reasonable descent, 15-20 minutes. >> reporter: what we've done so we set the scenario here we are flying over the strait of ma lack ca, just as the aircraft has done in a northerly direction and right now at 6,000 feet pause we figured you didn't want us to talk for 15, 20 minutes if we took...

Evidence of a crew that was dealing with some sort of calamity. we don't know what caused that. that could have been a number of things we can talk about later. but was trying to get an airplane that was at 35,000 feet with -- where the air is very thin as we just heard, down to an altitude as quickly as possible where the air would be satisfactory for people to breathe. so that is what we call a high dive in aviation. it is -- we still have to look at a few things, how rapid the descent rate was, a few details we need to gather, but the impression we get is of a plane that is turning around, ...

Last transponder we had and where the military radar put it at 12,000 feet we're going to learn a lot about what was going on with that airplane. we should be able to get that information. >> miles? >> yeah. go ahead. >> you heard what he said. he said, listen, if something is happening, they're going to hit that speed brake. he said -- >> oh, yeah. >> -- the plane is going to descend much quicker than that. >> a lot less than 69 miles. like les i don't like to do math in public. i will tell you it will be a lot less than this. and that would tell us -- we could do the math on what the deced d...

>> joining me now, pilot and aviation lawyer arthur walt. arthur, thanks for being here. i don't remember a case like this of such catastrophic consequences, where on the tip of everybody's tongue, even if they're not saying it, seem to be the words, "pilot error." at this early stage, is that your assessment? >> yes, there's no question about that. this airplane made an unstabilized approach to the airport under beautiful weather conditions. there was no reason for it not to have been stabilized. and what stabilized means is being at the proper speed, the proper descent rate, the airplane con...