Page 12 - Flight Level News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Airports in the area. without a may day call, i thought that was a very important development that french air traffic control said it was they who tried to contact this aircraft as they should because the aircraft was descending for six minutes leaving the flight assigned flight level. it was leaving that level. air traffic control should have been trying to talk to them. why are you desecending without permission. pilots didn't have time to communicate or they were not able or didn't realize they were descending. in airfrance 447, they didn't realize how fast they were descending. we already ...

Getting that it had reached an altitude of 38,000 feet and then in a period of seven minutes, went to 24,000 feet. the rate being 3440 feet per minute. describe to people what would be ordinary and what that suggests. >> that's a pretty fast rate of descent, but it's not a rate of descent that would cause damage to the plane. the plane can take that that's near its outer limits, that would be that would be somebody descending in a hurry. 3,500 without causing a plane to come apart. the recommended descent at that flight level would be much less. you would descend much more slowly because when ...

>> correct. it's the angle of the wing in relation to the air passing over it. the critical angle of attack is the angle at which theaerodynamic stall. >> that is what the pilot decides or is it on autopilot? because autopilot, wouldn't it make the decision automatically in terms of angle? >> the computers on the plane would help with that. whether the pilot is hand flying it, which at flight level 370, 380, would be a little bit dicey for pilots to do. because that margin of safety between air speed and critical angle of attack is only three or four knots. >> distance of debris versus the las...

Big piece like that survive. >> mary remember when when we talked about this. for mh-370. people were asking -- is there a chance? that it is fully intact on the bottom of the ocean? how might that happen? even itch itf it is a large chunk of the plane. it seems not entirely possible. that that could happen. that's what at lest for 370. at least for 370. seemed to be the expert opinion. it wouldn't beep possible possible for this to happen. >> for 370. i think everyone was assuming. there wasn't an aerodynamic stall. hadn't fallen from the sky, from flight level, 3600. from 36,000 feet. and th...

Like it normally does. >> one of the things they said wag in 8501 cleared. and then it's 8501 it's unintelligible. flight level 2401 initial do you want alpha departure squawk. is that what -- >> yeah. they were giving them the departure. and that's very standard. and the readback was clear, concise, and to the point like it should be. >> mary, there's 30 minutes of this. will we learn anything from this, possibly? >> well, from the part we just heard it sounds very typical. i agree with les completely. nothing jumped out at me. perhaps -- when they give the weather, for example, if they ask a...