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John Cox Special to USA TODAY What determines an airplane's altitude? is it relative to sea level or the land over which it is flying? For instance, when I am flying over Denver, Colorado, does the official altitude at which I am flying decrease by 5,280 feet? – Mark, Colorado Most airplanes fly above Mean Sea Level altitudes (MSL), the altimeter would read 5,280 feet in Denver. They are corrected for barometric pressure. When flying above 18,000 feet in the U.S., airplanes express altitude in terms of Flight Levels, which have a standard altimeter setting of 29.92 inches of Mercury. Pil...

That allows pilots on any given plane these days to see what lies ahead. and you have this call reportedly of about a 50,000 foot area of thundershowers. what they asked for was to go up another 6,000 feet to 38,000 feet. the fact that we're talking about icing. is that predictable? i mean you get weather reports, certainly, and study those as a pilot before you take off. >> well it is predictable given the nature of these monstrous storms. these are just about the biggest thunderstorms that you can encounter anywhere in the world? and they have the energy of a small nuclear device. every pilo...

Horrific example of that. >> miles o'brien is joining us from d.c. on the phone. again, miles, i mean, you know this flight path well. you're a pilot yourself. and just talk about a little bit about what is happening now behind the scenes not only with malaysian airlines but all the various countries in the region in terms of dealing with the family members of those on board this flight. >> is that for miles? >> yeah, miles, you're on the air. >> okay. yeah, my apologies. what i can tell you is this. a civilian airliner at flight levels generally is going to be flying down corridors in the sky...

Airway. that is in a more nefarious type of situation. >> what does that mean, airway? >> it's like a road in the sky. that's what airlines fly. they fly at different levels, different flight levels. so flight 100 would be 10,000 feet. >> okay. it's like a square box in the sky and you have a base and if you want to cross under the airway and you're not speaking to any agency's radar, you have to go under the airway so you have to descend. and then the third one is just a mechanical problem of some sort that would require you getting below 10,000 feet in order to get oxygen and, again, that wo...

Morning talked about how they interviewed 100 witnesses in regards to the pilot and co-pilot. they didn't say they found anything but who knows. >> right. plus on the altitude again earlier on a week ago we had reports that the aircraft climbed 45,000 or 43,000 and then descended down 5,000. so all the ti attitude of this plane has been somewhat of a mystery. it has pretty much been all over the flight levels, up and down, et cetera. there have been cases where airplanes have porpoised when they've had mechanical problems and cases where the airplanes have porpoised because a very bad pilot in...