Page 8 - Flight Management Computer News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Les? >> to me it's one of the more plausible scenarios. i'm not sold on that scenario. but up until the point we got this information which i'm still skeptical about the 12 minutes prior, it seemed to me that having a smoke situation, getting beyond that verbal communication with air traffic control, it seems to me that if the crew was trying to handle an emergency, realized they had an emergency what would happen in my cockpit would be i'd say i've got the airplane. and then the co-pilot would begin the check list process. since i have the airplane, the flight management computer would be par...

Flight management computer would be part of my control. and i would have put in that waypoint and go to the co-pilot and verify that he liked what i put in. assuming it was an alternate airport because that's what i would be thinking and he would say, looks good, and i would execute that and start the airplane turning and help him to continue the check lilist. >> i want to show you all of the possible airports. there are obviously runways and alternates the plane could have been aiming for. if this nbc news report is correct the change was programmed at least 12 minutes before that final commu...

Might have been practiced here. we have faa inspector mr. david suocie and jay laboeuf in the new day studio. have been pract. we have faa inspector mr. david suocie and jay laboeuf in the new day studio. >> we are cruising along. >> what are you flying now? >> we have the cockpit up, a 777, all the flight information, air speed, horizon, altitude, and we have here the center console, carrying the flight management computer and this is where the pilots would enter all of the waypoints for the trip that they would be flying. >> david hurricane is the obvious -- this is something that would be v...

>> any information would help. last thing that's important to do here, the big disclosure from officials in malaysia, not necessarily new information but new information they figured sought that 12 minutes before the co-pilot said "all right, good night" they inputted data for this additional waypoint. is that something that would be done and not communicated ordinarily, jay? >> well, typically, the flight management computer would be loaded with the complete trip from start to finish. and so for them to interfere with that, two have to go in and interrupt the program that had been loaded and ...

The original turn-back was towards the closest available airport, so that makes sense. so the initial part actually makes sense, some sort of catastrophic problem. >> when you say catastrophic, you don't mean instantaneous, you mean mechanical issues on board that the pilot had time to try to make that turn to try to find the closest airport. >> sure. yeah, some sort of progressive problem like smoke in the cockpit if you had an electrical fire in the avionics bay or something like that, he would have turned to the nearest airport which would have made sense. under that hypothesis if they beca...