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Calmly ate his crew meal 15 minutes before he started the final devastating descent into the mountain. he had his meal at 9:15. at 9:30 he started the maneuver once the captain left the cockpit. just terrible. terrible news. >> also in this report i want to show the flight trajectory down. that came out of this rort. we can see this is how the story happened. it appears it went down over time. how did the pilot in that first flight if he was actually doing a test run, how did he not feel this descent or would you not feel 100 feet at a time? >> according to the report when the captain left the...

So now our main task is trying to figure out where the actual pieces of the airplane are. we're hoping that this can provide the maximum amount of information and then we're also looking for other information that can, of course, be provided by things like black boxes. so we're trying to more closely examine various elements of this actual plane. again, like i said the fact that the pieces are so dispersed makes it very difficult, and the examining portion of this investigation is going to be difficult and probably pretty limited. so i'm just going to return to the flight trajectory so we can ...

Stop working? does that have to be turned off or is that something that can just malfunction? >> it's hard to see how the transponder would go off and then the airplane would still sort of fly the way it did. you can have an electrical failure, you can have a problem with the antenna, things like that. there are two transponders on the airplane. so you actually would have to fail both of them. so it looks like it's more likely an intentional thing. and then plus it appears if you can believe the malaysian radar reports, thought was coupled with this change in direction. and i can't find any re...

But we have to build our knowledge with whatever evidence we can get. so the physical evidence will be the strongest, but right now the radar data appears to be the only thing we have. >> does it make sense just from a mechanical standpoint that a transponder would be -- would stop working? does that have to be turned off or is that something that can just malfunction? >> it's hard to see how the transponder would go off and then the airplane would still sort of fly the way it did. you can have an electrical failure, you can have a problem with the antenna, things like that. there are two tran...

That would be right at legal limits, depending on the equipment at the runway and the airplane. if they were above limits, it's clearly the captain's call, as it should be. >> above that 1,600 foot ceiling you're talking about. another part of this -- >> actually 1,600 feet visibility. >> visibility, sorry, visibility. we understand from russian officials that the flight trajectory was off about 150 meters, about 450 feet. how might that happen? >> well, unfortunately, we have seen this sort of accident before. it's known as a control flight terrain where the airplane will hit short of the run...