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tv   Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown  CNN  March 14, 2014 8:00pm-9:01pm PDT

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more throughout the night on the missing malaysian airline flight. that does it for us. thank you very much for watching. next, breaking news about missing flight 370. a new report says the plane
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changed altitude dramatically and it changed direction more than once. so what happened in that cockpit? and what it may have felt like in the plane during those altitude changes. a live demonstration. why some families of missing loved ones say they are hoping it was a hijacking. let's go "outfront." good evening. i'm erin burnett. it's 11:00 p.m. on the east coast, 11:00 a.m. in kuala lumpur where we are following breaking news. the very latest, a u.s. official telling barbara starr that radar readings show erratic readings. we know the last communication took place about an hour from takeoff from kuala lumpur. from there, the plane took a sharp turn, diverting from its scheduled path, which would have been to keep going straight north to beijing. as first reported by "the new
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york times," malaysian military radar showed the plane climbing to 45,000 feet. that is well above the approved limit for this type of aircraft. the radar track shows the plane descending unevenly to 23,000 feet, then flying northwest over the strait of malacca toward the indian ocean. where you see the planefku3 /ñ÷
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this is what the malaysian military has picked up, and it's sort of provides for the first time an idea of where this was going. and it raises all these questions, why is it that the plane was moving in all these different directions and going up and down in such a way? and who was controlling it at that point and why was it that that was happening? and these are all questions like this entire thing that we don't have answers to.
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but it provides some insight and it just makes it all the more confusing in some ways. >> we're going to be spending the entire hour here talking about those key issues of who was in control of the plane. barbara, what more can you tell us again about when we looked at that picture, that plane making a dramatic turn to the right or toward the left. >> let me start by saying, i just talked to some u.s. military officials who are very aware of these reports by the malaysian military radars of these dramatic altitude shifts. what they assess, they tell me, they're not surprised by it, that the malaysian military radar was so far away it didn't pick up an accurate reading of the plane's altitude. they don't believe just yet that these dramatic shifts may be exactly what happened. i think michael is right, this all awaits an investigation, all of this is what the reports, the initial reports are.
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they think the military radar was too far away for a pure accurate reading. but once the plane crossed the malay peninsula and headed out towards the indian ocean. they have now plotted, based on radar hits, based on pings from the airplane that were picked up by satellites, based on all the data they do have, let's go back to that map. they have plotted two search areas they believe are most optimum to search. one is a northern search area in the bay of bengal, now being searched by the indian military and the u.s. navy. and a more southerly search pattern, to the southeast, if you will, looking at whether the plane flew that way, that being searched by the u.s. navy. a lot of nations looking for this. any sign of where the plane is, any sign of a debris field on the ocean.
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>> we're going to be talking in just a few moments to the "uss kidd" and talk about what they're looking for in that area barbara just described. michael, i'm very curious, the radar stations, at least as we understand them, that found these dramatic changes in altitude, were fairly far away from this object. why didn't malaysian officials respond in realtime to something like this? if it's in your air space and you see an unidentified flying object changing altitude, you think you would have done something about it, right? >> we only have so much insight into a lot of these things. what has confused the americans on this is some pings that came off the rolls-royce engine that was on the plane. that shows that the plane fell 40,000 feet in the span of a minute. but when the u.s. looked at that information, they said that doesn't make any sense. that's unconceivable. but at the same time it's thrown
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in with this mix of other information they're looking at, saying how do you make heads or tails of any of this? one of the problems the americans have had on this is the malaysians have not shared everything with them, and the u.s. government and investigators feel like they're on the outside looking in, saying hey, we have a lot of expertise here and investigatively and air wise, there's just not a lot of communication going on there. >> barbara, before we go, there are still questions. the reporting now is, more clear and more solid than it has been. but there's still questions, right? we still don't know exactly what we know or don't know. but that being said, what are you hearing about motive? obviously, are you still hearing mechanical malfunction is possible, or whether this was a pilot decision or someone else on the plane, some sort of a hijacking situation?
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>> i have to tell you, a week ago they were not ruling anything out. but looking at every single scenario, and essentially gaming it out, trying to see if they carry it to a conclusion in their analysis, does it give them any clues that they can work on? nothing is certain in any of this. >> thank you very much, michael and barbara there with the very latest reporting. a dramatic and sudden changes in altitude and multiple changes in direction with a plane that flew for up to five hours after finally losing contact with ground control. joining me now, major general james "spider" marks. spider, let me ask you in terms of motive. now that we have these two pieces, even with all the question marks that surround this latest reporting, this is a significant breakthrough in reporting from both barbara and michael. what do you think now was the motive, was the intent? what drove this? >> well, clearly in my mind, what the largest missing piece
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in all of this, erin, there has been very little discussion, and if it's taking place, we just don't know about it. in terms of the 239 souls that were on that airplane, and all the folks that touched that airplane, the ground crew, the air crew, folks who sold tickets, the folks that worked at the airport, 24 hours before that thing took off and then disappeared. so what we need to do is put some hard core forensics investigation look. if this was taking place in the united states, i can guaranty we would be all over, not just the pilots but everybody who was manifested on that airplane, and we get into lots of details in terms of where they visited online, who were there associations, et cetera. we just simply don't know. sltz you're going to be with us throughout the hour, but your background, counterintelligence in southern asia. you know a lot about this area. are you surprised according to the latest reporting we have here at championship that authorities in malaysia, while they've had police outside the
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pilot and co-pilot's homes, have not yet searched them? >> very surprised. the way i view this, there would be an inordinate amount of pressure coming from the united states and others to squeeze their way in, especially from the fbi, to squeeze our way in to make sure that we can begin to assist, completely open and transparent with the malaysians and that ostensibly hasn't taken place and i don't understand why. >> we'll be talking about there throughout the hour with these two significant developments in the story. our breaking news coverage continues tonight. when we come back, flight 370's dramatic changes in altitude. what does that mean when you talk about going from 45,000 feet down to 23,000 feet. we have a live demonstration inside a flight simulator live, next. and we'll talk to pilots who have flown then 777 about what happened in that cockpit.
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huge developments in flight 370. a u.s. official just telling barbara starr that radar showed erratic movements by a plane that the u.s. believes is flight 370. those movements happening in the early morning hours when that flight disappeared off radar. "the new york times" is also reporting that the missing airliner experienced significant chang changes altitude, going up to 45,000 feet, right after it made the sharp turn from the west, deviating from its flight path, and that is above the approved flight limit.
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that could be the most crucial part of this story. martin savidge is live in a 777 simulator right now. this is becoming the center of this entire story. i guess could you talk about first what it would be like to fly at 45,000 feet above the 43,100 foot approved level of this 777 plane? >> reporter: yeah, the real problem we're having here, because we've been trying to emulate in the simulator here what's been reported, it's almost beyond the laws of physics and the physical ability of an aircraft to do at least what has been described in the article and described by those radar signatures. we're at 45,000 feet. the automatic pilot won't go this high. the airplane was never designed to fly this high. let me show you the controls we're dealing with here. these yellow lines, one on top, one on the bottom. normally they should be far apart. what this indicates, this aircraft, at this altitude, is teetering on the brink of disaster. it has to be flown manually to
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reach this altitude, and we should point out that mitchell is flying. what would the controls feel like at this altitude? >> very, very unstable. almost to the point where they're uncontrollable. akin to trying to juggle while you're on a unicycle blind. you can pick up the craziest analogy possible. >> reporter: what would the passengers feel? >> very unstable, possibly unconscious. if you wanted to kill your passengers, this would be a good way to do it. >> reporter: there's no way to each simulate dropping 40,000 feet in a minute. but we're going to push the plane as steeply as we can and there's all sorts of things that go wrong. what is this telling us? >> that we're sinking close
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to -- this is 40,000 feet per minute, approaching 700 miles an hour. the plane would be breaking apart at this point. >> reporter: this is where stuff is falling off the aircraft at this point. it would make it almost impossible to fly, which then that brings us to the next thing, trying to level off to think that this airplane was then reported to level off at 23,000 feet, it's hard to believe it was still structurally in tact to do that. and then the g-forces alone on the passengers would be -- >> astronomical. >> reporter: almost to the point of lethal. so that's why when you put it through the simulator, it doesn't even seem possible. >> all right. martin, that's just incredible. i think that sort of speaks a thousand words when you see that in the simulator. i want to go to a pilot of a
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777, mark weiss is here with me. you just watched that simulation. so i guess let me just start with the first thing, flying at 45,000 feet as was reported. i want to put a caveat on this. "the new york times" and barbara starr was saying this is based off military radar off the ground, that would have been 100 or more miles away, which means this may not be accurate. but with the information we have, about 45,000 feet, that's above the 43,100 level approved. so why is that the level that's approved. what happens at 45,000 feet to the people on the plane? >> let's talk about what happens to the wing aerodynamically. molecules are very close together, it's supporting the lift on a wing. as you go higher, the molecules of air are further and further apart. it's not going to be able to support the weight of the aircraft or the wing. so the aircraft is going to be
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on a teeter totter and descend immediately. 40,000 feet, when you hear something like that, going down 40,000 feet in one moment, for myself, that makes me very skeptical that that is accurate. >> we are hearing from the engine maker, that may be an false reading. but if it goes back down do 23,000 feet and then goes back up again and levels off and then flies on a relatively straight path as barbara starr is reporting, is that something as a pilot that would believe conceivable? >> not really. let's just take the premise that even if these numbers are close to where the altitudes would have been, how would that have happened? it might say either there was incapacitation of some of the crew members in the cockpit, would that have come from a struggle in the airplane? that seems to be -- could fit one scenario, that trying to gain control over that aircraft
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and being pulling back and pushing forward, turning, that certainly is a potential. again, as we mentioned over the last few days, until you get the voice recorder, certainly the flight data recorder, but the voice recorder in particular, you don't even know who was flying and controlling the aircraft movements. >> i know you have been a proponent thinking there was a hijacking. but marty, what about the difficulty of moving altitudes so quickly, as that was happening, the reporting is showing that the plane was dramatically changing direction, moving around. and then settling on what appears at this point to have been a straight path. what does that look like from a simulator? >> reporter: here we're going to try to show you a sharp turn. the problem is, what is a sharp turn? there's no definition. for a commercial airliner, if you went above 30 degrees in a turn, and let's do that, let's turn. that's about the max that any
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commercial airliner would do, but let's go 40 degrees of turn. another alarm starts to sound. this is telling us you're turning too steeply here, and if you push it beyond that point, mitchell, now we start to run into aircraft is beginning to do a spiral. an airplane like this was never designed to do anything like that. you're now in what could be a death spiral. again, what is a sharp turn? we pushed it beyond what this airplane could do. >> mark, we were just talking -- as marty was saying, the spiral, mark was making the spiral motion, how hard would it be? i know you're a proponent someone else went into the cockpit. how hard is it to learn to turn a plane if you're not a pilot? >> not hard at all. but depending on where you are and what you're trying to
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accomplish, are you trying to accomplish turning the aircraft with a heading mode or how are you trying to turn the aircraft, whether the plane is on an autopilot or not, it's not hard to learn. so anybody with basic flying skills or a little bit of training could have maneuvered the aircraft to make a turn. that doesn't mean that the person that tried to do this had very good piloting skills. >> thank you very much to michael weiss and martin savidge. as you can see, there are still so many more questions that some of the reporting that is coming out, this breakthrough reporting with the altitude shifts and changes in direction don't necessarily at this point seem to add up with reality. there are still so many questions. as we get more information about where this jet may be. next, family members of the passengers say they hope flight 370 was the victim of a hijacking and you'll hear why. u.s. officials say the flight likely crashed into the indian
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at a company that's bringing media and technology together. next is every second of nbcuniversal's coverage 0f the 2014 olympic winter games. it's connecting over one million low-income americans to broadband internet at home. it's a place named one america's most veteran friendly employers. next is information and entertainment in ways you never thought possible. welcome to what's next. comcastnbcuniversal. breaking news coverage in the malaysian airlines jet which disappeared a week ago. about ten minutes from now a week ago we got the first report. a u.s. official tells barbara starr radar readings show erratic movements were made by a
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plane the u.s. believes was flight 370. those movements were made right after that turn. "the new york times" is reporting the plane experienced those sharp altitude changes right after it lost contact with ground control that. point is on the right of the screen, the sight of last control. then it proceeded all the way out there past the straits of malacca and either turned north or south, according to american officials. for the families of those missing, it's been an agonizing wait for answers. some are still clinging to hope that their loved ones have landed somewhere and are still alive. david mckenzie is in beijing. obviously, a lot of the family members are there with you. the plane was expected to have landed about this time in beijing a week ago. what are you hearing now from loved ones who had family on that flight? >> reporter: these developments have been confusing, frustrating and angering to the family members. as you say, a week exactly since this plane was due to land in
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beijing, with those more than 230 passengers and crew on board. and the worst case scenario for many in an airline investigation is hijacking for the families. that's become the best case scenario. >> translator: this situation has broken my heart. my tears have run dry. i hope the plane was hijacked because then at least there is hope. >> reporter: that hope is really what they're clinging to, but after so many days, it's extremely unlikely anyone survived. what we can presume is a crash. but all these theories that perhaps the plane landed and went somewhere else. for the family members here and around the world who are connected very personally to this flight, for them, that is the hope they want to believe, even though logically speaking, they don't. and counselors say this not
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knowing, through all these days, though intriguing to many of us to try and figure it out, for them it's incredibly traumatic. >> david, thank you very much. we should emphasize, u.s. officials telling barbara starr they believe the plane once it went north or south in the indian ocean, did crash. but they are leaving every possible option on the table and not ruling out some sort of a landing. up next, we have more breaking news coverage on the erratic movements in the air experienced by flight 370 in terms of the altitude. and a new report claims the jet made those sharp changes after losing contact with ground control. does that mean someone seized control of the cockpit or was a pilot involved? we have experts on hand who are going to talk about that issue and u.s. officials believe the plane flew those two possible pa paths. where is the u.s. navy looking right now? we're going to go there live, next. i reckon a storm's a brewin'.
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more on our breaking news on the missing malaysian airlines jet. a u.s. official says radar readings show erratic movements were made by a play the united states believes was flight 370 on the morning it vanished. "the new york times" is also reporting that the jet, which had 239 on board, went through several sharp altitude changes after its last known contact with ground control. cnn has also learned that the
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plane continued to fly in tact for more than five hours after the last known contact on one of two possible -- in two possible directions probably the best way to say it. either in the northwesterly direction, crashing in the bay of bengal off the coast of india, or in the southeast direction, crashing in the indian ocean. i want to make two clear points here. these two areas that are now being searched are in the opposite direction of where that plane was flying. that plane was supposed to fly north over vietnam up to beijing. so this plane changed direction and going somewhere it was not supposed to go. and the word crash, u.s. officials say the plane did end with a crash, but they are leaving other options on the table at this moment, even though they are remote in possible. out front tonight, major again spider marks and john nance.
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great to have both of you with us. there's so much here to talk about. but when we put this reporting together, john, we have a plane that turned off of its flight path, started to switch direction dramatically, switch altitude dramatically and seemed to level out heading out. and then made a choice, i'm going to go left or right. when you put all that together, let's faulk about motive. who would want to do this or could this have happened in any way, shape or form with everybody on the plane being incapacitated or dead, the plane just kept flying? >> i think not. i think that's ruled out by the very physiology of it. the aircraft is not going to make course changes. it might make altitude changes. if this plane went up to 45,000 feet after it turned off course and it sustained that 45,000 foot altitude, which is above
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its ceiling for any length of time, there's only one reason to do that, and that is to incapacitate or kill all the passengers. that would explain coming down for a more comfortable altitude for the pilots. >> the passengers in the back, when you talk about the mask, i know this is technical, but would those masks not come down to the people in the back of the plane? >> even if they come down, they're only designed to give you enough oxygen to sustain you without any brain damage from the highest altitude you can fly a jet at, 43,000 feet, below 14,000. they're never designed to stay up there. and they'll run out of oxygen in 10, 15 minutes. on top of that, there were walk around bottles that the crew can get on. those are breathable, even up to 45,000 with the
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depressurization. but those will run out, too. only the crew oxygen in the cockpit will sustain. >> it sounds like you're saying, you believe that this was not just purposeful in terms of someone taking over the jet, but the decision to go up to 45,000 feet, which emphasize is a general altitude, because it's coming from radar on the ground, but you're saying that altitude, that choice to go above the approved altitude is very purposeful? >> yeah, i'm staying when you look -- we don't know, obviously. we really don't know, we're just speculating. but with these facts on the table, if they are, in fact, facts, they make sense in a very twisted way. and that's the problem. you would not have that kind of of ascent to 45,000 unless there was a specific purpose for it. >> spider, what do you think happened? do you think that was a pilot
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who was on some sort of bizarre suicide mission or someone else? because i want to emphasis the reporting that that plane went out on the ocean and made a very sharp turn to go left or right, as if it was trying to go somewhere specific. >> right. i can't challenge anything john said nor would i want to. he's the expert in this field. i'm looking at this from the perspective of what were the motivations or priority this airplane taking off? and when it -- in order as i said earlier, you want to move the investigation left of when the aircraft kind of disappeared. so what occurred before all of that? what were the motivations of the individuals? and that, erin, is a very, very difficult, very unromantic and hard intelligence and forensics work in terms of all the souls that were on that aircraft and everybody who touched that aircraft. so the fact that it goes to 45,000 feet, that might be an inaccurate reading. it could be the deviation from
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the radar signal. so that could be wrong. so there's this cacophony of speculation, and that should be expected. but let's look at the facts as we know them and start with the folks on that aircraft and figure out their motivations and associations were. that's where we need to bend our elbows right now. >> as we reported, at least is our understanding, malaysian authorities have not searched the houses of either one of the pilots and the research they've done with two fake passports they said was linked to smuggling, not hijacking? >> why was that dispointed? >> thank you very much to both of you. we'll be back and talk more about this. i want to go to commander william marks, commander of the u.s. navy 7th fleet, assisting in the search for possible debris of the flight. commander, thank you very much for taking the time. when we look at the map where our cnn reporting has this jet
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turning north or south. you have the "uss kidd" in the southern region there. i know it is light there. what are they looking for right now? >> we, we do have the "uss kidd" in the northwest part of the strait of malacca, moving to the northwest now. but just to give you from the fleet perspective, which is from the tactical perspective, the scope of this operation, how huge we're looking. normally when you go into search and rescue mode, you launch your helicopters. so we have search and rescue helicopters. their range is a couple hundred miles. so that's kind of your radius there. the scope of this operation is so huge, it's almost beyond the
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capabilities. now, fortunately, the u.s. navy, we have the world's most advanced patrol search aircraft, and that range has a nine-hour or so flight time. that range is upwards of 1,000 miles out and then can come back. >> i know you're hoping that will make a significant difference, but this is the tough question but i have to ask it. it's been a week. people are saying the only things that would be floating would be maybe seats or life jackets, for now. how long do you keep looking? >> great question. at first, the way you look at it in the navy is that first 72 hours is critical for survivors. they can go without food and water that long, pretty much
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just on sheer will power. after that, it's anyone's guess. so very close coordination, every day you look at what we can do. you have to watch very closely. we have 700 sailors out here, young men and women of the u.s. navy we have to watch the fatigue level. we have to also watch fatigue on our equipment. so a person can't operate continuously for 24 hours. neither can a piece of equipment. so we're looking at that now. we do have a chaplain out there, we have flown grief counselors out there, because it is mentally and physically challenging. >> commander marks, thank you very much. we appreciate it. we hope everyone on the ship is all right. still to come, we'll show you what a significant altitude change would have looked like. again, as we know, these were dramatic.
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we don't know if these numbers are out there are 100% accurate, but it seems there were significant changes in altitude. tom forman. plus, a woman searching for answers 60 years after her father's plane disappeared. it's a stationery and gifts store. anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the game changing app from ink. we didn't get into business to spend time managing receipts, that's why we have ink. we like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. so you have time to focus on the things you love. ink from chase. so you can. so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 a month? yup. all 5 of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line, anytime, for $15 a month.
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breaking news coverage continues in the search for the malaysian airlines flight which disappeared one week ago at this hour. a u.s. official says erratic movements were shown on radar. officials tell barbara starr that they believe the jet likely went down in the indian ocean hours and hours away from where it was supposed to be playing. this is classified analysis. tom forman, this latest reporting that we have, how did officials determine this is where the plane could be since it was supposed to be over here and now we're saying it was possibly all the way over here? >> reporter: what they're trying is a brand new idea here, to use technology that isn't really meant to tell them this information. remember, this is the flight path of the plane here. here are the search areas. here are the expanded areas out to the west where the u.s. is now focusing, out to the bay of bengal and out more in the indian ocean. think about this, people on the
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sea for many years looked tat stars to figure out where they are. this is reversing the process in a sense and using a star in this case a stationary satellite, a geostationary satellite, meaning it's always above the exact same spot on earth. this satellite, through the acars system, reaches down to earth and sends a signal. we light this up for a moment, and it does an electronic hand shake with the airplane on the ground. it sends a signal, the airplane answers with a signal, then everything is green and the satellite can communicate with the plane. an hour later, it does the same thing. this happened five times in the course of the time after the plane disappeared from all communications. five times the satellite said, is there a plane down there like this plane? five times the plane answered and then it did not answer. this satellite is not designed to tell you where these planes
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are specifically, but if you reverse that process that i was describing of somebody at sea, looking at the stars to figure out where they are, if you reverse that trigonometry and say i'm going to use this satellite to give me an idea where that plane would have been in an hour after its last successful hand shake, you wind up with these areas. that's why the u.s. is focusing so much here. >> tom, thank you very much. i want to bring in a captain that's flown the 777 and john nance is back with us. les, let me start with you. people have been talking about hijacking or pilot suicide. but five hours this plane may have flown, dramatic altitude changes and turns and you still think it's possible it was mechanical? >> i'm very skeptical.
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when you talk about losing 40,000 feet or just dramatic amounts of altitude, it's just impossible to me. which means that the data, if it was coming from the engines, there's a possibility that that data was corrupted. maybe a de-icing situation, even though we're saying it was clear air. we don't know. now i'm talking about a situation from the engines itself, because the everythings have a similar system to the airplane itself. >> the pedo tubes, which were in a different part of the plane responsible for the crash of air france flight 447. but the dramatic changes in direction could have happened because the flight crew was dealing with something else? >> my contention is something was occurring down below the galley, where it was disabling the entire guts of the airplane,
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the electronic guts of the airplane and they were having problems controlling the airplane. >> john, your point of view is that this suggests a struggle in the cockpit? >> les could be right, but it is a very low probability in my view, and it continues to deteriorate in terms of probability with the things we're learning. it doesn't mean it couldn't be mechanical, i just think it's a low possibility at this point. >> john, given what we know how the plane was moving in terms this was driven by the pilots of the plane or somebody else who came in and inka pass tated or controlled those pilots? >> with everything we know, if it is all factual, internal or external hijacking. internal meaning the pilots, external meaning somebody burst into the cockpit. we have positive control here and a twisted rational for being
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at 45,000 feet, even at 25,400 feet. it makes sense. >> before we go, if this was someone trying to take this plane somewhere else and land this plane, the u.s. government is believing that it crashed into the ocean, but trying to land it, do you think given what we know about the erratic movements that the person in charge would have known how to do that? >> i doubt it very much. you're talking about landing a very sophisticated airplane in possible remote areas. where are they going to cover it up? they would have to have more flying skills than i think was demonstrated to do what might be on that data. >> well, thank you both very much. >> he's right. motive is one of the problems here. >> motive is one of the problems and as we try to figure out what might have happened, again, we have to emphasize there hasn't
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been increase in chatter from known terrorist groups. still to come, more than 60 byears after her father's plane vanished, one woman is still looking for closure tonight. we'll be right back. not just a start up. an upstart. gotta get going. gotta be good. good? good. growth is the goal. how do we do that? i talked to ups. they'll help us out. new technology. smart advice. we focus on the business and they take care of the logistics. ups? good going. we get good. that's great. great. great. great. great. great. great. great. great. (all) great! i love logistics. they don't know it yet, but they're gonna fall in love, get married, have a couple of kids, [ children laughing ] move to the country, and live a long, happy life together where they almost never fight about money. [ dog barks ] because right after they get married, they'll find some financial folks who will talk to them about preparing early for retirement
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and be able to focus on other things, like each other, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade.
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the disappearance of flight 370 isn't just weighing on the families of the passengers own board, it's causing the surviving family members of other plane crashes to relive
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their tragedies. we talked to a woman whose father's plane vanished more than 60 years ago but she can't find the closure she needs. >> reporter: 64 years later, and the pain is still there for darlene larson. when she was just 5 years old, her father, leo, was flying home to his wife and seven children after a business trip. on june 23rd, 1950, he boarded northwest orient flight 2501 heading to minnesota. it never made it. vanishing somewhere over lake michigan. >> i was awoken by my mother crying. she did her best to try to tell me what had happened, that my father was gone and would not be coming back. >> reporter: the flight was at that time america's worst aviation disaster. the plane, except for some bits of human remains, was never found. the cause never determined. the 58 passengers never recovered. >> it's hard to concept, because
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you don't have something to hold to. like a funeral or casket or a grave. i was certain that he was wandering around the streets of chicago with amnesia and he would one day realize where he was and come home. >> there in lies much of the mystery. >> reporter: valley has interviewed more than 200 family members of the passengers from flight 2501. >> they don't understand it really happened. it's hard to conceive of an accident killing a loved one if you don't have their body. the mystery of what happened to flight 2501 is a mystery that's plagued these people for now 64 years. >> reporter: haunted by the family's stories, a search team has been hting lake michigan for the plane's debris. >> ultimately finding that plane on the bottom of the lake would provide the final answers.
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that's what we hope can happen with the malaysian airlines accident. we need answers. >> reporter: answers that the families of flight 2501 never got. darlene larson and her six siblings grew up without their father. her mother never remarried. and asked that her ashes be spread at the suspected crash site so she could find her husband in death. a single grave site where some of the unidentified human remains are buried marks the loss of all aboard the fateful flight. the living still coping. >> it's eerie just wondering and just not knowing what actually happened. >> so while most of us are riveted by all this coverage of the malaysian airlines, darlene larson can't watch it saying it's too traumatic and too familiar. erin? >> as david mckenzie put it so
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eloquently, while there's so much intreeg for people around the world, it's been anguishing time that hope of a hijack. "weed ♪ in his documentary "weed" -- >> you've looked at the evidence. >> there's real since out there. >> a year-long journey that changed what many of us thought about marijuana, myself included. >> i think we've been terribly and systematically misled. >> we used to only picture this. then we showed you this. medical marijuana treating seizures, pain, dozens of other ailments. >> charlotte is doing amazing, better and better each month. >> but we learned this wasn't the end of the story, it was just the beginning. >> i think we went from about 150 calls a month to over 4,000. >> there's still so many issues to be addressed. the ra

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