hospital this morning after a traffic stop turned into a shoot-out. investigators say the 6-year veteran was hit when the driver got out of the car, and suddenly shot at him. police returned fire. that driver was killed. fire burned through a california school bus, 35 middle school students were on board when the bus began to smoke. the driver is hailed a hero. she was able to evacuate all of the kids before the bus exploded. amazing. >> that's it for us this morning. >> "smerconish" starts now. i'm michael smerconish. welcome to the program. you have heard all about the tragedy of germanwings flight 9525 i've been watching the coverage on cnn closely all week. and i have particular questions that haven't been answered. so today i've invited several experts to get the answers i think we're all looking for, among the things i want to know was this crime premeditated? in other words how could andreas lubitz have known that the

captain would have to go and use the bathroom giving him time to change the flight course. did he make his terrible decision in the spur of a moment? another question even though this area plane was shredded like confetti is there a way to retrieve the texts, e-mails, the videos that passengers likely took and wrote in the last terrible minutes? here's one more. what's the duty of a mental health professional to report on a troubled pilot? our experts are here to break it down but first, to the very latest of what's happening right now on the ground. cnn's frederick is in germany with more. i know that the newspaper has spoken to a former girlfriend. what is she saying? >> reporter: well she's saying she was together with andreas lubitz for about five months last year. she said or described him as a very sensitive man, someone who needed a lot of care attention, who could also be quite flattering. she was an airline stewardess

herself but he was someone who had a dark side. someone who at night would wake up because he was having bad dreams someone who would go into rages when they had fights who apparently locked himself in the bathroom once for an extended period of time. she says ultimately the reason why they split up was she was starting to become afraid of him and she said that it was clear to her that he had some sort of psychological problems but it was certainly something she said he was trying to hide because of course he'd always had this big dream of being a pilot and didn't want it destroyed by the fact that ehe had health issues. >> a gliding acquaintance says lubitz was familiar with the area around the crash site. what are you hearing about that? >> reporter: it's interesting because he was part of an aeronautics and hand gliding club in his town of montabaur. strangely that club quite frequently went to excursions

down to southern france, to the foothills of the alps. so apparently lubitz was familiar with the terrain there. this acquaintance of his says that the club was there about ten times and he does recall at least one time that lubitz was there. there is another report saying that lubitz was obsessed by the alps that he loved the mountains there, and so certainly he would have known the terrain where he crashed and the acquaintance said he was very familiar actually with the crash site itself with that area around there. he says he's flown over that many, many times. >> finally, today's new york times says that thols physician notes found in his apartment were from different doctors, suggesting perhaps that he went for a second opinion as to his fitness, his relative fitness. do you know anything about that? >> reporter: "the new york times" is saying he went and tried to get a second opinion. we reached out to the university medical center in dusseldorf which is a town that he lived

in. they confirmed that he was there for diagnostics twice this year. it wasn't for depression they didn't say however, whether it might have been for some other mental problem. certainly the doctors notes found inside his apartment, there seemed to be several of them and of course the state prosecutor said that they had been destroyed in attempt to try to hide from his employer that he had some sort of illness, that he was dealing with by the way, for an extended period of time the medical records show. but again, we're trying to find out what exactly he was suffering from. there are many outlets reporting it was some sort of depression related thing. what exactly we don't know. >> thank you very much. let's dive into all of this now. joining me is a psychiatrist dr. gaels salts and safety analyst and former faa inspector david susie. i'd like to cover a lot of ground. david, is this the way you would do it? is this the way that a pilot

seeking to crash an airplane would go about it by manually switching the auto pilot from 33,000 feet to 96 feet isn't there a faster way? >> historically there has been and there has been done this way with egypt air and silk air, it's violent movement. this is different. but it is also a different aircraft. this is designed to protect itself from that kind of thing. so to put it forward it wouldn't let you do that. wouldn't let you just go into an uncontrolled descent. >> this was probably sick to ask but probably the most expeditious way. >> i suppose that's correct. >> why doesn't a guy like this kill himself outside that aircraft instead of 149 with him? >> what was his motive? the vast majority of killing yourself if you are depressed. only 2.5% are really killing somebody else and usually it's killing one other person a person that you're angry at.

so this is vanishingly rare. and this is a mass murder. which makes you think about things like sosyopathy rage, desire for infamy. those things would be motivators. >> i heard many draw conclusions about his breathing, he was able to maintain normal breathing. it strikes me as a lay person that you're only able to evaluate the breathing in the context of other factors that we now know, like changing the flight altitude. the breathing alone he could have had a heart attack and maintained breathing. >> you can. you can lose consciousness and maintain breathing. it must have been a combination that made them think he was awake. >> let's talk about the toggling of that lock switch. if the co-pilot toggled the door control to lock and thereby disabled emergency access for five minutes, is there anything that the pilot, who is trapped in the cabin, could do to gain access? >> nothing at all. >> as long as he keeps his

finger on the button in a lock position. >> and past five minutes he could discontinue to hold it down. >> there are reports after five minutes there is a burst of 30 seconds of opportunity that would allow the pilot to come back in. >> after the -- only after the five minutes can you enter the code which then triggers the 30 seconds period to notify the captain, if the captain does not respond by opening the door or locking the door the door actually opens for five seconds by itself. >> doctor he would have had to main taken an amazing level of constitution to hear the pilot outside banging on the door trying to break down the door and then in the end, people screaming for as long as nine minutes, maintain that breathing, and continue to do that which he was doing. >> i think there are two possibilities. one is that you know this was premeditated this is a person who's thought a lot about this and does not have the empathy to be concerned about that. in other words, we're talking

about sociopathy. this is what they wanted so it's not going to upset them. the other possibility is that you know they have suffered so much themselves that the relative suffering of others is not that disturbing to them. >> he is able to put on blinders for hearing purposes. and block it out. >> it doesn't mean it was blocked out. it may mean that it fit with whatever -- this is completely conjecture you have to realize. we don't know what was in his mind. when people internally suffer terrible depression or psychosis, i mean it is utter torment. and that kind of torment might really surpass the idea that other people would be screaming or frightened. >> david, the faa two tern in the cockpit rule was designed to address incapacitation on the part of a pilot. is it appropriate in a circumstance like this will it thwart a pilot who has turned bad? >> we should clarify why the

rule is in place. the only reason that's in place originally is the fact that there was -- there were no cameras to identify someone trying to get in. so they had to have a second person there because looking through a peep hole tool identify who that person is. that was the original. but the second part of your question sorry, kind of got side tracked. >> twhil new method of requiring two individuals in the cockpit will that necessarily prevent a cockpit, a pilot who turns -- >> it will because since that's implemented and the airlines that it has been implemented in there has been no attempts not even attempts at suicide or any disruption in the cockpit since that rule. >> i add it's very different to have people behind you that are anonymous in a plane you're killing and somebody that you actually take on in a cockpit. >> deterrent than prevention. this is not going to stop an attack that's started. what it will do is prevent one from starting in the first place. >> canopy lot treated for mental health issues maintain his or her career or is this a

professional death sentence? >> absolutely they can main taken their career. the issue is the beginning of treatment. so you want to stop them from being responsible for other people when they are in the depths of the illness. and when they are beginning medication which has some risk with it. we know that it may increase agitation or suicide risk at the beginning of medication. that's why pilots aren't supposed to fly then. these are -- let's put it this way. if it is depression it is a treatable il n and once it is treated somebody is like anybody else. one out of every ten people get depression. are we going to say that those people should never be responsible for any one else? then one out of ten should never drive, one out of ten should never -- it doesn't make sense. the point is when depression is resolved you are back to functional. >> one of the few cases i remember from law school i can cite by name is the terror soft case. what is the duty on the part of a mental health practitioner

dealing with someone like him,ing we presume, but presuming he is unfight is there a durty to report him to the employer? >> so the duty to warn for a psychiatrist or mental health care worker is basically if the parent has in any way let you know that they are a risk to themselves or other people. so had he said anything about you know i have a plan or i want to do this or even i want to kill myself that psychiatrist would have a duty to warn law enforcement or whoever is deemed at risk. so if he says something about taking down a plane, of course that would be the employer or you know whoever he mentioned. if he said i want to get my girlfriend. that he would -- you would have a duty to warn the girlfriend. but this is a person who everybody is saying was secretive. and psychiatrists aren't mind readers so if he mentioned nothing of any of this then actually the psychiatrist has a duty to keep confidentiality. i know people have said hey -- do we go too far? the question is this.

this man probably would never have come into treatment at all if -- that's the issue really if you think you have no confidentiality, you say i have depression and now i'm going to report it to your employer you're never going to come in the first place. >> to a lay person it sounds frightening. i've seen the list of medications that according to the faa standard that one can be on and still be working. >> yes. >> you want to dissuade me from my discomfort? >> yes, i do. balls i think that you have to look at what are the specific side effects of those medications. if we're talking about medical problems if the only person who could fly is somebody who is on zero medications, has zero medical problems then we're probably taking out any one who has experience the very person that we want to be flying for us. so i think that what people have to understand is psychiatric illnesses can impair you in a short-term but once treated not in the long term. psychotic disorder like schizophrenia that's a different

story. >> it troubles me, let's make the presumption and let the audience know this is based on conjecture and reporting. it troubles me to think mental health professional would have deemed him unfit, for what not to be a cnn host they knew he was a pilot. unfit to take command of 149 other lives. >> we don't know. we don't know if that's true. we knew somebody wrote a note that said you may not work this day. now, i don't know if that was permission not to work if that was by that doctor -- >> the times is reporting today that multiple physicians two or more that would suggest that he went for a second opinion. >> did they know he was apy not have did they know he was a pilot? >> i'm assuming that they do. >> there is no way to know. unless you are a medical examiner designated by the faa, the european association, you wouldn't know. there is no -- if he doesn't tell you i'm a pilot how would you know? >> i would say this. if it was a mental health professional who said you are

too depressed to be flying in my opinion, then yes, i would say that would be a duty to warn. >> is this finally the instance that brings about real time transmission of cockpit data? >> i can hope so. here is something really historical with this event. there's already been action taken, there has been safety measures taken, they -- not only the airlines have taken measures to say we do need two people in the cockpit now as a mitigation but the regulatory authority themselves they totally skipped right over this part of figuring out what happened and then applying the regulation which is incredibly time consuming, flight 447 we're still waiting on things to respond to that accident. but this is different. this is very different. there is a shift in the culture and i think partly because of all of the exposure that the airlines in this industry have gotten. >> the pilot union has stood in opposition to the idea of real time transmission of data. how in the face of this and all

of the questions that remain can they uphold that? >> what they are really against, and have been which i think is not the case now, is that the transmission of real time video data. the transmission of actual data it happens all the time. information from the aircraft. now the audio and video is what they are objecting to. >> if i work at a 7-11 there's video recorded of what i do for a living. >> surveillance from the time they drive to work. >> can i make another suggestion. shouldn't there be some means from the cabin of alerting forces on the ground that hey, there is something going on in the cockpit? >> there are in new aircraft. there is a way to do that. it's not regulated but part of a mains thing. it sends information. the seat back on seat 5 d doesn't work. they type it in. straight to maintenance. by the time the aircraft lands the parts are there, ready to fix it. that's the technology we're looking at. >> on the ground they could unlock the door i'm saying right. if they knew there was a problem

and a way to unlock the door. something like this -- >> now we're talking about remote control. that's a big subject. >> a pilot who is a friend of mine an aviation attorney at home in philadelphia he said don't underestimate that biannual review of those who maintain the license to fly. he said that the interaction with the faa airmen there is a degree of mental health review that takes place in that process. either of you want to respond? >> very, very small. i think insufficient. i think that in the biannual review both a psychological and mental review. >> there is not a litmuls test. you can't say hey, this guy is okay and this is not. so what happens is with the faa we encourage them to say get a relationship with this person try to get in their head. >> that's not a trained professional. there are rudimentary

minimalistic reviews any primary care physician could do that would be somewhat of a check list. >> dare i say it seems to me that the system that we have generally works, in this case this guy, if in fact he was washed out of training for a time period because of mental health issues he should have been gone. that's the answer. >> he was brought back he should have at least -- there should be reviews like the six month reviews because we know someone had a history of depression can have it again. >> thank you, you got through three quarters of my list. the rest of the program i'm getting to everything else. thank you. we have so much more to get to. coming up what if during the last minutes passengers were able to reach out to loved ones with e-mails, texts, videos there could be evidence out there. the plane may be completely destroyed but we'll find out if it's technically possible to retrieve the final moments.

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daunting task of combing through the french mountainside for clues to exactly what may have led the co-pilot to deliberately crash the plane. a significant piece to the puzzle whether passengers on board left any evidence that shows exactly what was going on as the plane went down. despite the fact that the plane is completely destroyed could investigators find any form of electronic data like e-mails, texts or cell phone video. let's get more on this from cnn technology correspondent samuel burke. i flew on an a-320 yesterday. i had wi-fi, i was sending e-mail i could have watched a movie had i chosen to. by now presumably we know if any one had been able to successfully send a text e-mail video of what was transpiring. that hasn't taken place. does that mean all is lost? >> absolutely not. there is still a chance that there's some type of information, photos videos on a cell phone that may be wasn't sent to somebody but could be backed up in the cloud.

i think it may sound ridiculous to some that people would have a phone out in this type of situation, but the truth is michael, this is exactly what people do now. we have so many instances, just go on youtube and type in air turbulence. when people think the plane is about to crash this is what they do. this is a video of a flight that was going from south korea to dallas. you hear people on there saying good-bye to their wives, to their children praying. and this is literally people what they think could be the last moments of their life this is what many -- what the new generation does. >> in my understanding you to say you wouldn't necessarily have had to transmit it. so if i had my iphone on that flight and if the i had taken video but i didn't even try to send it or i true ied to send it but i didn't have service so i couldn't it might never the less be in the cloud. >> absolutely. for instance i use flicker and it automatically updates all of my photos and videos to the flicker website and many people do the same thing with icloud so that even if you didn't send it

to your wife or to whomever it's still backed up on a server. >> even without cell service? >> here's the thing. germanwings does not have wi-fi. we know it doesn't have wi-fi. but you have to remember they were getting closer to the ground so they may -- there is a much greater likelihood at that point you're starting to get cell service, starting to get 3 g, maybe 4g. maybe the internet is picking up even though is a brief amount of time it om takes a few seconds for a photo to start syncing and going into the cloud. >> next question. assume that is the case which would be wonderful from an evidentiary standpoint. who gets access? >> you would assume the authorities would get access but the answer to that is no the authorities wouldn't get access at least not immediately because things are so well encrypted now, many of these tech companies after the snowden revelations have moved to encrypt things so tightly that not even the tech companies can get in the they want. the authorities might be able to go to the tech companies, say sorry, there is nothing we can

do because they don't have the keys. so what it would take is somebody going into their loved ones their icloud account, some other cloud service where it's backed up, finding the photos videos e-mails, whatever content might have been saved and then giving it to the authorities. >> i'm not making light but i presume those family members would then be putting in the family pet names and all of the other usual suspects for what the pass codes, because you need the pass code. >> is many loved ones know the pass words of their wives, of their husbands but right. a lot of times people -- this is a situation not just people who died in a plane crash. the situation that a lot of family members find themselves in when a loved one died. they want access to their phone, to their g mail account they go in and start guessing. and the truth is many times loved ones know those hints, where did you grow up what was your maiden name that is something a loved one knows and can try to get into the account. >> a great point. i assume that the law is still

unresolved in this area. if you lose a loved one, their personal effects, their papers letters and so forth. they become whomever is the beneficiary of the estate. is the law yet settleded in terms of social 3450edia. you have their phone, computer can you necessarily get access? >> technology has movedm much faster than legislation. in many places this is a gray area. going into somebody's account, if you know their pass word but trying to essentially hack your way in it is illegal in some places. but again, does anybody know that you're doing it? you could say you got the e-mails and they were delivered to you. it's a gray zone and we're seeing technology companies now trying to put measures in place that so i can give you access to my account if the i die. it's kind of a digital will if you will. and we're starting to see companies like facebook, like google put measures in place. >> bottom line you presume that at this moment 149 grieving families are trying to get

access to whatever the technology the cyber evidence might be of their loved ones. >> absolutely. if i were in the situation this horrible situation many of these families find themselves in i would absolutely be trying to get into the flicker account, if i had the pass word and trying to see if there is evidence i could provide to the authorities. >> excellent report. thank you. samuel burke. coming up officials say the captain of flight 9525 tried for nearly ten minutes to break into the cockpit. but was unsuccessful. could post-9/11 security measures played a role. technology is out there that would allow authorities to take complete remote control of the plane from the ground. we'll tell you more about that. ven't slept... you're not you. tylenol® pm relieves pain and helps you fall fast asleep and stay asleep. we give you a better night. you're a better you all day. tylenol®. in my world, wall isn't a street. return on investment isn't the only return i'm looking forward to.

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welcome back. the terror attacks on 9/11 sparked increase security measures on airplanes to keep the bad guys out of the cockpit.

those made it possible for the co-pilot of the germanwings flight to go on a deadly path. the co-pilot deliberately carried out the disaster after locking the door. joining me is an analyst a former secretary for homeland security. can we blame this on bin laden? >> oh, well that's probably sort of too easy. let's say it is clear that cockpit -- changes to the cockpit door made after 9/11 which were absolutely necessary and i have to say absolutely successful if you're looking at the threat of passengers coming into the cockpit, that that actually had this just tragic irony of the kind of disasters we saw this week. so like everything else times change risks change and so security has to adapt to not -- you know a threat which is rare but none the less we've

seen which is a pilot or co-pilot bringing an airplane down. >> the faa of course has a two-person rule in the cockpit. we learned that. now other airlines including germanwings are falling in line in that standard. given your expertise in a national security area are you confident that's sufficient to ward off this type of a threat going forward? meaning from a pilot. >> well look no security measure is perfect so the way we think about it now in terms of -- especially in terms of a global transportation system is that you have layered defenses. so you look at the pilot, the passengers the luggage, what's going on at the airport and you put in so many different kinds of security defenses so that it makes anything that any one wants to do a little bit harder. nothing is going to be perfect. our global transportation system is only as strong as its weakest link so even if lufthansa puts the two pilot rule in you need universal rules. so that's a way to think about

security. it's not like we're going to do this and it's going to fix everything and there will never be a risk again. you want to put enough things in that make -- that minimize the risk for passengers or whoever else. i'm for videos in the cockpit. it doesn't make sense from a security perspective, it may not stop a pilot but it will help investigators and certainly the family members after the fact. >> how worried are you that the islamic state, al qaeda, isil isis whatever word choice you think appropriate are paying close attention and adding now to their play book? >> so they -- they are not idiots in the sense that they are looking at the news they see all sorts of vulnerabilities in our airport system and everywhere else in terms of soft targets. i tend to take the emotion out of this. the politics the psychology the ideology matter less to me than can we put in systems that will protect us from either the

sort of random co-pilot who may have psychological problems to an international terrorist organization that wants to bring down a plane. for security purposes the intent matters less than can you put a system in place that makes it harder for anyone regardless of ideology of harming a large number of people. >> i worry sometimes we overreact and have in a number of instances post-september 11 it seems given what we know there was a system in place here and it's not door that represented the failure, presumably the failure was on the part of the lufthansa subsidiary that had a guy working for them that there were plenty of red flags and still with 600 hours under his belt and a mental health issue he was permitted to fly. >> i think that's absolutely right. instead of looking only at the

cockpit door issue which i do think is an important thing to assess it's almost 15 years after september 11 security should is not remain the same. we have to be mobile and fluid in how we think about security. obviously there's an issue regarding the psychology of pilots. look the military has dealt with this issue, large institutions have to deal with this issue and get better at it. so we don't want to look one way and say we solved it. there's obviously a number of reasons for why this happened and why we didn't have defences in place to avert it from happening. we have to learn from both of them. we don't want to go in with blinders about it's the cockpit door. there are a variety of factors, some we may never know. some of them that could help avoid the next incident. that's just the way we have to look at it. it's no consolation to the family members but if we can learn how to do this better to avoid or at least minimize the likelihood that this happens again. >> absolutely.

>> then we learned from this tragedy. >> thank you. coming up much more of our coverage of the crash of germanwings flight 9525. what's next for the grieving families of the passengers on that doomed jet? an attorney who represented families from another high profile plane crash joins me to weigh in.

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so you stay active and strong. ensure, take life in. welcome back. while the crash of flights 9525 is uncommon it's not unheard of. tragedies like this have occurred in the past and in some cases air crash investigators found that the pilots expressed their intentions beforehand. that takes me to my next question. would the legal liability of germanwings be capped if the co-pilot deliberatery crashed the plane? joining me is mitch bowmister, an attorney that represented several victim families after the crash of egypt flight 990. that flight would seem anal guls to what we're dealing with here. remind us what the facts were. >> in egypt air 990, michael, we had a relief co-pilot individual who was not going to be promoted to captain, there were a bunch of personal issues

surrounding his conduct in the united states and in egypt, and he took off, was a flight from l.a. remained overnight at jfk, then at jfk to egypt flight. when they took off around nantucket, he as a relief pilot went in and took the controls the captain left the flight cockpit, left he then took control of the plane, said i put my hands in -- i put myself in god's hands, whatever will happen will happen and he lit early drove the plane into the ocean. the captain returned and got in the cockpit, and actually said to this relief pilot, pull with me do something, shut the power. help me. he continued to push the plane into the ocean. chanting in arabic that i'm in god's hands, god will take care of me. and essentially committed his own suicide as the ntsb said, the cause of the crash was due to his direct pilot inputs as a result of that he committed mass

murder as well as his own suicide. >> i remember that -- i remember that the ntsb came to that conclusion, is my memory accurate in that egypt air through the end refused to admit that's what the cause was? >> absolutely. having done this for 40 years and involved in every major crash, we have foreign carriers and foreign government it is many of the governments own the airlines we run into resistance for the professionalism of the ntsb. and they never wanted to acknowledge that their pilot had done this they wanted to blame it on some kind of mechanical error. you are 100% right. your memory is spot on. and that's what happened in 40 years i want you to understand and having been involved in the lockerbie disaster and representing the fellow -- the people todd beamer and jeremy glick in united 93 during 9/11 this is such a rare occurrence. as a pilot over 40 year this is is such a rare occurrence this is really the only time i have

ever seen egypt air 990, although recently they reported it may have happened in mozambique and of course now if the facts as stated are proven it will have happened here sadly and tragically in germanwings. >> will there be a cap on damages? >> there will not, michael. that's the second most important point. that's really one of the main reasons i'm here today. i want people to understand there's a lot of misinformation out there and i'm glad you asked me to come on. unlike a domestic crash, namely a flight wholly in the united states or domestic country, this tragedy is governed by the montreal convention. and in the montreal convention regardless of the pilot's actions, even -- as a former prosecutor who tried murder cases, even though this is a deliberate act, descending from altitude flying it into the mountain this will not -- not only not cap the damages, which are unlimited to the extent they are provable it will hold the

airline responsible under article 21 of the montreal convention. just quickly, article 21 says the carrier will pay above approximately 150,000 automatic damages paid to the families. the carrier will be responsible for full unlimited damages above that $150,000 unless it can prove that the crash was not due to the wrongful act of its agent in the course and scope of his or her employment and we know that's what happened here. or such crash was caused solely by the act of a third party. for example, flying over the ocean, and some foreign ship shot them down. neither one of these facts obtained there will be litigation under the montreal convention and there will be no cap or limit on the damages. p >> mitch, thank you so much.

>> thank you. coming up we'll head out live to germany with the latest on the crash investigation. plus ground personnel flying a jet liner by remote control. it's almost a reality. but is it a good idea? [ male announcer ] you wouldn't leave your car unprotected. but a lot of us leave our identities unprotected. nearly half a million cars were stolen in 2012. but for every car stolen 34 people had their identities stolen. identity thieves can steal your money

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welcome back. rescue crews are battling treacherous conditions to find bodies and that one missing black box. debris from flight 9525 scattered across rugged remote terrain in the french alps. let's get to cnn's frederik pleitgen live in dusseldorf with the very latest. fred it seems to me investigators would most want to speak to a former girlfriend to find out his mental state. >> reporter: well probably her and i'm guessing that his family as well. however, the newspaper, the

biggest tabloid in germany, has managed to speak to one of the ex-girlfriends and she said that andreas lubitz was a man who needed a lot of attention, a man who can be sensitive and flattering at times but also someone who apparently had a dark side to him. also she said he became erratic at times, he became very angry, especially when he was talking about his employer. he felt that germanwings wasn't treating him well. this was according to the build newspaper. it's a major point to these investigators to speak to anyone who had direct contact with andreas lubitz especially someone like a girlfriend someone like his parents, someone like his brother who he was living with as well michael. >> do we know anything about the investigation relative to medications he was on at the time of the crash or medications that he had stopped taking just before the crash? >> reporter: very little about medications. all that we have is from the prosecutor's office and they're saying that he was being treated

for some sort of illness, and that he had been treated for it for a very long time and he was seeing a doctor and also of course he had those sick notes he tore up. it's unclear what medications he might have been on but it's something investigators will be looking at as well. >> frederik pleitgen thank you for your support. coming up the possibility of pilotless aircraft is already being explored. we'll look at a new technology that could save a plane from being hijacked. sailor, and my daddy. thank you mom, for protecting my future. thank you for being my hero and my dad. military families are thankful for many things. the legacy of usaa auto insurance could be one of them. our world-class service earned usaa the top spot in a study of the most recommended large companies in america. if you're current or former military or their family, see if you're eligible to get an auto insurance quote. i am totally blind. and sometimes i struggle to sleep

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welcome back. the crash of the germanwings flight has reignited the debate about aircraft control.

there's already a technology that's been developed that would let authorities on the ground intervene if there's a crisis in the air. boeing has a patent and google has already conducted a test flight. so why isn't it being used? cnn's tom foreman has the answer. >> reporter: hey, michael. boeing has a patent google has had a test flight of one of these planes. big tech names all over the world are looking at this idea of airplanes that can be flown remotely from the ground in the belief that this might make them impervious from terrorist attacks, from criminal acts and from any other sort of assault. watch closely. this plane over england has a crew at the controls passengers in the back but something extraordinary is about to happen. a pilot on the ground is taking over. >> control. >> proceed. >> i have control. >> you have control. >> reporter: this is the $94

millions a s aastria project, one of several efforts around the world to develop planes that can be found remotely. >> what you can hear at the moment is the discussion with air traffic that's exactly the same discussion the pilots would be having if they were in charge of the steering of the aircraft. >> reporter: military success with drones has driven much of the interest and some efforts are focused on airplanes in hazardous conditions such as hurricane research and fighting wildfires. analysts say pilotless planes could be a $400 billion a year global business so why not passenger flights? first, the airline industry has a remarkable safety record despite high-profile disasters. many believe on-board pilots remain the most reliable way to handle problems and retrofitting planes would cost billions of dollars. and, second passengers may not be ready. robert i gogoyer is with "flying"

magazine. >> i start by asking myself that question. how would i feel getting into an airplane that don't have pilots up front, and i wouldn't do. >> reporter: there are still a lot of unanswered questions. for example, what happens if one of the planes gets free of electronic tether and what if terrorists take over a ground control station and in that fashion start controlling the plane. one answer would be to add more than one station at a time so any plane must be controlled from mult.points. even then what if somebody hacks into the data stream and they take over the plane that way. all of these questions will have to be answered because even though our planes are becoming more and more automated and some take off and land pretty much on their own, this idea of controlling one from the ground has to be worked out in much more detail before it becomes a reality. michael? >> thank you, tom. i'm reminded of the fact that elevators used to have operators as well. thank you so much for joining me. please don't forget you can follow me on twitter if you can twel spell smerconish.

i'll see you next week. investigators continue their search for answers behind the secret life of germanwings co-pilot andreas lubitz and why he would steer a jetliners into the mountainside. >> what authorities say the co-pilot actually did inside the cockpit moments before the crash. we'll take you inside a plane simulateder to show you what it looked like. and bowe bergdahl new inside from the u.s. soldier as to why he says he left his unit in afghanistan. will his strategy keep him out of prison? this is cnn breaking news. >> good morning. i'm alison kosik in for christi paul paul. >> i'm victor blackwell. we're in the cnn "newsroom" and you're starting this hour with breaking news. cnn is now able to confirm the identity of the captain of th