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tv   The Cycle  MSNBC  September 5, 2014 12:00pm-1:01pm PDT

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this morning. we are now told by his son who spoke to cnbc that larry glazer, who owns the plane and is a real estate developer in rochester along with his wife, jane, that they were the only two individuals onboard this plane. as of about 10:00 a.m., we're told they were unable to -- faa reports unable to have any communication with the plane and then it flew on and on and on on a direct line on the preprogram line towards naples, florida. it was flying off of the east coast of the united states but never made that turn to bank in towards naples. and in fact kept flying. so u.s. f-15s intercepted the plane off of the u.s. coast. they achieved altitude with this plane to 25,000 feet and did a visual on the pilot and they said it appeared that the pilot, his chest was moving. that would lead them to believe that he was breathing, but they also reported that he was unresponsive and may have been in fact collapsed over the controls of the plane.
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so the plane continued flying. those f-15s following it all the way to cuban airspace. they broke off as the plane entered cuban airspace. the plane flew right over cuba. u.s. authorities in contact with cuban authorities to let them know that they believed this was a medical emergency and there was no ill intent. the plane traversed cuba, came out the south side of cuba and headed right for jamaica, again, maintaining that straight line at 25,000 feet. then it lost altitude rather rapidly, descending and crashing into the ocean about 14 miles or so north of jamaica. so this occurred, according to jamaican authorities, within the last 30 minutes or so. we now have sound we're going to play for you. this is sound of the air traffic control -- rather of the radio communications between the air force pilots as they achieved altitude to try to check on the condition of the pilot. let's listen.
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>> i'm working an oxygen system problem on the plane. >> are they breathing? >> i can see his chest rising and falling. right before i left, the first time we could see that he was actually breathing. it may be a deal where depending on how fast they descend, he may regain consciousness once the aircraft starts descending for fuel. >> 3487. >> all right. so let me relay what was just said there. we wanted to get it on the air to you and are unable to create a graphic to quote them. one pilot said is he breathing? i can see his chest rising and falling. right before i left it was the first time we could see he was actually breathing. the second pilot says it may be a deal where depending on how fast they descend, he may regain
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consciousness once the aircraft starts descending for fuel starvation. so this was a conversation between the two air force f-15 pilots as they were checking on the status of this unresponsive pilot. but as you heard earlier on msnbc from the physician that we had on the air, once you have been starved of oxygen in a situation involving hypoxia, even if you were then to descend back down to 10,000 feet or so where you could breathe normally, at that point it's highly unlikely that these individuals would regain consciousness and in fact it is likely said the physician that they could have already expired, that they could have already died in flight, inside that cockpit. and as we saw, this plane appears to have then continued flying all the way until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean off of jamaica. back to you. >> tom, with this specific type of plane, what might cause it to depressurize? is this something that you expect happened rather quickly or maybe over a longer period of time? and how well trained are pilots to detect when this is
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happening? >> well, that's been the ongoing buzz all afternoon in the pilot community. are you able to detect hypoxia, the symptoms on yourself. now, keep in mind a professional pilot, one would assume an air force pilot or a commercial pilot would probably recognize that. they would also see the alarms inside the cockpit saying you've got a cabin pressure problem. but with a private pilot, maybe somebody who doesn't fly every day, would he be as versed in the symptoms? we don't know that. how would this happen? it could be an insidious leak of some sort. it may be something where he didn't even recognize the symptoms or realize anything was wrong and may have simply -- he and his wife may have simply fallen asleep or become unconscious without ever recognizing the problem. but they flew at 25,000 feet for the better part of, we believe, what, close to five, six hours. and, you know, if they were unconscious during most of that time, this may have been a rather slow and insidious thing. we just simply don't know what caused it. >> tom costello, stay right
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there for us. let's bring in commercial airport anthony roman, ceo of roam and and associates, former corporate pilot and flight instructor. anthony, we are talking about hypoxia, a lack of oxygen and a very sort of insidious disease or insidious thing that can happen to you. you start to feel the same sort of impact of drinking alcohol. you lose sort of coordination, you lose the sense of self, you lose your short-term memory. if you don't get oxygen very quickly, you lose your ability to make good decisions. >> that happens to be true. the very first symptom is a feeling of euphoria and then giddiness. and even at that point, your judgment is affected. but at that point if you're properly trained, you can still make the proper decisions and you're trained to make the proper decisions. in order to fly an aircraft of this class and category, one has to undergo special transition training. you're not going to get any insurance for this aircraft to fly unless you go to specialized
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school. this is the same school that many air force pilots go to on contract. it's a civilian school with motion sim larulators, very sophisticated, very rigorous training. part of the training is recognition of hypoxia and what to do when you recognize the symptoms. what to do, i'm starting to get giddy, feel a little happy, light-headed, i'm still capable of making some decisions. check my nail beds, check the pressurization system. my nail beds are blue, the pressurization system is not functioning, get down to a breathable altitude, 10,000 to 15,000 feet. >> but you have seconds to make that decision, right? >> you have about a minute. a minute, a minute and a half to make that decision before the hypoxia continues to progress. so there is a window there. and it depends on how much reading the pilot does, how much they think about the flight and what can go wrong. frankly, how much they train in a recurrent method. >> anthony, this is obviously a
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terrible tragedy for the glazer family. but there's a potential this could have been a lot worse if this plane had crashed on land as opposed to in the water. was this kind of the inevitable outcome that this plane was going to crash? is there any way when a pilot is unresponsive to get a plane down out of the sky? >> there is a way and there are documented cases in which pilots flying at the mid altitudes, he was approximately at 25,000 feet, only 10,000 feet above a breathable or recoverable altitude. so i would guess that there is a chance that he would have come back to consciousness at the time he hit the more breathable altitudes. now it's a question of whether he was aerobatic trained. if he regained consciousness and the aircraft was out of control, would he have known how to recover the aircraft, but that's pure speculation. >> yeah, a lot of it is
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speculation at this pointing. this first came to our attention when the air force scrambled two jets. jim miklaszewski joins us now. mik, when did they first take off? give us a sense of all of this. >> i'm not sure of the exact time, but in the post-9/11 era, we have many across the country, many of these fighter jets, f-15s, f-16s on what they call hot strip alert. in other words, those planes are all warmed up and ready to go. all the pilots have to do is get in and they won't even tell you the amount of time it takes, that's classified. but in very short order they are in the air and on course. in this case it was the airplane. another post-9/11 phenomenon is those pilots are now authorized in a case like this if that plane were to have threatened any populated areas in the united states, they of course would have to get the order and be cleared, but those pilots would then have the authority to
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actually shoot down the plane. now, in october of 1999, when a similar incident occurred with the golf pro payne stewart and several others, they went into hypoxia, there was no response from that plane. but that plane was flying cross-country, across the midsection of the continental united states, pre-9/11 now and those pilots were prepared to actually settle their jet down on top of that private plane and push its nose downward and force it to crash in an up populated area. again, when you talk to some of these pilots, they say it's a heavy burden to think that you would purposely crash a plane with somebody onboard, not knowing for sure whether any are alive or dead. but quite frankly, it's something that they train to do. >> that would be a heavy burden. mik, stay right there. tom costello, let's bring you back in. do you have new information for
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us? >> nbc news has learned that in fact air traffic control was in communication with this plane, with the pilot at one point while he was at 28,000 feet. the pilot said that they had some sort of a problem onboard. he asked for clearance to a lower altitude. he was approved to go to 25,000 feet. he was asked if he wanted to declare an emergency. he said no, not yet. they cleared him to go to 20,000 feet, but then he never responded. so at some point while he was at 28,000 feet, he became aware of a problem. did not declare exactly what it was. again, air traffic control cleared him to go all the way to 20,000 feet but he only descended to 25,000 feet and kept that trajectory, kept that altitude and that track all the way off the coast of the united states, all the way over cuba and then towards the island of jamaica. guys, back to you. >> anthony, when we board a commercial airliner, they make that announcement that if there's a loss of cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will drop and you should put it on, is that for the same sort of issue we're seeing here?
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why don't they have a similar system on a plane like that. >> they do have similar systems and, yes, that's exactly for that kind of scenario. those systems are often fully automated. in a smaller plane such as this, as modern as it is, i had just been looking at the checklist for the pressurization system. the only automation in that pressurization system is the setting of it. it automatically adjusts to the pressure altitude that the aircraft is flying at and keeps the cabin altitude at about 7,000 or 8,000 feet above sea level. so you wouldn't have that kind of automation. if there's a problem, i see you would get a yellow amber warning on the computer panel warning the pilot of a problem. that's probably what larry saw when he asked for a descent. however, in these particular circumstances, pressurization problems are an extreme
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emergency. it would not be inappropriate for a pilot to declare an emergency right then, begin an emergency descent without permission using the pilot in command authority. get down to a breathable altitude. it's then the responsibility of the air traffic controllers to clear the airspace in front of him and underneath him. that pilot will receive complete priority. >> all right. let's go back to tom costello. do you have new information for us again? >> i did want to let you know that the u.s. coast guard is now responding to the scene along with jamaican search and rescue. again, this is 14 miles off the north coast of jamaica. you would imagine the jamaicans would get there hopefully in short order to the crash scene. the u.s. coast guard is also responding and those f-15s broke off according to mik at the pentagon, broke off the chase when they started running low on fuel. and so now that is where we stand. as we've said all along, it is highly unlikely that a plane traveling at 25,000 feet and then suddenly running out of
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fuel and descending and crashing, that it's highly unlikely anybody would have survived. >> tom, thank you very much. we're going to take a short break. aviation expert greg fieth will join us from florida next. you, my friend are a master of diversification. who would have thought three cheese lasagna would go with chocolate cake and ceviche? the same guy who thought that small caps and bond funds would go with a merging markets. it's a masterpiece. thanks. clearly you are type e. you made it phil. welcome home. now what's our strategy with the fondue? diversifying your portfolio? e*trade gives you the tools and resources to get it right. are you type e*? [ male announcer ]gs the little things we do... can make a big difference. every time you use dawn, you're using a brand that supports wildlife rescue efforts. experts trust dawn... because it's tough on grease yet gentle. ♪ you by my side makes the little things so good ♪ ♪ be a part of the bigger picture. ♪ and your kindness makes
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and we are back following the breaking news of that unresponsive plane which we now know has crashed north of jamaica. let's bring in former ntsb investigator, greg fieth. greg, how common is this? >> this isn't a common event. unfortunately, though, we've had a similar event last week with a different type of aircraft. it was a single engine propeller
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reciprocating engine airplane. the pilot failed to land at manassas, scrambled fighters, followed the airplane, saw that the pilot was unconscious and followed to it crashing in the ocean near virginia. these are rare events but when they do happen they're very noteworthy because they really compromise the safety of other aircraft in a sense because they don't have anybody at control and the air traffic controllers have now got to clear airspace, especially if the airspace is really busy. they have to clear a lot of that airspace because they don't know what the dynamic of that aircraft is going to be with regard to conflicting traffic. >> greg, can you tell us more about this particular plane? they're calling it a socat socata tbm-700, a single emergency plaengine plane. what else do you know about this particular aircraft? >> it is a general aviation airplane but it's in the higher end of general aviation.
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a single engine turbo prop. it can vary in price from $2 million to $4 million. it is a very reliable aircraft because it is a turbo prop, but it also has a higher level of sophistication with regard to the avionics and the aircraft systems because it is flying at a higher altitude. at this case being at 28,000 feet, you have to have a pressurized cabin if you don't want to wear an oxygen mask all the time. so the pilot has to be very well versed on pressurization, high altitude physiology and then of course the aircraft systems themselves. so what we understand is that this pilot may have just recently purchased the airplane. if he did have a problem with the aircraft and didn't have a real skilled level of knowledge or experience, he may have been trying to really fight the airplane, if you will, trying to figure out what was going on. in the meantime, unfortunately, suffered the effects of hypoxia because if the cabin was dumped, that means that the
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pressurization no longer was able to keep the cabin at a breathable or livable altitude and he succumbed to the effects of hypoxia. >> greg, how can we expect the investigation of this to proceed? will the jamaicans be taking the lead on this? when can we expect to know more about how exactly the crash happened? >> typically the authorities, in this case it sounds like the jamaicans if it is in close proximity to jamaica or it is in their territory, they will typically take the lead. they will probably invite the ntsb since it is an unregistered airplane here in the united states, it is one of our citizens, they will invite the united states, the ntsb, to participate in that investigation as technical advisers. they will then hopefully try to recover as much of that aircraft as they can, given the fact that it's in the water. a lot of it will have sunk. unlike an mh-370 where they're going to spend a lot of dollars, if you will, to try and recover it, they'll see what they can
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recover expeditiously and they will use all of the other assets. that is the tools from air traffic control to try and piece together what's happened in this event. >> greg, we know that this plane model is a 2014 model, the newest, likely the safest model of this type of plane. do we know if there was a system in place within the plane that when this type of thing happens, it can signal something to the pilot? and if it does not have that, do we need to start rethinking this system to make sure all planes have that? >> that is a good question. in this particular instance because it is a turbo prop airplane, because it is a pressurized airplane, the faa and the certification requirement says that you will have warning systems for the pilot. this airplane was equipped. so as the cabin starts to rise, typically the cabin in an airplane like this will be maintained between 5,000 and 7,000, possibly 8,000 feet cabin atmosphere. so basically the atmosphere is like being out here in denver or a little higher.
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that's breathbreathable, it's l for the occupants. if that cabin altitude rises unexpectedly or uncommanded, then there is a warning as the altitude goes above 10,000 feet typically you'll get a warning as the pilot saying something is wrong, you've got to check your pressurization. there is a warning. this pilot was aware that something was going on. he reported it to air traffic. they were trying to accommodate his request to go lower. they had to turn him off course a bit because of conflicting s passing traffic. they had to hold his descent until they could clear the traffic so there are a lot of extenuating circumstances now that all factor into the story line as to why this aircraft ended up becoming basically uncommanded by the pilot. the pilot then being incapacitated. so there's a lot of investigative work left to do. but one of the big issues is what kind of training this pilot had with regard to the pressurization and what he was trying to do to alleviate
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whatever issue it was that he reported to air traffic. >> greg, as you said, the plane flew for hours uncommanded. so we see these planes can travel on without human control for hours over land, over sea, what have you. is that safe? it seems to be a danger to perhaps other planes or people on the ground where the plane might land. is it safe to have that design? >> it's interesting you bring that up, because that has always been one of the debates. and in fact that was also one of the issues that was brought up even after 9/11. whether or not we should be able to control someone's aircraft if they are -- if the pilots are not in control. and giving that type of authority to an air traffic controller through a sophisticated system. that same argument is actually being discussed as we speak with regard to unmanned vehicles, these uavs, these drones that we're using. and while it is always going to
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be a question, especially with regard to safety, this is a very unique situation. the fact that the pilot had some sort of issue, succumbed to it and the airplane fortunately was on auto pilot, that's why the airplane maintained 25,000 feet and just flew on a heading, a continuous heading, because the auto pilot was engaged. typically airplanes of that sophisticati sophistication, especially at those altitudes, are typically on auto pilot. so i think there's always going to be this debate whether or not there's got to be some method for us to be able to control an airplane so that it doesn't harm folks on the ground. i think it will be a debate that rages on, but i don't think there will be a solution any time soon to that kind of event. >> all right, greg, stay with us. we'll have more with you and more with anthony roman on this breaking news story next. t from, they think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology.
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we're back now following the breaking news this afternoon. we believe there were two people aboard that plane. larry glazer and his wife.
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we take you now to new orleans with dr. corey herbert, an assistant professor at both the lsu health sciences center and at tulane university medical center. doctor, what is it like when hypoxia strikes, can you tell us? >> yes, i can tell you firsthand. i was actually on a plane that this happened to. it's a very scary thing. without any type of medical knowledge, there's no way for anyone to know that they are experiencing hypoxia. you start feeling mildy giddy and you start feeling like it's one of the best feelings you could ever have because you're light-headed and you feel kind of fun. but the problem is the ominous sign is that you've been exposed to decreased oxygen. over a short period of time, and we're talking minutes here, your blood ph will drop from 7.4 where it should to about 7.35, and that -- and it seems like not a big drop but that's a big drop. and then you become add acidoti
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which means your body has acid that cannot be expelled and then you succumb. the only way i knew is that my nail beds became mildly blue and i talked to the flight attendant who in turn talked to the pilot. this is a wake-up call to a lot of people that fly a lot. you need to know these signs. because once we told the pilot, he didn't even know because the alert system that's supposed to alert you to this wasn't working properly. so we all would have had this exact same fate. so this is something that's a real wake-up call to people to know what are the signs of hypoxia. >> doctor, with hypoxia, you lose control of your short-term memory, you lose consciousness, your judgment is impaired. what is happening in the brain while hypoxia is setting in? >> oxygen is so important, obviously, for all biological functions in the body. if you decrease the oxygen, the ability for you to be able to do any by logic synthesis, for you
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to break down glucose, break down fat, all of these things just go away because oxygen is the thing that you must have for you to be able to be alive. so in the brain basically you start having an increase of acid. once you get the increase of acid, all things shut down. it can be very insidious as well. with this group, we don't think that all of a sudden the oxygen just -- the cabin depressurized immediately. we think that it just happened over a period of time, and that way you become so symptomatic so just very slightly over time so there's no way for you to know. >> doctor, what are the effects of this afterward if it is caught. from your experience of it, do you sort of get down to an appropriate altitude and then feel fine again or is it something that requires treatment afterward? >> well, it really all depends on how long you are in the depressurized cabin, how long you are hypoxic. if you're hypoxic for a very
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short amount of time and the pilot recognizes it and you drop down to 10,000 feet, then you're okay. but if you are at that hypoxic area, 25,000 feet and are there for an extended period of time, the amount of damage that's done to the brain is very dose dependent on your lack of oxygen. so just like -- you can even think about it as a baby in a birth canal. when a baby is in the birth canal without oxygen, then brain damage can occur. the same thing when you're on an airplane without oxygen. when you do not have oxygen in your brain, brain damage can occur. so it's how long it takes -- how long you're actually at that hypoxic state. >> doctor, when this happened to you, looking around was everyone impacted by hypoxia the same way and at the very same time or when you looked around did you see other people were maybe functioning better than you were? i think about this because if you have to warn the pilot or warn someone on the plane this is happening, there are at least some people that are able to do
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that. >> it really all depends on your body status and how fit you are, to be honest with you. when i looked around, i saw one person that was looking like they were about to vomit, but everybody else was fine. so the interesting part is i've been an avid cyclist for a long time, so i was able to recognize the symptoms because i did not have a lot of the symptoms at the very beginning. a lot of people will have a lot of symptoms and then, you know, it's very hard to say because when you are at different points in your -- in the continuum of trying to be healthy, you have oxygen tolerance that's a lot different than someone else who is not. so that's why it's so important that the signs and symptoms be across the board. people need to know. so that would be what. that would be nausea, that would be vomiting, that would be light-headedness, that would be cyanosis, which means blue, blue around the lips, also blue in the nail beds, headache and body ache. if you have that on an airplane,
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then you need to let somebody know. you know, i would just ask the passenger next to you, hey, do you feel like this? if they say they feel odd too, then you need to let somebody know because that may be the only way that your life will be saved. >> doctor, we've heard from the fighter pilots who actually got a visual of this plane, that they could see the pilot. he looked like he was breathing but he might have already been passed out. once you get to the point where you have lost consciousness, is it too late to try to bring hypoxia back or is it still recoverable when you get down to a lower altitude at that point. >> generally if you have passed out and you are slumped over the wheel, there's really no coming back because you have to be of sound mind to be able to make that descent to 10,000 feet. and the plane was on auto pilot. those vectors are -- i fly in a lot of small planes a lot. so the vector is already set. so the auto pilot was set, the vector was set. so at that point if he passes
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out, there's no way for him to make the plane go to 10,000 feet so that he can regain consciousness. now, the other people in the cabin can regain consciousness if it goes to 10,000 feet because they don't have to do anything, they just have to be passive in that. but when the pilot is slumped over, there's really no hope. >> so, doctor, in your experience when you were hypoxic on that plane, what happened? how did you guys get out of it? >> well, we let the pilot know. the pilot automatically dropped to 10,000 feet. now that was pretty scary in and of itself. but it saved the lives. as an avid golfer as well, this reminds me of what happened to payne stewart a long time ago and when that happened to him, i automatic said, you know what, i'm never going to let this happen to me. i tell my family and my friends, if you're ever on an airplane, you've got to know those warning signs. once you drop to 10,000 feet, everything was fine. we landed, we had an emergency landing, but that is not at any
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point as scary as not being able to land at all, that's for sure. >> indeed, dr. corey hebert. thanks fojts. more with anthony roman, next. take and... exhale.in... aflac! and a gentle wavelike motion... aahhh- ahhhhhh. liberate your spine, ahhh-ahhhhhh aflac! and reach, toes blossoming... not that great at yoga. yeah, but when i slipped a disk he paid my claim in just four days.
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what a beautiful sunset... if you like sunsets. whether you're sweet or salty... you'll love nature valley sweet and salty bars. back with breaking news on that plane that went unresponsive for six hours. it has gone down 14 miles north of the island of jamaica. the family tells cnbc that there were two people aboard, larry glazer and his wife. larry glazer is a well-known real estate developer. it's believed he was piloting the plane. for more on this crash, let's bring in commercial pilot anthony roman, a former corporate pilot and flight instructor and former ntsb investigator, greg feith. anthony, can you talk about the sort of training that larry would have had to have had to be flying this airplane. and once he get into a situation where he knows that there is a problem and he's telling air traffic control i need to go down but he doesn't want to declare an emergency, which perhaps in retrospect he should
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of. perhaps it's the hypoxia that led him to not want to say that or perhaps it's something else that led him to say i'm not ready to declare an emergency. >> well, those pilots who are going to fly this class and category of aircraft that can go up to 30,000 or beyond 30,000 feet must have a high altitude endorsement in their logbook. simply what that means is they have to go through specialized high altitude training, which includes understanding the biological effects and the effects on themselves of hypoxia. so they're trained on the signs and symptoms. they're trained on exactly how to recognize it and what to do in the very early stages while they're still capable of making those decisions. then they undergo simulator training. and what that simply means is they're going to simulate a failure of the pressurization system, depending on the sophistication of the simulator he was in, unlikely it was a full motion simulator. there may have been smoke
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introduced or what we would call mist. that can become apparent. the frosting of the windows. the first thing we're trained to do is don the oxygen mask, deploy the oxygen masks for the passengers if they have not automatically deployed. at that point you have about 20 minutes to get down to a breathable altitude. declare an emergency. air traffic control is then responsible for clearing that airspace below you and in front of you. they ask your intentions and then you go down. and there is a checklist, a flying checklist for the emergency descent. it often calls for a deploying of the landing gear to create drag, a deploying of the flaps to create drag, a reduction of the power to a particular setting and then a fairly radical nose down attitude. that would take only a couple of minutes to bring you down to a breathable altitude. >> anthony, we were talking in the break about how there are sort of two things that you do in an event like this.
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one is the descent to an altitude at which the air is breathable and other is what you just mentioned, the oxygen mask, which gives you a substantial amount of time to be able to adjust. is that sort of two things that went wrong, a failure to descend and also the failure to use the oxygen on the plane? >> well, this particular aircraft has a visual system. i'm not quite certain if it has an oral system with regard to pressurization problems. it is a new aircraft. it has a fully automated pressurization system. in other words, the pilot does not have to adjust a dial for the particular altitude that they are at. so in this case it should have displayed on the computer panels, in the flight grouping, a yellow warning when the pressurization system began to fail, a red warning when that became critical. there's likely to have been some type of oral warning as well, a beep, a voice, a computerized voice or something like that. at that juncture, he should have
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immediately donned his oxygen mask, declared an emergency and made an emergency descent. it would not have been proper at that juncture to request a lower altitude and then hold only 2,000 or 3,000 feet lower which would do the pilot and the passengers no good. but we don't know whether or not the problem he recognized was pressurization. it could have been an engine problem. because it's the engine that really controls the pressurization through bleed air into the aircraft. so if he was having an engine problem, he would have probably asked for a descent to a lower altitude, assess his situation, run through the checklist, not recognizing that this may have resulted in a pressurization problem because it is a single engine aircraft. so he may not have put the entire scenario together, but again, this is all speculation. >> greg, given your experience
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and your expertise, i mean listening to this all play out as we're getting more and more details as to what happened here, what is going through your mind? what do you think might have caused this plane to depressurize? >> well, there's a number of things. it is relatively new. you always have to look at the fact that if this pilot just recently purchased the airplane, the level of training. we've had pilots in the past who have, unfortunately, not properly utilized a lot of the systems on an airplane, including a pressurization system. we saw that happen with a helio 737 where the crew failed to properly engage the pressurization system. so training and pilot experience, especially with high altitude flight, is always the first question. >> but greg, do you see -- real quickly, though, do you see a situation where anyone else might be to blame here other than the pilot? >> well, we're not looking for blame, we're trying to find out what led to this event.
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whether or not there was a problem with the airplane. if there is, if investigators can find out there's some sort of issue going on with the airplane, we have to know if it's a systemic problem or something that was just isolated to this particular air kracht. if it's systemic, you have a fleet of airplanes you have to correct. then of course with the pilot, we have to understand what in fact was going on that really led him to believe that there may not have been a perceived threat. he was able to handle whatever it was by requesting just altitude descents rather than declaring an emergency, immediately going down. you put the oxygen mask on, you pull the power back, dump the gear, the flaps and start to head down to 10,000 feet expeditiously and he wasn't doing that at the time. >> and, greg, when we talk about potentially systemic problems with this aircraft, you know we've heard in terms of the investigation, the u.s. coast guard is moving towards the crash site. we know that the jamaican authorities are moving towards the crash site and the ntsb may be assisting.
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are we going to actually be able to tell from the wreckage that is retrieved whether or not there was a systemic problem or there was a problem with this aircraft or might the ntsb potentially in a proactive way go to the airplane manufacturer right now and say we'd like to start looking at some other planes just to make sure there isn't this problem on a broader bats basis with these aircraft. >> you bring up a good point. the key here is really to see if there's enough wreckage to be recovered to really identify. if you had a broken door seal or you had a window that blew out for whatever reason, we may never know that because the destruction to the airplane when it hit the water will negate any possibility of making that determination. in a proactive way, yes, the ntsb or other investigative authorities can definitely go back to the manufacturer, ask for any kind of service history. there's other airplanes that are flying out there in this series of models, that is the 900, the 700, even the 850. they could see if there's any
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kind of service history with the pressurization problem, so they can at least start looking for potential issue areas that they will focus on in this investigation. >> would you say it's possible, impossible to know in this particular situation, but it's possible that a window could have blown out creating the depressurization situation? is that the sort of thing we've seen in the past? and why would that occur? >> if a window blew out that, would have been a very critical situation and the pilot would have definitely known that as a threat and done whatever was necessary expeditiously. it's evident that he's requested a lower altitude from 28,000, he was given a descent clearance, he stopped at 25. he had basically complied with that instruction. he had to worry about crossing traffic by the air traffic controllers trying to separate traffic. so apparently he didn't perceive this as an immediate threat that i have got to get down now. he indicated it based on some of the language he used, but it
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wasn't one of those i need to be down now, clear the airspace, i'm heading down. so that perception of whether it was a real threat or something that he could handle expeditiously but in a more controlled manner, that's going to be the real issue to try and determine what that kind of issue could have been. >> all right, greg feith, anthony roman, thank you very much. up next, the other big news of the day. the president rallies support in the fight against isis. new sanctions are in the works against russia. we'll go live to the white house as "the cycle" rolls on. you got that right! bam! just gotta check your bag. huh, charmin ultra strong. you're cleaner than i thought. charmin ultra strong cleans so much better it meets even his highest standards of clean. with a soft duraclean texture, charmin ultra strong is 4 times stronger. and you can use up to 4x less. are you good to go hun? cleaner than ever. rotorooter approved. charmin is clog-free or it's free.
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right now president obama is en route to washington with two big foreign policy deals. route two deals, a united front against russian azbregs. the spoke spoke about both situations in an afternoon press conference before leaving the nato summit. >> key nato allies stand ready to confront the threat through military intelligence and law enforcement as well as diplomatic efforts. secretary kerry will now travel to the region to build the bro based coalition to enable us to degrade and ultimately destroy isil. >> other allies met on the sidelines of the summit. the u.n. general assembly this month in new york. the obama white house has been clear it will not include boots on the ground.
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international air support iraqi forces today launched a military to liberate parts of mosul. most of it fell to isis in june. the other news from the summit, a new round of possible sanctions against russia as fighters reach a cease-fire in ukraine. nato is creating a rapid response force, thousands of troops based in poland ready to deploy in moments in case the cease-fire fails. >> all 28 nato allies will provide security assistance to ukraine. this includes nonlethal support to the ukrainian support, like body armor, fuel, medical care for wounded ukrainian troops as well as assistance to help modernize ukrainian forces, including logistics and command and control. here in wales, we sent a strong message that actions have consequences, they must keep their commitments and russia
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must stop its violations of ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity. >> let's go to the white house where nbc's peter alexander is awaiting the president's return. peter, what is next after the president lands, it's been a very busy couple of days for him. >> it certainly has, specifically on the topic of ukraine. we're learning now as the president indicated there would be a broadening of sanctions expected likely in the days ahead. that may happen, new sanctions from russia to go into effect to be announced on monday by the e.u. we'll keep you posted as we learn more information on that topic, more specifically as it goes for the rapid response force, the 4,000 troops, it's unclear exactly what the u.s. involvement in that would be. it doesn't sound as though it would be a commitment of troops but we'll wait to hear what specifically the u.s. will be contributing to the new coalition unit being formed. that nato basically will defend every nato ally.
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on the topic of isis, you hit on two key points, the first of which the fact that john kerry is going to the region. the president has nine nato nations and australia on board but john kerry's effort is to try to bring in regional partners, share intelligence with jjordan, financial backing from saudi arabia. that's one thing we'll keep an eye on in the days ahead as chuck hagel said a short time ago, these are extended challenges. they are familiar with the extended challenges required in situations like this. but clearly, there does not appear to be urgency in terms of air strikes taking place. the president will likely try to continue going forward to find the best targets and then perhaps even wait as long as you noted, the u.n. general assembly to have a larger league of nations joining the u.s. effort. >> peter alexander, thanks very much. let's bring in douglas oel vant,
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after serving on both the bush and obama national security councils as the director for iraq. you've been writing about how isis is managing to combine the deadly characteristics of terrorist groups and real army and wrote in the "washington post" last month u.s. soldiers fighting in iraq used to say thank god they can't shoot. now they can. how do you fight an enemy like this. >> ultimately it's going to be up to the people whose land they are on, the iraqis and the syrians. now we can help in many, many ways, not boots on the ground but the united states will certainly contribute air power along with all of the new partners we've accumulated and air power and intelligence and planning capability, the ability to synchronize and advise units from baghdad and embassy baghdad. >> we've heard secretary kerry say that we're not going to have a containment policy here, we heard the president say this
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morning this is about degrade and destroy. those are pretty strong words compared to our sort of strategy with the soviets all about containment. sths possible, degrade and destroy? >> certainly we can destroy their military capability. at the core of the islamic state is this radical islamism that the region itself has to take care of. we can't kill an idea but can kill the people spreading it with guns. we're waiting for iraqis to form a government but we're hearing rumors from baghdad that's imminent. once the government is formed we have a partner we can work with on the ground and support them with air power intelligence and so on. as you were alluding too earlier, work to cut off the islamic state and seal borders and help find people infiltrating and cut off financing. >> indeed. as long as there's no serious government in iraq we'll continue to have a military problem there. >> absolutely. >> thank you very much for your time. that does it for "the cycle."
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breaking news this hour, an unresponsive plane goes down after a security alert. it's friday september 5th and this is "now". >> unresponsive -- >> the faa says they have not had any radio contact with this plane since 10:00 a.m. >> two fighter jets were scrambled. >> unresponsive plane over the atlantic ocean. >> the light business and utility aircraft. >> air force pilots could see the pilot unconscious. >> they did see he was slumped over. >> you literally such come from
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>> jamaican authorities reporting the plane went down in the ocean 14 miles north of the island. >> its flight plan from naples, florida. >> larry glaser and jane glasier, according to their son ken who spoke to cnbc. >> a tragedy. >> good afternoon, i'm luke russert, we're starting with breaking news, the jamaican military says a unresponsive u.s. plane has crashed into the ocean 14 miles northeast of the island of jamaica. the small private plane triggered a security alert, tailed by a pair of f-15 fighters after it veered off course and pilot failed to respond to calls the plane left rochester bound for naples, florida, but never made the turn it was supposed to make eventually heading over cuban air space where the f-15s peeled off. we want to play audio from the f-15 pilots