>> let's bring tom casey back into the conversation. tom, we talk a lot about air france flight 447 that crashed into the atlantic ocean. a flight leaving from paris to rio. the pilots had some type of thunderstorm issue that they encountered and there was electrical difficulty plunging about 6 hundred miles off the coast of brazil. as we talk about the debris field, when they originally found debris from that it was spotted five days after the flight although this discovery wasn't the actual impact site. that was found 30 miles away. as we talk about the black boxes. they weren't found from that crash until 2011. talk about the black boxes in this case. we know that they are halfway through theattery life supposedly but do the black boxes record over themselves? and if that happens will we have facts based on what happened in the cockpit? >> yes, you will. most of them, as far as i recall, have a two-hour loop but that is voice activated. the 15 minutes stretches out to hours and is like watching a football game so that will be preserve

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but veteran 777 captain tom casey says that would be very unlikely. >> there are ten generators on the 777. it has tremendous super redundancy. you would have to lose all ten generators before the electrical system would take out the transponders. >> reporter: also unexplained, the plane's now confirmed u-turn. experts say only a pilot could do that. so did one of the pilots or passenger hijack the plane? while not ruling out a mechanical explanation, a top malaysian police commander said he's looking at four scenarios. >> one is hijacking, two sabotage, three psychological problem of the crew, and four, personal problem among the crew. >> reporter: and we're learning more about the cockpit crew. >> everyone, this is a youtube video that i made as a community service. >> reporter: an online video shows the captain in a series of home improvement tutorials, fixing the air conditioning and ice maker, even window sealants. his first officer, 27-year-old fariq hamid, with 2,800 hours of experience. meanwhile, authorities released photos of two iranian men who boarded the plane using stolen

let me go to retired pilot tom casey who joins me now on the phone. let me ask you very generally what you make of these new developments. >> good morning, chris. well, they certainly got the investigative artillery going with the aircraft, the p 3s are scouring the surface of the water but it's so far away, 1500 miles off the coast and that part of the oceaning is royaling. i'm not surprised that electronic means have been used, satellites to the discover this debris and nobody's had a sighting of it. but it's encouraging. unhappily, the human dimension is coming to the forenow. this mystery has been prolonged for so many days, it's agonizing to the loved ones of the passengers aboard that flight. we in the aviation community, airline pilots have been glued to our televisions waiting for further disclosures, news of what happened to this plane. and it's just -- it's such an ambiguous development when debris is discovered rather than some better news, but some -- we have to have this solved. and it looks likes they're really putting forth a huge effor

tom casey is an international pilot for american airlines. >> the only way in certain parts of the world where they can locate your position is by knowing where your last position was and what your next position was predicted to be. >> reporter: here is why. radar only tracks planes when they are over land, or at least within 120 miles of land. take a flight from new york on its way to chicago. radar can pinpoint the plane's location at all times along the two and a half hour trip. seven different control towers track the flight. but when a flight takes off from new york to london, once it's beyond 120 miles offshore, the plane uses gps to determine its exact location, and then has to communicate those coordinates to controllers on the ground. for many routes around the world, the gap between communications can be as long as an hour. flight awareness tracks them all hours throughout the day. >> the reality, they're finding them with all sorts of technology and getting the data back to controllers is difficult. >> reporter: the technology does exist to track planes every second of every f

we'll also speak with retired american airlines pilot flight instructor tom casey coming up in just amoment. first we want to check on your weather with nbc meteorologist veronica johnson. i know this area is of concern to you as you're watching the weather indicators and what it could mean to the shifting water patterns. >> that's right. just to the north of this impact field, there's an old area of low pressure. so the circulation right there where we're searching now has more westerly winds. it is quite possible that off to the west of that area is where whatever that was came in or has been drifting from further off to the west. so the winds down there are very strong. you've got westerlies there on the north side of the i'm fact field more out of the east. again, circulation right there. the other thing is the visibility. that's what they'll really have to contend with, the visibility and wave heights. they're at about ten feet now. expected to increase to 16 to 20 feet for the end of the week and beginning of next week. that would mean low visibility continues. right now it's do

tom casey is a flight instructor and former commercial pilot.s an nbc law enforcement analyst and back with us is jay rollins, retired american airlines captain. thanks to all of you for being here. >> thank you. >> now, to breaking news today could narrow this investigation. we, again, don't know if these imagines are debris from the missing jet. but if it is confirmed, the question remains, were the pilots involved? let's go around starting with tom. in light of the news, what's your take on the pilot? >> well, we never heard a mayday and the first thing a pilot would do besides handling the situation would be to notify air traffic control that there was a problem. we never heard that. the plane either executed a divert flight plan or the heading select was moved to a course that would take it to the west of its way point position or it's course to china. beyond that, the debris or the focus now which seems to be very narrow and very intense is based on a satellite imagine of debris that is probably in line -- it is in line with the fuel -- th

tom casey is a flight instructor and former commercial pilot. evie pomporos. want to start with you. i want to play you something malaysian officials said today about the search for the black box. take a listen. >> the next step is to actually find the black box. and with the air france crash, it took two years. so now we are preparing for a possible operation, a multinational operation, to recover that black box. >> tom, why is it so important to find that black box? >> the black box has all of the data necessary to understand, number one, what -- what mechanical aspects were taking place to lead the plane to come off its flight plane and divert. was it an act of -- did the flight crew activate it on computer? did they hit the heading select and turn it to a random heading and fly off into oblivion. secondly, the voice recorder records all of the voice contacts in the cockpit. it's a very -- it records everything. every little sound. you'd know if there was an intervention. if there was an intervention, we have a whole new mystery as to why. if it wasn't an i

tom casey and bob hager, thank you so much. appreciate it. >>> coming up, putin's punishment.he president issued a new warning for russia that comes with another round of sanctions. we'll have the latest from richard engel on the ground in eastern ukraine. that and more on the search for missing malaysia airlines flight 370 and what could lead to a much needed break for investigators. stay with us on "andrea mitchell reports." salesperson #1: so again, throwing in the $1,000 fuel reward card is really what makes it like two deals in one. salesperson #2: actually, getting a great car with 42 highway miles per gallon makes it like two deals in one. salesperson #1: point is there's never been a better time to buy a jetta tdi clean diesel. avo: during the first ever volkswagen tdi clean diesel event get a great deal on a jetta tdi. it gets 42 highway miles per gallon. and get a $1,000 fuel reward card. it's like two deals in one. volkswagen has the most tdi clean diesel models of any brand. hurry in and get a $1,000 fuel reward card and 0.9% apr for 60 months on tdi models. help k

. >> joining me now is tom casey, a retired american airlines pilot who flew a boeing 777 for seven years. a lot of sevens there. so tom, you're a pilot. we were talking before we came on the air and admitting we don't know a lot. but as a pilot, i mean, just based on what you've heard so far, what does it suggest to you about what may have happened in terms of the ability to fly this plane, the ability for someone to take over control of this plane from -- so if it wasn't the pilot flying the plane, the ability of someone else to come in and take control. >> well, there are two scenarios. one is the flight crew went rogue. two is there was an intervention. if somebody got control of the airplane, that's a different scenario. remember, it's a highly automated aircraft, as all modern airliners are. there's nothing mysterious about that. it will fly at a level altitude on a predetermined course, whether it's computer driven or heading select. i brought a little show and tell. this is a garmin aviation gps. with this gps, and you'll see this on a lot of search and rescue aircraft, because th

tom casey, flight instructor and former boeing 777 captain for american airlines. let's start with you, jeff, and talk about the captain's at-home flight simulate wror. should we read anything into the fact that some groups and data deleted from the hard drive? >> i think that any time that there is an overt act, you have to say, well, might that happen? from what i understand the data was believed to have been deleted on or about the 3rd of february. what's that tell us? it tells us that if, in fact, there was data there he was concerned about overseeing, it was going to be gone on the 3rd of february. that makes me as a former fbi act say to myself, did he perhaps plan on -- if he was involved, doing this act earlier? how many times in in the past month has he flown this route? but for whatever reason bad weather, intended destination or for whatever other reason, he chose not to execute this plan on the day until the day welfare days ago when he did it. i would be very curious to see how many times since the -- date he deleted the fog and -- until the airplane w

>> i think the people who are closest to the investigation think it is. >> tom casey. tom, thank you very much. and greg, as we mentioned, thank you as well. clouds and rain are limiting the visibility of those search planes, al, what are the crews dealing with? >> good news is we will see improvement in conditions. we're in the southern hemisphere. generally in our hemisphere, winds around high pressure in a clockwise direction, however, we have areas of high pressure both here and here and those areas of high pressure the counter-clockwise flow of air around the wreckage. you can see high pressure building around the wreckage site over the next 24 hours. that's good news. winds will start to die down. right now, we think there is fog an also haze there. let's look at the satellite imagery and show you exactly what they're dealing with. a front did move through. good news is that has cleared out. you can see light haze now, maybe fog even associated with this. as that high pressure moves in, we will start to see clearing. that will mean better conditions, lower seas an

stay with me because right now joining us in the conversation, perspective from inside the cockpit, tom caseying the boeing 777. tom, the possibility of a passenger maybe on the manifest being investigated for experience flying the 777, are there a lot of you out there? you've done it. how difficult a plane is it to fly? >> well, listening to what michael said, i would dispute one thing. if you can get access to the cockpit and commandeer the airplane, then you can bring in something like this, and i've seen this on the search planes. this is a garmin gps. i can preprogram this gps to go to any point on earth within 20 feet. >> hold that up a little higher there. so wait a minute, you can program anywhere within 20 feet on the planet? >> right. i put in 30 rock this morning and get the lat/long and i can program this to any latitude and longitude position on earth. i can get on any airplane and not know the systems but i'd be spis skated enough to tell the pilot where to go and make sure he went where i told him to because i'd have it in the this box. >> tell me how difficult a plane that is

i want to thank bill, tom, casey, and devin. thanks for getting up. thank you for joining us.president obama finds himself sitting between a firm and a hard place? and the very latest on the mysterious missing malaysian airlines plane. that's next. stay with us. when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast, with tums. heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact. and goes to work in seconds. ♪ tum, tum tum tum... tums! still running in the morning? yeah. getting your vegetables every day? when i can. [ bop ] [ male announcer ] could've had a v8. two full servings of vegetables for only 50 delicious calories. two full servings of vegetables if yand you're talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain. this is humira helping me lay the groundwork. this is humira helping to protect my joints from further damage. doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira is p

tom casey a former american airlines pilot who flew the 777, former ntsb investigator, former secretvice agent who served on the details of the last three presidents. nice to have you with us. boy, did we get a lot of questions about cell phones. people wanted to know why we can't track them. aaron 011 asked, can't you track all the flight 370 passengers' cell phones. >> you can't. because above about 2,000 feet, you've got to remember, that the signal coming off a cell phone is line of sight. it's got to ping a tower. above about 2,000 feet, the fact the phone is only about 5 watts, doesn't have enough energy. >> a lot of people wondered if this landed somewhere, wouldn't that be a clue? >> yes, that's correct. it would ping. and we would track certain we were looking for. we would track their cell phones and pings off the towers and through the network provider, they can tell you where the location of the person. however, assuming there are towers where the plane is landing, wherever it may have landed. >> if we're in a row moemote ar may not have that. >> popular questions, terror

tom, jamie are dennis, josh, casey, adam. that's not all of them. have a list, is that so terrible? you have a list, too being i'm sure. >> sadly kissing is not part of the job. >> not yet. it's fun. >> do you think they blur the lines too much? are you like mindy? >> i wish i was more like the character. she parties so hard. she's kissed more men in the season than men i've met in my entire life. independent like, whoa, that's amazi amazing. but she's lives a fun, dramatic life i don't have. >> early, early in your career you did a play about matt damon and ben affleck. >> my friend and i did this absurd play where she played ben -- i played ben affleck and she played matt damon. >> yes, we did this play and i had to play ben affleck of course. i actually met him. >> did you ask him to be on your show? >> i didn't. i was star struck. >> coming up next, we're going to check in on carson and today's >>> we are back now at 8:52, as matt serves our dishes, our interactive series "fresh cooks live," spring cook along, get them under way. thank you. i wa