Were 17 days ago. Hold on. Something new, though, spotted in the water. French Officials Say one of their satellites picked up what might be debris in the southern indian ocean. Airborne search crews are heading to that area to check that out. The malaysian government today cast doubt on the theory that someone punched new flight directions into the airplane in midflight. They say the last communication from the flight deck showed a normal programmed route to beijing. Flight 370s intended destination. That brings us to the question. Question number one in your week ahead. How does malaysias update affect the ever evolving timeline from Malaysia Airline flight 370. I want to bring in cnn aviation analyst, miles obrien. Also a pilot. Miles, break this down for us if you will. The update of the acars data, does that have any significant meaning to you . Its a big deal for us on the outside of the investigation. Weve been operating under the assumption for quite some time based on obviously some Bad Information that there was this other path that was programmed into the flight Management System. And it had several waypoints that would send it off into the direction generally where the search is occurring right now. Now were told that was not the case at all. This plane was, in fact, headed to beijing. That was like the prime piece o think somehow that the crew might have been involved or maybe they were maybe they were hijackers who were forcing this. Most likely the crew. Take that away and we really dont have any evidence the crew was doing anything nefarious. There might have been something catastrophic that occurred that might have put them in a scenario, excuse me, where they were trying to keep the plane flying. Trying to get it to a lower altitude. And a decompression situation. And perhaps in the confusion of all that, either lost or unable to get a radio call out or transponder. I realize thats a lot of what ifs. You have to consider it. Miles obrien, see you throughout the evening on cnn. Thank you, sir. Looking for any sign of flight 370. Heres question number two. Will the u. S. Send more resources . Lieutenant david levy joins us now. Hes on the phone to answer those questions. Hes onboard the u. S. Blue ridge in the South China Sea. More resources . There are plans in the works to have some more Resources Available in case some of the aircraft debris is located. You know we have new information or new this is simply just a prudent effort to preposition the equipment and train personnel so that were able to respond more quickly if debris is actually found. Lieutenant can you tell us or would you know how long the navy would stay committed to the search . We will stay on the search as long as were needed. Right now were focused on on the mission itself, the crews from the p8 and the p3. These are long days for these pilots and air crews. These are dedicated professionals that will continue looking as long as were needed. Are all u. S. Assets directed to the search near the australian coast or are there more places along . The p8 flight out of perth is directed to the the identified search area by the australian authorities. The other aircraft, the p3 thats flying out of malaysia is still searching another portion of the indian ocean. But were directing our efforts wherever theyre needed. All right. Lieutenant david levy, thank you very much. We appreciate you joining us. You know, this week nasa is rolling out a new plan to help to help look for missing Malaysia Flight 370. Will space Agency Technology be able to boost a search for debris . The answer is next. Create a three course italian dinner with Olive Gardens new cucina mia for just 9. 99. First, choose unlimited soup or salad. Then create your own pasta with one of five homemade sauces. And finish with dessert. Three courses, 9. 99. At olive garden. Peoi go to angies listt for all kinds of reasons. To gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. Angies list members can tell you which provider is the best in town. Youll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare. Now that were expecting, i like the fact i can go onto angies list and look for pediatricians. The Service Providers that ive found on angies list actually have blown me away. Find out why more than two million members count on angies list. Angies list reviews you can trust. Dominique wilkins, are taking charge of their type 2 diabetes with noninsulin victoza. For a while, i took a pill to lower my blood sugar, but it didnt get me to my goal. So i asked my doctor about victoza. He said victoza works differently than pills, and comes in a pen. And the needle is thin. Victoza is an injectable prescription medicine that may improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. It is not recommended as the first medication to treat diabetes and should not be used in people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. Victoza has not been studied with mealtime insulin. Victoza is not insulin. Do not take victoza if you have a personal or Family History of medullary thyroid cancer, multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if you are allergic to victoza or any of its ingredients. Symptoms of a serious allergic reaction may include swelling of face, lips, tongue or throat, fainting or dizziness, very rapid heartbeat, problems breathing or swallowing, severe rash or itching. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Serious side effects may happen in people who take victoza including inflammation of the pancreas pancreatitis which may be fatal. Stop taking victoza and call your doctor right away if you have signs of pancreatitis, such as severe pain that will not go away in your abdomen or from your abdomen to your back, with or without vomiting. Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take and if you have any medical conditions. Taking victoza with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. The most common side effects are nausea, diarrhea, and headache. Some side effects can lead to dehydration, which may cause kidney problems. If your pill isnt giving you the control you need, ask your doctor about noninsulin victoza. Its covered by most health plans. The search to find the missing malaysia jet grinds on. The result so far, the same. Pretty much nothing. Question three. Now that nasa is helping with the search will their satellite pictures present a clearer picture of potential debris . Joining me you, cnn meteorologist chad myers. Also aviation analyst mile obrien. How effective are nasas images . Certainly better thatten the images here, my noaa satellite that can see clouds. The problem is the focusing and location of the satellite. People have been tweeting you can read my license plate but how come you cant find a plane. We can read a license plate, or they say they can, if they focus the lens in one spot. Thence you wont get coverage because youre only looking at a license plate. Miles, you have to move things to the right places. A lot of our satellites are geosynchronous. The earth rotates beneath them. We only have a couple of windows are minimal on the location as the earth spins beneath them. There arent a lot of because theres not much there, theres not a lot of stuff that is permanently trained on the southern ocean. So thats part of the problem here. Commercially available satellites, stuff you see from digital globe, are one meter resolution or sometimes less. That means an object three feet long or sometimes less can be resolved by even commercially available satellites. You know, nasa is not in the business of identifying pieces of debris on the surface of the ocean. They have a lot of scientific satellites which analyze ocean currents and so forth. Im not exactly sure how much resolution they have. As you point out, chad, very correctly, if youre using too much of a telephoto here youre defeating the purpose. You need a little more of a wide angle or at least the standard lens, if you will, can 50 mill miter to sort of find something to look at. Then you zoom in. That leads me to my next question, then. If either of you can answer this. So if they do find debris, right, lets just say are they able to zero in on it a little more with the satellites, right . They do find debris, the smallest of it, can they identify from small debris . What will they glean from that . Obviously if its a big piece of the plane with the logo on it, you can tell. If its just small debris, what can they do . After 17 days, miles, this is pretty broken up. Yeah. This is the problem. How much of this really would be floating at this point . Seat cushions, maybe. You could come up with a scenario where if the plane hit the water in a certain way, there might not be much that even surfaces. So, you know, this is the tricky part. Is what would float, how big would it be, you know, in the case of the air france crash you had a big composite vertical stabilizer which broke off. Because its composite it has this honeycomb inside it. Its filled with air. And it floated. And that was a big that was very helpful to the search, obviously. In this case youve got a virtually all aluminum airplane. Theres not a lot that floats except for seat cushions and bags. And that is obviously what theyre looking for. Don, im getting all kinds of questions, don, about why are we just finding this debris in the ocean now . Why didnt we find this years ago . Because we never looked. There was no reason to focus down there and spend all this eye time, people time and satellite time looking down there. Thats why were just finding it now. Yeah. Why spend that money for a cargo container, right . You just replace it and just let it go. As we have been its obvious the ocean is a vast, vast place. Well, 17 days now. People are asking as well about salt water and erosion of evidence. This would be pretty quick to start eroding, wouldnt it . Yeah. The salt water. The depth. Certainly if its down at 9,000 or 10,000 feet with the pressure. Bear in mind the real evidence is in those black boxeses. And they are designed to withstand this. Lets stay focused on that. They its highly likely they survive the impact. Theyre designed to do that and theyre designed to go down at least 20,000 feet of depth in the ocean. But miles . Uhhuh. Absent of that, the thing that a satellite is going to find, the ocean is so deep. Lets say they dont hear the pinging. The chances their chances may be better to find a bigger piece of debris, and thats why theyre looking . The satellite obviously would not pick up, you know, the black boxes or the flight the data recorders because theyre so sma small. Right, right. No. Theyre not going to see that. I see what youre saying. As far as stuff thats floating, its turbulent seas. We have established that fact. Its very likely theres not a lot on the surface. We still cant say with any certainty that they are searching in the right place. If we get a better focus, don, a smaller area, not 1 million square miles, where we still are at this point in time, there will be sonar ships out there looking for something metal on the surface of the ocean. No matter how deep it is, it will ping differently than the muck thats down there. All right. See you guys in a bit. Thank you. Move on now. Remember these pictures from five years ago . Air France Flight 447. Another plane that was on radar when it suddenly when suddenly it wasnt. So after another flight vanishes, will anything change . Thats our question, next. Weekdays are for rising to the challenge. Theyre the days to take care of business. When possibilities become reality. With centurylink as your trusted partner, our visionary Cloud Infrastructure and Global Broadband network free you to focus on what matters. With Custom Communications solutions and responsive, dedicated support, we constantly evolve to meet your needs. Every day of the week. Centurylink® your link to whats next. Thats a man interviewino. For a job. Not that one. That one. The one who seems like hes already got the job cause he studied all the right courses from the getgo. And thats an accountant, a mom, a university of phoenix scholarship recipient, who used our unique scratch that awesome careerplanning tool. 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We understand from a source close to the investigation that says the military radar that detected this aircraft just as it made that turn had dropped to 12,000 feet. Now, this is significant because it raises so many more questions as to why it dropped shortly after making that turn. What we know now just adds more information to our timeline. We know already malaysian authorities believe that at 1 07 when it made that last acars transmission identifying itself at mh370 it was still bound for beijing. Lets not forget that. Then when it made the turn after 1 19, it then dropped altitude. Now, so many questions raised, don. Yeah. Absolutely. Saima, you can bring that in for me, please. New information. I think it it adds so many more questions. As you say. But i think it might explain a little bit. Saima dont go anywhere. We want to keep you here on this breaking news. I want to go to cnn miles obrien, our aviation expert here as well. Miles, you hear what saima is reporting. Shes saying military radar tracked the flight between 1 19 and 2 40 showed that the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea as it headed toward the strait of malaka. Down to 12,000 feet. 77 pilot said if that did happen, hes saying there was some sort of crisis in the cockpit. Probably a fire in the cockpit. And they were trying to get down to a lower altitude so that they could get the bad air out or the smoke out of the cabin. And they became overwhelmed. Does that are you gleaning that . Totally jives. Absolutely. Thats exactly where i am on this, don. First of all, just a word of caution here. This is a primary target at this point. That means the transponder is turned off. Thans the difference between something in two dimensions, actually really one dimension as opposed to something that has three dimensions, really. The transponder provides information on the speed of the aircraft and the altitude. For obvious reasons the military wants to know if any intruder is coming in what the altitude might be. But its not as accurate as what you would get if that transponder is on. 12,000 give or take. If youre in a situation where you have rapid decompression, 10,000 feet is a magic number. You want to get down to 10,000 feet because that is when you dont have to worry about pressurization. You have enough air in the atmosphere naturally to keep everybody alive. Part of the procedure for a rapid decompression, for a cabin altitude problem as they call it, its called a high dive. And you go as quickly as you can down to that altitude. So this supports what ive been talking about, about a possible catastrophic situation and theyre trying to get down to a safer altitude. All right. Is saima still there . Saima, this explains it explains what happened. It doesnt explain why it happened, that new information. Correct . Reporter yeah. Thats right. The source weve been speaking to said, you know, thats what theyre trying to work out, don. What exactly went on onboard in that cockpit that made the pilot or whoever was in the cockpit, lets remember, we still dont know who made that turn. We now know that it wasnt preprogrammed. So this lends itself to the notion that perhaps this was because of some kind of catastrophic failure onboard. The pilot, copilot trying to safe the event. Or someone entering the cockpit and doing this deliberately. Either way, there was a deliberate turn. It dropped to 12,000 feet. And there are a range of possibilities here, of course, don. A fire onboard. Were they trying to go low down to because of rapid decompression as weve discussed . What happened onboard that made the pilot go so low . A lot of people are raising also questions about and weve heard this over the last few weeks, would the plane have been able to go below a radar. Well, actually, no. 12,000 feet simply isnt low enough, don, to avoid any kind of military radar for sure. And commercial radar, we understand. So kruscrucially all we know ri now, and this is a crucial piece of information, of course, as were trying to piece this jigsaw puzzle together, don, that the plane made a deliberate turn that was not preplanned or preprogrammed. And at that point, shortly afterwards, because of this military radar, the source that has spoken to cnn has told us that it dropped down to 12,000 feet. What went wrong onboard flight mh370 to make whoever was onboard do that . Don . Stand by. Saima moshin. Military radar that tracked flight 370 between 1 19 a. M. And 2 40 a. M. Showed the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the shoouth china sea and as it headed toward the straight of malaka. And that it was flying as low as 12,000 feet at some point before it disappeared from radar. Thats a source close to the investigation into this missing flight. Thats what theyre telling cnn. The official not authorized to speak to the media told cnn that the area mh370 flew in after the turn is a heavily trafficked air corridor. And that flying at 12,000 feet would have kept the jet well out of the way of that traffic. Sources have said that the sharp turn seemed to be intentional because it would have taken the boeing 777 two minutes to execute it. A noticeable time period for anyone onboard to notice. Also had there been a fire on the flight, the pilot or copilot would have triggered an emergency signal, which didnt happen. Thats what the source says. We have les avent here who is a 777 pilot. You have been saying all along there was something catastrophic that happened in the cockpit. Ie, a fire. They were trying to get low enough to get the toxic air out of the cabin and out of the cockpit. Correct . That may have been part of the procedure. It was obviously an urgent situation. If thats indeed the case. Once again, weve got military radar weve kind of ben skeptical on whether its accurate. 12,000. This kind of feeds into my scenario a little bit. Im not doing an i told you so thing. The investigation process is ongoing. Your scenario is . My scenario is the fact that they were dealing with a potential fire situation. Let me put this were saying the scenario is, les is a 777 pilot. If something this is what you would do. Correct. As a pilot. What would you do in in situation . Exactly what happened here . What happened there, once ive established ive got smoke in the cockpit first thing were trained to do is put on that oxygen mask. In the 777 it has integral goggles to it. Now smoke in the cockpit. Its a very high stress situation. I would say that i have the airplane. I would have put in that diversion airport which is what apparently occurred. I would have started the airplane down once i realized that weve got to get to that airport and get down to get to that airport. Whether it is a result of a checklist and the smoke, its anybodys guess on that. If that, indeed, is the scenario. Copilot would be working with a checklist. Maybe the smoke removal checklist. Very confusing in that cockpit. As far as communication, which seems to be the point of contention, the communication part of it would be tough to get out. Maybe the radios were no longer operative because of the fire. Maybe theres a possibility that in addition to the radio if the radios werent knocked out, that area is not in vhf contact where they were in ho chi minh center. Vietnam air space. They may have not have been able to get it out. There are other confusing things and other priorities to establish during that emergency. Inspector general, department of transportation, mary schiavo joins us. What do you make of this, the turn and rapidly going to a lower altitude, 12,000 feet . I think it points very clearly to some kind of a very large, catastrophic mechanical event on the plane or possibly an explosion. That depleted the cabin of the pressurization. The Standard Operating Procedure for a depressurization is a turn and a drop in altitude. And i think the drop in the altitude had to do with getting oxygen. And certainly not to avoiding radar. Youre still visible on radar at 5,000 feet much less 12,000 feet. So this points to a catastrophic mechanical event and the pilots response to that to turn back towards the airport on that heading was a very long runway. Unobstructed. And the dive was to get down to an area, down to an altitude where they didnt have to have pressurization. Thats what i think. Mary, why no emergency call . So far theres no evidence of it . Because they are incredibly busy. At 35,000 feet, if they had 30 seconds they were lucky to get the mask on. That would also explain if the timing is right, now, weve had such terrible time with information from the authorities on timing. But if the timings right, there was also an attempt by another plane to contact them. And they said all they heard was some of the garbled, stackicky message. That would explain that. You have an oxygen mask on. You have probably Something Else going in the cockpit. But i think this points clearly to a catastrophic event on the plane such as a decompression, explosion or a fire like les said. Les knows his planes. Yeah. All right. Stand by, everyone. I want to update our viewers if youre just tuning in. Cnn has breaking news now. This is according to a source close to this investigation. Military radar, theyre saying that tracked flight 370 between 1 19 a. M. , 2 40 a. M. Showed the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea and was headed toward the strait of malaka. As it was flying as low as 12,000 feet at some point before it disappeared from the radar. A source close to the investigation is telling that cnn that. Do we have Steve Wallace on . Investigator Steve Wallace . Steve wallace is on now. Steve, youve investigated with you know, actions like this. Crashes, disappearances of airplanes. What do you make of this new information . Not much. Mine, i understand everything captain abend said. That to me is one scenario that remains on the table. But, you know, among the theres been a pattern here, unfortunately, of evidence changing. Like suddenly the 12 minutes in advance programming of the fms is suddenly today in the last sentence of the beautifully scripted report from the defense minister says thats not true. Now i have to say this primary military radar, which is designed to detect intruders, may be out near the end of its range. These altitude sudden altitude changes, i have no idea of the accuracy of that. I would hope that that data is presented to the best radar experts. And i know we sent them over there to assist with this investigation. One more thing, don. One piece of evidence that i i think most of us put a lot of stock in were those continuous ping handshakes from the inmarsat satellite. That resulted in those two arcs. This would seem to send that out the window. Miles obrien, youve heard just about all the information. I read it a little bit earlier. Your assessment . Three things to think about here. First of all, a twominute turn is probably more than 90 degrees. Its probably closer to 180degree turn. The plane could have been turning right back to land in kuala lumpur. Second thing here is we still have not seen the maintenance records of this particular aircraft. There were some significant airworthiness directives that actually related to the oxygen system that the crew would be using. Theres a wire bundle that had to be changed out. We dont know that that got done. Thats an important question. And number three, with this information, it seems to me that authorities should revisit the idea of searching that particular area. Wherever this plane went down to 12,000 feet might be a good place to look. Heres my question, though. So the plane goes down to 12,000 feet in this particular scenario, right . And so, you noknow, miles, you just mentioned maybe they should search that particular area. Thats where my question is going. What about this southern indian ocean . Would the autopilot, once if everyone on board is not conscious including the pilots, hypoxia, would the autopilot revert back to the original destination . It could be anybodys guess. You go with my fire scenario or miles scenario with hypoxia, it depends upon how degraded the autopilot system was. If it managed to maintain altitude and course, whatever was put into the plane management computer, whether its kuala lumpur or some other alternate airport, the fmc is programmed to go to that destination. If it has nothing else to go to, itll maintain a heading. And continue on that heading. Thats the question. So if they were so were they not on autopilot at that point . So at this point, if Something Like this happened, which this which the information were gleaning from this, as if that something happened in the cockpit. They were trying to get lower in order to take care of it. To find another airport or to get to air where to a spot where they could clear the air, so to speak, in the airplane. So then the question is, theyre not on autopilot at that point. Correct . No. They are . Im sorry. I didnt make that clear. They are on autopilot. My contention is that they began the decent. The captain prior to beginning descent had put in the diversionary alternate. Whether its kuala lumpur or another alternate airport. The airplane is still on a lateral turn by the autopilot. And they are directing a descent that they may have put in the Motor Control Panel select at 12,000 feet, if thats accurate, of course. And then they would have desc d descended to 12,000 feet in the auto pay lot and headed toward that waypoint being an airport. I would love to see what this looks like in the simulator with martin savidge. Whether, indeed, this would work. My question is, if you, again, whos steering the plane at this point . Even if the autopilot is on and he has put it in the autopilot. Can the pilot still override that just by steering the plane . Any crew member can. Any pilot can disconnect the autopilot from the control wheel, certainly. So if he disconnects, right, and then he passes out. He passes out. What happens . Then its anybodys guess. Then that airplane is going to seek its own level of stability. And it depends if the airplane is in a turn, an electronically guided airplane, it may just keep continuing the turn. The autopilot doesnt kick back on, danger, if something is happening, were going into dangerous territory here. That would mean the autopilot, if it did, it continued to go and did not go into the ocean, at that point where they were, it would mean that the ato pilot was on . If they disconnected it and became incapacitated its anybodys guess. Okay. Mary schiavo, do you get the gist of my question . Im trying to figure out whost steering the airplane at this point. Again, were just gleani ining information from the latest information we have gotten here from sources who are close to the investigation about this military radar, saying that the plane dropped to an altitude of 12,000 feet. So if there is, indeed, something catastrophic that happened onboard, im trying to figure out who, indeed, would be in control of the airplane and whether or not this airplane would end up over why it would end up over the indian ocean where were looking or would it be in the strait of malaka. Do you understand what im saying . Right. And in some previous ones, for example, in helios, they had entered a Holding Pattern and the plane continued to do the Holding Pattern. The plane just continued to do that. And go around in the Holding Pattern. Payne stewart it kept the last known heading. In both cases autopilot. In both cases the plane looked for its last instructions and followed them. Thats the question. Did it look for the last instructions . Thats what shes just kind of well, in a way, its looking for its last known instruction. If it heads to a waypoint and it says, hey, ive got nothing else in front of me, im just going to maintain the heading. I think the last point that was in there, assuming its a diversionary airport that was put in or some other waypoint that brought you closer, whatever that last waypoint was and it sees nothing in front of it or another waypoint, it just will hold that heading. Assuming the autopilot is on. In the autopilot, the original heading would be beijing . No. Im saying the original heading to the diversionary airport. Before the diversion what would be because they would put in the autopilot, right . They would have put in a four letter identifier to a particular airport. Lets say its kuala lumpur. Okay. It would head to kuala lumpur. Once it got over kuala lumpur, whatever that heading was, whether its south no. If its taking off from kuala lumpur and its headed to beijing, what goes into the autopilot. An entire route all the way to beijing. Okay. But once you enter a new waypoint, chances are the captain just entered a if the scenario, once again, is correct, the captain what im saying is if he has entered beijing, right, and this happens, he clicks off the autopilot. Correct. And then starts to steer himself to get it to where he wants it to go. Does that happen or no . Does it go through the autopilot . Procedurally, we would do it through the autopilot. Thats my question. Okay. Breaking news here on cnn. This is what were learning. The newest information is that military radar tracked flight 370 between 1 19 and 2 40 a. M. , 2 40 in the morning, as it took off from kuala lumpur and showed that the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea headed toward the strait of malaka. Was flying as low as 12,000 feet were told at some point before it disappeared. Again, this is a source close to the investigation. The source said that it flew on after that turn in a heavily trafficked air corridor and that flying 12,000 feet would have kept the jet well out of the way of that traffic. Mary schiavo, former Inspector General of the department of transportation, is saying even flying at 12,000 feet, even 5,000 feet, it would still be available to radar in that area. Mary . Thats right. Youd still be seen on radar. So i was dispelling the notion that they dropped that they turned and dropped low to disappear from radar. Thats nonsense. That isnt the purpose of the decrease in altitude. Because it wouldnt work. Shawn perniki, aviation safety professor, joins us here as well. So, mr. Perniki, you heard the latest information about it dropping to a lower altitude of 12,000 feet. What do you make . I certainly agree with what everyone has said so far. That that would support the idea that that there could have been something catastrophic onboard. I think heres whats really important about that, don. The fact that if the radar is accurate, theres data points were now finding out about, i agree with the gentleman earlier about how information has changed one from being accurate to not accurate. But if that is accurate, the idea is that it looks like it could have been a controlled descent. I think thats important as opposed to the aircraft just descending as if its crashing. Or intentionally dropped to 12,000 feet by the pilots. Okay. Stand by. Les . Well, its its a great point. I think that if there was some compelling reason to get down lower, albeit loss of pressurization or a fire, you know, to evacuate the smoke, there was a very compelling reason to do it, it probably still would have been done on the autopilot using the Mode Control Panel thats in the glare shield. They would have dialed down the altitude and hit a button called flight level change. Which would have rapidly brought the airplane down. Still under automation. Mary mentioned the time. Mary schiavo mentioned the time. At that point, why no distress calls. She says at that point they are working to feverishly, frantically trying to correct the situation they may not have time. How much time do they have here . Well, you know, it depends upon whether their situation was uncontrolled. If it was dire, theres only two people in that airplane that are going to be able to save everybody. Those are the two guys up front. Steve wallace . Steve wallace, are you there . Apparently we dont have investigator we do . Investigator Steve Wallace, youre hearing what les said and you hear from mr. Pruchnicki said, it appeared to be a controlled turn, controlled descent . Do you agree with that . Were really off on speculation here a bit. Every scenario is possible. Its on the table. Captain abend describes perhaps, you know, it could be a massive fire in the aifonic space. Except apparently the flight Management System was still working. And so, you know, i might suggest that if the pilot were in an emergency had enough time to program a diversion waypoint, he might have time to program an emergency squawk in the transponder which, you know, the timing of the loss of that transponder signal is is somewhat suspicious. Again, i think everything remains on the table here. Yeah. Absolutely. Steve wallace, you know, thats a good point. Mary schiavo, Steve Wallaces point is that theres been so much misinformation coming from the malaysian authorities. We hear one scenario. We hear one thing. We get, you know, evidence and clues to one thing. All of a sudden they contradict themselves, mary. Thats a problem. Well, thats a problem. But, you know, i guess theyre contradicting themselves. At least theyre fessing up and theyre putting out new information. What i would really hate to have happen is they got their ways set in one way and then they tried to make the data fit what they assumed would happen. Thats actually a common phenomena in an investigation. The investigators get one thing in mind and thats it. Everything has to fit that data. They originally said they thought it was nefarious activity. This is different. So i give them credit that they arent falling into some traps in investigation where they try to make the evidence fit the theories. Here theyre apparently saying, well, that was wrong. Lets try this. Thats actually encouraging. New evidence coming in on missing flight 370. More right after this break. The day we rescued riley was a truly amazing day. He was a matted mess in a small cage. So that was our first task, was getting him to wellness. Without angies list, i dont know if we could have found all the services we needed for our riley. From contractors and doctors to dog sitters and landscapers, you can find it all on angies list. We found riley at the shelter, and found everything he needed at angies list. Join today at angieslist. 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And ask us all about our auto features, like guaranteed repairs, where if you get into an accident and use one of our certified repair shops, your repairs are guaranteed for life. So call. To talk with an Insurance Expert about everything that comes standard with our base auto policy. And if you switch, you could save up to 423. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . This is breaking news into cnn. Coming from a source close to the investigation that says military radar that tracked that missing flight 370 between 1 19 and 2 40, it showed the aircraft did change altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea as it headed toward the strait of malacca. As low as 12,000 feet. Which is leading our 777 pilot here to believe that there was possibly a catastrophic event inside the cockpit. Les abend joins us. Steve wallace is an investigate going to join us in just a second. Also shawn puchnicki. Mary schiavo. As were sitting here, we have our wits about it. We can look at armchair quarterback chest list. This is a checklist. This is what we should be doing. Does it happen that way in real life . It doesnt happen when i go to recurrent training in the simulator. Sometimes we have a good idea what the scenario may be among many others. Very often i forget the entire thing. When it comes to changing the transponder code to emergency, i dont know what good that would have done anybody. I would rather stay on a discreet code thats already been assigned to me because other controllers will be able to pick me up. That being said, its a very easy item to forget because im so busy following a checklist in addition to the confusion of the oxygen mask being on with you know, with the goggles. Smoke in the cockpit. If thats a scenario. Even if it was a hypoxic situation where it was explosive depressurization, thats even more confusing. Stuff coming out of that cockpit that you havent seen since the airplane has been built. And it goes everywhere. So its a very that scenario, as well built as that boeing 777 is, im not big on it, but its possible. Window could have cracked. You said things coming out since it was built. You mean debris, dust. Debris, dust, yeah. Anything thats dropped in that airplane thats never been picked up or vacuumed in the normal manner. The reason were saying this about this particular scenario that were talking about now with the plane dropping to 12,000 feet is because, according to our pilots and all of our safety people here, all of our investigators are saying this points to some sort of catastrophic emergency failure of the airplane. The pilot, copilot trying to get the plane to a new runway thats long enough to support a landing. And also trying to get to an altitude where they could clear the cockpit of whatever air or gas or whatever it is thats filling up the cockpit or smoke at that particular point. Steve wallace, you heard what les abend had to say. Whats your response to him . Well, i dont disagree. Dialing in that emergency 7700 squawk might be a low priority. But what troubles me is that the transponder was simply apparently, and there are two of them on the airplane, turned off. So thats what makes it a little harder for me to reconcile. And, again, the we all got pretty locked on to these inmarsat pings. And i cant reconcile this this notion that it went down and west with those inmarsat pings. Unless it did Something Else afterwards. Yeah. Cnns miles obrien also standing by has been listening to this breaking news. Miles, were talking about the altitude change here. And the sharp turn. According to les abend, who is, you know, our 777 pilot here, still flies, hes saying, listen, when youre in a particular situation, the possibility that something catastrophic happened on board the plane, you have all these checklists, what have you, doesnt necessarily happen in real life. We have emergencies. We have certain things were supposed to do during breaking news that are checklists. Sources, say all that. When it sometimes happens it just doesnt work out that way. Yeah. Crews train these socalled red box items. Les can tell you all about this. This is a red box item. Meaning you shouldnt have to pull out a checklist. This is something you should do from memory. They drill it like crazy. Theres no question this is something that you get in simulator sessions all the time. I would like to throw out one important question. Im not sure we have the answer. But id like to get it out there to see if we can get somebody on the ground to get the answer. A really key question, les, bear me out on this. Captain john rigas, a friend of mine who has a lot of experience flying various aircraft, said a standard descent from 35,000 feet to 12,000 would take about 69 miles. He did the math on that. So a key question here is, how what was the distance between the last transponder hit and this primary hit were talking about at 12,000 that the military got . That distance will tell you how fast it was dropping. And that will tell us an awful lot what was going on onboard that aircraft. If it was a gentle descent, what were talking about isnt true. If it was if it took 69 miles, in other words. Id love to get that information. I dont know if somebody on the ground in kuala lumpur can help us with that. Im sure our folks are listening and will try to get it for you. Les, do you agree with that . I do. That rough calculation. A sharp left turn, then a rapid descent down to 12,000 feet. What happened . We are trying to figure it out. 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The breaking news here on cnn is that military radar, according to to a source close to the investigation, tracked missing flight 370, Malaysia Flight 370 between 1 19 and 2 40 showing that the aircraft did a change in altitude after making a sharp turn over the South China Sea, as we have been reporting, except for this rapid change in altitude as it headed toward the strait of malacca, flying as low as 12,000 feet. Joining me now is mary schiavo. Former Inspector General of the department of transportation. Steve wallace. Les abend a 777 pilot. Shawn puchnicki. And miles obrien, aviation expert here on cnn. You heard what miles said. It takes about 69 miles . Its a rough calculation that we use to do a normal descent rate at a 3 1 ratio. With a power back. We just calculated it in our head. However, if this was an emergency situation, that would go out the window. And we would be pulling back speed breaks which destroys the lift on the airplane and getting the airplane the airplane would come down somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 feet a minute. It would be a very noticeable descent. So it would be a very quick descent. Obviously the passengers would notice. How quickly does that take you down from 35,000 feet to well, youre asking me to do math at a pilot. But if you assume 5,000 feet a minute, okay, and you have to lose 23,000 feet, you know, thats thats about five minutes. A little less than five minutes. A little less than five min urt uts to get down to that. In this particular situation you would think you said the speed brakes . You pull the speed brake lever by the center console. That activates panels that come out of the wing and destroy the lift on the wing for the right purposes. And the airplane just sinks. Just sinks after that. Miles obrien, you want to continue on . You were talking about particularly you said you wanted someone on the ground to know how long does it take to do that turn. Its usually about, you said, 69 miles to make a turn to the left like that or just to turn the aircraft . For the standard descent, the back of the envelope that we did, as you would if you were flying a typical flight, would be about 69 miles. So if we can find the distance between those two points, the last transponder we had and where the military radar put it at 12,000 feet were going to learn a lot about what was going on with that airplane. We should be able to get that information. Miles . Yeah. Go ahead. You heard what he said. He said, listen, if something is happening, theyre going to hit that speed brake. He said oh, yeah. The plane is going to descend much quicker than that. A lot less than 69 miles. Like les i dont like to do math in public. I will tell you it will be a lot less than this. And that would tell us we could do the math on what the deced desced deced descent rate was. It would tell us if there was an emergency situation going on right away. Continue your thought. Sorry to interrupt you. The one thought id like to bring out here. Okay. There is im going to take the stance here that the captain was flying this plane manually. But he still he still could have had it first of all, he could have set the altitude at 10,000 which would be procedure. That would be in the box. He still could have it on heading mode. That sets up a scenario where if the crew did, in fact, become incapacitated the plane would hold that heading and hold that altitude until the tanks were dry. That puts us right back where we were. Deep into the indian ocean. But suddenly as mary was saying earlier, i feel like the pieces are coming together a little better. Weve been really stretching before. And this, you know, the old idea, go for the simplest scenario, this is starting to fit. You bring up a very good point here, miles. Im going to go to mary next. Mary, weve been talking about different scenarios. But thats what investigators do as youre trying to figure out what happened. Youre trying to piece it together. Investigators put in certain scenario. Many people call it speculating. Whatever you want to do. But you have to set up certain scenarios to try to come down, to try to figure out exactly what happened. Exactly. And i was at an air crash investigators conference this weekend weekend. Thats one of the first things we discussed. If you dont have hypothesis and theories, some people call it speculation. We call it theories. You never solve the mystery. Heres another one. Did this plane have an emergency descent mode . Some very advanced aircraft you dont even have to do that. They have an emergency descent mode in their computerized program. The pilot would have been it would have been faster for him to program the plane. The pilot would do whatever he can to get you down as fast as possible to try to save everyones lives. This plane is a good one. In response to mary, the boeing 777 does not have an emergency descent mode. It gives us a lot of options to make an emergency descent. But it doesnt have a specific descent mode. Mary, that would say, then, if it doesnt have a specific emergency descent mode would be what . Press of a button . That means that the pilot and the copilot are working feverishly to try to do things manually. Could be manual. They could have done it with automation through the Mode Control Panel also. Mary . Thats right. They would have had to work since they dont have this edm, they would have had to do it either entered in the computer or take several steps. So theyd be very, very busy. Mary, you said you were at a conference this weekend. Is this what were talking about now with this new information, as the new information comes in about this turn and about rapidly descending to 12,000 feet, is that what you discussed at this conference . No. This conference was on air crash investigators. Do people talk about it . What im wondering is if people were talking about this particular situation if youre at an air investigators conference. Oh, yes. I mean, you cant help but try to want to help people solve the mystery. Since there were a lot of pilots and air people there, they were more on the mechanical side but, yes, Everyone Wants to help solve it. The whole world wants to help solve it. Yeah. Go ahead, quickly. Lets just remember every accident has multiple causes to it. Theres never just one. Lets not i dont want to get us all going in the direction where theres only one cause. Something if, indeed, this happened mechanical, theres got to be more reasons than just one that this all happened. Simple deduction. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Stand by, everyone. Stand by, everyone. Its the top of the hour. Captions by vitac www. Vitac. Com this is cnn breaking news. Im don lemon in new york. New information now. This is breaking news here. Brandnew information about the Malaysia Airlines flight 370s path and altitude. A cnn source tells us malaysian military radar tracking the plane shows it flew as low as 12,000 feet after making a sharp left turn and flying back over malaysian the malaysian peninsula. The source says after the turn, the plane flew in a heavily trafficked air corridor and our source notes that flying at 12,000 feet would have kept the jet well out of the way of that