a serious scare in the air at 39,000 feet tonight. a major airline trying to figure out why both engines on an airbus failed. that means there were no engines operating. the incident happened over the weekend. it was a singapore airlines flight. by the way top-ranked airline in the world. that plane was bound for shanghai. there were 194 people on board that plane. it was just south of hong kong when the two engines both lost power. at that point, the plane started to descend. the pilots were rushing desperately to try to restart the engines. so how did this flight lose power to both engines? and could it happen again? renee marsh outfront. reporter: sing more airlines flight 836 with 194 on board was flying over the south china sea bound for shanghai when both engines went out. the sudden loss of power at 39,000 feet as the jetliner
both engines midair a highly uncommon occurrence. now an investigation is under way to figure out what caused these frightening moments in the air. singapore airlines flight 836 with 194 onboard was flying over the south china sea bound for shanghai when both engines went out. the sudden loss of power at 39,000 feet as the jetliner passed through bad weather. within seconds, the aircraft dropped nearly 13,000 feet. the pilot has to basically put the plane that s now lost power in its engines in a dive and that wind going through those engines spins the turbines and helps the pilots get a relight. but even with a relight, getting your engines actually going again, the fuel is burning, you have to be able to sustain those engines. so it s a really tricky maneuver maneuver. reporter: singapore airlines says the problem started about 3 1/2 hours after departing from
flight 836 with 194 onboard was flying over the south china sea bound for shanghai when both engines went out. the sudden loss of power at 39,000 feet as the jetliner passed through bad weather. within seconds, the aircraft dropped nearly 13,000 feet. the pilot has to basically put the plane that s now lost power in its engines in a dive. and that wind going through those engines spins the turbines and helps the pilots get a relight. but even with a relight, getting your engines actually going again, fuel is burning, you have to be able to sustain those engines. so it s a really tricky maneuver. reporter: singapore airlines said the problem started about 3 1/2 hours after departing from singapore. they say one engine regained power while pilots worked on the second. that is something they re trained to do. and in all cases on all planes there is a point at which the manuals say, don t try any more diving restarts.
five-month-old babies. strangers hit the brakes to get out to help. the baby s aunt tried to give mouth to mouth. i kind of like hopped and when i saw him and touched him he was not responding and immediatelyly i got him out. jumped back to the front and i realized he was limp and not breathing. how terrifying. it was caught on camera by the miami herald and here is what he had to say. i was traveling west on the 836 east of 57th avenue. an suv stops in front of me. and i didn t think anything of it. but i started hearing screaming. look at my phone and radio and look up again and a woman pops out of a car holding a baby screaming help me.
travelling at some 9,000 miles per hour. and because they got such a good look at this thing, check this out. they got a closer look and always thought this thing was 836 feet in diameter. well, now they know, megyn, it s 1,066 feet in diameter and that s a 20% increase in diameter, but check this out. that s a 75% increase in mass. that means it is much, much bigger than they ever thought it would be, at 9,000 miles per hour coming to a neighborhood near you in 2036, it s a bad scenario. out of curiosity could you be more specific where it s likely to hit? not the west coast because we don t do to asteroids, we do earthquakes. new york does things like asteroids and the big stuff. megyn: the northern hemisphere, north america, could you narrow it down. not that we don t care, but don t we have the technology to shoot that thing out of the sky as close as 9,000 miles to