in a fully computerized setup like what you see in the airbus and also the boeing 787, these are are aircraft that are controlled by computers. so when the pilot puts in any sort of change for the aircraft flight controls, it first goes through the computer that mediates it and then tells the controls what to do. i find it problematic, actually. to distill this there s no real manual override on the a320? i cannot absolutely confirm that at this point, but i know that it is an electrically driven aircraft and you would not have a hydraulic override. thank you for your perspective perspective. i want to go to meteorologist bill karins. we were just seeing this picture. i asked the folks to show that picture again. it looks like it s very foggy. it looks like there s not a lot
wreckage is higher peaks will be mixed with snow. jose, you have your pilots there, i was having a conversation with a lot of weather experts off line and many of them are wondering about clear air turbulence. was going to ask, any of you guys heard of clear air turbulence causing a crash? i know we have seen instances of it with injuries and minor damage, but what about a crash. is that out of the realm? there were reports of moderate to light turbulence in the area but that was all i could find. yeah i mean bill clear air turbulence is effectively extreme vertical updrafts and down drafts usually found with inside clouds thunderstorm clouds where they re the most extreme. in terms of any that led to a crash, i can t think of any off the top of my head but there are lots of examples where aircraft lost significant altitude during one of these experiences but recovered.
this is an airplane that s been in service for 30 years. german wings has a good safety record according to cox bs and we re being told it disappeared off radar and there was a rapid descent into the alps. the weather in that area was 56 degrees, mostly cloudy. pretty normal. and the number of people onboard, 142, 2 pilots and 4 fright willing attendants. a large boeing aircraft has crashed. we re getting word in to nbc in the past ten minutes in the french alps. we have anthony romans a former commercial pilot on the phone right now. anthony, when you hear of this very limited information we have what can you tell us about the type of plane, the area where it was traveling and the very little we know about the disappearance from radar and rapid descent? well, i understand the airline that suffered this terrible tragedy is german wings
press conference is getting under way. we will keep monitoring for you. back to the facts. at least as ann curry now reports, french officials have reached the general area but it is going to be a trek. yeah. i think i want to follow this notion of analysis on the crew being unaware if you like that incapacitated somehow. i don t want to say inkpas at a time i want to say unaware. incapacitated would suggest there was a physical problem with the crew. i want to look at the interesting case study when we talk about the crew being unaware because air france 447 flight from south america to france that went down in the atlantic, the reason that occurred was because of icing in the pete oh tube. it gave erroneous readings in the cockpit, which the pilots misinterpreted. what happened was from a high altitude the pilots read one thing and the aircraft was doing
being man handled by the pilots in certain circumstances. however, a debris field of five miles suggests and i say suggests because it is so early in terms of developing the facts, suggests that there may have been an in flight air frame failure. when we have impact of an aircraft that is in a state of flying into the ground it just does not leave a debris field that wide and that diffuse. i think perhaps the pilots attempted to save the aircraft and overstressed it or perhaps there was an explosive device on the aircraft. those two factors have to be ruled out. and jay rawlings joins us an experienced pilot. jay, we just can t rule anything out now, right, jay? no. every direction that we look at