made. the a330 was supposed to go to madrid and it s not the gate at schiphol airport in amsterdam and we are being told that 27 people on board are off the plane and safe. the status of the hijackers, we still do not know. continuing coverage of breaking news after the break. y. at bayer, this is why we science. tech: don t wait for a chip like this to crack your whole windshield. with safelite s exclusive resin, you get a strong repair that you can trust. plus, with most insurance a safelite repair is no cost to you. customer: really?! singers: safelite repair, safelite replace.
i m trace calendar don t like it gallagher. breaking news, dutch military police are saying they are investigating a very suspicious situation on an aircraft in amsterdam, at steeple airport. dutch media are reporting that emergency services are of gathering right at the airport on the outskirts of amsterdam. it s actually around 9 miles outside of amsterdam where it s around 8:30 p.m. there right now. if you are just joining us, and air europa plane which is spain s third largest air carrier has an a330 and we believe it s parked at or very near the gate at the airport. in netherlands group three is one of their highest alert
of being over the limit for alcohol before flying. abc s senior transportation correspondent david kerley with that story. reporter: british authorities detained the american airlines flight crew member in manchester before the a-330 took off for philadelphia. an aviation source telling abc news, it was one of the three pilots, but it is unclear if it was the captain or one of the first officers who tonight is being investigated for suspicion of performing an aviation function when over the prescribed limit of alcohol. american canceled that flight, rebooking passengers and saying in a statement, safety is our highest priority and we apologize to our customers. the limit for alcohol in pilots is half that for drivers, .04. this pilot arrested two years ago in detroit. and some like this former jetblue pilot faced federal charges. did you put 270 passengers at risk? no comment. this is an ongoing issue you ve reported on before. david kerley with us again tonight. we re aware
were saying about the level of control it appeared to have on descent? sure. the fact that a 3,000 or 4,000 feet per minute rate descent is something that jet airplanes do regularly in the process of climbing or descending. that rate of change is a normal value. when you look at some of the very serious loss of control accidents, for example, the air france a330 out of the south atlantic that airplane came down over 10,000 feet a minute and it indicated that the airplane was not in control. it was in what they call a full stall. and so this tells me that at least we if those numbers are correct in the descent rate it says that the airplane was not in one of these uncontrolled conditions clar ss similar to the air france airplane. all of this information is very very very early and it s subject to change.
i think basically what it will do is maintain the status quo. the reason that i say that is because it s technically a new model, but it s the a-330, which is currently airbus model that s most directly competitive to the dreamliner. what they re doing is they re going to make some aerodynamic tweaks to it, give it new engines and roll out the a-330 neo which stands for new engine option. it will be more fuel efficient. this will give it another decade, maybe two decades of life where they were going to have to stop production. ben, before you go, there s this amazing story today that you can go, you know, to china in a couple of hours from the u.s. you fly up to 50,000 feet basically in space, get launched into the high atmosphere and then you just basically pop up and then you pop down and you could go 2500 miles an hour. i mean this is pretty incredible. you know, do you think this is going to happen? some engineers are saying this is well. you can get to beijing in two hours.