have the capability. they ve done this before. reporter: retired navy captain chip mccord has been involved in at least 50 ocean salvage operations include twag 800 800 and swissair which crashed in 1998 off the coast of nova scotia. the vehicles are equipped are lights and cameras and are outfitted with sonar to skoutd for debris. they are steered by two operators on board the ship above who use instant feedback if the salvage vehicles cameras to direct the robotic arms. they can hover, they can move left right, forward and aft and go to what they need very carefully hover over a piece and pick it up if they need to. remember air france flight 447 which crashed in the atlantic ocean in 2009? two years later, an unmanned underwater vehicle found the debris field for that flight 13,000 feet beneath the surface.
at depths for short periods due to health concerns and does indonesia have what it takes to have the recovery of this. there are questions about the debris. when you re out there, it s huge. david gallot with oceanographic, usually, you re extremely careful to say you ve found something until you ground truthed it. in the crash of air france flight 447 off brazil s northeastern coast whose black boxes took almost two years to recover, footnoting what a pain staking process this can be. on the other hand this crash occurred much less water which raises the possibility that it will be easier to get all the pieces. still, there are concerns quite frankly, of souvenir hunters because this is much less water it s even a possibility that recreational divers might go and try to bring pieces out. that s a concern. i hadn t even thought about that and it s a horrible thing to think of that possibility. i m sure it s very real.
likely and i stress this not confirmed but likely to remain in the main fuselage of the plane which comes back to the shadow. they ve got to find that shutter. it was described as a skeleton of the plane they saw and until they find that they really can t say. andrew stevens, i appreciate the report. not just the logistics that could be formidable but the answers to determining what brought down the aircraft. david gallo, with the search for the wreckage the search for air france flight 447 on a flight from rio to paris. also joining us aviation correspondent richard kwesz and author of malaysia flight 370, why it disappeared and only a matter of time before this happens again. david, walk us through how you go about an operation like this. do you first have to map the
among wreckage. they have the capability they ve done this before. reporter: retired navy captain chip mccord has been involved in at least 50 ocean salvage operations including twa 800 and swiss air flight 111 which crashed in 1998 off the coast of nova scotia. under water vehicles are equipped with lights and cameras. they re also outfitted with with sonar to scout for debris. they are zeered by two operators on board a ship above who use instant feedback from the salvage cameras to direct the robotic arms. they can hover, they can move left right, forward and aft and go to where they need very carefully however over a piece and pick it up if they need to. reporter: remember air france flight 447 which crashed in the atlantic ocean in 2009. two years later an unmanned
they are in the tail and the tail came off and that wreckage could be miles away from the floating and main debris now. there are a lot of people seeing similarities to what happened in this circumstances and what happened in the air france flight 447 crash that also involved an air bus. can you make those comparisons? are you seeing the same similarities? well there are some similarities there. they encountered turbulence. they had an air speed failure. but air al geria had a similar instance with the crew encountering thunderstorms and announcing today controllers they were turning around but