in with this mix of other information they re looking at, saying how do you make heads or tails of any of this? one of the problems the americans have had on this is the malaysians have not shared everything with them, and the u.s. government and investigators feel like they re on the outside looking in, saying hey, we have a lot of expertise here and investigatively and air wise, there s just not a lot of communication going on there. barbara, before we go, there are still questions. the reporting now is, more clear and more solid than it has been. but there s still questions, right? we still don t know exactly what we know or don t know. but that being said, what are you hearing about motive? obviously, are you still hearing mechanical malfunction is possible, or whether this was a pilot decision or someone else on the plane, some sort of a hijacking situation?
and being pulling back and pushing forward, turning, that certainly is a potential. again, as we mentioned over the last few days, until you get the voice recorder, certainly the flight data recorder, but the voice recorder in particular, you don t even know who was flying and controlling the aircraft movements. i know you have been a proponent thinking there was a hijacking. but marty, what about the difficulty of moving altitudes so quickly, as that was happening, the reporting is showing that the plane was dramatically changing direction, moving around. and then settling on what appears at this point to have been a straight path. what does that look like from a simulator? reporter: here we re going to try to show you a sharp turn. the problem is, what is a sharp turn? there s no definition. for a commercial airliner, if you went above 30 degrees in a turn, and let s do that, let s turn. that s about the max that any
on a teeter totter and descend immediately. 40,000 feet, when you hear something like that, going down 40,000 feet in one moment, for myself, that makes me very skeptical that that is accurate. we are hearing from the engine maker, that may be an false reading. but if it goes back down do 23,000 feet and then goes back up again and levels off and then flies on a relatively straight path as barbara starr is reporting, is that something as a pilot that would believe conceivable? not really. let s just take the premise that even if these numbers are close to where the altitudes would have been, how would that have happened? it might say either there was incapacitation of some of the crew members in the cockpit, would that have come from a struggle in the airplane? that seems to be could fit one scenario, that trying to gain control over that aircraft
i have to tell you, a week ago they were not ruling anything out. but looking at every single scenario, and essentially gaming it out, trying to see if they carry it to a conclusion in their analysis, does it give them any clues that they can work on? nothing is certain in any of this. thank you very much, michael and barbara there with the very latest reporting. a dramatic and sudden changes in altitude and multiple changes in direction with a plane that flew for up to five hours after finally losing contact with ground control. joining me now, major general james spider marks. spider, let me ask you in terms of motive. now that we have these two pieces, even with all the question marks that surround this latest reporting, this is a significant breakthrough in reporting from both barbara and michael. what do you think now was the motive, was the intent? what drove this? well, clearly in my mind, what the largest missing piece
accomplish, are you trying to accomplish turning the aircraft with a heading mode or how are you trying to turn the aircraft, whether the plane is on an autopilot or not, it s not hard to learn. so anybody with basic flying skills or a little bit of training could have maneuvered the aircraft to make a turn. that doesn t mean that the person that tried to do this had very good piloting skills. thank you very much to michael weiss and martin savidge. as you can see, there are still so many more questions that some of the reporting that is coming out, this breakthrough reporting with the altitude shifts and changes in direction don t necessarily at this point seem to add up with reality. there are still so many questions. as we get more information about where this jet may be. next, family members of the passengers say they hope flight 370 was the victim of a hijacking and you ll hear why. u.s. officials say the flight likely crashed into the indian