is just to see any incoming threats. in our country, that means over the washington metropolitan area where raytheon has been marketing this as a homeland security tool. they, indeed, say that it hovers up to 10,000 feet up and require the need for a cable almost two miles long. there s pictures of it as the story goes on. we ll search our archives more and more. these have been displayed, defense shows. they have been brought to different communities, mostly on the east coast. so there are a lot of pictures of this. including from raytheon themselves. and that s what it looks like from ground level. again, anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 feet up. they have superb communication abilities. if they spot an incoming threat, if they spot a missile, perhaps a cruise missile in a war zone or in peacetime over a city like
of them and, in fact, the lack of any kind of contact, no hearing of the so-called pings from the black box. nearly ten days into the search they ve recovered 37 bodies so far, pieces of what they think might be wreckage. to me, at least, you would think they have a general enough idea to have the sonar in the water, the detectors, listening devices to hear the pings, yet no pings. does this call into question the general effectiveness of these black boxes and their communication abilities? to say the least, john. we ve been to this movie way too many times now. how many times do we have to go through this before we as passengers demand that the airlines and regulators get into the 21st century. it s crazy. absolutely crazy. we re sticking microphones in the water hoping to hear a ping from something 100 or maybe several thousand feet below. there are ways to solve this problem and, yes, it s going to cost a little bit of money to have that capability but think of the anguish of thes
examples. i can drag any one of ten out where there has been a major mechanical failure, but the aircraft has continued and they ve continued to fly it, but with very limited communication abilities. okay. unlikely, but we are now in the realms of who knows. i know you don t want to speculate. but all smart minds are leaning towards what you said. mechanical failure. it had trouble, it was turning back, and all of a sudden it lost its way. it s the most logical. it s the most sensible solution. i mean, it is the most experienced solution. most incidents happen by mechanical failure followed by pilot error. hold that thought. i want to tell our viewers again, welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world, here s the new information that we have just learned here on cnn. this is the breaking news. the plane was way off its course. you re looking at the map of
rhode island, connecticut and new hampshire have already offered their assistance as well. as far as warnings go we don t have the typical midwest tornado siren system. every community sort of has their own outreach for any sort of emergency whether it is, reverse 911s or, you know, siren system, or you know local emergency, eas, on the tv, radio. it s catch as catch can, if you ve will. like i said, tornado warnings are not. what about communications systems there? we know that you are at your office speaking to us. are people able to use their phones? are phone lines down? what sort of information are people able to get? well, we have about 50,000 folks without power. generally i think the communication systems are up and running pretty well. we know from the public safety perspective, we have a lot of supplemental communication
gas leaks are everywhere. explosions are feared. and so, we are not out of the clear, though the tornado has passed us. we are getting more details on this state of emergency in joplin from a public affairs officer from missouri national guard. major tammy spicer is following developments, thank you for joining us on the phone this morning. our first question, how big a challenge to get information from joplin with phone communications mostly cut off? communications is one of the major obstacles right now. which was governor jay nixon, immediately mobilized many state assets to respond. one of our missouri national guard teams is bringing a special satellite system that will greatly enhance the communication abilities and the highway patrol has set up their state level communication assets on the ground so that those leaders there in joplin have what they need to respond properly to help the citizens. from what we understand right now, this is preliminary information coming in