barbara starr citing a classified analysis of data conducted by u.s. agencies and and both flight calculations after it went past the malay peninsula. with us right now, the fact that the new york times report is true and we haven t confirmed that it s the new york times citing their sources, plane went up to 45,000, down to 23,000 and then back up to 30,000. it was very erratic. what does that say to you? it says possibly that there was some type of a fight for control of the aircraft within the cockpit. now, it could be that the captain and co-pilot fighting over the controls like we had in the egypt air pilot suicide crash or it could mean a separate hijacker in there who is not a good pilot and maybe he can t control the plane from
charles barnett is a boeing 777 pilot. chuck, let me start with you. this report from the new york times that the plane was going at 45,000, then down to 23,000, then back up to 30,000. would that be auto pilot or would a pilot have to be in control of those kinds of erratic maneuvers? well, thanks for having me, wolf. i think that suggests that an airplane likely out of control. going up to 45,000 feet is almost 2,000 feet above the surface ceiling of the airplane. the airplane wouldn t want to do that even with a pilot trying to suggest that it go up, with the pilot trying to control the plane to tgo up there. it does suggest a controllability issue. that someone was in control if you re going from 45 to 23 back up to 30, it s not auto pilot, right? it would not be auto pilot. and i m not sure a pilot could make the airplane do that
his words, the fact that those elts did not go off, investigators wouldn t be able to rule out the fact that this plane maybe landed safely somewhere, so that s a lead they have to chase down. but just for some perspective here, those elts do not work in water. even though it made that impact with the water, once it goes down into the water, you would not get a signal and everything would happen so quickly. so as one person put it tot me, it would make sense that this elt did not signal. elt, what does that stand for? the emergency locator transmitter and that s it right in front of you there. this is it. and that is to let search and rescue essentially know where a crash site is. that did not go off in this flight. if it did indeed make impact with something, they didn t get that signal. all right. thanks very much, rene, don t go toofr away. we re digging deeper.
about the health of the plane and its engines. we asked two experts to examine the evidence so far on the disappearance of flight 370. steve wallace, a former faa official skilled at looking at aeronautical explanations for incidents. christopher vos, a former fbi agent skilled at looking for nefarious explanations. my first thought is, all right, is there a catastrophic event that immediately took the plane out of the sky? whether it be mechanical failure like twa flight 800 or a well-placed bomb like pan am 103. wallace says perhaps there were no problems to report. it s unclear to me when the next scheduled transmission of that data, maybe it s sent every few minutes or so. not something the pilots would have any reason to tamper with. reporter: 14 minutes later the plane s transponder goes off. different instruments being shut off at different times, that s really starting to bother
we re following the breaking news that is coming in this time from the new york times. reporting that the malaysia air flight 370 experienced significant changes in altitude and altered its course more than once as if still under a pilot s control. american officials and others familiar with the investigation says radar signals appear to show the missing airliner climbing to over 45,000 feet soon after it disappeared from civilian radar and then made a sharp turn to the west. radar shows that the plane desended unevenly to an altitude of 23,000 feet. that s below cruising levels. malaysia s large and popular island of panang over to the indian ocean. this follows the cnn report by