plane, how easy would it be to land a plane like that, given the wide area it could have landed, without any radar detection? well, i think if you get low enough you don t worry about radar. you can fly this thing on what we call map of the earth where you re right down on the deck. could this cap have done that? i don t know. but i would love to see the authorities get into his home and download whatever is left on his simulator. because that s a very sophisticated simulator. and he may have done a lot of practice. it would take a lot of skill and practice to bring that airplane that low in that kind of altitude to skirt around and go where he s going. let me quickly also say something about the pings. yes, absolutely right. i m glad that somebody mentioned that. the ping is a sound that was designed to give you the indication that you have something underwater. the thing that we ve been calling pings here today really are like text messages that come
unprecedented situation all the way around, piers. barbara, stay with us. want to bring in david suse author of why planes crash. aviation expert jim tillman and matthew robinson, air safety investigator. welcome to all of you. let me start with you, jim tillman. we ve talked before this week about the various twists and turns quite literally of the fate of this plane. what do you make of these extraordinary new revelations? well, they re just about as confusing as everything else i ve heard about this event from the very beginning. for example, let s talk about pings. it s my understanding that the devices don t ping until they are hitting water, until they get into water. and the pings went on and all of a sudden stopped over the indian ocean. that s just the opposite of the way that i have always understood them to work. that that should be when they really start going. the other thing is, i got to
want to bring in david suse author of why planes crash. aviation expert jim tillman and matthew robinson, air safety investigator. welcome to all of you. let me start with you, jim tillman. we ve talked before this week about the various twists and turns quite literally of the fate of this plane. what do you make of these extraordinary new revelations? well, they re just about as confusing as everything else i ve heard about this event from the very beginning. for example, let s talk about pings. it s my understanding that the devices don t ping until they are hitting water, until they get into water. and the pings went on and all of a sudden stopped over the indian ocean. that s just the opposite of the way that i have always understood them to work. that that should be when they really start going. the other thing is, i got to tell you that i find it very difficult to believe that this captain and his crew decided to
barbara starr, thank you very much indeed for that report. joining me now on the phone with more on the trail of the plane is wall street journal reporter john stroud. thank you for joining me. you just heard barbara starr s report there. clearly what seems to now be indisputable is the fact that these pings were heard suggesting the plane carried on flying for four to five hours after we had been led to believe in the first few days. what is now conjecture or what the u.s. authorities believe is that it landed in the indian ocean. but you have a different theory. tell me what that is. well, we were reporting just moments ago the malaysian airlines boeing 777 missing since late last friday actually continued to ping. the satellites that are 22,000 miles above the surface of the earth for at least five hours. so that adds an additional hour onto the last known position of where the aircraft was. these pings in particular
practice to bring that airplane that low in that kind of altitude to skirt around and go where he s going. let me quickly also say something about the pings. yes, absolutely right. i m glad that somebody mentioned that. the ping is a sound that was designed to give you the indication that you have something underwater. the thing that we ve been calling pings here today really are like text messages that come out of the acars system in a completely different kind of thing. i don t know why they call tha ping as a matter of fact. let me go to henry hughes, retired ntsb senior accident investigator. you deal in facts, henry hughes. there are pressing few facts that even the few scraps of facts we ve been given through the week have been completely contradicted the very next day in most cases. what is your take on where this investigation is right now? i think the folks from malaysia are a little bit new at this. fortunately they haven t had