it was just the transponder. there should be no difficulty getting it somewhere. ross, every time that we ve had big, catastrophic commercial air disasters, there has been a kind of engineering response to it or regulatory response to it. and, of course, that s part, right, that s part of why getting to the bottom of the mystery is so important, just in terms of improving the system as a whole which is really kind of a miracle if you take a step back and recognize just how many planes are whizzing through the air without incident every day. absolutely, chris. the majority of improvements to aviation in general, modern aircraft, was as a result of some sort of a crash or incident that occurred, and we ve learned from it and what is happening is that manufacturers, airlines, themselves, they try to improve and learn from other mistakes.
difficult. karen, do you agree with what ross was saying before this basic principle of how confident you as a pilot would be under these conditions to be able to land that plane if there wasn t some catastrophic mechanical failure, if you had to get it down, you could? absolutely. we have anboard computers. we can type in the destination. it s kind f like using your iphone and google maps. follow where you need to go. there was nothing wrong with the airplane, it sounds like. it was just the transponder. there should be no difficulty getting it somewhere. ross, every time that we ve had big, catastrophic commercial air disasters, there has been a kind of engineering response to it or regulatory response to it. and, of course, that s part, right, that s part of why getting to the bottom of the mystery is so important, just in terms of improving the system as a whole which is really kind of a miracle if you take a step back and recognize just how many planes are whizzing through the
if i were a betting man, i d be looking at the deepest part of the indian ocean which is very deep, by the way, right now. that seems to be if the plane did go down, that seems to be the likely place and the sheer size of that makes that difficult. karen, do you agree with what ross was saying before this basic principle of how confident you as a pilot would be under these conditions to be able to land that plane if there wasn t some catastrophic mechanical failure, if you had to get it down, you could? absolutely. we have onboard computers. we can type in the destination. it s kind of like using your iphone and google maps. follow where you need to go. there was nothing wrong with the airplane, it sounds like. it was just the transponder. there should be no difficulty getting it somewhere. ross, every time that we ve had big, catastrophic commercial air disasters, there has been a kind of engineering response to it or regulatory response to it. and, of course, that s part, right
ago, a mile under water in the gulf of mexico at the site of the bp oil disaster, where a new cap has just been successfully lowered on to the broken oil well. this new and improved cap is a much tighter fit than the old one, apparently. it still has to be tested and monitored for two days to see if it totally works, but if it works the way it s supposed to, bp will soon be able to capture essentially all of the leaking oil from the ruptured well. the millions of gallons that has already leaked out is, of course, still out there, in the gulf, creating environmental ultrahavoc. but, again, if this cap works, the continuing leak at the source will finally be under control. but while residents of the gulf are watching the engineering response in the gulf, watching the underground oil volcano and waiting for it to stop spewing oil so they ll know just how big a disaster they re really facing, the political response to the bp oil disaster inches along in washington, d.c. the washington pos