pilot to believe the best thing to do would be go straight ahead. that may have been something. he not have been able to turn the airplane. perhaps he thought he still had engine functionality with respect to the second engine if the first went down. and i heard that speculation earlier with possible fuel problem where you have an engine fail and shortly thereafter another engine fails. we do know this particular airline is a division of a larger airline. they put out a statement that says we do not yet know what happened to the flight. our deepest sympathy goes to the families and friends to tha passengers and crews on the jet. if our fears are confirmed this is a dark day. we hope to find survivors. this plane actually was last in service on sunday. that was the last day it flew prior to this trip.
in at local time, 10:47 in the morning we were hoping what air traffic control could tell us what the pilot told them. it was quick and without information. what does that tell you? simply they said what? well, it puzzles me. why it was quick. i can understand thattism and then he s trying to maintain control. but it tells me something else must be bothering him more than just an engine out. he may have had other problems, hydraulics. and the hydraulics isn t as big as issue in a fly by wire airplane, he may have had other problems. normally he would be keeping air traffic control informed. they would be giving him vectors. they would ask him what do you want to do. he s in complete charge, he makes the decisions. that s where we re going into now, the speculation. we don t know that. when you see items come in and we start to understand more and
to this. i realize this is speculation. we don t know if weather is a factor. there have been no reports that it was substantial at the time. what are some of the possibilities of things that could have gone wrong with the airplane? you always look at the three things, aircraft, pilots reaction and you look at the weather. i brought up the weather for that area early as soon as i got the call from fox. i don t see anything that is a major thunderstorms, no major typhoons nothing of that nature in the area. weather would have to be something they ll consider, at this point there is nothing that stands out to any of us. if this is true of one of the facts, the flight descended 31,000 feet in ten minutes. how alarming is that? that s alarming. that would indicate some reason to get lower quickly. that could be a pressurization issue, where the aircraft
airfield. that s why i m inclined to think something else has to be involved. it s a highly automated airplane. we will know. it is extremely unusual for an airplane of that capability and safety record to go down like that. again, i m speculating. sure. what about the distress call? it came in at 10:47 a.m. and disappeared of radar at 11:20 a.m. that was a significant period of time where it was still in the air. they were able to maintain, i guess contact and had a visual on the aircraft. yes, and that s what is the interesting thing. because there were almost 40 some minutes, so you re wondering what else he was obviously had to be passing information, talking to his operations about what the problem was. although, it was an aircraft that was 24 years old, i don t think that has anything to do with it. but there are other implications, i think, that we
there is a number of things that can go wrong. these pilots have thousands and thousands of hours, most of it is straight and level. the french interior minister said that the plane debris crash has been found at 2,000 meters altitude in the alps. it looks to be an extremely long and difficult search and rescue operation. the area s remoteness poses challenges. the french president says there is likely no survivors. that is strong i don t get that. because he obviously knows what happened and there aren t. it s near a village and people have already seen big parts of the airplane. stand by, let s talk to greg palkot live from our european bureau. what are the european reports looking like this morning? not good at l. we just got off the phone with one of our contacts in france.