nothing has ever happened quite like this. and into this confusion, suddenly drops the immarsat data. immarsat reports that flight 370 had exchanged digital handshakes with their satellites. that was a watershed moment and that changed everything. it changed everything, because everyone had thought flight 370 had gone completely dark. but the discovery of the dibgitl handshakes was proof that the plane was in the air for several hours longer than anyone thought. suddenly, they have evidence that it flew west and south and continued to fly for some 6 1/2 hours. using complicated calculations, immarsat could roughly determine where the plane was going. this is evidence that is kind of getting close to black
this. they believe that is evidence that it was fluttering in the air, and fell apart from the aircraft at altitude during a high-speed dive, whereas if it had hit the water, there would be damage to the leading edge and wouldn t have that kind of tearing effect. that is crucial, because what that tells you is that it s probably very close to the so-called seventh arc. it didn t fly onward as a lot of people have suggested. so i think this this helps refine the search significantly. once the experts look at this damage, that might bear it off, that this fell off at altitude. what do you mean by that? the question has always been, did it glide for some dance past the so-called seventh arc, the last blip, if you will. in this case, if it was diving straight down, the data you get from immarsat.
or similar system around the world so all planes flying across the ocean can do it. it s like the immarsat system so the plane can transmit every ten minutes or every minute or every hour but if they put this in place and it would be through satellites and other systems, and with the new air traffic control system, we could do it. it would be very much like the data we heard from immarsat if that s the route they go. my reaction to this is obviously yes. why aren t we doing this already? what s the barrier here? well, you know, some people say the barrier is cost but that can t be in. 6,300 planes are equipped with equipment that would allow it to communicate with immarsat. there s other companies. and only a little over 2,000 of them use them. the cost has come down so much
asking for the raw data and the most important thing is that we are asking for the full report, which immarsat gives to the investigation team from malaysia and we want the full version of the report. i have got the report from other next of kin but it only contains raw data. it doesn t contain any measure they are using and we can t confirm whether they are using the right thing and they calculate in the right way. so that s what we keep asking. they just give us part and that is not what we want most. you still want them to show you their math on this subject. i have to say the fact they have not e-mailed or sent it directly speaks to what appears to be ongoing and infuriating communication problems between the airline and the families and
your work. no. redo the work requires experts in many, many different fields. reporter: mark dickinson recently returned from the rethink team. he knows the entire weight of this search rests on the immarsat data. i think everyone on the investigation team working with this understand what it means. it means this is data that we have for what s happened for those six or seven hours is important that we get it right and particularly trying for the families and friends of the relatives onboard to make sure that we can help bring this sad incident to a close. reporter: the immarsat data will guide the search for the foreseeable future. it s all they ve got. without it, there would be no search at all and the men in london are still sure they re