ron, just very briefly, you re an experienced pilot. that altitude change, if in fact the plane did go up above 40,000 feet, is that something that an auto pilot would do? or that has to be manually done? that has to be manually done. it has to be manually done either by somebody having their hands on the controls or somebody having their hand on the auto pilot and changing the altitude. because otherwise, if the airplane is on auto pilot it s going to stay at the altitude and stay at the heading thought was given. so to do erratic changes like that, somebody was controlling that airplane and flying it outside the envelope of not knowing what the correct way to fly the airplane was. at the break i d like you all to just stick around, andy pastor as well. andy who just broke the story with the wall street journal that the focus is sharpening in on the idea of sabotage, based on the people he is talking to
being to make those changes? most of the time it does. but i d like to take two seconds to say thank you for having me on your show and your crew. really appreciate that you put a pilot that has experience in this area to represent the guys that are flying now and the guys that have flown in the past and asking our point of view. and the answer to your question is, most of the time if you see erratic changes in altitude and direction someone is controlling the airplane. and when you say someone is controlling it, that has to be controlling it from on board. i mean, it s not something that can be done by remote somewhere else that somebody could hack into a system or something like that. well, that sounds a little hollywood to me. but yes, it would have to be some hollywood s great at entertaining us. but the real fact is common sense that i don t think it
i also want to bring in john hansman professor of aeronautics marry schiavo. professor hansman, all this new information, altitude changes, satellite pings, is there any chance in your mind what happened to the plane could still be mechanical? i think it s less likely. but there s still a chance there may have been some sort of progressive failure that was making it difficult for the airplane to fly in the flight control system. but the fact that if it s true that it took both i can understand why it would have trouble if the flight control system and pitch. so maybe climbing and descending. but it s hard to see that and then also the airplane changing course. so it does sound more like it was being hand flown by someone who was not familiar with the
having power steering. it s a very easy, docile airplane to fly. and a lot of the big airplanes are that way because it s basically like power steering. now, the changing of altitudes and stuff that went on, i don t think it dropped as fast as it did in reality. but somebody that sat down in the seat and took the controls would change altitude like that playing a little bit trying to get the handle of it. but the point that i want to come back and defend the crew is, that if this airplane flew somewhere and landed, they would have needed the captain and the first officer to do that. because the people that took over in airplane didn t have the skills to really fly that airplane in the proper parameters that it needed to be flown in now boeing when they built this airplane they said look, if you fly within these parameters, this airplane is safe and you won t have any problem. if you fly outside these parameters, the airplane could come apart. this is true with all airplanes that you fl
put it on auto pilot. it happened in operational flying all the time. the captain goes to the bathroom or for whatever reason one pilot leaves the cockpit and the other pilot is sitting here monitoring. not necessarily flying the airplane but monitoring the auto pilot. reporter: you could at least in this practical nature put it on auto pilot. yes, you re going to leave the plane and go down below. it could be done by one. appreciate you guys being in the cockpit showing us what it s like. richard just briefly, again they re reiterating. got to take all this stuff with a grain of salt. take it with a grain of saw. as we ve said all week, you keep looking for pieces of the jigsaw to be put on the table. tonight we have more pieces of the jigsaw on the table starting to form a picture. that s the significance of what s happened in the last few hours. based on reporting from cnn and also the wall street journal and new york times today. we ll be right back. i m beth.