conditions. these are horizontal tornadoes that spin off the mountain tops and are caused by mountain tops and high winds passing over them. the pilots acknowledged the warning, they actually flew into one of these invisible rotors and the aircraft was lost and all hands were lost. there was no piece bigger than several inches and there was a 30 foot hole in the ground. weather conditions have to be examined. all of the factors, mechanical terrorism, terrorism. tom, let s start with what we know regarding weather conditions and catch our audience up to what you know about the airbus a320 and the plane. this is an a320 a workhorse aircraft used around the world, more than 6,000 have come off
down. the situation made even more difficult by the rough weather that s rolled into new york yet again this morning and throughout the day. we ll continue to follow the breaking news out of out of laguardia and, tom, i think you have some more information for us? i m i m actually was talking to a colleague of minute. i m really not passing on anything new but just to reiterate for those just joining us, this was the md-88 which as you know the md-80s made my mcdonnell douglas and boeing bought mcdonnell douglas, really a workhorse aircraft incredibly reliable. the md-80 series if you will mostly flown by american airlines and delta now has some as well, but a very reliable aircraft that is really frankly neerpg the end of nearing the end of its life span with many being retired. planes have a 20 25-year life span before it s retired. an md-88 which can carry, you
no. i mean, let s scotch this now. the 777, there are i m just looking at if you just look roughly, rough ballpark numbers, 1,400 of them have been ordered in various variations from the 777-200 right the way through the freighter version. most of them are of the most of the models that have been ordered is the 200-er which is what we are looking at with asiana or the 300 er, the e.r. standing for extended range, when it has extended range over water, it can literally go from asia to the united states from australia to the united states. so, this is a workhorse aircraft. and it doesn t surprise me, if you look at the orders to put this in perspective, the orders just this year alone for the 777-300er is about 33 orders for the plane.