new debris sightings and a more focused search area still haven t answered a key question about the missing jet liner. why did it fly for hours and hours to one of the most remote areas on earth. cnn s martin savidge plays out a haunting scenario from inside a boeing 777 flight simulator. reporter: morning, carol. it s called the zombie plane or it s called the ghost plane or the plane without a brain. whatever you call it, it is an aircraft that is now no longer in human control. here s a scenario in which it can happen. the plane would have reached cruising altitude. everything seems normal when suddenly there can be some sort of alarm. could be a fire alarm, could be an alarm that signals a sudden decompression in the cabin. either way, immediately the pilot and co-pilot go into
retired commercial airline pilot. this is a came that came via twitter but it s a smart one because it gets to another possibility as to why pilots might take a turn. it comes from someone named ziggy. if catastrophic failure and all instruments become nonfunctio l nonfunctional, what would experienced pilots do? if not preprogrammed, if reacting to something that happened in that cockpit, what would you do in that situation and how quickly? and based on that, would how this plane behave be consistent with that? thoo well, the plane would become difficult to control, but there are nine or ten possible power sources here, so it would have to have multiple failures. each engine has two generators, the auctionry power unit has a generator, there s a turbine that drops out, batteries for a short time. it s almost inconceivable that everything can fail, but if that happened at night over the water request with no strums it would be difficult to control the airplane. we would not expect a fl
point about terrorism. i ve been talking to intelligence sources since this plane disappeared 16 days ago and they ve told me repeatedly no indications of a connection to terrorism. i wonder, david, if i can you just this question because these are all theories, that s the best that investigators have at this point are theories. there have been cases in the past where governments, flagship airline, for instance, in the egyptair case where there were indications and, you know, pretty hard proof that the pilots flew that plane into the water, that was a conclusion the government wouldn t accept. that was a flag carrier. do you get any sense that the malaysian airlines would push back on a theory like that because it s a flagship, because it s a flagship airline or have you seen, as this investigation has developed, a better cooperation in sharing of intelligence, et cetera, from malaysian authorities? what i see is that the malaysian authorities are starting to learn how to run an acci
great to have you on this story. so we want to get now to some analysis of today s developments. we have mary see schiavo, formerly with the ntsb. rick gillespie, airplane recovery consultant and author of finding amelia. kip darby is head of his own aviation firm and cnn safety analyst david soucy. good to have you all here. a meeting of the minds. today we have new developments. mary, just on this news that malaysian authorities said today about data coming from that cockpit, because you remember a little more than a week ago there were reports, indications that that turn to the west after the plane lost contact might have been preprogrammed and this
the cockpit. it seems as though this plane continued, wasn t flying wildly at least as far as we know. it changes every day. kit, you re a retired commercial pilot. what does that tell you, the fact it was still seemed to be going smoothly on its path 67. when it initially turned, autopilot turn, flying straight, i m not sure about altitude variations reported by military radar. i know military radar is designed to give you a track and altitude. it should be accurate but i have no additional information there. seemed to me it was a controlled turn on the autopilot made by the pilot or someone directing the pilot what to do. after that it doesn t make sense. if you were going to land back because you had a problem, you would descend. that descent didn t occur. all strange possibilities like zombie plane become possibilities after that.