seemed if indeed they were in a controlled descent, believe me that is a fair amount of time to descend. it s not an unusual rate of descent. it s a descent that indicates some sort of problem to me on board and they were attempting to rectify it through check lists. but the fact that they re in a very sophisticated area of radar control. i ve flown out of barcelona. you re constantly talking to air traffic control. the fact they didn t even have a chance to get out one mayday signal, if indeed that s correct because we don t have all the data from air traffic control at this point in time as far as the transitions between atc and the pilots, but i would like to know what was happening between the time in the last contact and what the voice of the crew who was talking on the radio. but it all seems to me this aircraft was under control from the pilots standpoint or from the autopilot. david, you ve had a chance to
in altitude is because they were aware if they had said that, that would tell people that somebody was in control of the aircraft. it does seem to be something very closely held. they have taken a lot of time to get the information, not only about the change in altitude. remember we were talking about flying around radar control. all these different indications showing somebody was controlling the aircraft. that sort of information the investigators have been not willing to put forward. we re getting it only now from sources, carol. nic robertson reporting live from kuala lumpur. let s bring in mary schiavo, cnn aviation analyst and former inspector general. and peter goal, former ntsb investigator. investigators now say the plane
questions about the flight that i ve heard from our viewers. this no man s land, miles, when kuala lumpur and malaysia hand over good-bye, before ho c ho cho ch ho chi ming picks up, is that normal? basically what the controllers do is send it off in a gate fashion and you re supposed to maintain a certain speed of altitude and you report it on a high-frequency radio but you re not under positive radar control. there are all kinds of places in the u.s. at a lower altitude where that happens. and how long is it usually? ten minutes? an hour? if you re flying in the north atlantic, it s a couple of hours for sure before you re reaching radar. so it s a matter of hours. in this case, it might be a quick dead band between the range of the two radars at each
they obviously knew it was missing. so, for them not to come forward, it makes you wonder about the quality of the radar control and coverage in this area if you go up the coast a little bit further. you have burma, same questions could be raised there. and, you know, thailand is a constitutional monarchy. it s a great place to visit. i have been there. but it s not the most democratic and open country out there. well, i read that they said that they hadn t been asked for the radar yes, that s what they said. clearly they knew about the search. they knew about the missing plane. the entire world knows about it. and i think this just raises another question here. every time we get another piece of evidence in this search for a missing plane. another piece of information comes up and every piece of evidence seems more perplexing. imagine if people like
missing. so, for them not to come forward, it makes you wonder about the quality of the radar control and coverage in this area if you go up the coast a little bit further. you have burma, same questions could be raised there. and, you know, thailand is a constitutional monarchy. it s a great place to visit. i have been there. but it s not the most democratic and open country out there. well, i read that they said that they hadn t been asked for the radar yes, that s what they said. clearly they knew about the search. they knew about the missing plane. the entire world knows about it. and i think this just raises another question here. every time we get another piece of evidence in this search for a missing plane. another piece of information comes up and every piece of evidence seems more perplexing. imagine if people like