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'There's always a chance of survival, but that diminishes over time,' says expert · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Linda Ward. You're watching CBC News Network. We
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: begin with the latest efforts to find the Canadian registered
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: air ambulance that went missing early Saturday.
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  Speaker 4: The U.S.
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  Speaker 1: Coast Guard has just provided an update saying the search
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  Speaker 1: is ongoing. Searchers discovered a debris field yesterday associated with
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  Speaker 1: the plane. The aircraft had been flying to Boston from Bermuda.
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  Speaker 1: Four Canadians among the six people on board. CBC's Michelle
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  Speaker 1: Song has been tracking the latest. You know, you're watching
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  Speaker 1: that news conference. What did we learn?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Linda. So the U.S. Coast Guard says their priority
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  Speaker 2: right now is to find those six people who were
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  Speaker 2: on board that flight. And they say that they have
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  Speaker 2: notified the Mexican of the progress so far. into the search.
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  Speaker 2: So we know four of those missing are Canadian, two
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  Speaker 2: are Bermuda nationals, but they wouldn't identify the individuals out
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  Speaker 2: of respect for their family's privacy. And the Coast Guard
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  Speaker 2: was asked to provide a specific timeline for how much
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  Speaker 2: longer they will continue the search. Take a listen.
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  Speaker 3: So we'll continue to search and saturate the area until
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  Speaker 3: we're at the point where we are confident that if
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  Speaker 3: there were any survivors remaining on the surface of the water,
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  Speaker 3: we would have found them. It is a rather large
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  Speaker 3: area to search, but we have sufficient assets where we
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  Speaker 3: are saturating the area, again, hoping to find those survivors.
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  Speaker 2: So they did find and confirm the debris is part
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  Speaker 2: of the air ambulance, but They say because of the
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  Speaker 2: amount of debris, they couldn't get into the specifics about
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  Speaker 2: it and what exactly was recovered or how many items
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  Speaker 2: they actually found. But they said that they have safeguarded
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  Speaker 2: the debris for that wider investigation into what happened into
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  Speaker 2: the flight. And they are still trying to recover a
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  Speaker 2: black box. As they say, they have yet to find that.
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  Speaker 1: And that'll be key in trying to determine what happened
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  Speaker 1: in the lead up to this plane going missing. Did
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  Speaker 1: they give us any information about that?
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  Speaker 2: So they don't have much about what's going on with
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  Speaker 2: the investigation. They said that right now the priority really
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  Speaker 2: is the search and rescue. But I want to take
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  Speaker 2: you back into what happened right before the flight went down.
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  Speaker 2: This flight was heading to Boston from Bermuda, transporting a
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  Speaker 2: patient and their family member. And around 1.30 Saturday morning,
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  Speaker 2: the jet lost contact with air traffic control. So flight
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  Speaker 2: data from that day reveals about an hour and a
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  Speaker 2: half into the flight, the aircraft dropped from an altitude
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  Speaker 2: of 24,000 feet to then 11,000 feet and then leveled
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  Speaker 2: off before it vanished. And a spokesperson for the Nantucket
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  Speaker 2: Memorial Airport said the flight declared an emergency landing. before
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  Speaker 2: it lost contact. So here's a bit of audio of
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  Speaker 2: air traffic control asking another aircraft for help. So still
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  Speaker 2: so many questions, Linda, into what happened before this flight.
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  Speaker 2: But the Canadian government says that they are in touch
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  Speaker 2: with the authorities on the ground and they're monitoring the
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  Speaker 2: situation very closely.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Michelle, thanks very much.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: That's the CBC's Michelle Song on that story. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to stay on this. We're joined by Jeanne Oud. He's
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  Speaker 1: the CEO of IAMSAR Solutions, Inc., and a retired mission
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  Speaker 1: coordinator with the Royal Canadian Air Force Search and Rescue. Jeanne,
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  Speaker 1: thanks very much for taking the time out to speak
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  Speaker 1: with us today.
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  Speaker 4: My pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we heard there the U.S. Coast Guard still
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  Speaker 1: calling this an active search operation. What does that tell you?
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  Speaker 4: It means that they are still looking for survivors at
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  Speaker 4: this time. They're going to keep searching basically until three
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  Speaker 4: conditions are met before considering suspending a search. Number one
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  Speaker 4: is that the search area has been covered extensively, meaning
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  Speaker 4: that they have carefully covered an area of where the
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  Speaker 4: people may be. in good weather conditions. So it's been
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  Speaker 4: covered adequately. Number two is that all leads have been exhausted.
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  Speaker 4: If anyone has reported seeing an airplane or hearing an
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  Speaker 4: airplane or flare or a sign of distress, that will
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  Speaker 4: be investigated as well. And finally, if there are no
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  Speaker 4: longer any probabilities of survival. And this is done by
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  Speaker 4: using models that actually calculate how long people can survive
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  Speaker 4: in the water. So these are all A combination of
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  Speaker 4: scenarios and events that keeps the search going until it's
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  Speaker 4: no longer viable to search anymore.
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  Speaker 1: How difficult is it to make that final decision?
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  Speaker 4: It's usually made at the higher echelons of the organization,
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  Speaker 4: the U.S. Coast Guard. They're going to review what was searched.
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  Speaker 4: They're going to get all the briefing and the debriefing
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  Speaker 4: forms from the search and rescue units, the SRUs, which
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  Speaker 4: are the airplanes. The vessel and the helicopter. They plot
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  Speaker 4: that on a map and they basically look carefully as
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  Speaker 4: to where a search was conducted, how effective was it,
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  Speaker 4: and from there, they try to meet that first condition
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  Speaker 4: that this area has been covered extensively.
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  Speaker 1: It's got to be very difficult. And as you point out,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the detail that goes into trying to determine
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  Speaker 1: the likelihood of survival here. We know more than 7000
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  Speaker 1: square kilometers of ocean have been searched so far. After
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  Speaker 1: this many hours, though, from your experience, what do you
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  Speaker 1: make of the chances of survival here?
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  Speaker 4: There's always a chance of survival, but that diminishes over time.
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  Speaker 4: There's an undeniable truth in search and rescue that survivability
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  Speaker 4: decreases with time. By the time the Coast Guard was
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  Speaker 4: alerted and they deployed assets and they arrived on scene
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  Speaker 4: and they found the debris, hours went by. Some people
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  Speaker 4: may survive in the water a long time. Some people
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  Speaker 4: may not. Depends if they were injured, if they survived
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  Speaker 4: the impact. if they wear a life vest. But being
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  Speaker 4: on an aircraft, like a commercial type aircraft, people don't
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  Speaker 4: fly in the aircraft wearing a life vest usually. So
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  Speaker 4: all these factors really will have a direct effect on
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  Speaker 4: the survivability.
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  Speaker 1: You know, the size of the debris field, we understand,
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  Speaker 1: is about 25 meters, and they're going to need sonar
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  Speaker 1: to search the seabed floor. What goes into searching below
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  Speaker 1: the surface here?
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  Speaker 4: I'm not an expert at below-the-surface searching, but I know
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  Speaker 4: that there are autonomous, remotely piloted vehicles that are tethered
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  Speaker 4: to a vessel at the surface. that can search the
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  Speaker 4: bottom of the ocean floor. Now the depth of the
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  Speaker 4: water being only at 90 feet, this is doable. And
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  Speaker 4: the recovery of the black box, also doable effort. What
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  Speaker 4: they need to find out is using computer software, they
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  Speaker 4: can do what's called backdrift modeling. So when they located
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  Speaker 4: the wreckage, the debris of the aircraft, they have an
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  Speaker 4: idea of what time the aircraft went down. They can
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  Speaker 4: basically backdrift the position where the aircraft may have hit
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  Speaker 4: the water. And it's at that point that some information,
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  Speaker 4: some pieces of information would lie on the ocean floor
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  Speaker 4: at that location, not where the debris is still floating
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  Speaker 4: at this time.
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  Speaker 1: And important in terms of, you know, trying to figure
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  Speaker 1: out just what went wrong here, because we don't have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of information about that. We know, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the kind of speed at which altitude was lost. What
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  Speaker 1: are you taking away from the various details that are
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  Speaker 1: coming out about the moments leading up to this? Have
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you been able to glean anything about the cause?
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  Speaker 4: I listened to the reports and I would be speculating
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  Speaker 4: if I was to say what could have happened. We
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  Speaker 4: have to leave it to the investigation team to analyze
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  Speaker 4: the wreckage, to locate the black box, to know what
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  Speaker 4: was said inside the aircraft. I understand that the pilots
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  Speaker 4: did broadcast some kind of distress. I don't know the
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  Speaker 4: content of that. If they said anything or if they said,
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  Speaker 4: you know, we're in trouble, we're going down, there's too
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  Speaker 4: much information missing to be able to produce, to speculate
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  Speaker 4: within the accuracy.
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  Speaker 1: And that work will take some time, I'm sure. But Jean-Hud,
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  Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to speak
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  Speaker 1: with us today and shed some light on the difficult
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  Speaker 1: situation in the waters off of Nantucket.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
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  Speaker 4: You're welcome.