March 17 - Sanctioning Putin; Examening the Evidence in the Mystery of the Missing Airliner; An Active Airline Pilot on the Malaysia Airliner's Disappearance

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the sanctions imposed on Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and officials in the new Crimean government in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. With Senator John McCain, who wants “a far more significant response”, deriding Obama’s response saying that sanctioning only seven Russians “is wholly inadequate at this stage”, we look into whether these targeted sanctions will work to punish Putin and deter him from going after more of Ukraine’s territory. Scott Horton, a professor at Columbia Law School and a contributing editor at Harpers in legal affairs and national security joins.

Part 2

Then we examine evidence so far in the mysterious disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 and its 239 crew and passengers, and speak with Dr R. John Hansman who is a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and head of its Humans and Automation Division as well as Director of the International Center for Air Transportation. We discuss the latest speculation about what might have happened to the airliner and what evidence exits to support the growing number of theories about the fate of the plane and its passengers.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with an active airline pilot Patrick Smith, who blogs at askthepilot.com and is the author of “Cockpit Confidential: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel: Questions, Answers and Reflections”. We discuss the Malaysian government’s current focus on the airliner’s crew and the possibility of suicide as a motive, as was the case in an earlier incident in 1999 when an EgyptAir Boeing 767 passenger jet leaving JFK airport was deliberately crashed into the sea by a member of the flight crew.