that day. bill cran, richard marquise. thank you. the decision continues, you can find us on twitter@aj consider this. see you next time. >> good evening, everyone, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler in new york. the mystery of flight 370 - tonight authorities expand the search for the missing jetliner. what could have happened. we talk an an ntsv investigator live. >> video from ukraine. a sab tur arrested. reports from kiev. >> spy games - a surprising turn with high-ranking senators accused of being snooped on.

>> president obama appears on a web comedy series with a cult following, pitching his health care plan. >> where are you planning on building the presidential library and why your home country of kenya. >> that's a ridiculous question. >> it is four days since malaysia airlines flight 370 disappeared, four days since contact was lost with the boeing 777. this is baffling the authorities - what happened to the jet and the 239 people on board. richelle carey is here with the latest. >> we are entering the fifth day of a massive search and rescue

operation involving 10 countries and dozens of teams. they may have been looking in the last place. the beijing jet was heard from 1:30am on saturday and thought to have disappeared between malaysia and vietnam. today there were reports that there was radar evidence that the plane made it to the straightof malaka, 350 miles away. military radar detected the plane at 2:40am, flying 3,000 feet lower than its previous altitude. the new information offers important insight. it rules out a sueden kat -- sudden catastrophic ex-potion. it means the transponder or tracking systems were turned off or malfunctioned or it was below radar. and it expands the plane or the wreckage locations.

a malaysian official is not certain that is what happened, but that it is a possibility. that's why authorities are broadening their search dramatically, over the strait of malaka. another report about the two passengers with stolen passports. they are iranian, but may have been asylum seekers with no links to a terrorist plot or no identifiable motive. police are grasping for information on other passengers. meanwhile family and friends are desperate for answers. >> translation: i hope all the passengers are safe, especially my little brother. >> agni for the families. >> former ntsv investigator join us from albuquerque mexico. al, great to have you on the program. >> good to be back with you. >> thank you.

as an investigator what do you draw from the details of what we have heard over the last 24 hours? >> well, there's a few things we seem to be able to rule out - weather may be one. all indications is that this is not like air-france in 2009 with very turbulent weather conditions. the weather looks like that is probably out of the equation. the other things - mechanical error, pilot error, and, of course, potential criminal acts. those are all still very much under consideration, and will certainly be looked at in future weeks. >> there are plenty of ifs, but if the flight made the turn we are talking about and came back 300 miles off course, does that tell you anything new or not? >> it indicates a couple of possibility yes. we are speculating. one of the things is there was

some kind of mechanical problem that the crew wanted to get back to kuala lumpur, where they have maintenance and probably another 777 waiting to take them to beijing. it may look like a small pilot, and we saw that in the swiss aircraft, and it turned bad and they crashed. potentially pressurisation problem. greek 737 several years ago had this problem, and at first it may not look bad, but you know you're not going go to beijing, so you turn back and then things go from bad to worse - one potential theory. you mentioned about the transponder and the other system, acars. that is troubling. it's a standard hijacker technique, we saw it in 9/11, so

turn the transponder off. we had an experienced captain, but an inexperienced first officer. maybe in his haste to dial in the emergency frequency he may have inadvertently turned off the transponder. >> let me stop you and talk about the transponder. >> sure. >> this is kind of the strange part of this. if, when the flight turns around, somehow the transponder went out, it could have been mechanical or it could have been turned off. how does the transponder tell us where the flight is? >> it's a data link device, sending out the altitude and the controllers can figure out the heading. it identifies the aircraft so it has several pieces of data displayed on the scopes on the ground. >> you suggest that it's unlikely that someone turned it off, like happened on 9/11?

>> obviously if the aircraft - if it were hijacked, that's a scenario that followed. there's another possible explanation here, and that is that it was inadvertently turned off. this is a junior copilot with an emergency frequency, and it's possible, not likely, that he could have inadvertently turned it off, with no intent to do so. again, there has been a lot of talk that there was no may day call. that is not that unusual. we didn't have a may day call on air-france. i have an airline pilot's licence, but i can tell you pilots are taught to diagnose and solve the problem first, aviate, navigate and then communicate. the fact that we didn't get a radio call in this situation doesn't surprise me. they may well have been trying to solve the problem and all of a sudden it got worse, then they

couldn't make a call because they were unconscious or incapacitated in some way. >> the fact that we haven't found a bit of debris, is that a surprise? >> again, not really. if they had the aircraft trimmed - this is a 747 in south african colours. incidentally, we lost one of the these over the indian ocean in "87, they had a fire on board. if this aircraft was trimmed right and descending 500 or 1,000 feet a minute. it could enter the water without disintegrating. we saw the miracle on the hudson, it's possible the aircraft could have splashed down, and probably would be no fuel spill or debris. on the other hand if it blew-up in the air we'd expect all kinds of debris to be spattered about,

floating sea cushions, life rafts, personal effects. keep in mind, they didn't find the wreckage until the fifth day, if memory serves, in air-france. i'm not ready to reach a conclusion about the lack of debris evidence. >> great to have you on the program. good to see you again. thank you very much for sharing your expertise. >> we'll have more on the story from where the investigation goes now, where the tools go for a deep sea first. stay tuned for the half hour special. >> the crisis in crimea is growing more complicated. pro-ukrainians are taking to the streets to protest a vote. the government in kiev, along with the u.s. and europe say the vote is illegal. russia disagrees. the ukraine prime minister asked

the west to protect ukraine from russia. he meets with president barack obama tomorrow. jennifer glasse is in sevastopol with more. >> a lot happening today, but not a lot of movement. secretary of state john kerry spoke this morning with his russian counterpart sergei lavrov as the latest attempt to find a diplomatic end to the standoff as the russian military holds most of the crimea peninsula and the military unable to do anything. they would like to see russia negotiate with kiev. moscow does not recognise the government. caught in the middle are crimeans getting ready for the render um. >> the campaigning is sponsored by people's unity saying, "no to nato", and explains why it's

clear russia is the only choice, and that crimea should breakaway from ukraine. >> translation: all know how we'll answer that question. we don't want to stay with the current government. what they offer is not life. it's worse. >> this woman hands out newspapers to convince voters to choose the session. she says there's it's information on ukrainian television. >> the tv says russians are occupiers, they are really protectors. the russians, if they weren't here, the enemies from kiev would be suppressing it. >> the majority of residents are ethnic russians. >> election officials say although they haven't had a lot of time to prepare, the crimean

parliament says if it chooses to be part of the russia, they'll request to be part of them. >> kosovo's independence is a precedent say russia. >> i don't think it's a sincere attempt to consider the plight of the tatars. the community is pretty much in shatters and in a frustrated situation. it doesn't seem like the proposal will be considered. >> yalta is knowing of this situation. it was here that others carved up europe after world war ii. if the people choose a future to

return them to their russian roots, it should be more straight forward. >> crimea continues to assert its cove renity. >> the airport halted all flights in and out of everywhere. >> there's a twist in the crisis in ukraine. authorities say they arrested to suspected of the being a russian intelligence officer inciting arrest. >> this video given by ukrainian intelligence authorities is purported approve that russian agents are working inside ukraine to destabilize the country. it shows a young man arrested with a large supply of money and bomb making equipment, i.e.d.s. at a press conference, the head of the state intelligence

service says this is the home-grown threat. >> we arrested and stopped the work are several groups. a citizen of russia with a link to russian security services. this has been going on for months, before the events on maydan square. >> they say it's an organised plot to provide a prede. for intervention. the border guards are on high alert. many crossings have been closed and thousands have been turned away. infuriating moscow and claims the accusations are baseless. >> this is a ukrainian member of parliament, saying the russian agents are buying authorities, attending civic meetings and making charges that the new

government has fascist intentions. >> all that creates discontent. and prove okay tours are gathering around groups of dissatisfied people. >> she said those dissatisfied people take to the streets, leading to violence. >> the problem is while they have fought this agitator, how many more are out there, and how many more fires will they start. >> coming up, under surveillance - the c.i.a. accused of spying on senator's computiers. presidential punch line. president obama pops up on a web comedy show with hilarious

results. >> a fire in san francisco mission bay neighbourhood. black smoke. the city's fire department says the building is under construction.

the fire caused damage. it is now under control. cruise rushed from all over the city to battle the fire. officials say fighting it was more difficult because fire suppression systems had not been installed. as of now, no reports of injuries. >> tonight a spying controversy an capitol hill. the chair of the intelligence committee accusing the c.i.a. of hacking into computers. >> taking to the senate floor, di-january fienstein, the democratic chairman of the senate committee going public - the c.i.a. was spying on her panel's investigation with the c.i.a. itself. >> after a series of meetings i learnt that on two occasions c.i.a. personnel electronically removed committee access to c.i.a. documents after providing them to the committee. >> the subject of her panel's

5-year inquiry, the bush era rendition and interaction program. the c.i.a. turned over a review, only to remove and search through the same documents on committee computers, for material they were not authorised to get. what was unique and interesting about the internal document was not the classification level, but rather their analysis and acknowledgment of significant c.i.a. wrongdoing. >> in 2002 the program, which included waterboarding. four years later it was divulged publicly. after an inquiry the senate began an investigation in 2009. in 2010 documents were removed from committee files. two months ago the c.i.a. director informed her of the documents searched. appearing at a previously scheduled foream.

c.i.a. director issued a denial. >> nothing could be further than the truth. that's beyond the scope of region. >> brendan cautioned the fall story has not been told. >> when the fact come out, there are a lot of people claiming there has been tremendous dpiing and hacking will be proved wrong. >> some say it is the job of congress to investigate executive branches. >> by withholding information, interfering, that really is the executive branch stepping on the congress's constitutional sphere of authority. that is the problem. >> now to president obama's turn at comedy, appearing on a popular web show to plug his health care plan. the jokes were flying.

david shuster reports. >> when i heard that, like, people watched the show, i was pretty surprised. >> hi, welcome to another edition. i'm your host. >> it's a show that makes guests feel awkward or uncomfortable. >> did you send ambassador rodan to north korea. >> he's not our ambassador. >> the questions were undignified. >> where are you planning on building your presidential library, and why your home town of kenya. >> that's a ridiculous question. >> the burns went both ways. >> what is it like to be the last black president. >> seriously, what it's like to be the last time you ever talk to a president. >> must stink that you can't run three times. >> i think it's a good idea. if i ran a third time, it would sort of like doing a third hang over movie, didn't work ot well.

>> three minutes in the conversation was turned towards obamacare. the reason he did the interview in the first place. >> have you heard of the affordable care act. >> heard about that. that's the thing that doesn't work. why don't you get the guy that create the zune to make your website. >> heathcare.gov works great. we want people to know you can affordable health care. >> all americans have until the end of march to get coverage or face a tax penalty. the ratio of young americans signing up has been lower than what the system needs to keep the costs down. >> the point is a lot of young people think they are invincible. >> to try to reach them, the president made a string of pop culture purposeses, he slow-jammed with jimmy fallon.

>> let's keep the rates down on college loans. >> and connected with younger people through google facebook and town halls. still subjecting yourself to this is a bit different. >> so which country were you rooting for in the winter olympics >> seriously? >> they confirmed there was a white house debate about protecting the dignity of the presidency. >> we assess opportunities we have, and, you know, look at whether or not they are going be successful and why. i think we made the right call here. >> indeed the risk appears to have paid off. the video got rave reviews and heavy emotion from broadcast media. >> i'm going to press that. >> don't press that, please. >> several republicans says the barack obama appearance was humorous.

>> you have been shooting the shows in the diplomatic room. who gave you permission to do that? >> bush. >> political comedian. dean, a columnist for "the daily beast", was it the right move for the president? >> i think it was a great move. right now he has to reach out to young people. they need 40% of enrollees to be 18-34. why not go to the places they are watching. internet, comedy. jimmie fallon show. it's the perfect move. >> a lot of people suggested that the president took a step down, that is doesn't really respect the office of the president by doing something like this. what do you think? >> i think attacking iraq when they didn't have weapons of mass destruction is demeaning. this is a president using all he can do get the message out.

if i was a president i would be on every show, reaching out to people. president bush did not go on late night talk shows when he was president. he did as a candidate, not as president. we live in a different world. this is the way to do it. it's shrewd, smart. he did it in a funny way. >> it takes it to the next level. he has more control over this, his writers, his folks can shape this any way he wants and get the message across and have fun at the same time. >> i reached out to a friend to find out if there were outtakes that we didn't see. he didn't respond, because he doesn't want to be in my article about the daily beast. the only fear, if it's live and there's something inappropriate - everyone is on the same page. the president is going on late night talk shows more than me. i want to run for president so i

can get on jimmy fallon. >> he has comedy writers. who works on this kind of stuff. has this become a new job opportunity for comedians? >> i think on some level it does. i had friends who were comedy writers who had written with president obama. regan, president after president used it, had writers come in. president obama is different, and i have written about this - he uses comedy as a weapon at the white house comedy dinner, where he doesn't just make fun of himself, but his adversaries, he gets the audience laughing at his opponents. nothing is more effective than getting people to laugh at the person attacking you. we'll see it at the next white house correspondents dinner. i expect to see that sn. there was a bit of colbert, zack

making fun of himself by asking questions that the president's critics ask all the time. >> right. >> they address the birther issues and others. >> they did. it was really funny. i've done comedy with zack. we did open mikes. he's funny. he has a franchise "between two firms", he had justin bieber, president obama, he made fun of himself. president obama has a great sense of humour. certain people on the white would have been outraged by president obama. a lot of those people are partisan. they don't want obamacare to see, and they don't want obamacare. it's the number one driver of new traffic of the 6 million people watched the video as of 6 o'clock. young people would never listen

to a speech of obamacare, they are watching, laughing and sharing it with their friends. >> next, our special report - what happened to flight 370. new details of the possibility that the plane turned back. plus, the families, the loved ones, straight to here something from airport officials. and the boeing 777 has nearly a spotless safety record but is under the microscope ♪

what is this place? where are we? this is where we bring together the fastest internet and the best in entertainment. we call it the x1 entertainment operating system. it looks like the future! we must have encountered a temporal vortex. further analytics are necessary. beam us up. ♪ that's my phone. hey. [ female announcer ] the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. tv and internet together like never before.

>> one of the safest planes in the world with a veteran captain at the controls vanishes. no distress call, few clueses and no trace of the jetliner with 239 people on board. now with the search area expanding the questions and frustrations growing. we take a closer look at the mystery that unfolded at 35,000 feet. tonight - the al jazeera

special, what happened to flight 370. >> i'm john seigenthaler, ahead in the special half hour, the search for malaysian airlines flight 370 expanded. dozens of planes and ships combing a new part of the ocean. families of the passengers are angry and they want answers. so far they are not getting any answers. richelle carey joins us with the latest on this. >> all right. we have learnt a lot in the past 24 hours about the flight path of the plane. the new information is bringing more questions than answers. >> the beijing-bound jet was heard from at 1:30 saturday morning. then air traffic controllers outside of kuala lumpur lost contact, thinking the plane disappeared here. there has been conflicting reports about the final route to beijing. it's possible that the plane turned around travelling 150 miles over the strait of malaka,

in a different direction. authorities are not sure and can't explain why it changed course. if that's the case it may rule out sudden explorge, and means that the tracker and transponder may have been turned off, in effect making it invisible. it adds new challenges to ongoing search and rescue missions, by expanding the search site. none of which brought comfort to the families of those on board. >> translation: i hope all the passengers are safe, especially my little brother. >> police focussed attention on two passengers. they may have been asylum seekers with no known links to a possible terrorist plot. investigators are combing through information about all passengers while the loved ones wait for answers.

>> it's a massive search and rescue effort. the teams likely spent days looking in the wrong place. >> painful for the families, thank you. more new information. scott heidler joins us from penang malaysia with more discrepancies surrounding what happened to flight 370. what can you tell us? >> yes, there's - there was definitely a distinct cause, a local newspaper reported an air force official saying there were radar indications that the aircraft was on the west side. after that the air force came out making a statement saying it was not true, what he said was there's a possibility that the aircraft made a u-turn, coming back towards the malaysian peninsula, possibly to go back to kuala lumpur international

airport, but this is all just the air force and the military going flow possibilities, the statement said. they did not say there was a definite radar signature picked up nearby where we are, off the penang island. >> more of what we don't know. give us an idea of what we know about expansion of the search, if there is any? >> there has been almost a daily - several times a day, i should say, announcement of expansion of search or redirection. that is because they don't have definitive or clear idea where the aircraft went down. because there is this military and air force signature of a turn around, and then dropped from radar. they are not sure if that dropped from radar, a splash down or that there was a malfunction with this - with the - those devices on the

aircraft sending out the signals. that's why they widened the area. when they saw the drop from radar it was in the middle of the water between the vietnamese coast and the malaysian coast. that's when we found out there was a change your in direction. that is making it much more difficult and straining resources. there's a lot of resources out here. straining the resources of all the nations when you expand, and you have statements coming out or rumours in local media, that it was seen here and there. that is the biggest challenge now, kind of a unified message really what the latest information there has. >> can you give the viewers in the united states a sense of what the - how this is being covered in malaysia, and the pressure that's on the malaysian government to find the plane. >> the coverage is wall to wall.

if it's not, you know, they'll air other programs on television station, but there's an icon, a bug if you will that we call it in the tv industry, in a corner of the stream, that has the logo, and the flight number beneath it. there'll be newing coming up before a broadcast. it's ever present. every day, since this happened, since saturday, it's been front page new, regardless of what came out, it is front page news. there's a lot of focus and frustration and very, very much pressure on the government here. you've got many nations of people on the aircraft obviously desperate to find out what happened. clearly the biggest pressure coming from china, because they had 150 people on the aircraft. there's a great deal of pressure. because we are not getting the unified and consistent measures coming out from the military and

the government, that's compounding the frustration. because of the families putting pressure on their government, and the government of those who have aircraft and ships out there doing the search, if they have to change direction, that's frustrating for them. now a lot of pressure on the malaysian government. unified message, more than idea that they have the search and rescue under control. >> scott heidler reporting with new information. thanks very much. now, the boeing 777 is considered one of the safest planes there is. allen schauffler is at an airport in pascoe washington with more on that. >> the bowing company is waiting, watching and poping for the best for the people on board the flight and the rely tefs waiting to find out what happened to them. the company released a statement saying boeing joint the u.s.

national transport safety board tomb: >> that means they'll be available to offer details about the 777, and about the aircraft, how it was cop figured dash with that many people on board and the fuel, how big a range it may have, how far it would be able to fly, the redundancies, transponders, black poxes. most with a way to limit possibilities. this is one of the safest aeroplanes in the skype since introduced in 1995. it has flown more than 5 million commercial flights. 18 million miles. in all that time we had a crash of fatalities, one involving the asiana jet in san francisco last year.

one of the most reliable jet liners in the world, 11-00 of them, operated the globe. is there concern about the model of aircraft. the company right now is not willing to address that issue. it referred us back to the short statement. if it's discovered it was a catastrophic midair occurrence, if they find a debris field and crash flight and that is the case, it would be logical to take a look at other 777s around the world and check them out and make sure everything was running fine. at this point no plans to ground the triple 7 worldwide fleet. boeing like all of us waiting and watching about that. >> jim tilman joins us from scottsdale arizona. a former airline captain. good to have you on the program.

>> thank you. >> let me start with the new information. by the way, there's plenty of questions about where the plane was and where it was last scene. how do you read this new information? >> it's hard to read it. it may as well be in seven different languages because i don't understand. every time i turn around there's a new scenario. so much conflicting evidence about what happened, until it's utterly confusing. i mean, you know, at one point the airplane fell off radar just as it was about to cross into vietnamese airspace. the next thing, no, it looks like he did a u-turn, was going back. no, it wasn't a u-turn it was almost u-turn and he flew for an hour in another direction back toward the south-west. and then ended up over a small island out there. then no, no, he didn't make that

turn. come on, guys. how about some factual information that you can document and trust to be the straight skinny. rather than that, don't tell us anything. >> i am sure those family members who were literally screaming at malaysian airlines, simply not getting answers. what happens - this is about controlling the information. malaysian airlines has as much information as anyone, how have they handled this? >> they handled it very badly. i can understand how the family members are upset, because, you know, they are on an emotional roller-coaster. we don't know that the airline crashed. we don't have evidence, just reports we've been getting, that are unreliable at best. i have to tell you i can understand the frustration.

>> thank you, we appreciate it. >> more at the interview coming up in the next segment. >> the rescue effort to find flight 370 involves 1,000 people from three different companies. it spans 100 nautical miles. they have yet to find a single trace of the plane. david gallo is from the wood hall graphic institution and discovered the remains of air flight 447 in 2011 and joins us from boston. good to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> we heard so much about the search. and where it was - first of all, it was located in one area, now it may be spread to a larger area. i heard people say that it's like a needle in the haystack, but how do you find the haystack. >> that's important. the way you do it is start with

the evidence, the last known position derived from radar or transponder. i thought we had a good last known position. importantly not. >> ultimately you want to find the x on the sea service where the plane hit the water. the trick is to find whatever bits of the plane floating on the water to backtrack and find the x. that gives you the center of the haystack. in this case it's a huge search area. you have no evidence at all. there was not a threat of evidence to say that the plane landed anywhere on the ocean. it has to be in the room or command center, a lot of emotions boiling over, wondering if they did the right thing. the pressures on the outside are building. families, friends and loved ones, what a horrible situation. those emotions are not something we deal with. having been that that situation, when it builds, it has a real impact on you. >> whether or not they did the

right thing, what you are talking about is whether or not they chose the right area to look. is that correct? >> yes, sure. and did you have the right people. to me it's do you have the right team, do they have the right technology, the right operational plan, and then you have to have a bit of luck and a lot of prayer. if you don't have the first three things, you are swimming upstream. >> how long did it take to find the air france flight. >> well, it was from the time the tragedy occurred to the time we found the flight data record recorder and other recorders, it was two years. there were several phases. two they were looking in the wrong haystack. >> what kind of technology do you use? >> typically in the past and in this case if the water is shallow, you can use a sonar to identify the website.

it is a system that uses signed and it bounces back. with air-france, because it was a mountainous under water region, we used autonomous under water vehicles, almost like drones for the undersea world. we had three off the same ship, and they covered a lot of ground in a little time. it was spectacular. >> you talked about the families and the pressure that the team must feel. what sort of pressure did you feel? >> we got a lot of this. after the initial - the initial phase was done by the french and brazilians, and they found nothing, but they had no time to think about what was going on. we got involved about a year later and spend two months on the site. after talking about new technology, after two months, came up with nothing. at that point the media pressure

built, families were notably upset. it was coming tonne a year's anniversary. it was ugly. the question was do we know what we are doing, do the technologies work. every day you hoped for a break through. we had the confidence of the french and brazilian governments, and the confidence of the families. that went a long way to getting us to the third phase and the right haystack, and it was a matter of a few days before finding the wreck. >> this is a difficult one. david gallo, great to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> kevin corriveau is here, and you have been looking at the weather conditions in the new area where the search has begun. >> that's right, we are a month out from the monsoon season. that means the thunderstorms build up in this area and start to make their way up towards the north-west. that's what india experienced.

what we see is descent, fairly clear skies from the strait over here to the gulf of thailand and back to the south china sea. we were talking about how deep is the water in this area. for the air-france flight the water was about 12,000 feet deep. in this area it's fairly shallow, we are talking about an average depth 148 matched to 260. in the strait it's 120. most divers can go to 100 feet. 120 feet is not that deep in that area. >> there are currents. and most are pushing to the north-west, or towards the south-west. temperature wise, if it landed in the water and people survived, it's not an issue, because the textures are 80 degrees and above. no problem with hypothermia. >> our special coverage, what

happened to flight 370 continues in a moment. including the passengers. new information about who was on board.

>> announcer: an al jazeera special report dash what happened to flight 370. >> more than four days after the plane disappeared, there are more questions. let's join to jim tilman, former airline captain.

captain tilman from arizona. why do you think the jetliner stopped communicating with civilian radar. if the crew changed course, why? >> that's a major question right now, whether the crew did that op their own or someone else -- on their own or someone else coerced them to make those kind of changes. this is very bizarre, because activities described are uncommon to a commercial airline crew. >> if the flight was in trouble, the big question is why were there no distress calls? >> there has been so many confusing and conflicting details that came out of the incident until it is difficult to understand and compare it to something that happened in the past, without going way over the line in terms of speculation. you know, we don't even know if the airplane crashed. there's no way to be certain

that it did. we know that it couldn't have flown beyond the 7.5 hours of fuel, but we don't know where it went down, or why. there's a lot that has to be worked on. >> there's no question about this, and since last week we have been talking about what we don't know. i just wanted to - the new information that came out, and we discussed it about where the search is going on, how crazy - how critical is it to know - to pinpoint where the search should go on, especially within days of this crash? >> because it's a wide spans of terrain and water, you know, when you start talking about a needle in a haystack and all that, you are pretty accurate. it takes an enormous amount of activity, and some luck for your assets to really give you the location of an airplane that may

have gone into the water. we don't know it if it did crash, did it crash in water. it may not have. it may have been on land. with the trees and all, it would be difficult to spot. through a canopy of veg tags. >> what is the unusual fact that we learnt out of all this? >> that's a very good question, and the point is is this about everything that i have heard about the accident is unusual. >> really? >> yes. i mean, come on, we have what should have been a routine activity, airplane takes off, climbs to 35,000, and goes tonne its destination. all the other things are unusual for the transponders to be turned off for whatever reason, if they were turned off or for an electrical problem, it would be so severe that not only would it knock off the transponders,

but create a problem with communications, and for the authorities to say we were in the wrong ocean, we are going to the other side. sounds like the aeroplane took a turn. there's not anything normal about any of those things. everything described is unusual. >> have you seen anything like this? >> no, we have accidents like air-france where an airplane goes in the water, and there has been a number. aeroplanes that have broken up in the air, bombs going off, an aeroplane in new york city that came down because of a short circuit in a fuel tank. we had all the other things. when you talk about routine or normal or unusual, as bizarre as it might sound. they are far more easily understood than this one.

>> this has one thing after the other. we are not talking about an aeroplane breaking up in the air, not according to the last information. we are not talking about a lot of other kinds of issues right now. if, in fact, the airplane made the turns, and if the transponders went off because of manually turning them off, which i find difficult to understand, then we are talking about everything that happened after the aeroplane reached 35,000 feet as being unusual. into it's unusual, it's a mystery. there's a tonne we don't know. captain tilman, we appreciate your insight. thank you for being with us. >> sadness and frustration of relatives and passengers and

crew. many broke down into tears, trying to cope with the uncertainty, others lashing out at airline officials, throwing water bottles during a meeting, demanding answers. there were 239 people on board malaysian flight 370. 12 were flight crew, the rest dangers. john terrett has some stories. >> this man was one of three americans. the other two were children. he worked for ibm in beijing and was in the final stages of transferring to the company's office in malaysia. also on board two french teenagers in love. travelling back to their school in beijing after a 2-week vacation. the young man's mother and 14-year-old sister were listed on the flight. >> this couple from australia were in the midst of another big adventure, sharing their journey with friends, now missing. >> these canadians were

returning to beijing after a vacation. the married couple had two young boys and stayed home. >> this group of chinese calligraphy artists travel to visit an exhibition. >> and this group, part of a company. 12 chinese and eight malaysian. this young man headed to beijing to start a new job. he posted this photo online before the flight took off. >> more than four days passed since flight 370 vanished seemingly without a trace. in the days ahead we'll dig for answers with our team of experts and journalists around the world, until this aviation mystery is hopefully solved. the headlines are coming up next.

>> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm richelle carey, here are the top stories. four days after it disappeared, there's no sign of missing malaysian air flight 370. there were reports that the

military saw radar evidence of the plane changing course. officials say it's possible the jet flew to the strait of malaka, 350 miles from its original flight path. a raging fire in san francisco bay neighbourhood. it's under control. the damage is significant. fighting the flames is more difficult, because the fire suppression system had not been in stalled. there's no report of any injury. >> results are in in a congressional district in florida, it covers parts of st. petersburg u the first political test of obamacare. republican beat the democrat. nearly $9 million was spent in that race. those are the headlines. richelle carey next, and an al jazeera report, "lockerbie, what really happened", all the latest

news online at the website. that is aljazeera.com. appear you're watching: lockerbie: what really happened >> three years ago al jazeera began investigating the conviction of abdelbaset al megrahi, the only man found guilty of the bombing of pan am flight 103 over lockerbie in scotland. in the run up to last december's twenty-fifth anniversary of the bombing, we repeated two films that cast grave doubts on megrahi's conviction. now, we can reveal the results