deceased workers who were shift workers and see what happened to them. thank you dr. visi. >> thank you. >> the show may be over but the conversation continues. we'll see you next time. nova scot >> good evening everyone, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler in new york. demanding answers - in the search for flight 370, grieving relatives lash out at officials as investigators take a second look at the pilot's simulator. >> show of force. pro-russian forces storm a navy base in crimea, and the attack on the head of ukraine's state tv. >> flea market treasure, a faberge egg worth $33 million

almost ends up in the scrap heap. find out why they are so valuable. [ ♪ music ] >> personal request - a young woman severely injured in a car accident at the south by south-west festival gets a hospital room performance from her favourite band. she and the musicians join us live tonight. >> we begin with the flight for 370, a flight covering 2.5 million square miles. it's been scaled back and the focus on 230 square miles in the pacific ocean. the yellow box off the western coast of australia. there are developments on the efforts to find the plane and on the growing frustration from the families waiting for answers.

lisa stark reports. >> anguish and agony from family members of those on board the missing jetliner who want answers. some, like this woman, who travel from china to a press briefing in malaysia had to be dragged out. investigators insist they are doing everything in their power to locate the flight 370. they continue to examine the flight 370, and revealed it is missing some files. >> local and international expertise have been recruited to examine the pilot's flight simulator. some data has been deleted from the simulator, and forensic work to retrieve the data is ongoing. >> the files were deleted in february. it may mean nothing. the fbi has been asked to take a look. >> we are in ongoing conversations about how we can help, and we'll make available whatever resource and expertise that we have that we may be able

to use. >> friend of captain zaharie ahmed shah continue to defend the veteran pilot, and his home-made simulator. >> when i ask him before why he build the simulator in his home - that is his hobby. he enjoys flying and wants to share it with his friend. having a simulator at home is the perfect way to do it. >> copilot fariq abdul hamid is under the microscope, as are flight attendants and ground crew. and they are still waiting on the word about passenger background checks. >> very have checks from most countries. we have no information of significance on any passengers. >> military planes from a host of the countries, including the united states continue to safe for the missing jumbo jet. from uzbekistan to the north to

the indian ocean south-west of australia. the search area near australia has been cut in half based on an analysis from the ntsb. >> the area at the end of the - of those analyse sis have been refined by work done by the national transportation safety board on the fuel reserves of the aircraft and how fast it could have flown. you will see it's moved a little way east. it's not as far from perth as it was yesterday. australian officials leading the search say it will take weeks to cover just that one area to look for anything from the missing flight. >> and joining us on the telephone from the philippines is commander william marks, the spokesman for the u.s. navy seventh fleet and currently on the uss "blue ridge." commander, welcome. can you tell us what teams the u.s. navy has dispatched in the search for the plane.

>> right now we have two fixed wing safe and rescue control craft. those are the long-range control craft in the area. one is called the p 3. owrion flying the north sector into the bay of bengal, and the other is a p3 poseiden, our most advanced patrol craft. the most advanced search aircraft of its kind in the world. that's flowing out of perth australia, in the southern sector. also long-range aircraft... >> how do the planes work, and why are they your best? >> all right. glad you asked. i about to go into this. please forgive me, there's a slight delay on board the uss "blue ridge," our commandship. i'm on a satellite boat. there's a slight delay. i will walk you through that. the planes are long range

surveillance plane. they'll fly a continuous 9 hour mission. they fly upwards of 1,000, 1200 miles out. reach the search area and have another three to four hours before they have to fly back. we are talking offer the course of one flight, anywhere from 10 to 15,000 square miles of coverage just in that one flight. >> and how is the u.s. navy coordinating the search with, let's say, china, malaysia and other countries? >> this is a great internationalest. it seems a daunting task with the huge area, but if you look at it from the international cooperation, this shows a great deal of progress in the indoe asian region, where countries can work together safely,

manoeuvre, navigate the ship, fly the aircraft in a state manner and communicate in a coordinated manner. that is what we do here. we are out here every single day of the year, 80 exercises a year, more than 200 a year. so we coordinate almost every day with all these maritime nations. and so between the initial coordination led by malaysia with that initial water space and air space management. it was very complex. up and now bringing australia in the lead for the southern sector, bringing in the indian p 3s, it's been a tremendous effort by all countries. >> and do you have a senseful how many longer you would be focused on the search area off the western coast of australia? >> no, i don't. i can't speculate how far it will go out.

it's a huge area. we are covering big chunks at a time. as the days go buy, time is not on our side here. usually the way we think of it is the first 72 hours are that cite call time period for survivors. from the u.s. navy's pertect stiff. the first thing we do is a look-live search around the data. and a search with a ship and a helicopter. this is really unprecedented. so i can't rel guess on how long it will last. but the time is certainly not on our side here. >> commander william marks, commander, i know you were in hong kong. last time we talked on the telephone and you've now moved to the philippines. thanks for the update. we appreciate it. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> james we'd ebbing, former fbi special agent joins us from sacramento.

welcome. >> how are you. we've had a number of people on the program that talked about the simulator at the pilot's home, who say it's not abnormal. you disagree. why? >> pilots can request training, they can use the simulators available with the commercial aviation. i looked at the one that he had. it looks a little somewhat unusual. it's more than your average computer buff who buys a piece of software and wants to do it friday night or over the weekend. >> why the fbi and why now? why has it taken so long? >> well, you know, as today we see the malaysian authorities would like to have the bureau look at the data files that may have been deleted on the computer. they probably would have been better had they turned the files over earlier, but maybe there was some encryption that they tried to break themselves, that

they couldn't. and so the logical next step would be to let our training facility - we have a special facility in quantico virginia to take a look at it >> tell me how the fbi does that? how do they look at it? >> with a special laboratory at the bureau. they'll take a look in quante coe. tlel be able to re -- they'll be able to retrieve files, if they are encrypted, hopefully they can break it and look if there was simulated routes that are something that would be peculiar that he shouldn't have had an interest in, but maybe had. something, make, somalia, pakistan, afghanistan. >> it seems as if the malaysian authorities get the fbi and others at a distance. how does the fbi work with other countries or international

groups? >> we have an office in kuala lumpur, in the legal attache. since the bali nightclub bombing in indonesia, we had a good relationship in that area. so if you recall, there was a stolen passports, the bureau assisted and looked at the thumb prints to see if whether or not there might have been some identical prints on file at the bureau, so they had been working. i don't doubt that the agreement now is more formalised than it was before. >> do you get a sense of whether or not these - the flight simulator holds crews or the fbi and malaysian authorities are crossing every t and dotting every i. >> it's both. right now we don't have a lot of information. so any information we have,

including a deleted file. even though it's deleted, if we had the ability or chance to take a look at the file, we'll want to do that. after all the jet is missing. until we find the jet, we'll look at every little thing, including ground personnel, passengers on board, video that might have been taken at the time at the airport when the plane took off. anything that we might be able to conduct an examination, we'll take a look at. >> thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> now to the crimea crisis, and the showdown between washington and moscow. pro-russian forces took over a base in sevastopol. no shots were fired. kiev is pulling its troops out in what amounts to a surrender. in kiev, a violent backlash against the head of ukraine

state tv. at least three members of ukraine parliament, ukrainian nationalists attacked the leader of the and forced the tv boss to resign, angry that they aired the treaty signing between russia and crimea. all this one day or russia annexed crimea. jennifer glasse is in sevastopol. >> ukrainian sailors leaving the base "go home", say the people, "this is now russia", the naval headquarters way was ukrainian this morning belongs to moscow. civilians started the charge, tearing the gate and ukrainian flag. they took on anything associated with ukraine. "we had to go in", they tell me, "we were afraid they'd give out guns and god forbid someone would start shooting. they haven't done anything i say to him." thank god they didn't. they could have, they were given

an order to shoot.". ukrainian supporters were given permission to fire in self-defence. most of the men were unarmed. the russians told him they ran out of patience. >> they came and said "it's over. it's declared russian territory, that's it, go away." i said we should do like civilized people. >> russian soldiers wasted no time consolidating their position, bringing in reinforcement. the commander of the russian black sea fleet tried and failed to find a counterpart. >> more russian soldiers arrive here, the ukrainian forces seem to be getting ready to leave. we don't know where they are going, they hadn't wanted to talk to us. where are you headed? i asked them. we're headed to freedom. >> taking over the base was a

collaborative evered. >> apparently they found the ukrainian black sea fleet commander somewhere in the buildings here, and now they say it's all over. they've taken them out in the car and most of the guys are leaving. >> if we had wanted to speak to the commander, no one would tell us who or where it is. it's not clear who was in charge, but amid the chaos, it's clear that russia is taking over. >> we are going to continue the coverage of crimea in a moment. first breaking news - it's simply one line from associated press so far, and the australian prime minister now says two objects in the search for the malaysian jet may have been found. as you see from the map, the yellow box off the west coast of

australia, that's where the focus of search has been. we'll continue to follow the story. associated press reporting that the australian prime minister says two objects in the san for the malaysian jet may have been found. we'll get back to that in a moment. more on crimea. many in crimea welcome russia's ann ann annexation others do not. now they are getting used to a new way of life. nick schifrin has that story. investigative journalist irina sedova lives for her family and work. thanks to her video, the world saw the mile-long line of russian troops and tank that arrived in crimea. thanks to her the world saw when russian troops first drove through the crimean city of kerch, and set up checkpoints.

>> for exposing the russian invasion, she received the scorn of pro-russian activists. i met her two weeks ago in her home up to. >> is it safe to object to the russian presence? but arena kept documenting the growing stranglehold on crimea as she kept getting threat. i spoke to her today. this time when she was on the run. >> on that day irina sedova decided it was too dangerous to stay.

>> do you hope to come back? >> to save her family, she felt she had to leave them, because her work made them a target.

irina sedova vows to continue bearing witness. for now, the invasion, annexation has left her silenced. >> tonight a new wrinkle in this crisis and a surprising one. russia says it may change its stance in the ongoing iranian nuclear talks. in a statement earlier today the country's deputy foreign minister said it did not want to use the nuclear talks to raise the stakes, but would be forced to in response to actions by the united states and european union over ukraine. now to the weather - this is the last full day of the winter, spring arrives tomorrow. a relief for most of us, and follows a winter to remember. kevin corriveau is here with more on this mean season. >> absolutely. it's been mean. this is what february looked like in washington.

this is what february looked hike in london where people are enjoying above-average temperatures. most of the globe in the month of february was actually above offering. here in the united states, we have had a mean winter, but take a look at the map. this came from the national centre - national clim attic data center. where we see the red is where we have had record warm temperatures. where you see the blues is where it's cool. here in the united states, that's where we stand. we have seen, as a globe, the 21st warmest winter in february since 1880. so it ranks up there as one of the warmst februarys we have seen. what we expect to see over the next couple of days. take a look at the graph. let's move it forward as we go. where you see the line here, that will be cooler than average. where you see the warmer temperatures, it will feel like

spring. much of the great lakes and you england will feel like winter. >> thank you very much. i want to go back to the blacking news for a moment. this is just to repeat this one line to associated press and it's all we have. "the australian prime minister says that two objects in the search for the malaysia airlines may have been found, may have been found. the yellow box you see on the map is off the coast of australia, a good ways off the coast. that's where the search has been focussed. it has been narrowed to that area, and that is the area that we believe may be where they have found something. we will continue to follow the story and bring you more. coming up later - safety settlement. toyota's billion dollar settlement with the justice department and what the deal may mean for general motors. >> plus, boom town - north dakota's oil surge bringing in workers but creating the

country's biggest housing crisis.

>> it is being called a game changer for the auto industry. toyota will pay $1.2 billion to settle a 5-year-old investigation. toyota admits lying about acceleration problems with its cars, it's the largest criminal penalty imposed on the car company in united states history. general motors could face the same fate. bisi onile-ere has the latest from detroit. >> today toyota, the world's top-selling automaker agreed to pay the largest criminal penalty imposed on a car company in u.s. history. the company will pay $1.2 billion for misleading federal regulators and consumers over complaints of unintended acceleration in some of its vehicles. attorney general eric holder said toyota intentionally

concealeded the recalls. >> put simply, toyota's conduct is shameful, showing a blatant disregard for systems and laws designed to look after the safety of consumers. by the company's own submissions, it protected the brand against customers. >> the toyota settlement resolves issues that are linked to deaths that plagued the company. among them an incident in 2009, claiming the lives of an off-duty california highway patrol officer and members of its family. the settlement comes as general motors grapples with massive recalls, and whether they waited too long to support a faulty switch problem over two years ago, linked to 12 deaths and multiple crashes. gm's c.e.o. apologised admitting it should have acted soonly.

as a member of the gm family, this hit home for me. we have apologised. that's one step in the journey to resolve this. >> as in the toyota probe federal investigators want to find out what gm knew and when. toyota's settlement, which needs to be approved bay federal judge -- by a federal judge may serve as a model. >> the justice department will be viewed critically if they don't say what's good for the goose is good for the ganneda. i think they'll look at two issues - one is the dirg of cup -- degree of cullibility, to what extent did general motors deliberately conceal the problem here. gm appointed a company-wide safety chief this week, they say to make sure nothing like this happens again. with the potential for legal liabilities looming. n c.e.o. mary barra is preparing

to testify before congress. meanwhile toyota faces hundreds of private lawsuits over their vehicle problems. >> we want to go back to the breaking news now. we have been told that australian maritime safety authority officials will hold a briefing on the search for this plane in little over an hour. and we will be covering that. apparently p3 owrion is a plane that's been searching for this jetliner, the malaysian airliner that went down. there are some findings reported by associated press, according to the australian prime minister, two objects in search for the malaysian jet may have been found. joining us with more on this missing plane is pilot and author fadra heist.

what do you make of the early reports? >> you know, i think we were all hoping something would be found, we want answers to the mystery. it's puzzling, and families want answers and closure for what happened. it's too early to tell. i'm looking forward to the news report as well. it will be great to get some answers. >> we talked about how the actual search area went from millions of square miles down to the smaller box. when we look at it on the map, it looks small on the screen. honestly. it's huge. this is the area that they have been searching in the past several hours. how - how does the search go from - can you give a sense of how a search goes from half - half of the world or a quarter of a world to this small box? >> that's a really great

question. as a pilot, i can talk about search missions and flying the grid patterns. haven't flown a lot of search and rescue myself, but i do know that it's based on radar information, and the latest information they have on the position of the airplane, currents affect that as well. there are a lot of proections that go in to determining the size of the field. when a field shrinks like that there's new information that has come into play. >> we are getting a little more information, and i want to keep viewers up to date. they say that satellite images show two possible objects in the ocean and australian owrion aircraft is en route to the area and will be followed. can you talk about the orion aircraft. >> i'm not familiar with the aircraft. >> i believe it's one of the aircraft we talked about earlier.

given the location where they are searching, how far would they have flown and how long would they have flown out of their regular path of beijing. looks like it went on for four or five hours. >> there are so many calculations, difficult, tricky, determining what size the field will be. i think the most interesting piece of data that we have been looking at is the mysterious left-hand turn, and that certainly is the only information that we have on position for the aircraft. a little radar information, a bit the bit of gps. for me, the poilt, the left-hand turn is compelling, raising questions about was it intention am, unintentional, was it an accident. you know, was there some sort of third party involved in that. >> the search for the black box,

if the wreck im has been discovered or some objects have been discovered, connected with the plan, the sample for the black box is cut call. what is in the black box. >> it's an important piece ever information. it tracks aircraft information, systems information, movement of the aircraft. that can be critical information. >> recordings in the cockpit. >> possibly. >> really it would depend, yes. >> and how long will it ping. for that piece of equipment on that aircraft. i'm not sure >> we heard something like 30 days. i assume that depends on the location. if it's deeper underwater, difficult to find, right. institute conditions can affect that. >> they can have an impact on that as well. >> even if this - this is correctage from the flight and

it's a huge if. if it's wreckage from the flight and we don't have the black box. still it may be difficult to determine whether or not this was intentional or something that went wrong with the plane, right. >> it could be, it depends on the pieces of reccage. when i wrote my book, i went on ntsb investigations, and when they look at aircraft accidents they look for the wreckage, the radar track information, and they look for witnesses. in this case if we have found pieces of the plane, we've found a critical piece of information, and it's amazing what can be found from small pieces. >> even if it's a small piece of the aircraft. >> yes, you can tell sometimes if there has been an explosion. there's a lot of information that can be gained from a small piece. >> what - if they have found

some of the wreckage, how do they - how do they then continue the search for other pieces. how would it intensify the area that they are looking at. >> well, if they find pieces of the aircraft and it's determined that it's from this aircraft, it pinpoints the search area, confirming the instincts of that being an accurate area to continue to safe. then you work from time passing from there. >> thank you. i know we caught you off guard. it caught us all off guard. >> yes. >> we'll continue to follow this story throughout the hour and the rest of the evening. >> thank you for joining us. just to repeat. the australian prime minister has reported by associated press that two objects may have been discovered connected to the missing malaysian airliner. we are expecting a - some sort

of news conference in australia coming up within the hour. we'll be covering that as well. we'll let you know what happens, and we'll be back with the next half hour after this news break. don't go away.

>> welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler, and we have breaking news. australia prime minister says that two objects in the search for the malaysian airliner may have been found. of course, we are still trying to get more information on this. associated press is reporting. the australian prime minister has said in the wall street report that australia satellite imagery has located two objects that look like parts of an aircraft. of course, a search aircraft has been dispatched to the area, and is expected to arrive soon. american and british aviation officials narrowed the search area to the yellow box off the coast of the australia. they did that by refining satellite signals. there were

two paths that meant the plane was flying from malaysia towards the south pole. >> flight 370 departed kuala lumpur, was scheduled to land in beijing when it disappeared. associated press is reporting a new development in the missing malaysian airline flight. two objects of the jet, says the australian prime minister, may have been found and we are expected to have a briefing from australian officials within the hour. we will be following that for you. >> we have other news to tell you about. the economy is booming in north dakota because of the oil for the workers getting there is the easy part. it's finding a home that is tough. the story from diane eastabrook, in part of our series "the new frontier." eric kirby makes the best of a cramped situation in this 1200 square foot mobile home, the living room functioning as an office. >> there's no room for tools and

items, so they are stashed in a shed. >> the freezer is here, the gun safe. it's packed. >> while small, the mobile home was the most affordable option for the civil engineer, his wife and son that moved from oregon. >> $18 a month is a good deal in this tune. there's 2-bedroom aparts going for $2,000. >> williston north dakota is not only a boom down, thanks to the oil rush, but is the most expensive housing market as thousands flock to work here. work is plentiful, housing isn't. developers are rushing to fill the void. >> this is one of our typical single studio rooms. >> danny hogan is one. his firm is building 3,000 modular homes for oil service

workers. >> we have corporate contracts coming in. depending on the people and any agreement they come to, we came for 139 a night. >> north dakota knows it has a major housing problem and sent $50 million over the past few years building affordable housing over the state. but mostly here in the oil patch. so far the state subsidised 1200 units for lower rent for essential workers, teachers, police officers, and nurses. community members at williston says it hardly put a dent in the problem. mercy medical center got a grant to build a million dollar housing complex for staff that couldn't find housing. >> c.e.o. matt grimshaw rented out the units. now he's worried about how to accommodate new hires. >> we have 25 to 30 full-time opportunities. as of today, we no longer have

guaranteed apartments that we can slide one into. >> as more housing is, developers thing it will get less expensive. eric kirby is not waiting for that to happen. he's building a $275,000 home his family will move into this summer. >> that's, to you, a lot of money. >> that's a heck of a lot of money. my house in oregon was less. >> in oil company, that's the price you pay for the american dream. >> and huge - we have breaking news to tell you about. australia prime minister says that two objects possibly related to the search of the missing malaysia airlines plane have been spotted in the indian ocean, according to tab opt. there is the -- tob ot. there -- tony abbott. there is the yellow box. he told the australian parliament the task of the

locating the objects will be difficult, and it may be they do not relate to the aircraft. however, he says, royal australian air force orion has been difficultered. it's expected to arrive in the area shortly. if and they have contacted the malaysia airlines authorities as well as malaysia authorities in malaysia to tell them about this. that's where we are with this search. sting, we don't know whether or not these two objects identified from a satellite has anything to do with the jet, but there's a possibility these objects do have something to do with it. >> when it comes to the n.c.a.a., nothing like a

kinderela story, it's something no one saw coming. >> one or two, we know, are in the mix for cinderella much it's a story of someone who was an afterthought with the ultimate reward in the end. that's appropriate for the n.c.a.a. tournament. 68 teams, many from lesser known conference, seeded between 10-16. to dayton, tulsa, the shoot for the prize leads to exciting dreama-field upset. the cool drama is we know the upset is coming, but we don't know who will pull it off. >> president obama revealed his annual bracket, and appears not to be a big fan of the cinderella. all four of his picks are four seeds or better. he's trying to defend the crown, but the president goes with the spartans to one it all.

i spoke with jordan cornette, and asked what makes the perfect cinderella team. >> for a cinderella you have to specialise. you look at the b.c. us, they d it with defense. the florida gulf coast team. they did it with up tempo style and athleticism. >> but the main ingredient is an intangible. you don't recognise the moment is that big. you play free-flowing basketball. the scariest team is one without a conference. >> which team should we watch for? >> new mexico is probably the best. they have a great front line and that makes them dangerous. they have alex kirk and cameron bearstow. but also new mexico state, this team has a guy 7 foot 5. he's that good. he'll eat up space.

he's a protector. san diego is a team that loves the outside shop. 7 foot 5. >> and north dakota state. a 12 seed out of the west. they are physical, reminding me of a big team. they have n.b.a. talent. taylor braun, a 6 foot 7 win and a pivot man down low in marshall. >> i noticed in your final four you stayed away from the cinderellas, and you have the same four that president obama has. >> i'm just now finding that out. great minds think alike. if i follow the leaders, i must be doing it right. i'd like florida to win the whole thing. >> in the round of 64 tips off thursday. >> thank you mike. we'll go back to the bragging news. again, this first came about half an hour ago from the australian prime minister. and it was simply a line which said two objects in the search

for malaysia airlines jet may have been found. the information comes from satellite images from the australians. joining us on the telephone is lisa stark. what do we know about this. this is sketchy information? >> hi, this is al >> i'll take you alan. i apologise. >> sorry, lisa and i are friend, i didn't want to cut her off. clearly if the australian prime minister said he thinks these are from the airmine, the aussies are good at accident investigation. i have a feeling their version of the ntsb has probably looked at the material before going on the public with the story. the search is beginning. in 1987 we lost a 747 in the indian ocean, and didn't get out there quick enough to find the beepers. south african airways 747, and

it took us two years. the search ain't over yet. this is great news, it looks like now it's localized into a couple of hun tread square - couple of hundred thousand square miles instead of millions. we'll need oceanographers and meteorologists to work out the winds and currents. there's a lot of work to be done. we need a large fleet of p3. the aussies coughed up a couple - that's great. i don't know if they found it or someone else. the u.s. navy needs to get a bunch of those down to australia. the search is still on. this is the beginning. not the beginning, but it's the middle. winston churchill said it's entered the beginning. if this holds up, this is great news, now we know where to look for it. >> we could lose if we don't get the assets out in the next 2.5 weeks. president obama said this is a

top priority. >> all right. let me properly introduce alan, a former ntsb investigator. he'll help us to try to understand all this. i appreciate you staying up this late to explain what is going on. >> i want to go over the little information that we know. >> the australian prime minister spoke to parliament and said "the task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult, and it may be that they do not relate to the aircraft, but it is very possible as well, according to the prime minister, that they are objects from the malaysian jets. you talk about the p3, what is the p3, and how does it help to search the area? >> okay. what we are looking for is the black boxes, equipped with pingers. they have - they put out - they

put out sound under the water. they have acoustic devices. it looks for enemy sub marines, but can here the pingers, they drop listening devices, sonar boys that float on the water and listen for sounds. they are very effective. the aeroplanes, airliners fly at 400 miles per hour, and go out thousands of miles. we have an awful lot of looking to do. it's great we know where the thing it. like we said. the 747 or air france, we need to get out there in the next 2.5 weeks in force to locate the pingers. >> i want to interrupt you as you continue to describe this. i want to say what else the australian prime minister is quoted as saying. he calls this new incredible information about the potential aircraft wreckage, he told

parliament that the australian maritime safety authority received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search, following special analysis of this sat lie imagery two possible objects related to the search have been identified. any idea what that means, alan? >> i thought maybe they had, you know, a fragment of the airplane. sounds like they have a picture of something floating on the surface that they think. we may be a little premature in our conclusion or i may be, that we have -- >> or he may be. >> or he may be. we'll wait and see. i can't believe that they haven't put some of their air safety investigators in a business jet or military jet and flown them to the area. and i guess they don't have possession... >> let me help you with that. according to the prime minister a royal australian air force

orion has been diverted in an attempt to locating the objects. this orion is expected to arrive in the area about this time. i'm not sure when the statement was released. three more aircraft will follow the orion, and they are tasked for more intensive follow up search. suddenly there was this - there was a huge search area, and then it came down to a much smaller area, which, by the way, a rather large, right. >> this is still - could be a big area. >> i mean, that's pretty much it. >> spot on, as the australians would say. i didn't realise they didn't have the parts. by the way the orion, that is the p3. >> that's the p3 orion. >> they have the listening devices. they have to get something that lands on the water. i don't know if we have a v22, helicopter-like airplanes or a flying boats. we don't have many in the

military inventory. we need the parts. maybe a long-range helicopter could get out there. >> how big would the objects have to be for a satellite to see them? >> that's not my area. >> i know. >> i have friends - i have no idea. we know what happened with the chinese. i have a feeling that these are probably reasonable sizes, you know. >> when you say we know what happened with the chinese, in the initial stages of the story there were satellite images that the chinese had that purportedly showed pieces of the aircraft, which turned out not to be true. >> they were way too big to be parts of a triple 7. what i'm saying is i think the australians, if anything, will be careful before yes released information. if these are satellite photos, particularly in they are satellite photos. this is encouraging, but until we get the float sam and jet sam into the lab and look at it, it

may work out. it may say boeing 777. we know where all the rest in the world are. this has to be from 370. without knowing what they have seen and getting hands on. the debris, it's still - we don't want to be too optimistic. from the initial report i thought they had debris in hand. >> and the black box. i want to go over what is in the black box, why it's important to find? >> well we know that there's two black boxes. there's the flight data recorder with thousands of - not thousands, hundreds of channels. the modern digital recorders can tell you what the outside air temperature was when they flew along. they have a long tape on them. the cockpit voice recorders. i'm not sure what kind the malaysians have, they only have

a half an hour. so you have data - you have the data record are. and then you have the cockpit voice recorder. >> which is a misnomer because that south african 747 i was talking about, that's how they solved the mystery of the crash. he recovered the recorders. when they played it they could hear the it circuit players popping, and that's how they knew there was a fire on the south african 747, so, you know, the recorders are key. frankly, john, the airplans are under scrutiny. we don't know if this is a pilot or terrorism. without knowing that, we have over 1,000 of these 777s fly. >> it's important to know. >> let me interrupt you for a second. we have lisa stark on the

telephone from washington d.c. lisa, anything you can add to this? >> well, i've been listening. i think you guys - alan has been hitting it on the head. the idea, if they do, in fact, have objects from the aircraft. that would be - you know, an amazing feat. investigators have long thoughts in the last few days that the aircraft took the southern route. that has been a key suspicions. they didn't believe it had flown to the north. they pinned their hopes on finding something in the area. if they have found something, obviously that will bring all of the attention to this part of the ocean, but it's been, what, 12, 13 days, and there'll have to be a lot of analysis because if they fined debris -- find debris, the tides have taken it, the winds have taken it, doesn't mean the wreckage is near the debris, and they'll have to backtrack and do an analysis to figure out where the aircraft

itself would be. >> lisa, i want to mention, we are expecting a briefing from the australian maritime safety authority, and i don't have the exact time. justin, you may be able to give me the exact u.s. time, eastern time. i believe it's suppose to be - that briefing within the hour. so we would get more information. but basically what we are talking about, if you are joining us, is that australian prime minister spoke to parliament today and said that two objects have been discovered in the search for the malaysian jetliner. right there in the southern indian ocean, a long way off the coast of australia. alan diehl, as a former ntsb investigators, when you search - even though the box is small, when you search an area that large and you think you have found something in that area, what happens after that? how

does the search expand in that concentrated area. >> there's a couple of things. first of all, it's a political one. if they think that - i know debris was not found in australian territorial waters. if it turns out they are convinced the wreckage is in australian territorial waters, under the protocol, the australians are in charge. let's not go there. i'm assuming that they don't think the wreckage is in territorial waters. what happens now is i guess the short answer is it depends. i don't know how deep the water is. we have to look at the currents, the wind, the tides and try to figure out where. it's a big area. once we do that analysis, and that's for the meteorologists and the oceanographers, then we have to decide what equipment or if it's shallow water, we may put divers down.

the main thing is to get aircraft out there. you know, destroyers travel at 25 miles per hour, their aircraft at 100, pcs, at 400. the australians have a dozen of those. i hope the u.s. navy - i am sure they would, if the australians ask you. >> let me stop you. we have alan diehl on the telephone, former ntsb, lisa stark, who spent much of her career covering these kind of stories, they'll continue to stay on the phone. we'll take a break and cover the story at least on through the next half hour as it continues to break. but an update now on the mair flight 370. it appears there are two objects found by the australians that may be related to this jetliner. we'll be back after

>> welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler, we have breaking news. associated press reports a new development in the missing malaysia airlines flight 370.

australian prime minister tony abbott said two objects of the jet may have been found. the prime minister told this to parliament today, said an air force aircraft happens been diverted to that area, the area that the yellow box we showed you a minute ago, to try to locate those objects. the p3 aryan aircraft is expected to arrive in the area thursday afternoon. that is according to the prime minister. when he spoke to parliament earlier today, three additional aircraft are expected to follow for an intensive search. we want to tell you, we'll stay on through the half hour here. a news conference is expected at 12:30am eastern time and we'll follow that and show it to you live as it happens. of course, today, american and british aviation officials narrowed the scope of the search into the yellow box you are looking at off the coast of australia. they did that by refining

satellite signals from the plane. essentially the two objects that they found are believed to be found by a satellite image, and so they are going to have to take the satellite image fly the planes outside... ..it's been a frustrating search, obviously for the families and the officials involved. really unprecedented in the scope of this search for this missing plane. they had - the malaysians had a number of countries to please look at the satellites. the chinese said they devoting 21 satellites to