sanjay, thank you. i look forward to tonight. i didn't get my advance copy, so i'll be right there with everyone else. sanjay gupta reporting live. just to remind you, be sure to tune in tonight, "weed 2:cannabis madness". my colleague wolf takes over the my colleague wolf takes over the baton now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com this is cnn breaking news. >> i'm wolf blitzer reporting from the cnn center, and we're following breaking news. how did a plane with 239 people on board just vanish without a trace? that's what experts and investigators are trying to figure out right now. four days into the mystery of malaysia airlines flight 370. here is what we know right now. the director of cia says he's not ready, repeat, not ready to rule out terrorism in the plane's disappearance. listen to what john brennan said just moments ago. >> it's close to now 13 years since 9/11. and i think the memories and

tragedy of 9/11 have been seated in the minds of many people. and this is not the time to relax, because we know there are terrorist groups that are still determined to carry out attacks, including against -- especially against aircraft. >> has there been chatter that would indicate any kind of terror link in this mystery? >> i think there's a lot of speculation right now. some claims responsibility have not been confirmed or corroborated at all. we are looking at it very carefully. we, cia, are working with fbi and tsa and others, our malaysian counterparts doing everything they can to try to put together the pieces here. but clearly this is still a mystery, which is very disturbing. and until we actually can find out sort of where that aircraft is, we might have an opportunity to do some other forensic analysis that will lead us in the right direction. >> at this point, you're not ruling out that it could be -- >> no. >> some sort of terror -- >> not at all. >> not ruling out. he says not at all. the head of interpol, the international police agency, is, though, downplaying, seemingly

downplaying, the possible link to terrorism. ron noble saying indications increasingly point to some other explanation. more on this coming up. malaysian authorities have identified two passengers traveling on stolen passports. and they say it's unlikely they were part of a terrorist group. the two passengers traveling with the stolen passports were young men from iran. authorities say they entered malaysia using valid iranian passports, but they used stolen austrian and italian passports to board the plane. our senior international correspondent, nic robertson, is joining us from london, investigating what's going on. police say there is no evidence the two young men were part of any terrorist group. what do authorities say they know about these two individuals? >> reporter: well, they believe they were young men. one of them, the one en route to frankfurt, was going to meet his mother there. indeed they say it was his mother who raised the alarm when he didn't get off that flight. it seems he was trying to illegally emigrate to germany, at least. coming initially, as you said,

from iran, using his own passport, along with the other young iranian, getting to kuala lumpur a week before flight mh-370. what we are hearing, though, from interpol, from the secretary general, ron noble, is specific to these two men. but as far as they were concerned, where there was so much focus on the question of whether or not they were on board with stolen passports to commit terrorism, he seems pretty clear on that. this is what he said. >> the more information we get, the more we're inclined to conclude that it was not a terrorist incident. and if you read what the head of police from malaysia said recently about the 19-year-old whose photograph is here, wanting to travel to frankfurt, germany, in order to be with his mother as part of a human smuggling issue and not a terrorist issue. >> reporter: so that rules out, it appears, those two young iranians. but there are more than 200 other people on that flight. and what we understand from the

malaysian police is the investigation is looking at sabotage hijacking. the possibility of psychological breakdown of someone on board or personal issues between crew or passengers on board that aircraft. the fact they're not talking about mechanical failure, talking about the potential of hijacking and sabotage, pretty much hijacking and sabotage fall you said the auspices of terrorism, certainly in many circumstances, wolf. so you can see that the malaysians too, while ruling out these two individuals, traveling on the stolen passports, there's a lot of room left open for the potential there could be somebody else on there, wolf. >> and what do you make of what we just heard from john brennan, cia director? he seems to be going out of his way, first of all, talking about the threat from terrorists against aircraft, u.s. aircraft, other aircraft. but then he says he's not ruling out terrorism, not at all. those are pretty pointed words he's saying. >> absolutely. look, we know al qaeda likes to

target aircraft. they have had various plots, 9/11, the bojinka plot, liquid explosives plot coming out of europe, as well. and al qaeda has even been on the record of saying that the pilot should administer a drug to the co pilot so he can take control of the aircraft. what has investigators so focus and had so concerned is now this period of time that it appears the aircraft was operating with a transponder off. how did it come off? how did the plane fly so many hundreds of miles back the route that it had come on at 90 degrees, cross over malaysia again. how did that happen? the aircraft was flying. the transponder was off. there were two people in that cockpit, at least. were there other people? was it hijacking in that way or had the air crew taken control? irresponsibly? again, this is all speculation. but these are all the loose ends out there. and it's caused by this period

of time that the plane was flying with a transponder off, and extended and unexpected period of time, wolf. >> nic robertson with the latest from london. nic, thanks very much. so if the terror angle seems to be played down, at least by some, what does that leave others for explanations? let's bring in congressman adam schiff, democrat from california, senior member of the house intelligence committee. congressman, thanks very much for joining us. >> you bet. >> all right. so what do you make of what john brennan, cia director, is saying when he says "not at all." he emphasized those words, not ruling out terrorism. what are you hearing? >> well, i think he's exactly right at this point. we really can't rule anything out. we do know a lot more about these two passengers, but we probably know more now about those two passengers than we do with the other more than 200 on board. so we're scouring the manifest, seeing if we can make any connections with any other passengers on board. we're looking for any kind of chatter, was there any evidence that we had before this of an airline plot around this time or

in this location. so far, i think it's fair to say that nothing has leapt out at us. it could be, you know, a plot that was hatched in southeast asia that didn't involve someone on the aircraft, but someone who put something on the aircraft. so, you know, we can't rule anything out. i think that's certainly fair to say. you just don't have a plane of this size go completely missing and be able to rule out any possibility. >> because you remember, all of us remember, before the sochi winter olympic games, there was a threat alert that was issued by the u.s. about toothpaste bombs getting on plaenls. there seemed to be some targeting of aircraft. have you heard anything in all of your briefings linking what happened with the malaysia airlines plane and that earlier threat that had been so widely disseminated? >> wolf, i haven't. i really haven't seen any indication of linkage between the disappearance of this plane and the threats we were so

concerned about around the olympics. and that's exactly what we're looking for, connections to those threats. but also did we hear any kind of chatter about airline plots that might be connected to this. were there things we saw earlier but didn't make the connection and now with this missing plane there may be a connection? are there groups taking responsibility? sometimes that can be misleading. so we're looking into all of this. we've seen also cases in the past where there were psychiatric problems among the pilot or crew. that could be cause and factor. it still could be a mechanical failure, but we're going to be obviously scouring all the intelligence leads while we search for the aircraft. >> what are you hearing about the pilot and the co pilot? >> not very much. they were both very experienced. i think the early analysis looked at whether this was a problem with their training, did they not have enough hours in

the air. was this similar to the situation of the plane that crash-landed in san francisco. but, you know, the pilots look well-trained. the airplane looked like it was in good condition. the weather was good. this is why it was so mind boggling this plane has just completely vanished. >> are you getting the kind of cooperation from the malaysian authorities you would anticipate in a situation like this? i raise the question, because some have criticized malaysia for giving out all sorts of conflicting information. >> you know, i think we're getting good cooperation. i haven't heard of any problems, probably the biggest concern is not the cooperation we're getting now, but the fact that so many countries don't check the interpol database. so they don't look for these stolen passports. we and other countries, not all countries, but certainly we and the british and others make sure that we tap the databases that can tellis whether people are flying with stolen documents. and these two on this plane may have been completely innocent of

the downing of the plane. but it doesn't mean that this is not a gaping security of vulnerability that needs to be fixed, because it could lead to terrorists to take advantage of this in other cases. >> adam schiff, as a member of the house intelligence committee, congressman, thanks for joining us. >> thanks, wolf. aviation experts have some theories about what might have happened to flight 370. we're going to talk to a former managing director of the ntsb about possible scenarios. that's coming up. also, the chair of the senate intelligence committee has some harsh words for the cia over the alleged hack of congressional computers. are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule.

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this is cnn breaking news. >> and the breaking news, some more mysterious information just coming into cnn from the malaysian air force. the malaysian air force says it has now traced the last travel of malaysia airlines flight 370 to a very small island in the straits of malacca, according to the senior malaysian air force official. the official declined to be named, because he's not authorized to speak to the news media. but the official says that about 2:40 a.m. local time, the civilian and military radar lost all contact with the aircraft, strait of malacca is in a body of water that separates the peninsula from the indonesian island of sumatra. it's many hundreds of miles from the usual flight path for aircraft traveling from kuala lumpur to beijing. so it was way, way off course, according to this malaysian air force. no explanation, obviously,

given. still no sight of any debris. no sight of this airliner. peter goels is joining us right now, former ntsb managing director. so the -- this air force official from malaysia, peter, is now saying the plane was hundreds of miles off course from where it would have been going if on a normal route from kuala lumpur to beijing. what do you make of that? >> even more perplexing. i think it starts to narrow the options down. if this report is true, it means a couple things. one is, was there someone unauthorized in the cockpit ordered the transponder turned off, ordered the plane to fly, you know, 90-degree turn off course. second is did one of the pilots do it themselves? is this something that was commanded by one of the flight crew? it's really increasing the concerns. but you've got to zero in now on the flight crew and their

background. were they in any kind of financial difficulty? were there other concerns being raised? and you've got to go look at who was on that plane. >> the two pilots, one -- i think 53 years old, very experienced. the younger co pilot, 27 years old. obviously a lot less experienced. both malaysian pilots. both seemingly with good reputations. but there have been histories, and you can remind us, of when pilots deliberately wanted to bring down their aircraft. i'm referring to that egypt airline crash and that silk airline crash. tell us about those. >> well, both. in both cases, the ntsb determined that the pilot took control of the aircraft and in the case of silk air, turned off the flight voice recorder and dove the plane from 30,000 feet into a river. he disabled his co pilot. in the egyptair, the co pilot took control of the plane while

flying pilot was out of the cabin on a rest room break. they actually got into a struggle in the cockpit to get control of the plane. and unfortunately, the co pilt pilot turned the engines off and the plane crashed into the north atlantic. so you do have two cases where pilots have deliberately flown their planes into the ocean. >> and is it that -- is it that easy, peter, to simply push a button and the transponder goes off and then no one can monitor where that plane is heading? >> it is not difficult. you can either -- you can either turn the transponder off in the flight controls and in front of you. you can -- because you can use it to squawk for a hijacking. or you can turn the circuit breaker off, which would shut down both the transponder, you can shut down the voice recorder, you can shut down access to the data recorder. so -- and then in the case of silk air, that's precisely what

the pilot did during the final moments of that flight. >> hold on for a moment. because i want the you to react to this next report. andrew stevens is joining us now, correspondent in kuala lumpur in malaysia. up date our viewers, andrew, what we're learning precisely, and what it may suggest. >> reporter: well, we're hearing, wolf, now the last reported position, last position the plane was seen, was over a small island in the strait of malacca. this is on the subpoena sit side of the country of malaysia to the flight path where it's supposed to be going. what we can tell you at this stage is that the plane officially was last contacted and was last seen at a way point heading towards vietnam on its way towards beijing. then the transponders apparently were switched off. the second -- it was still able to be tracked by radar.

it's called primary radar. the plane then did what apparently looks like a u-turn, went back across the country of malaysia to the other side, the west coast, which is the strait of malacca, and was last seen on radar over a little island which is in the middle of the strait of malacca, between malaysia and indonesian, about 200 kilometers or so, 150 miles off the west coast of malaysia. that's what we're hearing at the moment. we don't know what happened then. but the actual plane disappeared, the radar contact disappeared at around about 2:40 a.m. that's about two hours after it took off and about an hour after the -- its last official position, just as it was entering see aetna mays air space from malaysian air space. so from this point, looks like evidence is growing, the malaysian air force, we're hearing -- we've been talking to a senior air force official here. he can't give his name, because he's not -- he's not responsible

for speaking to the media. but certainly he is telling us this is what the situation is, where this plane went. so we're talking about -- looks like basically a u-turn back across to the other side into the straits of malacca. >> so basically what you're saying, andrew, based on this information from this malaysian air force official, the search under way for four days, that search has been going on in totally unrelated waters, right? they haven't even started this search, if you hear where this plane disappeared, this malaysian air force official, saying it disappeared hundreds of miles away. >> well, no, wolf. they have been searching in that area, gradually expanding the search, expanding the search. they began the search looking over the last known contact point of that plane. but as the days have gone on, they have started searching across the straits of malacca. it's been a little bit difficult to follow, because the authorities have obviously been aware of this for some time but haven't let this information out.

but by looking at what they're doing with the search pattern, that pattern has been going further and further out across the straits of the malacca, into where that air -- where that plane was last seen and sort of unofficially, if you like. just from my understanding of this, wolf, when the plane was last officially seen, the transponders were on. it was sending a signal which verified it was that particular aircraft. when the transponders were turned off, a primary radar which is used by both the military and the civilian authorities, continued to track the plane or track what they thought was the plane. they couldn't actually confirm whether it was the plane. but certainly it looked like it was the same plane carrying on. but just veering off and going back over malaysia. so that alerted them to the fact that they had had possibly it turned around, and they started searching in that area a day after the initial search got going in the area where it was last officially seen. so yes, they are looking in the straits of malacca. that search extends ever further

out at this stage. no indication they found anything. >> still haven't found anything. i assume they're searching not just over the waterses but over nearby land, is that right? >> reporter: correct, yes. the search area includes basically the spine of malaysia, if you like. and on into the waters of malacca on the other side of that is indonesian, the island of sumatra. i'm not aware they are searching assusumatr sumatra. if this information is correct and looks like it is, that plane would have crossed over. but its last -- what they think its last position was, was the islands of this paola paraq, a tiny rock roughly in the middle of the straits between malacca and indonesian sumatra. so suggested the plane was flying over water when it was last seen. >> i want you to stand by, an

drew. we're getting more information, and once again, we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and now around the world, as well. we're following the breaking news, a malaysian air force official now telling cnn this plane was way, way off-course. looked like it made a dramatic u-turn. malaysian air force radar tracking this plane for an hour after the transponder apparently was shut down. peter goelz is still with us, former ntsb managing director. peter, give us your analysis of what we just heard in that report from andrew stevens in kuala lumpur. >> i think the most important thing is, finally government officials are starting to come clean with exactly how much they know from other radar sites. it was clearly -- this is a busy strait. it's a busy air space. there had to be other radar units tracking this flight, and where this flight showed up. twa flight 800 had eight

different raiders monitoring at any given time. if this is true, it really is zeroing in on what was going on in the cockpit, and why. and it's -- once they started to expand their search in the opposite direction of where the flight was headed, that was the tip-off. they knew something was going on. >> and what's so intriguing, peter, and i want yourle analysis of this. it looks like at least for an hour that aircraft, that boeing 777 was flying without its transponder on. so somebody had deliberately or maybe there was a mechanical failure or whatever. but that transponder was off for an hour at least if you believe this malaysia air force official. >> that's correct. and it's -- you have to have a very deliberative process to turn the transponder off. and if someone did that in the cockpit, they were doing it to disguise the route of the plane. i mean, there might still be

mechanical explanations on what was going on. but those mechanical explanations are narrowing quickly. >> is it theoretically possible that the transponder just breaks down for whatever reason, but the rest of the flight is okay? that you can fly a commercial airliner like that, a boeing 777, without any other problems, even though the transponder has collapsed or failed? >> well, i mean, there are redundancies throughout the aircraft. you now, having a transponder go down does not shut down your communications. the flight crew can still communicate. they would be informed that the transponder was down. they could communicate with flight controllers. this kind of deviation in course is simply inexplicable. >> i totally agree. hold on for a moment, andrew stevens is holding on in kuala lumpur. jim sciutto, internatural

security correspondent. intriguing comments, jim, from the cia director, john brennan, he's not ruling out terrorism. and his words, quote, not at all. what else are you hearing? >> no question. first of all, truly remarkable developments today. the idea that one, the plane had a completely different location than was originally thought. in fact, on the other side of that peninsula. and two, also the circumstances vastly different from the working theories. a sudden event that disabled the aircraft or brought it down. in fact, made a u-turn and flying for an hour. so -- and these, of course, then changed the calculations about what the possibilities are. as you say, had an opportunity to ask the director of the cia a question about in this morning. he was speaking at a council on foreign relations event so i asked him about this transponder being turned off and does that give him further suspicion, the agency any further suspicion this was an act of terror. his response was they were still looking at that as a possible

explanation. they have not ruled out terrorism for this flight, and he mentioned a number of other questions that were raised as a result. one, turning off the transponder. you know, the possibility of these passports and so on. so it looks like they're keeping these lines of inquiry open, and, of course, as the circumstances change, that makes something like this more plausible. and it is different, and i will say, wolf, you and i have had a lot of conversations about this in the last few days. he left the door open to terrorism more so than u.s. and intel officials have been doing in the last even 24 hours. >> he certainly did, when he emphasized the words "not at all" and he himself spoke about terrorists still out there, determined to go after aircraft. he was the one that seemed to be suggesting maybe there is -- we don't know -- maybe he knows a lot more, obviously, than we know. maybe there is some sort of connection. let me go back to andrew stevens in kuala lumpur. andrew, you're there in malaysia, and there has been some criticism of malaysian

authorities for not sharing all of this information with other countries, with other investigations that have now been under way. are they sensitive to some of that criticism? we're hearing about the malaysian investigation. >> reporter: they're definitely sensitive to it. and they come back and say we have been as open as we possibly can, wolf. and they are, quote -- one of the u.s. commanders in the fleet is saying how impressed he is with their handling of the rescue or search operations and the fact that there does seem to be a reasonably open line of communication. but certainly there has been a lot of criticism, particularly from the family members. want to go back to what jim was saying about leaving the door open on the two passport holders. malaysian police over the past 24 hours or so have been steering the line of this investigation into much more of a -- this more likely a people

smuggling operation than anything. if you think about there were two iranian nationals who traveled on these passports. one was 19 years old, one was 28 years old. one was going on an as tr austrn passport to beijing on to amsterdam and frankfurt. his mother is in frankfurt. the other traveling under an italian passport, going to koeppen hagen. that was the foenl destination there. and they say this looks at this stage, at least, more likely to be a people smuggling operation and perhaps an asylum-seeking operation than a terror -- terror concern. so that's what we're getting on the ground here. certainly they are getting criticized for not having enough information going out, wolf. they say they're doing what they can. >> stand by, andrew. jim sciutto is our chief national security correspondent. jim, you wanted to weigh in. >> i just want to clarify. when i said the cia director was

leaving the door open, not to those passports being a terrorist event. because that's the same information we have been getting since yesterday, that it fit a pattern, u.s. intelligence officials have told me, of human smuggling, rather than tied to any terror event. so to be clear, the cia director, leaving though open another tip, possible terror connection, separate from those two iranians traveling on those stolen passports. just another point i would make on that, wolf. i spent a lot of time in iran. you do meet a lot of young people there who want to get out of the country and are desperate for any path out of the country. most of the time, legal. looking to emigrate to other places. but if they can't find that path, they do look into alternatives to get there. and that appears to be what these two young men were doing. >> yep. all right. good point. jim, stand by. peter goelz, stand by. everyone, stand by. we're going to continue the breaking news coverage. we have now learned from a malaysian air force official that plane, the malaysian

airliner flight 370, had the transponder shut off for at least an hour while it made a u-turn and was way, way off course on the normal route between kuala lumpur malaysia to beijing and china. the breaking news coverage continues in a moment. when it's donut friday at the office i use my citi thankyou card to get two times the points at the coffee shop. which will help me get to miami...and they'll be stuck at the cube farm. the citi thankyou preferred card. now earn two times the points on dining out with no annual fee. go to citi.com/thankyoucards.

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i can't believe your mom has a mom cave! today i have new campbell's chunky spicy chicken quesadilla soup. she gives me chunky before every game. i'm very souperstitious. haha, that's a good one! haha! [ male announcer ] campbell's chunky soup. it fills you up right. this is cnn breaking news. >> i'm wolf blitzer reporting. we welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. we want to update you on the breaking news regarding missing

malaysia airlines flight 370. the malaysian air force top official now telling cnn, the plane was way, way off-course when it went missing. that, according to this official who declined to be named because he's not authorized to talk to the international news media. the malaysian air force traced the last signs of the plane to a small island in the straits of malacca. if the air force information is correct, the plane was flying in the opposite direction from its scheduled destination. it was not on the route scheduled to fly from kuala lumpur in malaysia to beijing and china. there is a lot to assess right now. this is very, very important information, just coming out in the course of this investigation. kit darby is a veteran pilot of a boeing 767, president of k kitdarby.com, a consulting firm here. thanks very much, kit, for joining us. let's talk about this information. how extraordinary, unusual, is it that the transponder, and you

pointed out to me, there are usually two transponders, both are out and the plane is flying in a u-turn hundreds of miles from its scheduled route? >> it's very, very unusual. i have to say, there is a backup. so it appears to be either a power failure -- you could lose power, which would take out both transponders. >> but you could still fly a plane? >> you could. it will fly without electricity for a long time, up to an hour or so. which coincides with the problem we have here. it could have been an electrical issue. could have been the pilot. there are a lot of data sources. i think we'll have a lot more information about what actually happened. but there could have been something that caused the pilot to take the airplane off course, or, of course, could have taken that action himself. >> have you ever seen in all of your years flying anything along these lines? >> i've got to tell you. myself and my captain friends that have all been out there doing this for many years are totally baffled by this particular set of circumstances, as it originally appeared. i'm much relieved we have an

hour's worth of flight after the data is off. i would be interested to see what that data shows, whether the airplane was placed on purpose, divert to go an alternate without communications is possible. they had an alterior plan. that is possible. >> if they find the recorders, flight data recorders, voice recorders, so-called black boxes, would we learn that information? >> we would, but i think we'll know sooner. this airplane emits information every few seconds, constantly emitting information to the ground. assuming that was working and it is available in this area in most cases, we should have detailed information on what this airplane did from its automatic communication of its position, engine status, aircraft status, everything about that. >> who has that information now? >> normally, it would go to the people that air traffic control and the people that record the data for monitoring the airplane. >> the malaysia government saying this airplane disappeared? >> i'm not sure it would go to the malaysian government, it would go to the close air control and the company monitoring the airplane for the

airplane. >> let's go to andrew stevens reporting on this. he's our correspondent there on the ground. and for viewers that were just tuning in, andrew, up date them precisely on what you're hearing from this senior malaysian air force official. >> reporter: wolf, what we're hearing is the plane undertook a u-turn, and traveled back across the country of malaysia into the strait of malacca, on the other side, virtually opposite to its intended flight path, where the authorities lost contact with it over a very small island, roughly between malaysia and en indonesian. behind this is the story of the transponders. what we know is the plane is last officially seen and verified, if you like, just as it entered vietnamese air space from malaysian air space on its way to beijing. the transponders stopped

working. we don't know why. it was then tracked on what's known as a primary radar. but the primary radar does not have the same level of sophisticati sophistication, cannot pick up what plane it is. but they continued to monitor this plane, which they consider -- they thought to be flight a-370. it did a u-turn. it flew back across malaysia, as i said, across into the straits of malacca. that was about -- for about one hour or so. and that radar image they were looking at disappeared around this very small island, pretty much in the middle of the straits of malacca, between malaysia and indonesian. this does join the dots in some ways, because it's been two or three days. the malaysian air force has been saying there is a possibility that it may have turned around. that's all they said. they haven't elaborated on that possibility at all. this now looks like that's exactly what happened. we're getting that information from a very senior source in the

malaysian air force source, not authorized to speak to the international media, so we cannot name that person. but it does fit in with the fact that in the -- in the air where it's thought to have gone down, when it first lost contact, no sight there of any wreckage of any debris, nothing. now the search is starting to concentrate much more. it has been looking across that area, but the focus now gets much, much harder on this area around this island. and the immediate vicinity. >> stand by, andrew. andrew stevens in kuala lumpur. richard quest is joining us in new york right now. this is a major breaking news right now, richard. and you have flown this route. you know at least one of the pilots. give us your analysis of what we have just heard. >> reporter: you're absolutely right, wolf. this completely changes the scenario. and you know how you and i were saying and have been saying until we get more information, you really can't take it too much further. well, this is exactly the sort

of information that one would be looking for. first of all, this change of direction. secondly, the switching of or the stopping of the transponder messages. one can speculate a million reasons why. but other systems at that point could have been switched off. in the last few hours, i've been asking 777 pilots about how easy it is to -- obviously, the transponder is very easy to switch off. but things like the acar systems and these other things. the it is possible. it's not that difficult, if you know what you're doing. and it does explain that extraordinary decision yesterday by the dca, the investigating authority, to shift the -- and to widen the search to the malacca straits off the west coast of malaysia. now, it raises a whole host of other issues and problems. not least, wolf, how did this plane change direction and fly for an hour and a half and nobody bothered to send a

fighter jet up or nobody bothered to try and see what was going on? i guarantee you this. if a plane in europe or the united states, a large 777, was -- went off course for an hour and a half, then somebody would be asking some very searching questions. but they're questions for another day. at the moment, we now know a better position of where that plane might be. >> and now the search can be focused in that area. which is obviously critically important. richard, stand by. tom fuentes is our law enforcement analyst, former assistant director of the fbi. the other breaking news this hour, tom, what the cia director, john brennan said, pointedly. he said he's by no means ruling out terrorism. in his words, quote, not at all. saying that terrorists since 9/11 have wanted to go after international aircraft. what do you make of that? >> wolf, i don't read anything into that or his tone of voice or how -- the way he stated that. because law enforcement and the intelligence community have never ruled out terrorism, ever,

in this case. they have to investigate it as a possibility from the very beginning and have. so knowing that aircraft are a historic target for a variety of terrorist groups and they have never stopped putting out threat information regarding possible aircraft attacks, no one has ever ruled that out. nor in this case. and i think that what we have learned about the change of course, in a way, it raises as many or more questions as it answe answers. it's an important piece of information, but it shows that that plane was in the air and being flown. now, maybe they lost communication but could still fly and were trying to return back to the airports they left and got lost, maybe the gps or whatever. i don't know how that would work. but maybe in the dead of night they just couldn't find where they were going. we don't know. whatever mechanical problem they might have had that overtook the plane or pilot, we don't know that. we can't rule out that the pilots flew that plane oh off course and crashed it

intentionally. it can't be ruled out. it been done in the past. that's all been looked at from the time that disappeared. every one of these combinations are a possibility and never ruled out. and every authority i've listened to and talked to my own sources have said, look, until we get that aircraft and get the recording data from it, we're just not going to know. >> yeah, i think you make excellent points. the reason -- the main reason why those john brennan cia director marks jumped out at me and so many other people, they seemed to be very different from what we heard from ron noble, the head of the -- of interpol, who seemed to be downplaying any notion of terrorism. and for malaysian authorities, also downplaying any notion of terror. and then all of a sudden the cia director says not at all, they're not ruling out terrorism. so it seemed to be a difference in emphasis, a difference in tone from the cia director to these others. but hold on for a moment, because kit darby, the pilot, is still with me here. you were shaking your head when

you heard what tom fuentes was saying about for an hour, at least, this plane was flying without these transponders. >> yes, sir. certainly, the plane could fly without a transponder. and the question is, was it flying without communication because it had to? or was it flying on purpose and the pilots were taking it somewhere? typically, terrorism would be catastrophic. it would end with a bomb in flight. it would end with a crash whenever they wanted to crash it. but the timing, hour, hour and a half, that sort of coincides with the amount of standby power the airplane went without electricity, that it could fly for an hour, hour and a half. that's our normal reserve. being off course at night with minimum instrumentation, that's not inconceivable either. so i'm not seeing a clear pattern, whether it's terrorism or simply pilots' natural instinct to return to where he came, return to what he knows when he's in a stressful situation. it's not clear yet. >> it's a good point you're making, very good point. and you also suggest that you -- you suggested to me, if one of the pilots or both of the pilots deliberate re wanted to take

that plane down, they could have turned off the transponder and just taken that plane down. why would they fly an extra hour if their intention was to destroy the aircraft and kill everyone on board. >> i agree. i certainly agree. >> that's an important point to make. brian todd is with us, as well. brian, you have been doing some reporting on the search techniques that are under way right now. what are you learning? >> reporter: well, wolf, you know, we focus a lot today on the technology. as you have been reporting in the breaking news, at some point we now know the plane's transponder stop working, might have been turned off. radar lost all contact with the aircraft and now we know that was near that island of pul pulau puraq in the strait of malacca. the transponder could have been turned off or destroyed. all planes have gps and can be tracked with satellites. again, if something is destroyed or turned off, those devices obviously can't work. now, as for the technologies being used, we just got off the phone with pentagon officials, they tell us the navy's seventh

fleet is out there with mh-60 helicopters, a p-3 orion plane, and flair pods and infrared sensors which can detect signs of life and movement. obviously shifting to that strait of malacca area. pentagon officials are not going to give information about the satellites and other technology being used, but safety experts are telling us, it's very likely that military satellites are being used with some high-res image imagery. >> we're going to continue the breaking news. we'll take a quick break. once again, we're looking into this report now from a senior malaysian air force official this aircraft made a u-turn after the transponders were shut down, flew hundreds of miles off course, the normal route between malaysia and china and all of a sudden the plane disappears. this according to the malaysian air force. we'll take a break. much more of breaking news after this. no matter how busy your morning you can always do something better for yourself.

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tell iing . this is cnn breaking news. the boeing 777, the transponder stopped sending messages. but for at least an hour, that plane made a u-turn, started to fly away from vietnam back towards malaysia. malaysian air force radar was picking it up, but then all of a sudden the plane disappeared.

andrew stevens is our correspondent in kuala lumpur in malaysia. he's been reporting all of this information. update our viewers, andrew. this is very significant, this development. it changes the focus on the search that's been going on in a totally different area. it certainly widens this search effort. >> reporter: yeah, that's the key, wolf. it does mean that this massive search, which is currently under way, the focus will switch very much to this area. so this is what we know has happened. this is what we're getting from the very senior person within the malaysian air force. we can't name him because he's not authorized to speak to the international media, but he's confirmed this to us. what happened we now think is the plane took off from kuala lumpur, about an hour or so into the flight, it gave its usual readings, just entering into vietnamese air space. the transresponders on that

plane, the actual equipment that is used to speak to the ground and to identify the aircraft, et cetera, et cetera, went down. after it went down, a primary radar kept tracking this plane. this does not have the same level of sophistication, but it can actually track the plane itself. and it tracked the flight back in a big u-turn back across the country of malaysia on to the other side of the kcountry. the last known whereabouts of this aircraft before it disappeared, before that actual radar image disappeared from the screens, was more like a lump of rock than anything, roughly halfway between malaysia and indonesia. we don't know any details. this raises a whole host of questions. what actually happened to those transponders. but coming back to your point, this is a massive operation now,

search operation. they have been focusing on the flight path the plane was intended to take. they have been looking, expanding, expanding the search zone, because they found absolutely nothing, a few false leads, but nothing else in the area where the plane should have gone down according to its flight path. so they're now focusing on this other area. just one more thing, wolf, is that this does tie in with earlier reports where the malaysian air force has been very cagey, saying that we believe the plane could have turned around. there was the possibility it may have turned around. there was some radar tracks to suggest it did. but they never confirmed that. now it looks like we've got confirmation of this. it actually turned around. it flew back across the country on to the other side and then disappeared. >> hundreds of miles, not just turned around, but then flew hundreds of miles across malaysia. that's a very, very dramatic development. andrew, stand by. tom fuentes is cnn's law

enforcement analyst, former assistant director of the fbi. the key question investigators are going to be looking at, why did those transponders fail, either human, someone turned them out, or there was a massive power outage. those are the key questions that people are going to investigate right now. >> that's right, wolf. looking at still a possibility of a partial mechanical, enough of a mechanical failure to interrupt communication but not enough to bring the plane down. but terrorism doesn't just include an explosion on the plane or a bomb. it can also include, like 9/11, where the wrong people somehow gain access to the cockpit and maybe taking control of the aircraft that way, either killing the pilot or commanding them to do something. if you have someone with enough knowledge to be able to flip off those transponders, you could do it. among the vulnerabilities, they

usually don't have toilets in the flight deck. you see the pilots come out one at a time and use the restroom, and for that brief second, the door is open so. the barricading of the door is opened up so that they can come out of the cockpit and, you know, if one of the pilots chooses while the other one is out, now he can barricade them out and the original pilot can't get back in. so you could have an individual or two individuals inside there take control of their own aircraft. you just saw this a little over a month ago where the ethiopian airline co-pilot hijacked his own plane. luckily, he didn't crash it. he landed in geneva, switzerland, but he locked the captain out while he flew the plane. those are among the possibilities. there are still as many possibilities out there, maybe more. it still leaves mechanical, terrorism, other issues as much in the air as they were before.

>> i assume, tom, you know a lot more about this than i do since you've worked with interpol, you've been involved in these international investigations. they're taking a very close look at these two malaysian pilots. their backgrounds, their history, to see if there's anything at all suspicious. >> right. that's standard. the investigators from the beginning would be looking at. obviously they have everyone's lives in their hands. so they're going to be a key focus right from the beginning and would have been. i think that ron noble in his press conference yesterday, i think he was trying emphasize that there was less concern than before about the two stolen passports, that he believed that they were less likely to have been involved in terrorism. but even then, i wouldn't rule that out. what if they were doing a favor for guy that gave them the passports who maybe said hey, could you take this package for me and give it to my friend in germany when you get there? and they might have unwitingly

taken a dangerous device in check luggage, not even knowing it. they're not terrorist, just trying to get asylum in a country in europe, and maybe they introduced something on that plane that should have been on there. >> hold on for a moment, tom. kit darby is still with me, a retired united pilot. kit, so give me your bottom line right now, because i can understand one transponder going. two transponders, that's pretty unusual. electrical power going. but the plane is still flying for an hour. all of this is extraordinary. >> well, to me, when one thing fails, obviously things fail. when two things fail, we usually look at the power source. so this lodger leads me to thinking that perhaps there was a power problem. then there's a backup power system. that is designed to last about an hour. natural for the pilot in my view to return to where he knows the airports and a region he knows, so turning around makes sense. about an hour later, the

airplane could become unflyable. >> the backup power source, that allows it to fly for an hour, you can't communicate? >> the communication is limited. >> but there's some. >> if there was a may day, they should be able to say and communicate, hey, we've got a problem. >> they should. but what initially happened out over the water, maybe not. there's, like, five different communication systems. >> but at the end, they were flying over malaysia. >> the one that's tied into the standby power is the shorter range one. so it might not work out over the water, but it probably would work. but they were nearing the end of their power reserve at that point. >> lots of unanswered questions, but they're narrowing in, at least they're getting some more specifics in the malaysian air force. this senior official sharing some critically important information with all of us. kit darby, thanks very much for your expertise. everyone has been extremely helpful in getting us a better

appreciation. i'll be back later today, 5:00 p.m. eastern in "the situation room." much more coming up then. until then, thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer. "newsroom" with don lemon starts right now. this is cnn breaking news. >> good afternoon. i'm don lemon, in today for brooke baldwin. we are in breaking news coverage here on cnn. i want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. the breaking news is the mystery on flight 370. we have just learned this new information that the plane was way off course when it went missing. this information is coming to us from a senior malaysian air force official. they have traced the last signs of the plane to a very small island in the straits of malaca. it means the plane was flying in the opposite direction from its scheduled direction. beijing to