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 the north, also the

new information and indication here is of those two iranian men who boarded this plane with stolen passports. one is 18, who was trying to join his mother in germany. the other is 29 years old, he was trying to get to denmark. investigators say the men's motive appears to be illegal immigration and not terrorism. but the head of the central intelligence agency says they're not ready to rule out other terrorism links to this plane just yet. listen to this. >> 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. >> at this point, you're not ruling out that it could be terrorism. >> not at all. >> that was john brennan speaking as the search turns to the western part of the malaysian peninsula. this is new information just coming in to cnn. still, no answers from distressed family members. tensions boiling over between the families and representatives of malaysia airlines in beijing

today. [ shouting in foreign language ] >> so let's get more now on the latest developments here. cnn is learning the plane was far off of its course. i want to bring in andrew stevens, he's in kuala lumpur. nick robertson is in london for us. andrew, to you first. walk us through this new information. what does this mean? >> we can't reveal his identity because he's not authorized to speak to the press. but this is what we are hearing. it does tie in with suggestions that have been floating around for the last couple of days. the plane took off from

kuala lumpur. its last known point where it was in contact with ground control, just as it was entering vietnamese air space. the information was being sent out via transponders. this is equipment which actually identifies the specific aircraft so you know exactly what it is you're looking at. at that point, those transponders stopped working. we don't know why. but primary radar, which is a less sophisticated radar being used by civilian and military, continued to track this blip which the plane had now become. it turned, it did almost a u-turn and headed back towards malaysia. remember, this was an hour into the flight. so it's clear the malaysian mainland, it is now heading back towards the malaysian mainland. it continued to fly for another hour, perhaps a bit longer across the malaysian mainland to the other side of the west coast into the straits of malacca. the last known sighting when

that blip was still on the radar screens occurred over a very small island, roughly halfway between malaysia and sumatra, which is an indonesian island. we don't know what happened next, but what it does mean is that the search area, which has already been included in this area, but not to the same degree, we're expecting the search area now to be really, really the focus of this massive international search now. some 47 aircraft and a similar number of vessels now searching, a lot of that material is going to be switched to this search area. that's what we're hearing. >> andrew stevens in kuala lumpur. stand by. i want to update our viewers. new information into cnn. i want to welcome our viewers again from around the world. we're getting information that this plane veered severely off course. it appears that it had turned back to go to where it came from. that's new information coming into cnn. according to a malaysian official from the air force who

declined to be named because he's not authorized to speak, he said the transponder stopped working at about the time the flight controllers lost contact with the plane near the coast of vietnam and they believe that it kept flying -- this is, again, new information -- for about an hour, hour and a half without any radar, without any instrumentation, or at least any evidence of where the plane might have been traveling. i want to go to nick robertson, who is now in london. here's some information that one information is saying if this is correct, these are ominous signs that increasingly call into question whether someone in the cockpit might have deliberately steered the plane away from its intended destination. >> it certainly appears that the plane couldn't have turned itself. somebody must have done it. and potentially they may also have maliciously disconnected, turned off the transponder so the plane could no longer be recognized. so it does leave this question very much open. we know that the police

investigating say that they are looking at hijack, sabotage, personal issues, or psychological issues with the crew or with the passengers onboard the aircraft. but it really does open up again the possibility that there might be some kind of terror act. no one is introducing names of organizations. there's no credible or thoroughly corroborated claim of responsibility here so far. but it is known that al qaeda likes to target aircraft. al qaeda in yemen has written about how people should train to become pilots and then drug the co-pilot to take control of the aircraft. this is speculation. we just don't know. we don't have the information. but somebody must have taken control of that aircraft, as you say, in the cockpit and turned it. and right now, we just don't know who that is. >> nick robertson in london, i want you to stand by. andrew stevens in kuala lumpur, i want you to stand by as well. i want to bring in tom fuentes.

tom, what do you make of this latest information about the positioning of this plane? >> hi, don. same thing everybody else is saying. you still can't rule out some partial mechanical failure, enough to eliminate communication but not enough to bring the plane immediately down. but you can't rule out either the act of terrorism. obviously appears to not be a catastrophic explosion or the plane wouldn't be airborne for another hour and a half. but it could include somebody gaining access to that cockpit and taking over the controls or forcing the pilot and co-pilot to fly where they wanted to fly. and disengaging the transponder at the same time. maybe they were able to take control before they did that. obviously they're already raising the issue about the mental health and stability of the pilots. all of these are possibilities. it could still be mechanical, it could still be suicide, it could still be terrorism.

it's as baffling as it ever was, other than now there's a new place to at least center the search upon. >> we're looking at thousands upon thousands of miles of ocean there. if it turned around, and we have not heard from it, we have not heard anything from this plane. could they possibly have landed somewhere, if this was, indeed, some sort of hijacking or terrorist attack? >> i've flown over those countries, indonesia and malaysia many times. there's dense jungle. there's volcanos. mountains. it seems pretty unlikely to me. but pilots would know the area better geographically than me. but it seems unlikely to find a safe place to put the aircraft down. they would need a reasonably long runway to do it. so again, you still have the possibility that it could have gone down in a remote jungle area and just the searches have been so far off target that nobody has been looking in the right place all along.

>> yeah. very interesting. and what do you make of these officials that are saying now that this really adds to the mystery here, that it appears that someone would have turned off the instrumentation or the tracking devices on the plane, and if they were turning a different direction, that it would lead towards some sort of foul play? do you agree with that, tom? >> well, if you're talking to pilots, aviation experts, you know, you have to respect their opinion of what that aircraft was tapeable of doing. as far as the law enforcement and intelligence people, i think that there's been too much made of what they said or what they didn't say or how they said it. i think of ron noble yesterday in his press conference was basically trying to say that there was less suspicion on the two iranians using the false

passports and that they individually may have looked less like terrorists. it doesn't rule out that the mysterious guy gave somebody a package to put in checked luggage, that the passenger was unknowledgeable of something bad about to happen. >> the direct quote, it says, "if correct, these are ominous signs that increasingly call into question whether someone in the cockpit might have deliberately steered the plane away from its intended destination." that is according to a former u.s. aviation investigator. tom? >> okay, well, i would get him back on the phone and find out what he thinks now. >> all right. thank you very much. tom fuentes. >> because i don't know. whether people are saying that you've just had on the air and wolf blitzer are saying that they could do that and the plane could stay in the air another

hour and a half even if all electricity went out. >> tom fuentes, thank you very much. tom, we'll get back to you. also, we'll get as many officials on the phone as we can. i want to tell you the breaking news. the mystery of flight 370. we have just learned new information that the plane was way off course when it went missing. this is information that's coming in from us from the senior malaysian air force official. it says they have traced the last signs of the plane to a very small island in the straits of malacca. if the air force information is correct, this is huge information. it means that the plane had almost done a complete u-turn and was flying in the opposite direction from its scheduled destination. i want to bring in a former faa safety inspector. great to see you today. this changes a lot of what we talked about on the air last

night. given this new information, the plane was way off course when it lost contact. what does that tell you? >> it changes a lot from what we talked about last night. the people need to understand what it takes for a 777 to become invisible. everything on that airplane is triple redundant. the electrical systems. the charging systems. the battery systems. communication systems. even the transponders are on completely separate buses. the chance that all the electrical system was out of that aircraft would have indicated a much more massive failure of some kind. so to think that all of that that had to happen to make that aircraft invisible, to turn around and go the other direction, like you said, if this information is correct, really stands a lot to reason to me that someone forced those pilots to take control of the aircraft and take it off course. >> so we're looking at the math now -- go ahead, continue. >> yeah. the thought that someone in the

cockpit, one of the pilots took over, is highly unlikely to me, for one reason that in the past when that's happened, it was when one of the pilots had left the cabin to use the restroom, the door was locked and then that other pilot took control. for that to happen during that phase of flight going into vietnam air space, highly unlikely, because during that time you need both pilots to do the transition. you're doing cross checks and double checks with each other during that transition time. so the thought that that happened seems unlikely to me. >> we had just a map up earlier, just a second ago, of the range -- there it is right there. the range of where this plane could go. that's a maximum range with the amount of fuel that it had. i don't know if you can see air, but looking at that, there is a lot of land and a whole lot of ocean, a whole lot of water where this plane could have landed. >> right. right. and again, if we're relying on the primary radar, the secondary

radar is kind of like the polo to the marco. when primary radar is out looking, it can say hey, i see something out there. but until you get the polo back, which is the transponder telling you here's who i am, here's where i am, that's the secondary information that's missing. so from the cockpit, you can turn that off. what you can't turn off is the primary radar, which is going to tell you there is something out there. so i think with the search, you're right, it's a huge area where it could go. but if this information is krek correct, it's very significant indeed and would really narrow that search down. without that, the chance of finding an aircraft, particularly if it didn't have an in-flight breakup and strewn material in a long direction, the chances of finding that aircraft are very, very slim. >> it's about a 4,000-mile radius and that's quite a bit of area there. we talked a lot about ghost flights, that you have investigated for. but i'm wondering if this even matters now. you've actually investigated them before. can investigators learn

something from these previous crashes, or do you think in light of this new information, that that's even relevant anymore? >> i'm beginning to think that it's less and less relevant as we go forward, and moving into a security area rather than an aviation issue. i really believe that this is something beyond my expertise. we're looking more at -- just from what i know of the aircraft and where it's been and where it was headed, this information points directly to the fact that that aircraft moved by human hand. it wasn't a mechanical failure. it doesn't appear to me that there was any kind of massive breakup of the aircraft in flight. i'm leaning more and more towards handing this back over into the security area. >> all right. stand by. we appreciate you. now i want to bring in former inspector general from the department of transportation mary sciavo, she joins us by phone. david believes that this plane moved and changed positions and direction by human hands.

>> well, it sounds like he's right. however, going back to previous -- there was a previous plane crash in which all electrical systems were lost on the aircraft, everything. what you would logically do if you were flying it, and that occurred -- i'm not saying that's what happened here, but there is one possibility. that is you would go back to where you are known. you would not take a plane into another country's air space if you cannot identify yourself. it would be highly, highly dangerous. there are ways you can do it. the whole series of things, like rocking your wings and things like that. but you can't do it at night. so if you had lost power, electrical power, any kind of electrical power and you were simply on the -- this is a big if, but i to know of an accident like this. you would turn back. you would lose your instruments. it's an issue how long you would even have power to fly. so there is still a possibility of mechanical. but it does look more like

someone was directing the plane. but mike said, i do know of one accident where a similar situation was mechanical. >> mary schiavo, stand by. the mystery of flight 370. i want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. new information on that plane that it 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 malacca. if they are correct, this is a huge break in the investigation. it means the plane had almost done a complete u-turn and was flying into the opposite direction from its scheduled destination. it was flying north to beijing. we'll have more information on this coming up, including richard quest. we're back in a moment. i always say be the man with the plan

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there is some significant information to report in flight 370, the disappearance of flight 370. we have just learned from a senior malaysian air force official that the plane was way off course and indeed had done almost a u-turn. if this information is correct, we are hearing that this is an enormous development in the investigation of what happened to this flight. i want to bring in our chief national security correspondent. he joins us with the latest developments. what does this new information mean to you? >> it means it's a very confusing situation. and a lot of conflicting information coming out there. even with this air force chief saying that the plane diverted and ended up on the west side of

that peninsula there, you have a spokesman in the prime minister's office being quoted now in some news reports saying that's not their information. so you still have confusion there. but it's certainly significant. if it proves out to be a real lead. especially because they say it happened after the transponder was turned off, which under some circumstances would require action. it might require the pilot to do that or some massive mechanical failure. now, i've checked in with u.s. intel officials again today, in light of this latest news and they tell me that nothing has changed significantly, that they have still not established a clear nexus or connection to terrorism, and that is despite public comments this morning from the director of the cia brennan, who when i asked him the same question about this transponder and other information, he said they are not ruling out terrorism as a possible cause at this point. i think it is early still even a few days later. there's so much confusing information that no one is willing to make a hard conclusion, either to rule

something in as an explanation or rule something out. >> i concur. it is confusing. a lot of information. stand by, jim, if you want to weigh in on this because i'm going to bring in richard quest here from cnn international, and cnn domestic as well here in new york. are you a little bit fed up with some of the experts? >> no, no. nobody knows what's happened here. and everybody's grasping at the straws or to try and find a plausible solution. from my friends who text and say it's on an island somewhere, to those of us who say that's highly unlikely. but it may be possible. let's go back to that map. i want to look at the map, if we may. because look closely at the range we're talking about. the plane goes north. and it goes north for the best part of 20 minutes as it gets towards 37,000 feet. that's about roughly the time it would have taken to get over to

that area. and then it does this dog leg turn to the west. >> right. >> but it flies in that format for an hour and ten minutes, if this is right. if this is right. an hour and ten minutes. and it goes right the way back over the narrowest point of the malaysian peninsula, which is about 350 miles wide. now, watch. how does a 777 do that sort of flight for that length of time and nobody raises an eyebrow? >> right. >> of what's going on. >> that's the interesting part. because if that happened in europe or in the united states, we would have heard about it. >> absolutely. and that is also why yesterday, they not only widened the scope of the search to the malacca straits, but also down across the peninsula of malaysia as well. >> could it have had trouble, because when a plane turns back like that -- and you heard what mary said, when a plane turns back like that, usually it's an

indication there's trouble. wants to go back where it came from, especially if it has enough fuel to do it. that's a range right there -- but that's about 4,000 square miles. >> right. but the thing is, what we're looking at now, let's go away from the terrorism aspect. let's go away from the hijackings a peck. and let's look at mechanical failure. major systems mechanical failure. which i know mary tends towards the view that if it's not nefarious, you're talking about major mechanical failure. that can explain a power loss. it can explain the transponder failing. it can also explain all the various reporting systems failing as they continue to flight that route. >> but it doesn't explain the no trace of it. sadly, if it's on the bottom of the ocean -- >> it doesn't explain that. but it would explain the no communications, but the plane stays in the air. there have been numerous

examples. i can drag any one of ten out where there has been a major mechanical failure, but the aircraft has continued and they've continued to fly it, but with very limited communication abilities. >> okay. >> unlikely, but we are now in the realms of who knows. >> i know you don't want to speculate. but all smart minds are leaning towards what you said. mechanical failure. it had trouble, it was turning back, and all of a sudden it lost its way. >> it's the most logical. it's the most sensible solution. i mean, it is the most experienced solution. most incidents happen by mechanical failure followed by pilot error. >> hold that thought. i want to tell our viewers again, welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world, here's the new information that we have just learned here on cnn. this is the breaking news. the plane was way off its course. you're looking at the map of

apparently where the plane had gone, where they believed the plane had gone. when they had indication. when the transponders were working. it was heading north towards beijing, correct? kuala lumpur and then heading back north. so if this is indeed true, that we're getting this information from a senior malaysian air force official, if this is indeed true, this is a major, major development in the investigation of what happened to this plane. richard quest joins us again on the other side of this break. spokesperson: the volkswagen passat tdi clean diesel can go 795 highway miles on a single tank. huh... so you could drive from los angeles all the way philadelphia with just three stops for fuel. that's just a hop, skip, and a jump. try that in another midsize sedan. it's more of a hop... a skip... a jump... a leap... maybe a schlep... probably a hurdle... a little bit of a trek... avo: during the tdi clean diesel event, get a $1,000 fuel reward card

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we are break news here in cnn. i want to welcome our viewers. it's on the mystery of flight 370. we have just learned here 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've traced the last signs of the plane to a very small island off the straits of malacca. it was then that they lost contact with it. if the air force information is correct, again, this is a big development, it means the plane had almost done a complete u-turn and was flying into the opposite direction from its scheduled destination, and it was last seen in the malacca straits about 2:40 a.m. two hours after it took off from kuala lumpur. the question now, why. and the question is where is this plane.

one expert telling cnn that while mechanical explanations are still possible, those explanations are narrowing very quickly. opening the possibility that someone turned off the transponder, deliberately inside this cockpit. >> if this report is true, it means a couple of things. one is, was there someone unauthorized in the cockpit, ordered the transponder turned off, ordered the plane to fly a 90-degree turn off course. second, is did one of the pilots do it themselves? >> okay, so based on its speed and how much fuel was on the plane, flight 370 could have been in the skies for about seven hours. that means that once this plane went off the grid and lost its radar signal, it could potentially be anywhere within this 4,000-mile radius that you're seeing on the screen. our senior correspondent is nick robertson and richard quest is here as well.

we're trying to get our andrew stevens up. he is in kuala lumpur. first, i want to go to nick robertson. you're over in london, you've been covering this. what's your reaction? >> well, one of the questions i have at this time, and richard i think has excellent insights here, will be able to jump in. but the key question is obviously who turned the aircraft and was it mechanical. was it an electrical issue that caused the transrespondstranspo down. let's say the pilot turned to try to fly back home. we're told it was a clear night. he's flown right across malaysia and on into the sea. one would have expected if he was trying to get back and had some semblance of control over the aircraft, he would have recognized the land mass. this is a pilot, as richard knows, who has over 18,000 hours of flying experience. would have seen at least some lights below him because he would have been looking for them.

because perhaps his navigation equipment wasn't working. again, speculation. but not gone off into the sea. this is the question that i have now. >> okay, stand by. richard? >> the issue of why and where and how, we don't know. to the point that nick is saying, if there was a mechanical failure and the pilot had turned back, did he realize where he was? yes, he would have flown across the peninsula at its narrowest point, but they could have been dealing with all sorts of issues. for instance, one person has just been asking me about the transponder may have stopped. but what about all these other systems? >> this is the most sophisticated. >> all modern planes send signals all the time. the failure to get those signals either suggests somebody interfered with it and switched it off, or total power failure and therefore these systems

switch themselves off. >> okay. >> and that is entirely possible. >> but then why no communication? why no we are in trouble? we are over whatever. we are losing power. why not that? >> we don't know. >> okay. >> with these questions, eventually you are forced into the position of saying we don't know. the biggest issue is why, for me, is how did this plane fly for an hour and ten and nobody on the ground spotted that a 777 m-370 with a filed flight plan to beijing had done a dogleg turn and was now going in the opposite direction. >> miguel marquez e-mailed me and said with the transponder off, how far can a plane go without being detected on radar in that part of the world? >> it can't. i'm going to go straight in. look at the map.

that is going straight over malaysia. malaysia has pretty much universal -- there's a couple of areas in the andomen sea and a couple of places off the malacca sea that doesn't have radar coverage, but there is no way they wouldn't have been covered by the majority of that trip. and if not by them, by other countries in the world. >> another colleague says they will find the debris floating in the morning. i expect this to wrap up first light. a floating trail of evidence. because they have simply been looking in the wrong body of water. >> my experience suggests that that could well be the case. the reality is, i have absolutely no idea. because you could end up with a situation here where this may have come down over land. but we don't know. >> that was from drew griffin, by the way. someone says, this is a viewer, says why didn't passengers make any calls during that hour and a

half? but no one has heard. no one has heard from anyone on the plane. people with loved ones on the plane, they're calling their loved ones, it's ringing. >> whoa, you don't know what condition was on the aircraft. they may not have been aware of it. the passengers onboard may not have been aware. >> yeah. good point. nick robertson? is nick still there? >> absolutely. they may not have been able to call if there was an electrical power failure, which was one of the indicators that would cause a transponder to go down in the first place. if there was a repeater system on the aircraft that allowed them to use their cell phones via satellite transponder. that system may have been down. the aircraft was not flying low enough for them to be able to pick up the phone network directly through their phones. that could be another answer. there are questions that have been reported and raised about the phones and about ringing

long after the plane had disappeared. there aren't adequate answers for that either. there are so many unanswered questions here. i mean, for so long, the focus was on those two men using the stolen passports, but really, what we heard today from interpol and from the malaysian police, that they feel they can move them to one side. but this leaves over 200 other passengers that have yet perhaps to go through that level of scrutiny, because so much focus was going on these, too. we know they work in all these issues in parallel. but it has been something of a diversion, if you will, at least in our attention. >> i think most people think, you know, in the news business, it's a big development when we're talking about the passports. but in that part of the world, many fly on stolen passports all the time. their intent is not nefarious when it comes to the aircraft. they're just trying to get to a better place. >> what we have with this is

another piece of the jigsaw. we do not have the picture yet. but we have a very useful, important piece of the jigsaw. and i think drew may well be right, what's going to happen over the next 24 to 48 hours, which will be another piece of the jigsaw. but anybody who's read one of these reports, i mean, we could be talking about completely off beam, about a mechanical failure, navigational failure, any form of failure. >> okay, thank you. stand by, stand by. many more pieces. and we'll get some answers for you on the other side of the break. we're going to go live to kuala lumpur next.

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breaking news here on cnn, we have just learned on cnn that the plane took a route that was unknown. it had turned almost a u-turn and that's what we're finding out here. that information is coming from a senior malaysian air force official, that this plane was way off course. and the last information, there's the map. took off from kuala lumpur. wasbeijing. but it went back towards the straits of malacca. that is the intended route that you're looking at now. and once it got close to vietnam, it turned and went back over the straits of malacca. with the amount of fuel that the plane had onboard, or that it had left, it could have gone anywhere within a 4,000-mile radius. so still this is unsolved. but the latest information we're getting is that. i want to bring in now andrew

stevens who is in kuala lumpur with the latest on the search for this plane. could they simply have been searching in the wrong body of water, or have searches been going on since we've gotten this new information in this particular body of water as well? >> that's a very important question, don, because yes, they have been searching in this body of water. it hasn't been the key focus of the search, but it's certainly -- this is from one of the big english language daily newspapers in malaysia. so this is dated from this morning. nearly 24 hours ago now. and you'll see there, that's the search area and this is where they now think the plane was last sighted. so already, they have been including that in the search area. what we've learned today basically is that the turn-back theory looks like it's been confirmed. there has been talk, there have been suggestions that the plane did turn around. it has not been confirmed.

it's been confirmed to us by a senior but unnamed source within the malaysian air force. he can't reveal his name publicly because he's not authorized to speak to us. this plane may have turned around. what seems to have happened is that the secondary transponder which sends out the vital statistics, the information about what exactly this plane is so you can track knowing which plane it is, stopped working just about an hour or so into the flight. the primary radar kept tracking it, but they couldn't actually confirm whether this was the same plane, even though it looked like it, and they tracked it around turning to the left, almost in a u-turn back across malaysia. what's key about this is that they didn't -- they can't confirm that was the actual plane, although it looks very much like it. that is why they started looking across the straits of malacca. one of our earlier colleagues is suggesting we may find it at

first light, which is probably four hours away from now. that may take longer than that, because there already has been assets deployed in that region, v haven't found anything yet. we have known about the possibility of this u-turn. now it looks like it's a confirmation. >> thank you very much. i want to bring in now a former airline captain and crash investigator, david funk. good afternoon to you, sir. my question is, why no communication? that's what many people are asking. why no distress call, no communication? >> well, there would really be two possibilities. one is they had an absolute and total electrical failure, which is pretty unlikely with a 777. we've got so much redundancy built into the systems of the airplane, it would be real tough to get down to almost no communications capability, including -- and i'm pretty sure malaysia airlines does it, they

have a satellite phone that operates independent of the airplane's electrical system. may or may not have worked in the cockpit. but more likely scenario is that somebody just didn't want to talk. and if they don't want to talk to you, you can be screaming and yelling, but if you shut everything off, there's no transponder codes for the secondary radar to pick up. nobody answering the phone, so to speak, or answering the radio. that creates a problem. more likely, electrical problem. if it's not terrorism, it's almost got to be massive and total electrical failure, which would bring the guys to doing what we call dead reckoning navigation, which is what we used prior to electronic aids. basically looking at a map and looking at the ground, or out over the ocean, you take a heading up that you know will put you close to land. you fly it based on a clock and your known speed and hopefully you'll find land and be able to find an airport, which may be the simple explanation for the turnback. >> if you're looking at the

route and this sort of dogleg that it took, in your mind, does that tell you that they had trouble, just good-old fashioned guiding? >> it's called dead reckoning or pilot flying by looking at the ground with a map. that very well could have been the case. if they did have a total electrical failure, if they were down to a map, a compass, and a clock, which is how many ships still navigate around the world. all our navigators are taught to do that. pilots are trained to do that from the very beginning. that could be very much why they turned back. go to the last place where you knew you were for sure, and there's a big land mass behind you. if you can get over that land mass, you're likely to recognize something. in the case of this captain, an 18,000-hour pilot, he remembers and can get himself close to an airport. or get it close enough where if you have to ditch, somebody sees you ditching. >> does that explain the transponder? why would the transponder go off? even with a failure, the boxes

are still on, they're still working, of course, keeping the information. but why would the transponder go as well? >> not an expert on the 777. i am on the 757, the 767, and the 747 because i flew all of those airplanes extensively, thousands of hours. but there is no separate and independent backup battery for the transponder system. it's one of those things, it's not considered that important, if you've only got enough things to fly the airplane and you're down to the battery only with 30 minutes of battery life left when you're down to just the battery, it's only going to last you about 30 minutes. you could be in, for want of a better word, in a desperate situation to get hold of anybody to help. in this case, if they did the turnback because it was a total electrical failure, this is an electric airplane. it needs the power to run a bunch of systems. but as i said, the likelihood of the multiple failures that you'd have to have, it gets pretty

unlikely. we've heard the talk about the two iranians that were traveling on false passports and maybe interpol is not looking at them the same way. there's still 225 other passengers that we need to vet prior to making any decision that it was or was not terrorism. i wouldn't make that strong a statement this early in the investigation. >> captain funk, i've got to get to a break. but i have to be honest with you, you have given us the best information that i have seen thus far on the air. will you please stand by, because i want to talk to you more. >> sure can. you bet. >> great information explaining the electrical system, the transponders, and everything. the breaking news here on cnn is that this plane had veered way off course. and it had turned back, almost a u-turn. this is a significant development in the investigation for this plane. it may explain to us very soon the whereabouts of this plane and the passengers onboard. more breaking news right after this break. ♪ [ male announcer ] she won't remember this, being carried in your arms.

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breaking news on flight 370. the flight was way off course, according to a malaysian official. had made a u-turn. joining me now is david funk. if you're looking at the information and from the map, what do you think happened to this plane? >> they made a turn back for some reason, we don't know yet, whether it was because of interference in the cockpit or massive electrical failure. until we go from this being a search and rescue operation to a recovery operation, i don't know. and it's kind of bad, you feel bad for the families because they just don't know and you want to be very sensitive to

that as an investigator. but let's make sure we know what's happened to the airframe and the folks that were on it before we start to suppose what happened. >> captain, good information. captain funk, thank you very much. i want to get straight to cnn's tom foreman. you have a better picture of exactly what happened. >> well, like all of us, we're trying to figure out what happened here. it seems like all of this evidence is almost not helping us. this was the original flight path. it takes off, it's going up here. been talking about this all hour. this is now what we believe to be the real flight path. this plane would be going about 560 miles an hour. the math, at least so far, seems to generally add up that it would go from here to here. i think, don, as you try to patch together what happened, you have to break this almost into segments and say what do those segments tell us. for example, what we're hearing from interpol and others is that so far, there is nothing in here that indicated that something

was wrong. no hijacker, nothing like that that anybody was aware of, at least in this part. in this section over here, if this, in fact, happened as we think it happened, if this report is true, this is definitely wrong because it's taken it somewhere that we don't intend, but the real question is, as the captain was just mentioning, right here. what happened that made this occur, and there are really several possibilities that i think you have to bear in mind. yes, you could have a hijacking situation where they're forced to do this, but that does beg the question, how do you wind up with absolutely no communications? none, no passenger? maybe their cell phones couldn't get a signal. maybe because it's 2:00 in the morning as richard said a while ago, maybe everyone's asleep, they have no idea anything's going on. even if they had a signal somewhere in here, they didn't do anything about it. there are other possibilities. one we talked about a lot yesterday that i think is worth bearing in mind, if you have explosive depressurization of the cabin, if a window blew out,

a door blew out at 35,000 feet, if the right steps aren't taken absolutely immediately, you could have a whole plane full of unconscious people in a minute. and the pilots tried to do something and simply managed to turn the plane before they blacked out, you could get the exact same pattern. >> i thought about that as we were talking about the depressurization with richard quest a little bit earlier. we went through that scenario last night on "the don lemon show." what they said was, what we came up with, if the passengers were, you know, aware and conscious, they could have said cell phonephones in the bag. if, it indeed, is terrorism or hijacking. so you wouldn't have any communication because no one would have their cell phone. the hijackers would take the cell phones. >> that's true, that's true. but what's the point of terrorism? the point of terrorism is to terrorize people. we've had no credible credit taken for this.

then you start saying, well, that's part of that puzzle that's missing. that is a missing part of the puzzle right now. i think it's one of the other reasons why interpol is saying we think this is pointing away from that as a possibility. >> tom, we've got to get to a break. we'll see you soon. more breaking news right after this. did you get my email? i did. so what did you think of the house? did you see the school ratings? oh, you're right. hey babe, i got to go. bye daddy! have a good day at school, ok? ...but what about when my parents visit? ok. i just love this one... and it's next to a park. i love it. i love it too. here's our new house... daddy! you're not just looking for a house. you're looking for a place for your life to happen.

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comcastnbcuniversal. breaking news here on cnn is the mystery of flight 370, information that we have now learned that the plane was way off course when it disappeared. 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 malacca. this was when they lost contact with that plane. if the air force information is correct, this is huge information. it means that the plane had almost done a complete u-turn and was flying in the opposite direction from its scheduled destination. and was last seen in the malacca straits at about 2:40 a.m. two hours after it took off from

kuala lumpur. the question now is why. and another big question, of course, is where. where is this plane? one expert telling cnn that while mechanical explanations are still possible, those explanations are narrowing very quickly. opening the possibility that someone turned off the transponder deliberately inside the cockpit. >> if this report is true, it means a couple of things. one is, was there someone unauthorized in the cockpit, ordered the transponder turned off, ordered the plane to fly a turn off course. second is did one of the pilots do it themselves? >> joining me now, an expert -- i really value his opinion here. jim tillman, retired commercial pilot. we just heard from the national transportation safety board managing director, he told cnn that it is possible to turn off the transponders.

how difficult or easy is it to turn off a transponder? >> oh, it's not difficult at all. my question, don, goes a little bit further. what was going on from the ground controllers? where were the air traffic controllers that tracked this airplane for everything it does and doesn't do? they should know right away that this airplane is not on course. they should be querying the airplane to find out what are your intentions? and i don't have any reports that there was any inkling made from air traffic controllers in any place. it happened that the transponders were turned off just before entering the vietnamese air space. that means that that was a critical point. that's where the air traffic controllers from one country should be handing them off to the next country. there are questions that go back and forth between air traffic controllers, they should have been terribly alarmed that they have lost this airplane and not making contact with it.

>> this latest bit of animation that we have is very telling, if we can run that again, because it shows the plane taking off, and just as you said, and we'll watch it as it goes here, it gets to vietnamese air space, or to the air space in vietnam. just as it's about to approach land, according to the information that we have from this malaysian official, it makes that u-turn. and then it goes back over land, and then heads across the straits of malacca again. and that's the last anyone has heard of it. can you think of any reason that anyone would turn a transponder off or for a transponder just to stop working? >> all right, two things. i can't think of any plausible reason for anyone to turn both of those transponders off. that's the first thing, unless it was something deliberately being done or whatever.

it's hard for me to imagine an electrical failure, to have total electrical failure. that's just something out of the blue. the aircraft really needs to have electrical power. it's designed that way. there are all kinds of redundancies built into the system so you don't end up flying blind, so to speak. so i think that we are dealing with a situation here where the questions still are looming largely over this full atmosphere. did the airplane actually crash, or did it land someplace? >> that's a big question. because the airplane could have landed and there could be no communications. or people could be unconscious. one never knows. >> that's right. if the airplane was truly hijacked, they could have ducked underneath the radar and ended

up landing someplace. so these people may still be alive. who knows? i hate to say that because i don't want to mislead anybody and give them false hope. but we have a 360-degree panorama of ideas and sequences and scenarios, it has made this thing really, really difficult to deal with. >> yeah. jim tillman, listen, no one knows what happened and we are only gathering the information that we have from experts like you to try to figure it out. and what you said is there's redundancy built into that 777, which is one of the most -- if not the most sophisticated airplane in this commercial aircraft in the sky right now. so we appreciate it. again, we don't know exactly what happened. there are a number of different scenarios that could have happened. i'm sure we'll find out in the coming days. i want to go to clive irving. joining me from london. the senior consulting editor. is there a legitimate reason why this transponder would be shut

off, and how troubling is this to you to hear that information? >> it's just another piece of very troubling information, very confusing information in this fog of people trying to imagine what happened, because we are imagining it. we're trying to imagine it. i think it's a bridge too far to talk about the plane landing somewhere. that's a bit too james bond-ish in my idea. there's several things here. this transponder thing. but the most important thing of all is this left turn. and then, that it proceeded for quite a distance in that new direction. and why only now do we know this from the radar? and then again, the issue of what the ground controllers would do during the time, which is reminiscent of what happened in the case of air france 447, which disappeared over the south atlantic. there was a lot of fumbling and inattention going on, because it was people saying it was 2:00 in the morning, but i think that's ridiculous, because they work in

shifts. they're supposed to be alert. they don't take the night shift to go to sleep. >> clive, can we draw any conclusions from its path the fact that it was so severely off course? >> well, i think there are a number of things that could have gone wrong with this flight, being steadily reduced in number so that you have to then look very seriously at the options to the left. what i've been looking at is this issue of decompression, of loss of pressure. and what the effect of that is on the state of mind of the crew and the passengers and whether the people pass out. it was a case where a 737 flew across the mediterranean with everybody onboard pass out until it ran out of gas and crashed in greece. so that flew for a very long wall. we don't know how long this plane flew beyond this point because the transponders were off. >> clive irving, thank you, appreciate it.

>> you're welcome. we can only imagine the agony facing the families of the missing passengers and the crew of malaysia airlines flight 370. even a story this big is more about individual sadness and loss. it's also about the frustration of not knowing, and anger. here's an example as anguished family members press an airline executive for help. >> it's just awful. you can't imagine what those families are going through. andrew stevens joins us from kuala lumpur. families, are they reacting to

this latest news? >> it's 3:00 in the morning here, don, so we haven't heard any reaction. and also, the malaysia airlines are keeping the family members quite a long way from the media, as they were in beijing. i've just come now from beijing, very much a similar situation there. we saw that conference there organized by malaysia airlines and those distraught passengers there. that man you heard screaming out, sort of what are you doing? time is going by. why aren't you finding anything? why aren't you telling us anything? there's this real frustration that they're just not getting information timely enough. if you think about the information we've just been talking about, about the fact that there was this u-turn, we're actually now officially in the fifth day since this plane went down. and we are now only getting this confirmation that there was an apparent u-turn and the actual

plane was last seen hundreds of miles away from where it was supposed to be. now, what's interesting here, initially, in the first reports, the malaysians were saying that this plane disappeared from the radar at 2:40. they then scaled that back and said it actually disappeared about an hour earlier. what's happened is that those transponders we've been talking about, they're the ones that switched off about abhour into the flight and then the plane turned, flew across malaysia and was last seen at 2:40 over this small island called pulau perak. our information is coming to us from an unnamed source, a very senior source in the malaysian air force. but they're still not saying officially what's happened. this turn-back theory has been around for a couple of days, but it's only been a theory.

but they would have known because they would have seen it in realtime. >> andrew, i want to ask you something. i'm not familiar with that area, just from vacationing in that area, i'm not that familiar. someone made the point that the plane lost contact near royal malaysian air force base. there is a suitable runway there. if it made it back over to the west coast, would have flown over to at least three airfields -- over at least three airfields with suitable runways to land. >> absolutely. there's a very big airfield at a resort island called lancaui, which is about 200 miles away from where this plane was last sighted. there's also a big commercial runway at penang, on the island of penang. so there are plenty of alternatives. the thing is, this was 2:40 in the morning. if they did not have communications, they had no way

of knowing exactly where they were, depending on how catastrophic the electronics failure was, they may not have known exactly where they were. at this stage, all conjecture. but certainly, you're right. there were plenty of alternative airstrips to put down in. >> andrew stevens in kuala lumpur. andrew, we're going to need you, so stand by. thank you very much. cia not ruling out terrorism here. we're talking live to a former fbi agent about what could have happened aboard that plane. [ male announcer ] the lexus command performance sales event has begun. it's time to chart an entirely new course. with the lexus ct hybrid, featuring an epa-estimated 42 mpg combined. the further you go, the more interesting it gets. take command of the moment, then take command of the road. during the lexus command performance sales event. get great offers on your favorite lexus models, now through march 31st. this is the pursuit of perfection.

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while teams desperately search for any sign of flight 370, the cia says anything is possible. officials won't rule out terrorism in the plane's disappearance, even as other officials down play that possibility. jim joins us now from washington with the latest. some mixed messages out of washington. we do know why the cia -- do we know, i should say, why the cia won't rule out terrorism? >> i understand why it's confusing. they're not actually contradictory. the bottom line is here they don't know what happened to this plane. you had the cia director brennan making public comments today, asked about this. i asked him about this, this new information about the transponder being turned off. he said listen, we can't eliminate any possibility here. we are still checking out these leads. it's too early to say.

i've been speaking to intelligence officials the last several days. they say they have nothing to this point to indicate a connection to terrorism. i went back to them later this morning after brennan's comments. they say that has not changed. they don't have an indication. but they're still checking out leads. remember, there is this curiosity about these two passengers onboard with stolen passports. that's a lead they checked out. the fingerprints, the thumbpr t thumbprints of those two men that we now know were iranians were sent and checked against a u.s. terror database to make sure they didn't have any ties to terrorism, found out they do not have ties to terrorism, and now this other explanation has come forward, that they were trying to emigrate on false passports. the bottom line is they don't know for sure. they're going to be loathe to say they've eliminated anything as new information comes out. but to this point, they don't have anything hard to say that this has a tie to terrorism. >> all right, jim, so let's talk about the information about the transponder. what do you make of the latest information? why would the transponder be shut off, or if someone shut it

off intentionally, or go off? >> well, it's truly an incredible morning because you have these two pieces of information. the transponder turned off and then the plane flying level flight or descending flight for such a long period of time. which at least starts to eliminate some possibilities, right? because one of the first things we were talking about early on, was there a sudden explosion that made this plane disappear? it doesn't appear that that happened because it went on flying for another hour. it certainly didn't happen hat that point when contact was lost. transponder, two possible explanations. either someone turned it off, a pilot turned it off, which is possible, or there was a massive mechanical failure that caused it to turn off. those are still the two possible explanations. it's just such a mystery. i think one of the biggest confusing things and frustrating things is that it appears that the malaysian authorities had this information from very early on, because if the military was tracking this plane, that wouldn't just suddenly turn up 72, 96 hours later.

they would have known that when it happened. why didn't it come out, and, you know, this raises another question. are the malaysian authorities sharing the best information with all the international partners who are helping? because you and i have talked about this. you've got the world navy on the other side of that peninsula searching where they thought the plane disappeared, when in fact, the malaysian air force has information that the plane continued to the other side, to the western side of the peninsula. it's crazy. it's nuts. >> and given what you just said, is there a sense, jim, from officials that they are making progress on this case? or are they spinning their wheels here? >> that's a good question. i haven't heard anybody say they're spinning their wheels. i think that they're loathe to say -- they're always reluctant to say we know anything for sure. they'll make the point we haven't found a plane. a lot of this will be a forensic investigation. when they found twa 100, they were looking to see if there was evidence of an explosion in the

cargo hold, that sort of thing. you've got to see parts and start testing those parts for explosive residue, or also see how intact the plane was when it hit the water. was it level flight, controlled flight into water, was it something else? so i think they're just saying they don't know. that's their bottom line. >> hey, jim, can i ask you something real quick, because i've got to get to a break. you were mentioning the withholding of evidence, if the malaysian officials knew this early on. why withhold that evidence? >> no idea. and i think that's a very key point now. and it's one thing i'm asking officials here. were they frustrated with the sharing of information from the malaysian side. i haven't been told that yet, but it's something i'm asking around. when i hear it, i'll let you know. >> thank you. appreciate that. cnn law enforcement analyst ad former fbi assistant director tom fuentes -- now or after the break? he's next. after the break. after the break. we'll be right back. the truck is everything.

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oh, well in that case, back to vacation mode. ♪boots and pants and boots and pants♪ ♪and boots and pants and boots and pants♪ ♪and boots and pants... voice-enabled bill pay. just a tap away on the geico app. ♪ huh, 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. yup, everybody knows that. well, did you know that some owls aren't that wise. don't forget about i'm having brunch with meagan tomorrow. who? seriously, you met her like three times. who? geico. back now to the breaking news here on cnn. that plane, flight 370, way off course. new information from malaysian officials saying that it made a u-turn and went back in the direction that it came from. right now, i want to get to tom fuentes, cnn law enforcement analyst. he's joining us now from washington, d.c. the latest information about this missing airliner, what do you make of this? >> well, don, i think it raises almost as many questions as it

answers. it does narrow down an area to look for that aircraft that might have a greater opportunity to find it. so as soon as it's daylight there in the next three or four hours, they should be able to start a better search in a more likely area to find it. so that's one piece of good news. but as far as why that airplane got changed -- or why the direction was changed, why the transponders were shut off and it still flew, whether there was mechanical problems, whether there was human problems, whether it was hijacked, all of those questions are still unanswered. a lot of that will stay unanswered until the aircraft is located one way or the other and analyzed. >> and i said officials. it's one official that has given us this information. so, tom, listen. if we can look at the path of this flight again, because it appears that the search for the most part has been in the wrong body of water. that it indeed had made its way

back across that peninsula and it was in another body of water that they had not been searching for, at least a large amount of rescue workers. they've been searching pretty much in the entire area. but the bulk of the search had been in a completely different body of water. >> that's right. and a question i would raise is that an aircraft that flies at about 500 miles an hour or more, if it had 90 more minutes of flight time, it could be 750 miles away from where that point was that it turned. when it arrived over that island to the west of the malay peninsula, was it getting to that end of the malaysian radar system. so it was about to go off their radar going north. now that it's going southwest, did it go off their radar at the other end? that's a question i don't know, it would be a technical question for the authorities. what was the extent of radar coverage when it was on its way toward indonesia. >> yeah. and that is a big question.

i gave this question earlier to our andrew stevens and he said this is indeed a good point. someone makes a point here, and they wrote to me and said the plane lost contact near royal malaysian air force base, there is a suitable runway there. if it made it back over to the west coast, would have flown over at least three runways with suitable runways to land. >> right, i know, that's part of the mystery. it was the dead of night. we don't know what kind of navigational equipment was still functioning, if any. and again, we don't know if we've had some type or some partial mechanical failure that cut off the electric systems, but the plane could still stay in the air because the engines kept running. we don't know that, or we don't know the other side, which is that the plane was flown in that direction on purpose, whether it was by the pilots or whether the pilots were ordered to do it under duress. that's the part we don't know yet. >> i know you don't want to speculate, but i've been asking

people, when you look at this new information from this malaysian official and you look at the route of that plane, what do you think happened? do you think it was catastrophic electrical failure? do you think it was possibly a hijacking or terrorism? what do you make of it? >> i think it doesn't answer either question. you don't have the catastrophic mechanical failure that blew it out of the sky like twa-800 had. but because it still stayed in the air another hour and a half after whatever happened. but if those transponders and all communications in that plane were shut off deliberately, then that plane is able to go not just 750 miles, but whatever direction they take it, it was ready and fueled to go all the way to beijing and it only got about 20 or 30% of the way there. so it certainly could have stayed in the air i think, if it wasn't for mechanical problems, three, four more hours, at least, you would think. >> i forget the flight, the exact flight. but i remember there was one not

too long ago that has been studied that flew over a volcano. no one knew what was going on. all the engines went out. no one had an idea. it had never really happened before to a commercial aircraft. is this possibly something that is untested, unheard of from a commercial air flying and this will be the beginning of changes to be made for commercial air travel? >> right. there have been a number of flight where is that kind of damage has been done because of the small glass particles contained in volcanic smoke. but in this case, you would think the engines would go out first before the rest of the plane had problems. the engines would jam up with that material in the engines. i think in one of the flights that was bound for australia, as the plane descended, they were able to get enough of those particles out of the engine and restart the engines and land it. >> right. tom fuentes, thank you, i appreciate it. >> sure, don. coming up, more on that missing flight.

the cia is not ruling out terrorism, but why haven't searchers found the plane yet? could it be because of outdated technology? that is next. there's a new form of innovation taking shape.

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next is information and entertainment in ways you never thought possible. welcome to what's next. comcastnbcuniversal. welcome back to our breaking news coverage, the mystery of flight 370. we have learned it was way off course when it disappeared. 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 malacca. this was when they lost contact with the plane's transponder. if the air force information is correct, again, if this information is correct, this is a very big development. it means a plane had almost done a complete u-turn and was flying in the opposite direction from its scheduled destination. i want to bring in cnn's brian

todd. he joins us now from washington. in the search for this plane, could military satellites be an option here? >> certainly they could be an option, don. we've been talking to the pentagon about the assets that they have deployed here. they are not telling us whether they're using military satellites or not. they just don't want to give out that information. they do give information about the 22 aircraft, the 40 sea-going vessels that they're using, but they're not telling us a lot about satellites. you talk about the transponder, you talk about gps on these planes, could they be used to track it? the transponder was either turned off or destroyed somehow. that is not an option. once that's turned off, it doesn't come back. gps, yes, those devices could conceivably be used, but if a gps is destroyed or turned off, somehow that doesn't emit some kind of a natural signal or a signal that kicks in automatically from the wreckage of the plane. as for the other technologies being used, we're told the pentagon says that the navy's

seventh fleet has mh-60 helicopters, a p-3 orion plane patrolling the area. these aircraft have flair pods, infrared detectors, which can detect signs of life, signs of movement. pentagon officials not giving information about satellites or other technology being used, but experts tell us it is very likely that military satellites are going to be used some high res imagery. >> brian todd with good information from washington. appreciate that. we want to focus on the search for this plane. cnn was given exclusive access to the search for the missing malaysia jet. it is an intensive effort flying with open doors at 500 feet hoping to spot any clue that will answer the mystery of what happened to flight 370. >> reporter: this is no easy task. this c-130 plane has been

carrying out regular search and rescue missions since flight mh-370 disappeared. it's the first time the minister for defense and transportation and the chief of defense force have been out to survey this massive operation. they invited cnn to join them. i have to put this life jacket on, because we're now descending to just 500 feet above sea level. flying low, the doors are opened for the search to begin. we flew past a number of ships, scouring the sea for the plane, those onboard, or any clues at all to what happened. >> i just want to find the plane, you know? at all costs. as long as we are still standing and as long as people are out there praying for us, we will continue until we persevere. and this is something that i will not stop.

this is something i promise the families. >> reporter: we flew to the malacca straits to the west of asia. this wasn't the scheduled flight path, but it's a possibility the search team is taking seriously. in case the plane turned back and lost its way. there are 16 ships surveying this area. that's more than 12,000 nautical square miles. joined in the air by 14 aircraft. and that's just the area to the west of malaysia. there are more than 30 aircraft and more than 40 ships in the entire operation. as we look out across this vast expansive water, far into the horizon, holding his head in his hands, the minister tells me he's overwhelmed. >> when you're looking for something in this wide sea, it's a reality check how to find even

a huge aircraft like a 777. but we must never, never give up hope. >> reporter: the team onboard maintain this is still a search and rescue operation. >> i'm hoping against hope. >> but four days on and with no explanation, or understanding of what happened to flight mh-370, the question is just how long can they continue to search for survivors. >> as the search goes on, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the flight's path and also why the transponder stopped working. next we're asking richard quest what he thinks happened. aflac. ♪ aflac, aflac, aflac! ♪ [ both sigh ] ♪ ugh! ♪ you told me he was good, dude. yeah he stinks at golf. but he was great at getting my claim paid fast.

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welcome back to our breaking news coverage of flight 370. we're learning new information that the flight was way off course. this is from a malaysian official, an air force official saying that the flight made a u-turn almost in the exact direction from which it was coming. i want to bring in our richard quest. so many questions here, richard. so many questions. and the possibility that we're hearing -- you know, there are airfields in the area that could have sustained a jet this size. one, the air force base, the royal malaysian air force base. had that happened, though, we would have heard about it by now. >> no question about that. the interesting thing about that aspect is the pilots, even if they've lost electronic maps and tablets and all those sort of things, they've got charts. they would have known about those air bases. they would have known about

those long runways. if they were looking for somewhere to land, they would have known. certainly a captain of 18,000 hours experience would have known the territory upon which he was flying. so, again, i urge you -- and i know it's not very sexy in a way, i urge you to just think of this as a piece of the jigsaw that has been put on the table rather than the picture itself. >> you're urging caution, richard quest. >> i always urge caution. the temp indication -- all right, if you look at what we've got now -- >> right. >> the scenario we've got. the turn, the flight back over malaysia, into the straits of malacca, on the one hand you've got a straight forward was this plane being taken over by somebody and were the pilots forced to fly it. straight forward hijacking question, which we won't know for some time yet. but on the other side, was this a mechanical failure, a major systems failure, and they were

mainly taken up with flying this aircraft as they worked through flying the plane. within those two total extremes, the truth lies. >> okay. so here's the thing. you and i have been talking about this. when i said, conceivably, we might never know what happened. and you're like don, stop it! we will know, we will know! of course we'll probably know. but will we know exactly what happened? will we know for sure what happened? >> next time i speak to you, in the next hour -- i wish i'd known you were going to ask that question. because in my office upstairs, i've got the report. it's 250 pages long, as indeed every one of these reports is, from the ntsb. they will take this investigation apart as they try and find out what actually happened. they will find it out. >> okay, let me ask you this. see this? what is that right there?

that little app. it says what? find phone, right? if you click on it. >> your point is -- >> my point is, if there are people on the plane and they're saying they're calling the cell phones, the phones are ringing, why can't they just ping the phones and figure out where they are and get a locator on the phone? >> you have successfully put one and one together and managed to come up with four. because you've made -- >> no, i'm just saying -- >> well, you have. you've made an assumption. if you'd read a bit further, you'd have seen there's plenty of suggestion out there that in certain circumstances, when those phones are no longer connected -- >> well, that's why i'm asking you. >> when those phones are no longer connected, they continue to ring. sometimes if i'm out of the country and somebody dials my u.s. cell, or my uk cell, it will continue to ring while it transfers or finds where it is and eventually it will go to voicemail. >> but my point is, people are asking that. >> it's a legitimate point. >> that's a question i'm asking. >> it's a completely legitimate

point. >> i'm not second-guessing the investigators. >> it's a completely legitimate point that there are these situation where is the phones are ringing. and what, of course, everybody is suggesting is that the plane landed and these people are still with the phones. please, god, i'm wrong. >> we get what you're saying. thank you, richard quest. we appreciate it. coming up, there is a way that you can help search the ocean for debris from this flight from your home. we'll tell you about that coming up. it is estimated that 30% of the traffic in a city is caused by people looking for parking. that's remarkable that so much energy is, is wasted. streetline has looked at the problem of parking,

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of flight 370.

we have learned that the plane was way off course when it disappeared. joining me now is former secret service agent. >> what do you make of this? >> i think it's another red flag, another indication that something is amiss. i know that interpol has come out and stated that they think it's unlikely that it's terrorism and through the process of elimination they have not said that that is not the case. we have red flags and strange deviation of the course. and as well as the transponder going off, that is one end of the spectrum. it remains that it could be a mechanical issue, a technical issue as well. >> yeah. we have heard a number of different scenarios that it could be and we still don't know. as richard quest said earlier,

we want to err on the side of caution. be patient. there's a lot of territory to cover there. evy, there's 4,000 square miles that this plane could have gone in either direction. if you look at the possibilities, judging from your expertise when you see that map and hear this information from the malaysian official, does it point to you catastrophic mechanical failure or terrorism or do you think it's too early on to even speculate about it? >>. >> look, it is early on because we don't have all of the pieces of the puzzle. now, given my background and experience, you hear all of these red flags and to me it's strong indications that something is not right. there is something nefarious going on, having it fall completely off the map and disappear. as an investigator, you would leave no stone unturned.

hijacking is definitely a significant, significant thing they should be looking at. again, with the mechanical side, it's difficult to say because you don't have physical parts of the plane. again, from the criminal side, as an investigator, having dealt with terrorism before, yes, absolutely we cannot deviate from that and you have these red flags and i really don't think we should look away from them. >> evy poumpouras, thank you. searching for the debris from your home, you can help find the mystery flight on your computer. we'll tell you how you can do that, next.

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most of the passengers on the missing malaysian flight 370 were chinese but there were

three u.s. citizens, including phillip wood. his two brothers talked to cnn's anderson cooper. >> we've just been getting calls and e-mails from people we haven't heard from and we just want everybody to -- we're trying to keep his memory going. we're holding out hope because, as of yet, there are no answers. so -- >> can i read something to you just real fast? >> sure. go ahead. >> okay. this is a scripture that's keeping me going personally from colassians. real quick. since you've been raised to a new life with christ, set your realities on heaven, god's right hand, think about the things in heaven, not the things of earth. for you to hide to this life and in your real life is hidden with christ in god. and that is what i'm thinking about.

>> those words keep us going. >> phillip wood graduated from oklahoma christian university and belonged to the delta gamma sigma organization. his girlfriend is in beijing waiting for news. in southeast asia, we've been talking about the dozens and dozens of ships that are searching for flight 370. we can do this on our computers at home? >> that's right. the expertise that these crowd surfing expertise make up. digital globe, in the hours after this news broke of the missing plane, turned to the satellite areas where they believed this plane could be located and turned them to tomnoboto tomknob.com. you can comb through these pictures and look for what may

be the missing plane. people may see a cloud in the picture, a wave, a bird, but hopefully you might see a fragment. >> www.tomnod.com. how do you search yourself? >> you literally scroll through the images one by one. if you see something, you flag it. is that an oil rig, a fragment of an airplane? we don't want to inundate the people searching for this information so they wait until the whole crowd has seen something, so maybe 100 people see something, and then an expert sees it and passes it on to the officials. >> to have hundreds and thousands or maybe more amateurs looking, does that hinder the official investigators or searchers? >> they are getting better and better at this. we see this in every natural disaster now, looking for the major disaster areas. but nobody has ever been able to use this to find somebody

missing in a plane crash. each time they are getting better at it. they will pass it on so they don't inundate it with all of the missing information. maybe this will be the time that the crowd source does it online. >> they must see some value in it or they would not do it or take it seriously? >> absolutely. many times governments are coming to companies like digital globe asking them for help. >> we appreciate you joining us on cnn. listen, it's been a very busy couple of hours on cnn. we have learned that flight 370 was way off course, way off course when -- that's the latest information that they have. it's coming from a senior malaysian air force official. they say they have traced the last signs of the plane to a very small island in the straits of malacca. and it was the last time that they were in contact with this plane. if this air force information is kri correct, this is a huge development. it means that the plane had

almost done a u-turn and was heading back, it appears, to where it took off in kuala lumpur. my colleague is going to pick up the coverage here of missing flight 370. i'll see you tomorrow. stunning new information in the disappearance of flight 370. what was the plane doing so wildly off course? jake tapper. this is the "the lead." it now appears that after contact was lost, that malaysia airplane kept going for about an hour but in the wrong direction. the mystery only grows more confounding. what does this tell us about the plane and the missing people on board. yes, the area that they are looking about is the size of pennsylvania but what about the transponder? did