twitter @jaketapper. check out cnn.com/thelead. that's it. i'm jake tapper. sending you over to wolf blitzer in "the situation room.." >> jake, thanks very much. the mystery of flight 370 way off course. stunning new details on the disappearance of the malaysia airline jet. radar indicating that it veered far from its flight path. why did the i.d. codes stop sending? if someone turned them off, does that raise the odds of terrorism? and relatives say they have called their loved one's cell phones and instead of going straight to voice mail, the

phone rings. flying in the wrong direction, here are the latest developments. according to a radar data flight 370 inexplicably veered from its flight path, essentially flying for another hour before the contact was lost. the identifying transponder codes stopped sending which could mean a catastrophic power loss or somebody turned them off our correspondents will bring you the kind of coverage that cnn can deliver. we bring you to kuala lumpur. andrew, why did it take four days to find this critical

information out? >> reporter: that's absolutely the key question here, wolf. we're going into day five now. remember, we're getting this information about the plane turning around unofficially. it's from a very senior member within the malaysian air force. they talked about it as a theory. it has now been confirmed to us. they are acting on it. this is still a big body of water. they also haven't found anything yet and also we are hearing from the malaysian government they are really starting to focus that search now. it's got a lot of assets at its disposal. there are 37 planes searching. the focus of the search shifting to the tiny lump of rock, it's halfway between malaysia and

indonesia. to your question, it's difficult to understand why they have withheld that information and why they wouldn't have seen it when it happened in realtime. >> tell our viewers what we have learned, the enormity of this development. andrew? i think we've lost contact with andrew. we will reconnect with andrew and get back to him. obviously, a very, very dramatic development today. a full recap from cue akuala lu. tom foreman is joining us with more on this part of the story. tom? >> wolf, we have been looking at this. this new information has also simultaneously made the search better in that they have a different idea where to search and much more complicated because it is so much bigger. look at the search areas and how this is typically done.

they were focused over here. now they've had to add this and add this. searches like this are done by basically gridding it off like this and having planes fly over every square block methodically searching both electronically and physically to see if they can see anything. this takes a tremendous number of aircraft and a lot of time because they have to do it at a piece of time and grind it all away. the air france plane that went down over the atlantic, they had debris in the water that they spotted very soon and the search area was more than 124,000 square miles and they knew where to look. in this case, you're talking about a much, much bigger area. it's also complicated, wolf, because now you're talking about terrain. it went out over land and you have to wonder how dense all of this is, how hard it is to find anything in that and bear in mind, this plane was traveling around 560 miles an you are hou.

it had enough fuel to go for seven hours. the last part to look at in all of this is the water depth. it's not terribly, terribly deep if in fact the plane was last spotted here and went down here but it's one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. there would be a tremendous amount of traffic and it could take a long time with all of that noise to hear the pinging of the flight data recorders. it's really an immense task, wolf, and it just got a lot more complicated. >> there's been absolutely no sign of any debris, at least so far. and this is day four of this tragedy. tom foreman, thank you very much. was the airliner's transponder intentionally turned off? that's the scenario according to peter goles. >> you have to have a very deliberate process to turn the

transponder off and if they were doing that, they were doing it to disguise the path of the plane. there may be mechanical explanations on what was going on but those mechanical explanations are narrowing quickly. >> let's dig deeper with our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto and cnn law enforcement analyst and assistant director tom fuentes. do you agree with him that mechanical issue may be more difficult to come to that conclusion, given what we now know from the malaysian air force? >> i think so, wolf. because what you're asking for is enough of a mechanical failure to shut off the equipment, the transponders and the radio but not enough to have it crash down on the spot. the other thing is, the plane

could be in the air for seven hours at 560 miles per hour. so that plane could travel another 3,000 miles in that direction. so my question would be to the technicians, did it go off the radar because it lost altitude and went down in the water at that location, the new location, or did it just exceed the distance of their coverage and keep ongoing? could it have gone into indonesia, the next major land mass, could it overshoot and end up in the indian ocean? are they sure it actually left the sky at that spot or did it keep on flying? >> let me ask the former commercial pilot. why would anyone want to shut down a transponder and if you don't want to shut it down, then obviously there's got to be some mechanical problem. >> that's the question, wolf. the only intentional reason to shut off a transponder is to become concealed.

however, it's always, always evidence that there will be a primary radar return. so it's really very, very difficult to disappear from radar unless you go to a very low altitude, which is what the early reports show in this case. now, the 777 has an impeccable record with redundant systems. however, it is a machine and all machines have single points of failure and a history of failure. in the case of the 777, just one week ago, there was the smell of smoke in the cockpit in the british airways flight that was crossing the atlantic near shannon. it diverted to shannon from its flight path to new york and that is currently under investigation. in november of 2013, there was a similar problem, a british airways night approaching jfk

after crossing the pond, the pilot reported smell of smoke and actual smoke in the cockpit but successfully landed the airplane. now -- >> were the transponders shut down in those two cases? >> well, here's the caveat. if you're over water and cannot land quickly, a fire can develop. there was an md-80 jet that has similar systems to the 777, similar complexity, similar redundancies, they were at the gate. it was an egypt air flight and the pilot reported smoke in the cockpit. it quickly developed into a fire and they evacuated all of the personnel. if that aircraft had been over the ocean, it would have likely lost all electrical power, many of the redundant systems on board, and could have been lost. there's an example of a swiss

air flight going down with 229 souls on board back in 1998 with a similar problem. fire in the cockpit. >> all right. so let's put some perspective on this because the director of the cia john brennan had some intriguing comments earlier today. let me play some of what he said. >> i think the memories of the tragedy of 9/11 are in the minds of many people and this is not the time to relax because we know there are terrorist groups still determined to carry out attacks. clearly this is still a mystery and it's very disturbing and until we can find out where that aircraft is, we might have an opportunity to do forensic analysis that will lead us in the right direction. >> at this point you're not ruling out that it could be terrorism? >> no, not at all. >> no, we're not ruling it out, not at all.

jim sciutto, the terrorism option is still very much on the table. they haven't ruled that out. >> no. i'll tell you, right before this broadcast, i checked in with intelligence officials and i asked them if the view of this changed their view consistently the last several days has been, we have nothing so far to indicate that this was a terrorist event and that view, right before this broadcast, has changed. you have the director in public comments saying, however, they have not ruled out terrorism is a possibility because there's so many unanswered questions here. and what they are doing every day as the leads come in, they are sniffing them out. they are checking them out. we were talking about these stolen passports. they looked into those. you'll remember that the malaysian authorities shared the biometric data from the two gentlemen who were eiranians moe likely trying to go to that

court rather than terrorism. that's the mode they are in. they are open-minded, in effect. they can't close things out because no one has determined at this point what brought this plane down but, just as a caution, they haven't found anything, intelligence officials tell me, to indicate yet that this was terrorism. but, you know, they've got to keep looking because there are so many unanswered questions. when they find that wreckage, they'll want to look at that wreckage to determine if there was terrorism. >> they flew for an hour, tony, before they made that turn. if there was mechanical problems, smoke, why no mention, why no communication or alert signal, mayday, s.o.s. why was there no contact from the cockpit? >> fires are insidious, wolf. they can happen quickly and knockout systems quickly. the other question is, the question of the security at the

airports, particularly in malaysia but globally as well. we all know by recent history that security at major international airports is not what it should be. a couple of very quick examples that could raise the question of terror in this particular case. in brussels, just last year, there was a $300 million diamond burglary within the airport aircraft operations area. three vans, the criminals drove them right through an airport fence, crossed two active runways, held the pilots and armoured guards at gunpoint. no security, no police response. they actually escaped and were not captured until approximately three or four months later. similar examples in the new york and metropolitan area. newark airport had an intoxicated man breach a security system, climb over the fence, on to the active runways

before he was stopped. >> to there are potential problems on that front. tom, you and i were talking earlier about the possibility of a hijacking. someone getting into that cockpit. explain what that theory potentially could be? >> potentially, wolf, the pilots flew that plane another hour, hour and a half after it changed directions. did they do it because they wanted to do it, did they do it because a mechanical reason forced them to do it to try to return to base or did somebody cause them to make that turn around and threaten them and told them to shut off the transponders and fly away. an act of terrorism doesn't just require an explosive device on the aircraft. the aircraft itself can be a device of terrorism as we saw in 9/11. so, you know, you really can't rule out anything and nor has it been ruled out in this matter from the beginning. i think john brennan's answer about the possibility of terrorism is no different today

than it would have been three days ago when an airplane mysteriously falls out of the sky, the first thing you think of is, a mechanical or terrorism, the first two things you think of. nothing has been ruled out and nothing has been ruled in, really. >> the investigation continues. what they are seeing in the search area, we're going to talk live with an officer aboard a u.s. ship. and many of the relatives have been asking, why did their loved one's cell phones seem to ring hours before the plane disappeared? my lenses have a sunset mode. and an early morning mode. and a partly sunny mode. and an outside to clear inside mode.

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some relatives of the missing passengers say they've called their loved ones' cell phones and instead of going to voice mail the phones continue to ring. what, if anything, does that tell us? joining us is a technology expert. jeff, thanks for coming in. what should these loved ones conclude if it's still ringing instead of immediately going to voice mail? >> this is one of the sad parts about the technology. the way the cell phone network works, it's not connecting with a phone. when you place a cell phone on a wireless phone, you place the call, you press send. what happens is you start hearing ringing but the other phone isn't ringing yet. if the network has to find the phone and then they have to sended it call there. if it doesn't find the phone after a few minutes, after a few rings, then typically it

disconnects and that's what is happening. they are hearing ringing and they assume it's connecting to their loved ones, but it's not. it's the network sending a signal to the phone letting them know it's looking for them. now, my wife and i have cell phones. we're on different networks. when my wife calls me on her cell phone and then i answer on the first ring, she says, i've been ringing for three or four, five times, i've only heard it once. the extra rings were the networks trying to talk to each other and find me. and that's just here in the united states and atlanta. if you've got phones connected to different networks, phones connected in other countries, one country and another countryicountry trying to kpun indicacommunicat other, it takes time. >> the phone has to be on land, near some sell tower or not far off of land into a few miles of the water. what do you make of that? >> and most batteries don't last more than a day or two.

traditional cell phones could last longer. i'm not going to say that there is no survivors. i'm not going to say i have no idea what is happening with the plane. all i'm going to say is just because you're getting ringing. just because the signs that we see on these cell phones, it's no proof. that's just the way the networks work. >> shouldn't draw any conclusions? >> no, unfortunately, not. a somber seen in kuala lumpur. dozens are gathering to pray for the passengers of flight 370. one person said it's important to have hope for the sake of the families. there you can see them lighting the candles. if you're just joining us, we're going to examine the stunning clues about the missing malaysian airliner. and we'll talk about how you can use your own computer to help search. and we'll talk to one of the officers aboard the search vessel in the region. he's going to tell us what they are seeing right now.

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so how is it possible for an airliner to just disappear? and why is it so difficult to find a crash site? extraordinary technology is being put to the test right now. our own brian todd has been looking into this technology. tell our viewers what you are seeing. >> wolf, from military aircraft with infrared capability to a website that you and i can go on to help in this search, it's very high tech and has global reach. that's crucial since the own technology has completely shut down. in the digital age when we've got gps and cell phones in cars, how do you lose an airplane? flight 370 has a gps and transponder sending signals to air traffic control. now that we know the signal was not operational when the plane disappeared -- >> it's not going to do anything anymore. once it's gone off, it's not going to come back on.

from a gps standpoint, all that is is mainly for the aircraft to know where it is, for the pilots to know where they are. there's nothing that says, here i am, over here. >> reporter: this is now a high-tech search. the navy is using mh-60 helicopters, at least one plane in the air and long with 34 planes and 40 ships from ten other countries. there is optical sensors that can detect movement. the pentagon won't say if they are using military satellites but they believe they are using those satellites, taking very high-res photos. >> they can be very precise, down to a size of car or less than that. you can see doors or wings or engines or something like that. they also have the capability of using the maritime or the navy assets using sonar. >> reporter: and the public is being pulled in to a high-tech search through crowd search.

a company that operates satellites is using satellites to take high-res pictures of the area where the airline jet might have gone on. they are inviting people to go on to tomnod to look at pictures. >> they see small segments of the satellite image in an incredibly zoomed-in fashion. they are invited to drop tags and pins where they see either a boat, an oil slick, an area with debris. >> now, on the back end when digital globe collects a certain volume of tags in one area of a picture, they share that with authorities. they have gotten about a million views per hour and websites have difficulty doing it. they legitimately have seen

something with people participating and it's certainly unreliable. >> absolutely, wolf. and people say on their end they have a way of looking at who is reliable and who is not. there are computer programs that can look at overlap reej jogiona picture and they cross reference all of it and have a matrix there and they can pinpoint an area where there might be something. >> brian todd reporting for us, thanks very much. logon and help the several effort by going to our website and clicking the link. two u.s. navy destroyers are among the ships searching for the missing airliner.

"uss pinckney" and commander we spoke yesterday. quick question, when were you told to stop searching in the area where the initial search was going on and move over to the straits of malacca? >> well, it was actually two days ago we had our p3 fly over the straigt of malacca there. that p3 saw in the vicinity of 6 to 8,000 square nautical miles of water. we did not find anything, no debris or sign of a wreckage. so it was about two days we flew over there. yesterday we shifted over the strait of malacca and over the gulf of thailand. i don't have today's assignment yet. it's about 5:30 in the morning here. >> did they tell you about the u-turn and tell you to look at the strait over there, did they give you the explanation why you should shift the search

location? >>. >> we did get reports of a u-turn and we did get reports of that. we knew why we were over there. but once again, nothing found that he was the search two days ago. >> over these past several days, four days now, you've absolutely seen nothing of any debris, no pings, basically no-nothing. correct? >> that's correct. and it's not a matter of if we could see something. we certainly can. we've picked up small, wooden crates on our radar. we've picked up something as small as a soccer ball or a basketball. so we can see if things are out there. now, this u.s. navy technology. not everyone has this same technology. i can also add that it's getting worse and worse.

when we started three days ago, it was fairly calm seas. last night we saw the seas spike up to 4 to 6 or even 5 to 7 feet. so any helicopter were it down low looking visually or any of the other assets that don't have our advanced radar capabilities, they will be hindered starting today. >> i know this is a relatively huge area that you're looking around, commander, but could you give us a percentage of how much more of this area you have to search? >> sure. i have to tell you, the gulf of thailand is pretty much saturated. "uss kid" has traveled about 1,000 nautical miles and "uss pinckney," and they will fly about 3 to 500 miles. that's not counting the p-3

which yesterday flew 12,000 nautical miles worth of searching the water space. the gulf of thailand is pretty much saturated. the strait of malacca is not quite. it's harder to get things over there. so at this point, it's just a matter of expanding the areas where we search. >> and you're staying on this search for the time being, no plans on leaving, right? >> that's correct. we're here for as long as they need us. >> commander, good luck to you. good luck to all of the men and women in the u.s. navy and marine corps who are with you right now. thank you, commander williams marks, who is aboard "uss blue ridge." still ahead, a cnn reporter and they may be able to solve this mystery if the black box can be located. tall the building is,

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if you're just joining us, stunning new developments in the disappearance of malaysia airline flights 370. at this point they raise more questions than they answer and the incredible mystery is deepening. cnn's rene marsh is putting it together for us. >> this new report raises one or critical questions, one of them being, what was going on in the cockpit? this plane reportedly went hundreds of miles off course. its transponder was off and pilots never communicated a word to anyone. there is no good reason for the

transponder transponder to be off. it tells the plane's altitude, location, and speed. there's only two reasons that this piece of equipment would be off, someone wanted to hide that critical flight information or mechanical failure. this was the last known location of flight 370 over the south china sea as civilian aviation radar suggest. but now a dramatic new turn of events. a malaysian military source tells cnn their radar shows the plane may have still been flying an hour and ten minutes later. instead of being off the east coast of malaysia, it apparently turned the opposite direction and flew to the malacca strait, west of the peninsula. why was the plane flying in the opposite direction and why would the transponder in the plane's cockpit be turned off? >> if someone did that in the cockpit, they were doing it to

disguise the route of the plane. >> reporter: malaysian police are looking at four areas, hijacking, sabotage, psychological or personal problems with the passengers or crew. here's what we know. if the plane was where the military tracked it, it was nearly 1,000 miles from where it should have been en route to beijing. >> was there someone unauthorized in the cockpit ordered to transponder turned off, ordered the plane to fly 90-degree turn off course. second is, did one of the pilots do it themselves. >> officials have been asked about in-flight protocol and are told that cockpit doors are always kept closed during a flight but one woman said that the co-pilot of the missing plane allowed her and a friend in the cockpit in 2011. they say that they were in the cockpit for takeoff and landing and were invited to spend time

with the pilot in kuala lumpur. they were shocked by the allegations and unable to verify the authenticity of the photos. could the pilots have been incapacitated due to loss of oxygen? could there have been some sort of massive mechanical failure or could the military radar have tracked something else besides this missing plane? >> and that something else could be another plane. military radar doesn't provide identifying information so it is not definitive that what showed up on their radar was actually the missing plane. after speaking to several people in the industry, they all agree it appears something happened in the cockpit. the plane did undergo maintenance ten days before it vanished and checked out without any issues so they say the mechanical theory issue is hard to see. >> hard to see. thanks very much, rene, for

that. critical to help determining what happened to this missing flight, the data recorders if they are ever found. suzanne malveaux got a chance to look inside these. >> a typical boeing 777 has two recorders. the cockpit data recorder and it's less likely to get damaged. getting to these devices is critical now. that is because despite the d durability, it's all about how quickly the investigators can find them. how could the transponder fail and the aircraft veer so widely off course? the data recorder would tell us. it looks kind of primitive. what does it do? >> it has an armored shell and it houses the memory chips. >> the crucial last 30 minutes of conversation between the pilots is captured on one device.

the aircraft's altitude, speed, direction, and hundreds of other parameters measured on the other. >> on the front of the box we see a radio beacon that allows the box to be located after a crash. this is housing the solid state memory chips recording all of the data. that's the critical part of the unit that needs to be salvaged after an accident. >> reporter: the so-called black box is an older but similar version. newer models are half the size and collect more than 1,000 pieces of data, which makes them so unique is the ability to survive just about anything. >> the box is designed for impacts of over 3,000 or 4,000. this is about 7,000 times what would be a fatal car accident for a human. so incredible impact. it's designed to withstand temperatures and this is in the middle of burning jet fuel for an hour or so.

>> reporter: what is more likely critical for the malaysian airline is the recorder's ability to withstand the tremendous pressure from the depths of the sea. the technology has come a long way. aircraft of this like from 1954 didn't have data recorders. it was shortly after the start of the jet age that the concord had a major accident and benefited from the advanced technology. but the problem is et getting to the recorders fast enough that makes them useful. from as deep as 20,000 feet below. but the battery often runs out in just 30 days. for the air france flight that went down in the atlantic in 2009, it took searchers two years to find the data recorders because they were far from the wreckage. so the technology is i am professi improving. they are improving it from 30 days to 90 days to give searchers more time to find

them. they are also adding cameras that go outside of the plane so they have a visual or a video of what was taking outside of the aircraft at the time of the distress. wolf? >> suzanne malveaux, thank you. coming up at the top of the hour, we're going to have a situation room special report. we'll update you on all of the developments, including the surprising new details that we have learned. coming up here, up next, russian forces tightening a vital part of the ukraine days ahead of an event that could make the crisis even worse. [ male announcer ] this is the cat that drank the milk... [ meows ]

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we'll get back to breaking news coverage. mysterious disappearance of flight 370 in just a moment. first another major story we're following, escalating crisis in ukraine. john kerry warning the russian foreign minister lavrov in a phone call any further escalation could make diplomacy difficult. also a rare public appearance from viktor yanukovych claiming he's still in charge of ukraine. simon is in crimea, doing some extraordinary reporting for us and others. you had a dramatic confrontation today with russian check point officers. let me play a little clip of

your report. [ speaking foreign language ]

>> tells you to stand still or i'll shoot to kill. what happened next, simon? >> after that, well, we were very lucky because our cameraman, one of the cameramen, managed to run away. and the other two of us, myself and the camera b guy, we were led away back to the checkpoint with our arms twisted behind our backs. we were questioned for five minutes or about ten minutes. they took our cameras off of us. made us erase the card. looked through our documents. and accused us essentially of being armed because they need an excuse for using the kind of methods that they used against us. it was pretty scary, i have to be honest. and thinking back, in the video i say i think the reason they let us go is because i'm american and the cameraman was

british. but i think the real reason is because our other cameraman got away and got it all on film because other activists from ukraine who have been coming through that same checkpoint, they have been grabbed there and held for three days. so i think we were very lucky. >> you also got a chance to film and look at some ukranian army positions, including in an armored vehicle. let me play this clip. >> so this is the inside of a soviet built armored personnel carrier. a pretty heavy machine gun over here. a lot of ammunition. and all this pointed at crimea. >> are these ukranian military personnel ready to go up against russia? >> they say that they are. they say they will follow whatever orders they're given. they also say that they want to try to avoid a confrontation as much as possible. and they hope diplomacy will work. i obviously can't predict what will happen exactly, but having

been here for the last couple of days, i feel like there is the sort of resignation among a lot of people who don't want crimea to become part of russia that it is going to become a part russia. and i think will there is not r a lot that the crimean military can do about it because it's totally outclassed by the russian army. >> let me play one more clip by showing both sides really digging in in crimea. >> so we're here at the ukranian checkpoint before you get into crimea. i think the crimean army has just come down here in the last couple of days. they're digging in because the russian army has brought their forces in to the ukranian main land. so they're outside of crimea already and on a small peninsula jutting out of the mainland. and this is a sort of no man's area between this checkpoint and the checkpoint of the russians 12 kilometers that way.

>> simon doing an amazing job on the front alonelines. we'll check back with you tomorrow, as well. coming up here, a situation room special report. the mystery of flight 370. so we talked about her options. her valuable assets were staying. and selling her car wouldn't fly. we helped sydney manage her debt and prioritize her goals, so she could really turn up the volume on her dreams today...and tomorrow. so let's see what we can do about that... remodel. motorcycle. [ female announcer ] some questions take more than a bank. they take a banker. make a my financial priorities appointment today. because when people talk, great things happen.

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fortunately we didn't listen to the experts. at weathertech we built american factories, we use american raw materials and we hire american workers. weathertech.com, proudly made in america. quality like this...you can't do that. a situation room special report. the mystery of flight 370. shocking turn as military now says the missing jet was hundreds of miles off course and kept flies for more than an hour after its tracking signal was lost. new questions about the pilot and the crew. they are now being raised. is it possible they turned their being taking signal off intentionally? or under force? we're digging deeper into the newest evidence and the theories. and inside the search, cnn is on board as the hunt for the

malaysian airline lir grows mor desperate. >> it is a wide sea. it is a reality check how to find even a huge aircraft like a boeing 777. but we must never give up hope. >> we welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room". we begin with an ominous new development in the most baffling aviation mystery. an air force official says military radar tracked the last location of flight 370 to a small island, suggesting the jet was hundreds of miles off course flying in the opposite direction of its scheduled flight path. the official says military radar detected the jet's last location more than an hour after the

plane's transponder stopped tracking. they are not ruling out the possibility it's linked to terrorism. let's go to rinic robertson. what is the latest? >> reporter: the very latest ne news, the details we've received from malaysian officials, they're not putting their name on the record, they're not permitted to talk openly to jaurn alists. hers saying the flight took off about 12:40, got halfway to vietnam and about 1:30 a.m., it switched off the transponder sending out information about the aircraft. it then turned 90 degrees and headed due west across the peninsula of malaysia and then about 2:30 a.m. in the morning, 2:40 a.m. in the morning, it then disappears from the radar

right out in the straight os oi. it has taken several days for this information to be provided even though search is already going on in this area. it raises significant questions about who made the decision to turn and why the communication systems were not used and the transponder was switched off. what we have heard from interpol talking about at least two of the passengers, they have ruled them out from the possibility of being involved in terrorism. but it does leave over 200 other passengers and the motives of the crew to be examined closely at this point. >> any explanation why the government of malaysia, malaysia airlines, dpidn't tell us about the dramatic shift in the route of this plane until today? >> it could be that this is a sense difference issue for them. we don't know their reasons. certainly we're aware that in an investigation, investigators like to keep the foreclose to their chests, if they will,

particularly if they suspect foul play. malaysian police say this could be a hijacking sabotage or personality or psychological issue between people, crew or passengers on the aircraft. when they talk about hijacking or sabotage, that potentially leave it is open that it could be some kind of act of terrorism. they're not saying that, they don't have the evidence. not ruling it out at the moment. but they may not want to give out too much information about what they know. again, that is speculation on the roping. we don't know specifically why they held back on this. >> we do know because i spoke to one of the commanders of the u.s. mission that is going through this area, they started searching in the gulf yesterday and this commander told us that they have been, the u.s. navy has been informed, that there was a u-turn, but the public had not been informed about that and the plane was going for at least an hour and ten minutes in that

opposite direction towards beijing. a lot of criticism of the malaysian government on the inconsistencies, disparities that have been coming out. what are the folks involved in the investigation saying, do they have confidence in what malaysia is doing? >> what we have heard from interpol, they have indicated that the way that they have been working with the malaysians to ascertain the details of the would men who were using the stolen passports, they have not complained specifically about this investigation. of course they have said that they think the malaysians should have cross-referenced interpol's database of potential stolen or fraudulent passports, a day of base of some 40 million different records. malaysians didn't do that. but specifically to this investigation, we know that the chinese have been expressing frustration more than 150 chinese on board that aircraft there, families desperate for information. they come in through criticism from the chinese, chinese sending a delegation to malaysia

to try to full hasten things along. but why there has been a gap in relaying information to the public about the route of the aircraft, we don't know. but certainly that sort of thing will leave them open to further criticism. >> certainly will. all right, nic robertson reporting for us from london. let's dig deeper with richard quest, former faa chief of staff, and former fbi negotiate tore. chris, first to you. the u-turn we know how to about, without the trancsponder lettin anyone know where the plane was. what does that say to you you? >> well, it gives me indicators of two things at the same time. first of all, there is an indicator that whatever happened to the plane you can rule out as there wasn't a catastrophic event that immediately took down the plane. that begins to give you insight

whether it be catastrophic mechanical failure or catastrophic explosion. and with the u-turn of the plane, it's an indicator of awareness by the crew that they were battling some sort of a problem. and as an investigator, i'm very interested in pulling their cell phone records, maybe they called someone, maybe they in particular texted someone while they were struggling with this event and some insight can be gained from that. >> michael, what does it say to you that this plane spent an hour and ten minutes without the trance upon dwer? there are two on a boeing 777. but malaysian air force was tracking the plane, the radar was still on the plane for at least an hour and ten minutes. >> you couldn't make this story up, it gets wilder as the hours go on. and i tell believe that all of the speculation will turn out not to be accurate when they actually find some of the physical evidence.

but in effect, the military plays a greater roll in malaysia and other countries than they do in the united states. in other countries, the military and the civil authority work much more active in the air space. so i'm not surprised we have this conflict of information between the two. number two, the military radar is a primary radar. and what i mean by that is it gives no information. altitude, heading about the jet. so its the's unclear whether in fact that was the missing aircraft. and number three, i still go back to the fact that this plane, one of three things could have happened. still a catastrophic decompressi decompression. secondari secondarily,eing 777 is all

electric. so it has triple redundancy. if one system fails, another works and another works. so the notion that all failed at the same time is hard to believe. third, the cockpit door is locked. 3w both pilots are highly experienced. and richard flew with the co-pilot who loved aviation. so it's hard to believe that they were in on this. and i think we're still searching for some physical evidence of what happened to this plane. >> richard quest, you spoke to one of the pilots, the co-pilot of this 777. how -- real spoke our viewers a picture of the transponder. how difficult is to turn off one of the transponders? >> i've been asking pilots all day about that very question. it's relatively easy. and indeed the sort of -- you'll often hear pilots being told to switch on their transponder

because they haven't switched it on before they take off. it's slightly more complicated to switch off the a-cast system. that requires software knowledge. but one pilot e-mailed me today that that was entirely possible if you knew what you were doing. you could switch off the reporting system. look, i think michael is getting this straight and narrow in the sense that anybody who has read these reports, and they go for hundreds of pages, knows that the final reason is usually something way off what was obvious. ups it is terrorism or ups it is something straightforward like a hijacking. otherwise it becomes -- detail is mind bog link. which part of the plane might have failed which caused which system to drop which caused what reaction by the pilots.

i think that's where we're heading. >> a young woman has come forward, and i want you to weigh in, according to 9 news in australia, back in 2011, this young woman was interviewed and she was just interviewed by 9 news australia and she said back in 2011, she was invited by the co-pilot, this 27-year-old, to go ahead with her girlfriend and sit in the cockpit for an international flight. listen to what she said. >> possibly a little bit sleazy. they invited us -- not invited us. they asked us if we couldn't argue our trip to stay for a few nights that they could take us out. tlou throughout the whole flight, they were talking to us and smoking throughout the flight which i don't think they're allowed to be doing. they weren't like facing the front of the plane actually flying.

>> so what does that say to you that these two young women were in the cockpit on an international flight invited by this co-pilot, one of the pilots of this malaysia airliner? >> i haven't a clue. i can just tell that you international flights are boring with the door locked. you may have pilots watching netflix on their ipad. but that goes beyond the pale. it violates every code of conduct. i don't believe ma-- malaysia a would be shocked at that. i think it's just someone looking for publicity to be honest with you. >> what do you say, chris? >> it's tough to put it in context with that amount of information. it's quite possible it shows an err in judgment in one area and might have nothing to do with their ability to pilot the plane. so without that, it's hard to condemn anyone based on that amount of information. >> richard, you spent time with this co-pilot just the other day.

>> it's really simple. in the united states, there is a complete ban on unauthorized people in the cockpit. has been long before 9/11. in europe, some countries like the uk have the same ban. other countries leave it up to the captain and flight officer's discretion. and to be quite blunt, i've been invited on to the cockpit on nonu.s. carry on several occasions for takeoff and landing because the rules in that country allow it. in the case of our filming, it was obviously authorized, a safety captain on board, fully procedurally correct. it's just one of those things. i think this is -- i think this is just down right unples apartme aunt. we're talking about somebody who complaint come back and defend themselves. from my understanding, there was

nothing untoward. >> and the lead pilot, 53-year-old veteran, highly respected. richard, there was a youtube video of him with a flight simulator in his home. he was a dedicated pilot. >> he was. and these pilots like this captain. they're the old school. they still do like to -- they see somebody on the plane, having somebody in the cockpit, maybe that's not the wisest thing. and very few countries still allow it. but there are some times when the captain does have the discretion to invite somebody on into the cockpit. >> michael, tell us about the transponders because you're familiar with what is going on. how unusual is it for a triple 777 to lose a transponder, indeed both trance pspondetrans? >> highly unusual. i don't remember where that happened before. outside of what's been reported, whether they were voluntarily turned off, which would be a

whole other issue which we're discussing here this evening. it just doesn't happen p. and then once again as richard mentioned, the aircraft reporting system is an automatic data feed both from satellite and ter restial. this plane is pinging. so many ways to communicate with this aircraft that the loss of all of it would have to be catastrophic or intentional. >> all right. guys, thanks very much. we want to take you you inside the search for a missing jet that has been going on now for days over many miles of open water. cnn was invited to fly along with investigators. >> 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. this 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. lying low, the doors are opened for the search to begin. we flew past a number of ships scouring the sea for the plane, those on board 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 to persevere. and this is something that i will not stop. this is what i promised the families. >> reporter: we flew to the west

of malaysia. this isn't the scheduled flight path, but it's a possibility. the search team is taking seriously. in 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. they're joined in the air by 14 aircraft. and that is 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 a 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 on board maintains this is still a search and rescue operation. >> i'm hoping against hope. >> reporter: but four days on, and with no explanation, or understanding of what's happened to flight mh 370, the question is, just how long can they tip to search for survivors. >> in malaysia, a cap decandlel vigil and prayers. relatives are getting more frustrated by the hour. what is the latest from beijing, david? >> reporter: well, the latest is as those hours stretch into day, people are upset. they're angry. let's take a look at inside one of those meetings between the relatives of passengers and

airline officials. [ speaking foreign language ] what is the latest from beiji , >> reporter: that map screaming out he can still get hold of his son on a mole phone. experts say it's more likely a quirk in the network. but he was screaming out find our people, search for them now. a great deal of anger and frustration from those family members. several hundred of them stuck in a hotel in beijing. and of course as the time ticks by, that lack of closure, that feeling that they must believe that these people have passed away but they cannot stop hold willing on to hope. >> chinese government

increasingly frustrated and angry with the way malaysia is dealing with this, right, david? >> reporter: that's right. the chinese government has put very pointed statements out saying search for these people. search for this plane. do it as a matter of urgency. you can feel for the chinese government in a way because they have all these people here in beijing. the airline officials say they want to take the family members to lumpur. they say they don't want to go mostly because there is nothing actually there that they can mourn over. a terrible situation for all people involved and all these mixed messages frankly coming from malaysia and vietnam. very difficult for people here in beijing and around the world who might have lost loved ones to deal with because they just want to have some kind of hope as even though hope frankly has faded very much now several days after this plane disappeared. >> david mckenzie in beijing.

thanks very much. still ahead, why the agency is refusing to rule out apact of terror. also tom foreman will give us a virtual look inside a boeing 777 to give us a better sense of what the pilots may have experienced during those moments of crisis. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line, anytime, for $15 a month. low dues, great terms. let's close! new at&t mobile share value plans our best value plans ever for business. if yand you're talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain. this is humira helping me lay the groundwork.

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call... and ask about all the ways you could save. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? crossfire won't be seen today so we can bring you more of the unfolding mystery of flight 370 and even more questions after learning the missing malaysian airliner flew way off course after its

tracking signal went dark. jim sciutto, they're not ruling on the terror. >> no, the clues on the flight have been changing so rapidly and as those clues change and new information comes in, intelligence agencies are reacting, chasing down the leads to see if there are any evidence of a terror link. so far they haven't found that evidence, but as you say, they are not ruling it out. and as cia director john brennan was giving a talk in washington, i learned for the first time about this transponder being turned off. so i asked him about that to see if it increased his fears. here's what he had to say. >> there is information that the transponder was turned off and that it continued to fly, made that turn after the transponder was turned off. and if that information gives you anymore indication or suspicion that it was an act of terror? >> on this issue of the transponder, there are a number of very curious anomalies about

all of this. still a mystery at this point. did it turn around. were the individuals with the stolen passports in any way involved. what about the transponder, why did it sort of just disappear from the radar. there are a lot of unknowns at this point. and so which leads to sort of rampant speculation about the reasons and causes of there are. but i think at this point we just have to again be patient and wait and let the authorities continue to investigate. >> intelligence officials continue to tell me that they have not found any substantial link between this accident or this missing plane and an act of terrorism. but as the director there said, they are checking out every lead. one lead they checked out were these two men traveling on stolen passports. checked their names against the terror database. found no link to terror. they have eliminated that lead. but every day will there is a n lead and they won't rule anything out until they determine conclusion sufferly what led the plane to go missing. >> and he's making it clear the

director of the cia that he's not ruling out terrorism. in fact at one point he said, quote, not at all. and that seemed to suggest a different tone than what we heard from ron noble, head of the interpol, and what we heard from the malaiysiisysian govern itself. it looks like john bran thennan more in-cliclined to give terro more credibility. >> and i asked about that and they said there is no space with those two positions. these were public comments and it would be irresponsible in effect for director to say we have eliminated anything. the fact is they have to chase down these leads. they haven't found anything hard to say that there is a link to terrorism. but they have to keep searching because there are all questions and no answer about this flight. and only that changes, they won't rule anything out.