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. >> jim sciutto, thanks very

much. let's bring in peter king from new york. so what is your -- i know you're getting a lot of information, congressman. what is your inclination right now? >> i would say nothing can be ruled in, nothing can be ruled out. i agree there has been no link shown to terrorism, but on the other hand, there has been no answer for any of this. certainly if we have a plane where the transponder is off, where the route does almost a 180, we have to assume that everything has to be looked at and obviously terrorism would be one of those. now, if there was another theory that made accepts sense or made sense, i would say maybe we should put terrorism to the side. but i think terrorism right now has to be looked at it doesn't mean it was terrorism. don't get me wrong. but we certainly cannot rule it out on the evidence we have so far. >> what about the two young iranian passengers, the two young men flying with the stolen passports? what do you know about them?

>> basically i don't know -- i know what's been reported. the fact is that so far they have shown no licks to them and terrorism. that may well turn out to be true. on the other hand, it's possible there could be links we don't know about. so again, i think that has to be looked at very carefully. again you have all these coincidences of almost a one in a billion type accident, you have two people flying with stolen passports on the plane. you have the transponder going off. you have the plane going in almost the exact opposite direction. also craraises questions about e malaysia itself. they allowed these two on with stolen passports and when they realized the plane was off course, at least an hour and a half, if it was nanyone else, they would put out notices to find out what was happening. so really a lot of unanswered

questions here. >> we did hear from one of the ships the "uss kidd" in the pacific involved in the search. yesterday they were told by the malaysian military that the plane did do a u-turn and they began taking a look on the other side of malaysia where they had not been looking originally. what i hear you saying is you don't have a whole lot of confidence in the made blalaysi authorities. >> no, so far they have dropped the ball. appears they have done nothing right so far. even if the navy was told about it yesterday, that's 48 hours after the fact. to me every minute counts here. and that was such a key point that the plane actually reversed course and was flying back over malaysia toward indonesia. why wasn't that made known, why weren't jets scrambling, why wasn't an alert put out on that immediately? >> what about these two pilot the, the pilot and co-pilot? i'm sure they're taking a very close look at both of them given the history of the airliner that

went down because the pilot deliberately wanted to go down, an egypt airliner that went down because they deliberately wanted to go down. >> again, i don't have details on the two pilots per se, but i know they are being looked at very carefully. there has been one erratic behavior about having people in the cockpit with them. but, no, i think that has to be considered. when this thing first broke on saturday, i was talking to someone in the airline industry who found it even then found it all very unusual. and that person said to me that she thought this could well have been a pilot suicide. again, that is just one of the theories. but right now it's as good as anything since this is so unusual and nothing else has been explained. >> has the u.s. done anything to beef up security in the aftermath of this malaysia airliner mystery? >> there has been no specific

steps taken so far. again, obviously we are more alert, if you will, but no significant changes, but no official designation of a different status. but obviously in an event like this, it certainly causes everyone to focus more than they might have otherwise. we should be focused all the time, but something like this causes us to focus more. >> we discussed at length before the sochi winter olympic game this is alert that went out by the u.s., toothpaste bombs for example being planted on planes in advance of the sochi winter olympic games. and all the briefings you've had with u.s. intelligence, do you have any reason to believe there could be a connection between that public u.s. alert and what happened here? >> no, so far the intelligence community has not been able to find any terrorist connections whatsoever. they're still looking. certainly not ruling it out. but so far, there has been nothing to indicate that. >> peter king, house homeland

security and house intelligence committee. congressman, thanks very much. >> thank you very much. just ahead, certainly one of the safest planes flying anywhere which only deepens this mystery. we'll take a closer look inside a boeing 777. we'll also talk to a retired pilot about one of the most disturbing aspects of all of this, why were both of the plane's transponders disabled. are you ready grandma? just a second, sweetie. [ female announcer ] we eased your back pain, you turned up the fun.

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there are multiple theories about what happened including a catastrophic failure of the plane itself, but the boeing 777 is considered one of the safest anywhere. tom foreman is taking us inside the jet. tell was we know about the 777. >> that is really the key, what we know, not just about the plane, but about the sdipincide. we know that the plane lost contact with the land. we know there was a change of direction. and we know that its the'sly missing. let's talk about the scenario of hijacking. could that account for the basic question of inability to have question with the ground. yes, of course it could. hijackers could force them to turn off the transponders, put the radios off-limits. remember this was happening ins middle of the night. if it were happening in the cockpit in a quiet enough way, many people back in the plane may not is have been aware it

was happening. change of direction, could that happen? of course it could. if they're trying to destroy the plane, it does beg the question why change direction, why would you not just crash it where it was. but none the less, there was a change evof direct. and missing plane, of course it could go missing. let's talk about the idea of a major malfunction. what if all the power went out in here? what if all the power went out, everything went dark and everything failed. in a plane like this, i have to say that is a very hard thing to make happen. there are redundant systems, backup systems, there are battery, all sorts of ways in which they still ought to have power so that they would be able to have some kind of contact. it's hard to imagine, but that's one possibility. change of direction? yeah, if you had some radical problem with the plane, you lost all pressure in the plane, you had something that made the

pilots have to do something different with it, make that turn, sure, that could happen. maybe they can't communicate while they're trying to do that. and the plane missing, yeah, again, if you talk about some kind of radical problem out there, the plane could go missing. but there is a disagreement between the contact and the change of direction. if you're able to change direction of the plane and move it somewhere else, how do you not have enough power at some point in the next hour to call someone and say we're in trouble. let's reset again and look at one more possibility here which people have talked about a bit. the idea of a collision of some sort in the middle of the air. could that have happened. imagine something augered into the front of the plane and it disabled the pilots, disabled communications. made it difficult to fly. could that mean no contact? yes, from the cockpit. could it mean a change of direction? yes, if could. but again if the plane went back over land with passengers in the back,t could. but again if the plane went back over land with passengers in the back, seem like somebody would have had some kind of kagcontac.

could the plane go missing if it collided with some other smaller jet? of course it could. but another plane would be missing, too. and we would be hearing about that from somewhere. so, wolf, when you stack up all these possibilities, we don't have an answer. but when you compare what we know with the possibilities, this is why so many of the aviation community are saying those three facts it tell them that it was a deliberate maneuver to turn the plane and go somewhere else. whether it was done unduress because of terrorists or mechanical be problems, they believe it turned for a reason. although it still is just another step on the way to explaining what actually happened in the real pock kit. >> as you point out, still a theory being investigated. tom foreman, thanks for that report. let's get more now with a retired pilot.

is there any reason ever why a pilot would want to turn off a transponder? >> well, if purpose tly trying be not observed. similar to the one hijacked and taken -- >> so in other words, if there was a hijacking, that would be a reason if the hijacker says i'll kill you if you don't kill off the transponder. >> or the pilot could hijack the plane. it could seek asylum and want to take over the plane. so those are possibilities. but to me, all the things failing at once, not just the transponder, but it leads more to a mechanical electrical problem to me. and i believe on a huge factors basis that these pilots were approaching vietnam which was not well-known to them, to me they were returning with a disabled plane. that is speculate of course. we don't have the facts yet. but they turned it. disabled, reduced navigation,

reduced communication. toward the end the standby you power is only good for 30 minutes or an hour depending on the plane and that's how they went. >> malaysian air force did have radar watching them go across the country of malaysia basically where there are plenty transponder equipment that could potentially receive a ping or some kind of may day communication. >> but everything is electrical. >> no backup in a situation like that? >> you lose all power, you can't push anything, you can't do anything in a says mayday, we're in deep trouble? >> there is oois another transp. so that's what leads me to believe there is an electrical issue. >> so both trance pop dsponderso and the plane would still fly

for an hour and ten minutes? >> it would sustain itself up the final bat theorteries ran o. so the fact it went on a straight course, it wasn't bobbing, it went straight where they thought they were going home. >> how unusual is this? >> extremely. there were five power sources on the way to these batteries and they would have to all fail. i've never heard of it in my career. you ask isn't there one more thing. we haven't ever needed one more thing. >> boeing 777 is one of the most sophisticated aircraft in the world. >> as good as it gets. one of the best ever made. >> all those redundant systems would have to go out at the same time. >> and there is a possibility of com ben nation problems. we could have a combination of prop problems and missteps by the pilot. a million different combinations

that could produce this result. but i believe it was a pilot returning home with a seriously disabled airplane is why they ended up why wr there they did. >> and this notion it's being tracked by malaysian air force radar, but they don't scramble jets, they don't do anything. what does that say to you? >> it wouldn't happen here, but less developed areas, it's conceivable. >> they have a pretty sophisticated system over there. >> they didn't use it. >> obviously didn't which i don't know what that means. >> i don't either. why would they not do anything they could to identify a suspected target. >> that's what several people said to me were involved in the investigation. why didn't malaysian air force do something as they saw this plane approaching going over, they were just monitoring it and saying have a nice flight? >> saving face perhaps. i don't know. >> thanks very much for joining us. up next, made hayes i can't's airline ceo speaking out to cnn about the search for the missing plane.

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are so high, a whopping 11 million dollars plus have been spent. mostly from the outside, mostly on tv ads, much of it about obamacare. but this florida special election is important beyond obamacare. it's the first test of a swing district in 2014. about a third of registered voters are democrats. a third republicans and nearly a third independents. and a very high percentage of seniors, even by florida standards. now, polls close in just a few minutes. the republican candidate david jolly told me today it's 50/50 whether he can eke it out. here at the democrats head quarries we see alex sink is going to be here in a little while. they're boasting about the voter turnout and also on pins and needles. >> stay with cnn throughout the night.

we will project a winner. thanks very much. remember, you can always follow us on twitter. 2003 tweet me at wolf blitzer. sit room, thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." erin burnett outfront" starts right now. >> next, dramatic new information about ma laborer i can't believe airlines flight 370. the plane hundreds of miles off course before it vanished. questions tonight about who the co-pilot was letting into the cockpit. serious accusations that the cia is spying on congress. i'm going to ask the chairman of the house intelligence committee if it's true. new revelations in the oscar pistorius trial. friends are saying the blade runner has a very dangerous history with the guns. let's go "outfront." of good evening. i'm erin burnett. outfront, where is the malaysia airlines flight 0?