the federal aviation administration, china this releasing these images from sunday of three immense floating octobers that appear to be from an airplane, one 43 by 59, one 79 by 72 feet. now to wolf blitzer. the breaking news, following the mystery of flight 370. china releasing satellite images of the suspect crash scene. they appear to show large suspected floating octobers. police in kuala lumpur stem cell research home of the pilot and the flight similar lulatoilar u. can it provide clues? the boeing 777 is views as a reliable airliner. ed by authorities act on an faa safety directive? i'm wolf blitzer.

you're in "the situation room." let's get to the breaking news. china has said one of it satellites has found a crash area of what appear to be large floating objects. we have the kind of coverage only cnn can deliver. our correspondents are standing by along with top analysts and experts. let's go straight to jim sciutto with the latest. what were we learning? >> a remarkable development in six confusing days of misdirection. they look very small but they are very large. 43 feet by 49 feet one of them, 46 by 62 feet, another one 79 feet by 72 feet. a flatbed truck is 48 feet long, a mobile home 28 feet long so these are big pieces floating in

the water. let me show you on the map where they were found. you'll remember the flight took off from kuala lumpur on its way to beijing. this was the point of last contact when its transponder was turned off. and you'll remember this was the area they were searching in in those early days but not finding anything. and then you'll remember they had this radar signal they were tracking which malaysian authorities said might have taken the plane all the way over here to the west of the malay peninsula. they started looking over here at the same time. they weren't fully confident it in, but they at least were looking here. now you have the chinese state television reporting these images located here just to the south and east of where that transponder turned off and also close to where some eye witnesses had said they saw something that night, that friday night in the middle of the night when the plane disappeared. you'll remember there was an oil rig worker somewhere off the coast of vietnam who spotted he said a burning plane, not

verified but you have eyewitnesses who said they saw something happen over here. remarkable but in a way a simpler expla face for what happened. this was a confusing event, had a plane go over here, fly for nearly an hour without any communication with the pilot, any data coming from the plane. over here much simpler to explain that there was some event when it lost that contact with its transponder, lost contact with ground control at the boarder between malaysian and vietnamese radar control space that something catastrophic happened here that might have lost that plane. these are just satellite images at this point but certainly one of the most promising clues we've had so far. ? and you spent considerable amount of time, jim, in china yourself in beijing. you know how the chinese operate. the fact that china, the government of china through its state administration of science technology has released thiz images. we should give them some added weight because they wouldn't be doing it unless they were pretty

convinced it's the real deal. >> no question, and coming from china state tv, which would have connections with those chinese satellite organizations as well. but there's a back story here as well. as this is happening there is a massive territorial dispute going on in the south china sea not far over here. there are a number of island chains disputed between these countries. you have malaysia, indonesia, vietnam, china. you might understand and from a national security standpoint that china with the satellites ree vealing to the world how good those satellites are, how accurately they can depict things on the ground, how big objects they can pick up would be an issue for sensitivity. so for the chinese government to come out and share these now it's revealing something. another thing i should note, the satellite images were dated march 9th, which is sunday. that would have been a little more than 24 hours after the plane lost that contact here. and remember, this is not far from the search area where all those ships from ten countries

including the united states, two u.s. navy ships out there have been looking with no luck so, not far off that search area. but clearly they'll be focusing some resources over here now to see if they can find those big pieces. >> jim sciutto, thanks very much. i want to bring in our panel of experts to assess what's going on. joining us peter goelz, former managing director of the national transportation safety board, retired u.s. air force general richard myers, former chairman of the joint chief of staff, tom fuentes, our cnn law enforcement analyst, former assistant director of the fbi. petr, these new images just released, what do they say to you? >> these are very important and these are the first solid piece of evidence that we have pimt's on the correct flight track. there was great skepticism about the information that the plane did a 930-degree turn. >> that was information that came from malaysian air force. >> that's right. >> they said that the plane went out there, once the transponder

stopped working it made a u-turn and flew for an hour and ten minutes over malaysia to the other side. if these satellite images are accurate, that plane never made aushgs turn. it just went right down. >> i think the general will confirm, radar is a primary return. it's very difficult to identify what aircraft that was. all you know is where it's headed. so i think this is really significant. as it was mentioned the chinese wouldn't have released it unless they had a pretty good feeling on what this is. this is where they need to go and they need to go quickly. >> general, what does it say to you? you're familiar with these kind of operations. >> right, i am. going back to my space command days, one of the reasons they might not have released the images right away is they might not have known they had them. some space assets collect data over time fm you ear looking for a specific day or time frame, you have to take the data and collect it as it's being delog and try and find these needles

in a haystack. that's why it might have been delayed. i'm just guessing of course. but it's the first clue we've had so it gives us a place to focus. >> you agree also if the malaysian air force, which is a pretty good air force, the radar detection when it said it made a u-turn, that could be a simple mistake, inaccurate. >> it could be. you have to have positive identification of what that track is, who that is. if they just saw a radar return in the general vicinity make a left-hand turn, they don't know who that was. >> what does it say to you, tom? if the transponder goes count at that area and the next thing you know there's degree that the chinese satellite images show, what does it say to you? >> that they can analyze the ocean currents and wind at the time and get a better idea of if those objects are floating in that location say 123 hours after the time of the -- 12 hours after the time the plane went down, backtrack to where

the crash site might be and go from there. the transmitting device from the black boxes is is supposed to transmit for 30 days so they have plenty of times to get submarines or destroyers that have the appropriate sonar and look for the pinging of the black boxes that should still be ongoing. >> this is where the u.s. fleet may have been searching, then they moved to the other side of malaysia. but this area presumably in the past five days have been searching thoroughly. >> somewhat surprising they haven't found any debris. >> now we have specific koord nalts of where this debris was. >> as we mentioned, it keeps moving, goes with the currents. but the u.s. navy is very good at figuring that out. >> let's say, peter, this is the remnants of this plane, debris from the boeing 777, the malaysia airlines plane. does this tell us this is some sort of catastrophic explosion

or if it was man made, terrorist, hijackers, pilot suicide? do we have any better sense on that? >> no. i think it's just the opposite. it puts everything back on the table, whereas if you had this 90-degree turn you'd say, all right, somebody was in control of this aircraft and then they took it someplace it shouldn't have gone. in this case we're back at square one. structural, terrorism, are on the table. as soon as we get a look at the wreckage and start to zero in on the data recorder and voice recorder, we will have a solution. >> now that they have the coordina coordinates, how long do you think it will take to find more wreckage including the data recorders? >> it will take some time, but they have a place to focus, they can study the currents and figure out where this has moved from and where it's moving to. we're speculating. we don't even know if this is

the airplane. >> lit take time for ships to get there. if they can get a hold of it, they can determine pretty quickly -- >> they'll see recommend news channels -- remnants of the airplane. >> i want to go to our correspondent in kuala lumpur. what are they saying in malaysia, specifically the families of the folks that were on that plane? they must be in such agony. >> reporter: absolutely, wolf. it's 5:00 in the morning so people will be starting to wake up to this news. obviously this is the biggest clue we've had over the past six days now. there has been so much confusion and pain. there's ban lot of talk about the plane being on the western

side of malaysia. straits of malacca. that turned today into if that was true it just would increase the search area exponentially into the indian ocean which could have meant days or weeks. the transport minister was saying he was fearing it could take days, weeks, longer to get an idea of what happened. if these pieces of debris are found and link up with the plane it will be an enormously painful moment for the families but it will be a moment of clarity. watch and wait now. there would be relief there is something tangible. >> stand by. we'll get back to you. we're going to continue to follow the breaking news.

these chinese satellite images that show what could have been the crash site. large floating octobers according to the chinese government. all this coming even as search efforts had greatly expanded. i' i'll speak with a u.s. navy commander aboard a ship in the region. it's a growing trend in business: do more with less with less energy. hp is helping ups do just that. soon, the world's most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy. multiply that across over a thousand locations, and they'll provide the same benefit to the environment as over 60,000 trees. that's a trend we can all get behind.

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following the break news, learning more about the chinese

satellite images of the suspected crash. two u.s. navy destroyers are among dozens of ships which have been searching in the areas for days. we're into day five of this search. joining us now commander marks of the u.s. navy 7th fleet aboard the "uss blue ridge." you've been helpful to us in the past few days. this new chinese imagery, the specific coordinates of these pieces of debris, has that altered your effort? where are you guys searching now? >> yes, i do not have specific information about that satellite image. i can tell you we are shifting some of our search priorities. a couple developments there. one right now as i speak we're developing plans to move both our destroyers westings, "uss kidd" and "uss pinckney" to head south and west to the strait of

malacca, that direction. the second thing is we're developing a plan to bring a poseidon into the area and that plan actually is the next technological advancement above the p-3. that will give us a second plane. i have to tell you that doesn't mean we'll be flying dual simultaneous migs but it will allow us to alternate or rotate those. the p-3 we're looking at flying a night mission which can use its radar, infrared and even night vision goggles there. >> hold for a moment, commander, because general myers is with us, former chairman of the joint chiefs. you hear the commander explaining what the u.s. military, the navy, is doing in that area. it sounds pretty sophisticated. >> they've got great assets that

can do it day or night. this particular model of the p-3 can do the radar and infrared. if there's stuff out there, they'll find it. that's their wartime mission too. if there's somethings on the surface it will get a return. it tells me the navy is going all out. >> you have if advice for what the u.s. navy doing, what would you as an investigator want commander marks and the men and women who work with him to do? >> when i was at the ntsb we had a standing contract with the supervisor of salvage. they were the most impressive and dedicated men and women i've ever seen. i would never give them advice. i listened to what they say. they no know what they're doing. they were spectacular. courageous beyond any match. >> if you find debris,

commander, say men and women working with you, you can confirm what the thooez have suggested with these satellite images. walk us through what would happen. you send sailors out to try and pick up this dee brie? what do you do?bris? what do you do? >> the first thing to remember is this is a coordinated international effort so we do follow a command and control structure. first thing we would do is report that to the government of malaysia. that only takes a few minutes. one thing we can do is we can stack our aviation assets. for example, if you have a p-3 flying at 5,000 or 10,000 feet that sees something are with radar, then you can get a helicopter in lower, say 500 feet, then you can get a visual i.d. so if you have enough assets you can stack those and get coverage above and below to get that visual identification.

if we get on radar that sector someone in who's closer. that may not be a u.s. asset. say our p-8 finds it on radar and the close assist is a malaysian ship. that's fine because we have coordinated command and control and the malaysian government can vector in whoever happens to be closest. >> these images just south of vietnam but presumably in international watters. isn't that right, commander? >> yes. so far everything we've seen is in international waters. >> even though it is, you still want to coordinate with all of america's international partners in this search operation. >> this is a very complex water space environment and air spaces.

you have to coordinate with communication. you have all these people communicating at the same time. you have to deconflict those circuits. in two dimensions, you have the water space. in three dpepgss you have the air space, and add to that the communications. very complex environment here. >> do you know off the top of your head, commander, who's closest to this suspected debris that the chinese are talking about? >> i don't want. i'm sorry i don't. >> they have in this statement that they put out they have put out the specific coordinates of where these three large pieces of metal or whatever they are have been detected. anything else to tell us before you go, commander? >> at this point you have to start watching fatigue, not just on your people, which it is a factor, but on equipment also. you can't run your equipment 24

hours or else it's going to fail. so we're watching crew fatigue and our equipment fatigue. i'm sure everyone out here is. but that's something we're looking closely at. >> commander william marks with the u.s. navy 7th fleet aboard the "uss blue ridge" command ship. we'll stay in close touch with you. you've been very helpful to us in "the situation room" over the past several days. good luck to the men and women with you. up next, what do these new satellite images reveal about what might have happened to malaysia airlines 370? peoi go to angie's listt for all kinds of reasons. to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. angie's list members can tell you which provider is the best in town. you'll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare. now that we're expecting, i like the fact i can go onto angie's list and look for pediatricians. the service providers that i've found on angie's list

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jo major breaking news we're following here. chinese satellite have found debris. jim sciutto has been looking

into the late developments. for viewers tuning in, update us because this is significant. >> it is. particularly after five days of confusion since the flight was lost. these images released by this chinese government, and they are now calling this in their words a suspected crash area at sea. let's have a look at where on the map. first of all, you'll remember this was the last communication here when the transponder was turned off from flight 370. this is where the satellite images are. just to the south and east of where that plane first finally lost contract. i want to show you what those images looked like. they're satellite images. they might look small at home but they're large, in fact, the three of them, one 43 feet by 59 feet, another 46 feet by 62 feet, another 79 feet by 72 feet. for comparison, a mobile home is smaller than that, 28 by 60 feet, a flatbed truck 48 feet

long so these are bigger than that. all in this area here. ma what's interesting, you'll remember in the last couple days we began to hear about this alternative path the flight may have taken. there were some radar signals that showed it taking a left turn going all the way south and west of the malay peninsula here, a last communication so said the malaysian military. a little island right here and then somewhere out to the sea, maybe indonesia, that now, if these images appear to be part of this plane, appears to be soft. this much more natural if in fact there was some catastrophic event when that transponder went off, perhaps a crash, perhaps an act of terrorism. to be clear intelligence officials have told us they have no indication of terrorism, but this location here much more consistent with a catastrophic event. up to this point, the search area has been around here. lost contact. when they came up with this theory they had to expand into

the indian ocean. obviously a very difficult thing to do. this you can imagine is going to have those resources, ships from ten countries including two ships from the u.s. navy, to focus their attention down here to see if these pieces are pieces of that missing flight. >> a very, very important potential development. we don't know if it's 100% accurate right now. clearly very significant. stand by. i want to go to beijing, pauline chu stand big. the chinese government have released these satellite images, released specific coordinates of these large chunks of metal or whatever have been found. tell our viewers what you're hearing in beijing. >> reporter: we're getting our information from the state website of china's satellite resource center. it's important to look at the time line because these satellite images were captured sunday morning march 9th at 11:00 a.m., a day after the plane disappeared.

they just released these images wednesday evening, 6:00 p.m. local time. so that is four full days after these images were captured. so that brings to the forefront the question of did china know about these images before hand, before they released them, and how much earlier did they know about them and did they share these images with the malaysian government and malaysia airlines? keep in mind that more than two-thirds of the passengers on this flight were from china, more than 150 of them, and china has been stepping up the pressure to the malaysian government to step up their search-and-rescue efforts so it would seem odd if this information had been withheld. but the time line is critical. also on the website, wolf, there is a translation that we got in comments about these images. they say that the agency, this satellite resource center, will be continuing to organize

satellite resources based on developments of the investigation and will optimize their imaging and will share that with malaysia airlines as well as the government. once again, it's key to focus on this time line. >> have they given any explanation, the chinese hshgs why they waited from sunday morning until now to release these satellite images? >> reporter: no explanation. this was just released at 6:00 p.m. wednesday night so no explanation. all they are saying is that these images were captured on sunday morning and then we started to see these images four days later. but no explanation. all they are saying is is that they will optimize and continue to scan these photos and these images and share that with malaysia. >> pauline chu in beijing, thank you. i want to go back to jim sciutto. you're getting more a sense of what's going on. >> it is far from an exact science just as a matter of

caution. we have on the wall the dimensions of a 777 200, wingspan 200 feet long, the length about 200 feet long as well. when you talk of these potential pieces as seen many the satellite images, 43 by 59, 43 by 62, that could be any part of the plane or in fact these are busy water, it could be something else. and because the speed of the plane may have hit the water, hard to identify. it may not look like a piece of a plane from the air. that's the difficulty now. we're told by barbara starr who spoke with a senior pentagon official that the u.s., which of course has its own accurate and capable satellites now going to look back at its own satellite data in that same area to see if it can find any information to corroborate what these chinese government officials are saying. >> these are heavily traveled arias and ships just dump a lot of junk in those areas as well so let's have a little caution

in terps of concluding 100% this is the wreckage. >> remember, the radar imagery we got in the last 24, 48 hours, they're still piecing together this investigation to confirm. >> jim sciutto, thanks very much. joining us the aviation expert clive irving, senior consulting editor, conde nast editor. cnn's own richard quest. clive, what do you make of these chinese satellite images? do you think this could be the wreckage of the plane? i don't know if clive is hearing me. clive, can you hear me? >> yeah, i can hear you. >> we're going to have to fix that audio.

>> the key word as you know is "may." this story has become transcendent, and by that i mean it's moved from being a story about a presumed air disaster to a mystery story. where is the missing airplane. i think that's the aspect that's captivated people to this point. meanwhile also, it's been subject to all sorts of miscommunication i think right from the start. and the reasons for that you've got these different investigative entities halfway around the world at least for some of us. there are language issues and their message gets put into the media which, you know, filters it through. by the time we hear the latest news it may or may not be exactly what the people on the other end are saying. so things get garbled. we heard that the plane veered off course and now apparently that may not have been true. then you've got the very confusinging vernacular of

commercial aviation and attempts to simplify terms like transponder and radar. i mean, these things mean different things. and by trying to super simplify them, again, the message gets garbled. so there's ban lot of confusion. now this piece of wreckage, if that's what it is, is bringing us full circle almost back to the idea that something very quick and instantaneous and catastrophic may have happened. but that itself goes one of two ways. are we talking about some kind of foul play, a hijacking that ended in a catastrophe or was it something strictly mechanical? we don't know. and everybody wants an answer right away. and unfortunately with these sorts of things that's not how it works. air disasters sometimes take weeks, months, even longer before we know really what happens. and i think people have to be prepared for the possibility, though it's not a likely one, that we'll flaefrlly know completely what happened. >> good point.

patrick, stand by. richard kwe, our correspondent who's also an expert on all of this, what's your reaction when you heard the chinese government say they have what may be some of the wreckage of the flight? >> i'm going to be a little more definitive than maybe some of your other guests. look, i recognize it could be, possibly, the potential, but i'm much more optimistic that it is. for all the reasons that we've heard i can caveat my answer up the wazoo, but if it's in the right place. if you look at the distance between where the plane was last and this debris has been found the current suggests it's the right direction. the chinese knowing as we do would not be just willy-nilly putting out this sort of information if it hadn't been well and truly vetted and looked at. so as a piece of evidence it's -- wolf, you said it yourself at the beginning of the program. as a piece of evidence it's the

single biggest, most important development that this story has had since the plane went missing. because it's the only piece of evidence, it's only part of the story that frankly makes sense. >> richard, stand by. i want to go back to clive irving in london again. his assessment of what's going on. go ahead, clive. el us in the aftermath of the chinese satellite images being released, what's your thought? >> well, i'm looking at the dimensions of these pieces of wreckage and they don't conform to anything that's on the plane. if you put up the image that you had earlier of the dimensions of the 777, it's got long, slender wings designed so the plane is very efficient flying at high altitude. these pieces of wreckage, i've got the dimensions here, 79 x 72 feet, that's very square and very big. you have to think about what pieces of the plane survive and float around on the water. the pieces that float are

basically the lightest pieces. the heaviest pieces sink. the lightest pieces are usually the wings and the tail and there's no part as far as i can see in the dimensions in the 777 where those metal parts conform to those sizes. they're very big square sizes. the most rugged part of a plane, the part that never breaks apart whatever happens to it virtually is what's called the wing box, the wing joints and fuselage. that's sometimes found in one piece but that's nothing like this size or shape. so i'd love to think this is really the wreckage, and as richard says it's in the right place, seems to be in the right place, if it's so close to that course. and it seems to be floating. mind you, these images are not that distinct so if i wanted to be more optimistic i could say it's clusters of wreckage. but if those are the correct dimensions of what they've spotted, they don't conform to any part of that plane i can

see. >> clive irving, patrick smith, richard quest, stand by. i want to take a quick break. the safety record of the boeing 777 and what is that safety record? more on that, more on the possible sighting of malaysia flight 370 wreckage by chinese satellites. our breaking news coverage continues. [announcer] if your dog can dream it, purina pro plan can help him achieve it. ♪ epic classical music stops ♪music resumes music stops ♪music resumes [announcer] purina pro plan's bioavailable formulas deliver optimal nutrient absorption. [owner] come on. [announcer] purina pro plan. nutrition that performs.

breaking news, china releasing satellite images of suspected crash site from malaysia airlines 370. they appear to show large floating objects as experts try

to determine what may have gone wrong aboard that boeing 777 which has a reputation as an extremely safe and reliable aircraft. rene marsh has been looking into the boeing 777. what are you finding out? >> we can tell you that more than 300 have been sold to u.s. companies and worldwide. there are even more than 1,100 of these planes. people are still getting on these planes every day, so it is critical to find out what went wrong with flight 370. with more than 1,100 boeing 777s worldwide having flown roughly 5 million flight, capable of carrying more than a billion people, it's considered one of the safest in the sky. now with the disappearance of malaysia airlines flight 370, the plane is under the microscope. the first 777 rolled off the assembly line in the early '90s. now it's flown by almost every major airline. american has 57, delta 18, and united 74.

in its 19-year history only one fatal crash. the asiana airlines crash in san francisco last july. early indicators point to pilot error. the faa's website list more than 100 airworthiness directives for the 777. they alert airlines to potential issues with the plane so they can inspect or repair it. last september a warning that 777s could have cracks in the top of the plane near an antenna. the faa called for frequent inspections and warned it could lead to rapid decompression and loss of structural integrity of the plane. >> the general public read every airworthiness directive no one would fly because it's frightening, but it's not. they're like recalls on cars. they're routine. every plane has issues. >> reporter: michael goldfarb is the former faa chief of staff. he says if the faa thought that the potential cracking was significant enough it would have grounded the fleet. does that mean this air

directive and the history of this air directive or warning is irrelevant? >> no. it's very relevant. what we don't know is whether malaysian air completed that repair. >> reporter: wednesday malaysia airlines ceo couldn't answer if flight 370 was checked for that issue. >> for this specific plane i will have to check on the record. >> reporter: let's just say that malaysian airlines did not do the required inspection. does it change things? >> it only adds another piece of the puzzle. it only tells investigators that going in there may be a structural program needs to be run to ground. >> reporter: along with hunting down that potential lead they're also going to be looking at maintenance records, transmission from the plane's engines, and they're also going to be looking to learn all they can about the crew. wolf? >> certainly will. rene marsh, thanks very much. let's dig deeper right now. joining us, the pilot keith bolezinger, he flies 777s and patrick smith, author of the website askthepilot.com.

keith, if these satellite images are correct, and we don't know if they are, they may be correct, may not be, this is what the chinese satellite agency has released saying they found these three suspicious large pieces of debris floating there in the waters just south of vietnam. but say they are correct. what does that say to you? >> wolf, i'm by no means a satellite imagery expert but if the images are correct and if they are parts of the missing airplane, that might indicate that the aircraft was intact upon impact with the water. if the airplane had had a structural in-flight breakup there would have been a much larger debris field covering many, many miles. >> as a pilot of the 777, keith, does it say anything to you at all about the potential cause of a plane simply losing its transponder and crashing into the water, let's say? >> no, not exactly.

simply losing a transponder or had a malfunction with the transponder, for example, wouldn't be related to any kind of crash scenario. normally transponders operate all the way until in this example, for example, impact with the water. so the fact that the transponder may have stopped functioning somewhat prior to the impact may or may not play into it. >> and patrick smith, you know a lot of about these 777s. what would it take for a 777 like that to lose its electrical power, simply crash into the sea? >> it would take quite a bit, but to back up a step, wolf, i don't necessarily like this line of analysis where you're talking about the 777 itself comparing it to other aircraft. this is a point i make in my book where the fact is that all modern commercial aircraft are extraordinarily safe.

and the 777 is no exception. when you start comparing plane to plane, that's not a fair analysis because different models are suited for different roles. the so comparing it to, say, the 737, it's apples and oranges to some extent. it becomes kind of an academic exercise. i think we should be content with the fact that all commercial airplanes are very, very safe, then kind of go from there. further to that point, i hope this incident doesn't start to undermine really the fact that commercial air travel nowadays is extraordinarily safe. last year. >> you're absolutely right. >> as you probably know was the safest year in the entire history of commercial aviation. >> all right. >> and we've done such a good job at engineering out what used to be the most common causes of accidents, the ones that we do see -- >> all right, patrick. >> tend to be kind of strange.

>> we're up against a clock, but you make an excellent point. just ahead, more of the breaking news. our coverage of the chinese satellite images that may, repeat, may show the wreckage of malaysia flight 370. we don't know if it is wreckage, but we're getting more information. we'll have a special report coming up also at the top of the hour. tall the building is, or how ornate the halls are.

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in ways you never thought possible. welcome to what's next. comcastnbcuniversal. we have much more of the breaking news coverage of the possible sighting of wreckage from flight 370. but first other news we're

following. the crisis in ukraine arriving at the white house doorstep. president obama met with the country's interim prime minister just a while ago. jim acosta has details. >> reporter: wolf, president obama reassured the interim prime minister of ukrainian yatsenyuk that the united states will oppose the upcoming referendum this week in crimea. this referendum scheduled for sunday is not legitimate in the eyes of the obama administration. he said that he hopes in the days ahead there will be a rethinking on the part of the russians when it comes to this referendum. that's an indication of what's happening next. john kerry is headed to london to meet with his russian counterpart sergey lavrov. and the state department had said earlier this week that kerry would not make such a trip unless russia was showing concrete steps in terms of being open to a diplomatic path forward. i talked to a senior administration official who said the secretary would not be making that trip unless they saw

those steps being taken, so there's a small glimmer of hope there, but a very stark assessment coming from yatsenyuk where he told the president quote we'll never surrender when talking about the russian occupation of crimea, but i asked him just outside the west wing when he came out to talk to reporters just briefly, would president putin of russia stand down, does he believe that vladimir putin would back down and it was very striking what he said, wolf. he said if russia's allowed to invade and occupy and take over crimea, the rest of ukraine could come next. >> jim acosta with the latest on that very important story. coming up, we'll get back to the breaking news including our special report on malaysia airlines flight 370. the just-released satellite photos that may show some wreckage of the plane. [ male announcer ] this is the cat that drank the milk... [ meows ]

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with a mortgage that's engineered to amaze. happening now, breaking news, in the mystery of flight 370. satellite images that may, repeat may show the missing airliner. the data is now being analyzed. investigators are desperate for a break in this baffling case. we'll see if these new images lead searchers in a direct direction after five excruciatingly difficult days with no trace of the plane. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." this is cnn breaking news. >> we begin with the breaking news this hour. a potentially -- repeat potentially critical new lead in the mist of flight 370. five days after the jet vanished without a trace. the chinese satellite has detected what chinese officials are calling a suspected crash

area at sea. the three images that appear to show floating objects were captured on sunday a day after the plane disappeared relatively near the jet's original flight path, but we must caution. we don't know if this is indeed wreckage from flight 370. our correspondents and analysts are working their sources. we're getting new information about the breaking new story. we're updating it all the time. but let's get some perspective our chief national security jim sciutto has the very latest. because these images are very intriguing. >> no question, but as you say it's early. we've had confusing information about this flight some even conflicting. so it's just a clue but a potentially significant clue. they may not look like much at home. they look small but they're large. 40 by 60 feet. larger than a flat bed truck. location is key because they were found where this x is just to the south and the east of the

last correspondence with this plane when that transponder that automatic signal it sends out went off. so you can guarantee, as light comes up, it's still early over there, but as the first light comes up, this area they've been searching before with no luck, you can guarantee a lot of those ships are going to be looking down here to see if these do indeed turn out to be part of that plane. tonight new satellite images released by the chinese government may suggest that the plane went down close to where it lost contact. but there is still no reasons as to why. five days after mh-370 vanished, investigators are still examining every possible explanation. the list remains, mechanical failure, hijacking, bombing or other sabotage or even pilot suicide. today they searched the home of one of the pilots for possible clues. they questioned a friend of the two iranian men who were traveling on false passports. and they scoured radar data to establish what the plane did

after its transponder stopped sending a signal. steven wallace is former director of the faa's office of investigation. >> airplanes can go off course because of a mistake by a pilot. they can go offcourse because a pilot deliberately flies them off course. we have the ethiopian pilot recently fly through geneva. >> also of interest, the plane's last communication occurred right at the transition between malaysian and vietnamese air space which could add to the confusion in finding the plane. >> the point of maximum confusion where malaysia thinks everything is fine, it suddenly disappears. and that gives it the maximum opportunity to fly in any particular direction unmonitored. >> reporter: tonight malaysian authorities are still searching on both sides of the malay peninsula. they've asked american authorities to help interpret all key data. one key question is what other data streams was the plane sending out after its transponder stopped? rolls royce engines like the

ones on the boeing 777 have the capability to send out data. rolls royce won't say if they did on this flight. >> you talk about conflicting information. so the state of play now is you have the chindz government using its satellites saying it sees signs of the plane here to the south and east of the where the plane last had its communication. you have the radar data showing the plane possibly going here to the south and west, opening up a whole other search area here. you talk about how this is like searching for a needle in a haystack, this is like searching for a needle in two haystacks. imagine the difficulty with limited resources. we're six days in and just these signs being possibly the most promising signs so far but only clues. >> clues, the mystery, though, clearly continuing. jim sciutto, thanks very much. let's go to malaysia. what are you hearing over there? >> still about an hour away from

sun up here, wolf. we got calls and we haven't got any response yet from the malaysian government. but certainly this does at this stage look like one of the stronger leads. the search has just been getting wider and wider and there has been no clear direction really to this search. as jim was just saying the focus has been on the last day or o so which has been confusions, this radar track which took an unidentified plane roughly from where the flight 370 lost contact back across malaysia and out into the strait of malacca. looking at that track, the officials were starting to say that these search area which they're starting to focus on just could extend right out into the indian ocean which could be not a matter of days but weeks to look across such a vast area of sea. having this new image come in from the chinese government suggests that at least there is a lead here. it's going to come as massive -- i don't use the word "relief,"

but a piece of news that the families of the passengers on that plane can hold on to. that there is maybe something tangible out there rather than the confusion and the sometimes conflicting reports here in malaysia and the way this investigation, this search has been expanding. it doubled in size yesterday, the actual search area doubled in size just yesterday. both sides of malaysia being looked at now. this at least offers a focus. >> a focus, let's hope it plans out. if in fact it pans out, we'll see. we don't know yet, but an intriguing clue to be sure. andrew stevens in kuala lumpur. in beijing david mckenzie is joining us. what are you hearing? >> reporter: wolf, what we're hearing is that this is coming from a chinese state organization. they released these three photographs taken from satellite images. definitely significant because of the size and location where they say these objects are,

which they're calling a, quote, potential crash site. they say these are in the vicinity nearby southeast of where that plane vanished early saturday. two questions i had. one, why did this take so long to come out? the answer to that might be either they were examining these details for some time wanting to be sure, or for some reason, which would be more disturbing, they took their time to release them. the second question we all have is this significant or is it just another false lead that we've been having for days since the beginning of this mystery? >> two-thirds of the passengers aboard that malaysian airliner were from china. i assume the grief there continues. give us a little sense of how people in china are reacting to what's going on. >> well, the people who are in that hotel near the airport, yes, they are sad, they're angry, they're frustrated, wolf. every time there's this kind of

lead, it really gives them some hope of closure. at this point there's very little hope they'll see their loved ones again. one poignant detail, i spoke to a woman late in the evening. she said he hopes the plane was hijacked because then there's some chance that her son might be alived. really they're clinging on to my hope. interestingly, the chinese state media has barely mentioned this mystery objects that the satellite have seen. it indicates that the government doesn't want to talk too much about this issue in general here in china, which for me is an interesting fact because they are right in the middle of important meetings here and this whole thing is a distraction for the communist party. >> interesting point, david mckenzie in beijing for us. thank you. let's bring in our aviation correspondent rene marsh, what are you learning? >> the big question is what happens next? how do they go about looking into this, determining if this is truly what we believe it may

be. we know that from past ocean crashes, both air and sea assets, meaning boats as well as aircrafts, they'll go to this scene and also scientists, they will be helping in determining the impact of ocean currents and the winds on the debris. because remember, this satellite imagery that we're looking at, it's not from today. you have to account for that that perhaps it was there at one point but at this point it may be in a totally different place because of winds and current. now, we just spoke to david gallo of the woods hole oceanographic institution. and he tells us that the sea depths in that area, they vary. it can be as deep as 300 feet. it can be as shallow as 15 feet. even at its deepest, though, keep this in mind, the water is shallower than the plane is long. this is a very, very long plane that we're talking about here. of course, the experts suspect that the plane is really badly

damaged if it did actually crash on impact, it would really just break apart. but this would be very different. this sort of search would be very different than that 2009 crash of air france off the coast of brazil. in that case, the plane disintegrated and it settled some 12,000 feet deep. that required specialized equipment to go and recover the so-called black boxes. we're talking about the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. now, in this case, at depths of about 300 feet or so in the area that we're talking about, it would be much easier to try and locate and recover the data recorders. simply because that water is much more shallow than what we saw in 2009. let's talk a little bit about those recorders. as we've been saying, they are equipped with underwater locator beacons. and what those beacons do they emit a signal essentially. and those signals are activated

once it hits water, whether it's fresh water or saltwater. it starts sending out this pulsing, one time per second. you have to be within a certain radius in order to pick it up. it's designed, that pulsing action, is designed to last for about 30 days. you can't hear it with the human ear, but if you have specialized sonar equipment, you can detect that signal. so you can bet if it does come out that perhaps this is what we're looking at, parts of the plane, they would then go ahead and deploy that kind of equipment so that they can find those critical pieces of the plane which is those data recorder, wolf. >> rene marsh with that important information, thank you. let's bring in fran townsend. she's a member of the cia's external advisory board. our friend yesterday we heard from the director of the cia saying he's not ruling out terrorism at all, not at all. he said i know you're pretty

well plugged in, but what's your sense on what's going on? we obviously don't know, but what are you hearing? >> wolf, there's no question that the cia is working with its ally intelligence services around the world, the cia here in the united states has got tremendous relationships throughout that region and you be sure that they're talking to those folks to find out what are they hearing. they'll also be working with their technical intelligence counterparts. so the nsa. you'll work with -- especially in this case where you see satellite imagery, wolf, they'll be working with the national geospatial folks who analyze classified satellite imagery. the chindz have turned this over. it's not clear that the chinese would have revealed even their best satellite images. there are techniques by which you can let's call it fuzz the mop, right? so it's not exactly clear the strength of the satellite, the angle of the photograph. they would have put them out to be helpful but they probably wouldn't have wanted to reveal

their most technical capability. similarly the united states wouldn't either. you can bet, wolf, that right now, as regards the debris pictures from the chinese satellites, american satellite capability is being turned to this and looked at at the highest levels including our greatest technical capability so they get the greatest fidelity, they'll be able to help measure things like water current, wind, the effects on it. they'll get a much more capable understanding about what that debris is in the water to be able to either confirm that this is airplane debris from the malaysia flight or dismiss it. >> it's not daylight over there, too, so they'll have a better shot to take a look at the coordinates where the chinese satellite images show this kind of debris. richard quest is with us as well. richard, you're a little bit more upbeat, optimistic that this may be the real deal, right? >> yes, i am. i mean, i've heard your previous experts questioning the size of

the items and all those sort of things and they don't fit the profile of the 777, the wings or the bits that would float. i still -- look, i could be completely and utterly off beam here and this is, whichever way you look at it, wolf, this is the best clue we've had so far. i'll go further, it's the only clue we've had so far. if this does not prove to be the wreckage of 370, then the search is back to square one. and we're back to looking at all that very peculiar business over radar images. we have to hope. >> and you know, richard and fran, but let me throw the question to richard, there were some eyewitness accounts that people say they saw something suspicious in this general area. now, eyewitness accounts can be wrong, as we all know. they can be misleading. you don't know if you're seeing something accurate, inaccurate. but this isn't the general area

where that transponder stopped sending information back about where the plane was. >> you know, again, hostage to fortune in saying this because in three hours time i could be eating the words. it looks right metaphorically, it feels right, it's got the right sense about it in the sense that the chinese have released this information and they're going to be very sure that it is. but this is really -- what's important here, wolf, is that now we as the public are seeing exactly just how difficult this is. you've got satellite imagery that looks, feels, could be and then in the flash of a moment it could turn out to be absolutely not. and we'll be back to square one. >> i think that's an excellent point. fran, even if it is the wreckage, it doesn't tell us why this plane -- the wreckage is in the water. there's all sorts of explanations, all sorts of theories from catastrophic

electrical power outage, engine disruption or whatever or some sort of human involvement in bringing this plane down, whether -- and we've heard some experts suggest hijacking potentially could be a possibility because that transponder, the two transponders, once they're shut down that's very, very significant. i went back just to double-check my memory, i went back to the 9/11 commission report, fran, to see what those four planes that were hijacked by those 19 hijackers, those al qaeda hijackers back on 9/11. let me read to you from the 9/11 commission report. it may or may not be relevant in this case. here's from the report. on 9/11 the terrorists turned the off the transponders on three of the four hijacked aircraft. with its transponder off, it is possible, though more difficult, to track an aircraft by its primary radar returns. as i say, this is all highly

speculative right now, but if in fact this is some sort of act of terror, turning off those transponders would be sort of part of the game, the hijackers on 9/11 did that immediately. >> that's right, wolf. and you don't know -- and i think that explains exactly why the cia director here in the united states said he would not rule out terrorism. you know, if this is the wreckage of the plane, it begins to provide some forensic clues, but that's what they are, they're clues that will have to be pieced back together. the voice recorder from the cockpit will be very important. remember, in egypt air 990, there's a pilot who decided to commit suicide and take that plane down. but that was put to rest. you knew exactly what happened there, not by finding the wreckage but by listening to the voice recorder. you understand exactly what happened in the cockpit and that had been a pilot who made a tragic decision and took the entire plane down with him. finding the wreckage is very

important, but because it is a pathway then to additional forensic information and potentially finding the black box and the voice of the cockpit voice recorder. >> fran townsend, thanks very much. richard quest, thanks to you as well. the story, the mystery continues. we'll take a quick break. much more coming up. vo: once upon a time there was a boy who traveled to a faraway place

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for our viewers in north america, "crossfire" won't be seen tonight so we can bring you more of our special report on the flight 370 mystery. we're following the breaking news. the chinese government revealing three satellite images that may, repeat may show the missing

malaysian airliner. officials are scrambling to assess this information and whether these images actually show a crash site or if this is simply another false lead. let's bring in tom foreman who is joining us from our virtual studio. tom, what are you seeing, what are you hearing? >> we're doing the same thing, analyzing the information about these images to see if it fits into the narrative we know so far. we know what happened. let me bring in the big map here. we know the plane took off, it flew for about an hour, then it vanished utterly about here. we know now that the chinese say these pictures came from right over here. so the distance between where the plane disappeared and where the chinese say they got this picture, about 140, 141 miles. so some distance between the two. this is not a terrible area in which to search for wreckage. about 200 feet deep here. there are a lot of currents to deal with, if you go about that grim job. you suey that little circle

there. that's where the chinese say they took these pictures. if you look at these imangs of currents there's enough pushing around that depending on when they took the pictures it could have pushed wreckage quite some distance, not just water currents but air currents as well. let's look at the image itself because that's really the challenge here. these are not very good images, as rene noted a short while ago. the chinese must have better pictures to work with because, in terms of satellite pictures, this is pretty low quality when you consider the size of the objects. we've been talking since they were reported, wolf, that the smallest one of these is roughly 40 to 60 feet, 40 by 60 in size. the largest between 70 on one side, 80 on the other. as a ballpark, say that's about half the size of a basketball court. can you get something like that out of a plane like the 777? let's talk about the dimensions on the 777 because this is an immense aircraft.

it's important to bear that in mind. if you were to start on that wing over there, if you stood on the wing and you could walk right through the middle of the plane to the other wing, when you stepped out on the other side, you would have covered about 36 feet. that gives you an idea how big it is. if you started on a wing tip and you walked all the way to other wing tip over there, 212 feet. so yes, wolf, you could get pieces that big out of an airplane this large. and that is another reason why they were looking at this evidence so closely and wondering if this leads to the very grim business of going underwater and salvaging what's left of it. >> tom foreman in our virtual studio. we'll take another quick break, resume the breaking news coverage. we have some experts standing by to assess what's going on. so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 a month? yup. all 5 of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text.

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we're following the breaking news. i'm wolf blitzer in washington. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. the breaking news, china has released what it says are satellite images that may, repeat may, show debris from the malaysia