that's it for "the lead." i'm jake tapper. i switch you over to wolf blitzer. wolf? >> jake, thanks very much. happening now, the mystery of flight 370 as they sit through conflicting information. investigators have new reason to believe the missing airliner could have flown for several hours after the last radar reading was received. new details about the signals from the airliner apparently received by satellites. we're looking at how planes transmit such data and how it can help the search. and the u.s. military is expanding its search towards the indian ocean anded aing a powerful new asset to that hunt, we'll get an update from a navy ship commander deployed in the region. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." we have new information in the search for malaysia airlines flight 370. u.s. officials say investigators have pings suggesting the

missing airliner may have flown for several hours after the last radar reading was taken. the hunt for the missing airliner is expanding to the west. the u.s. navy may send a destroyer to the strait, leading to the vast indian ocean where the white house now says a new search area may be open. during a search of clouded confusion and false leads turning into dead ends, anxious families grow even more desperate. we're taking a look at the role of the malaysian government giving conflicting accounts and holding back critical information. we have the kind of coverage only cnn can deliver. our correspondents are standing by along with our analysts and experts. let's begin with barbara starr. she has new information. b barbara? >> wolf, u.s. officials are working with malaysians and there are pings, signals that they believe very strongly came from this aircraft as it was

flying west away from malaysia. these pings are now being analyzed and it is what in great part leading to the expansion of the search area into the vast indian ocean. the official says the pings coordinate, koocorrelate, if yo will, with the type of aircraft with this kind of engines. none of it has been 100%. this has been a very confusing story, the information garbled and at times not accurate. u.s. officials are still being very cautious. but behind the scenes, there is an expectation that the u.s. navy will move its destroyer, the "uss kidd" where it has been searching on into the indian ocean. this is a vast area to search

but they believe now that they have some information at least that indicates this plane may have flown up to four or five hours out into the indian ocean and that may provide the final answer about what happened to this flight. wolf? >> if it flew four or five hours after the transponders stopped transmitting signals back to ground station, it could have gone a lot further than the indian ocean, right? >> they have calculated at this point the range of the aircraft, based on the fuel that they thought would have been left from the last time they had communication with it. that's part of why they are looking there. there are also indications, wolf, that the satellite that picked up the pings, they have been able to do some calculations about where all of this came from. so the clues are not adding up

but it is far from certain and far from the final answer. wolf? >> barbara starr reporting from the pentagon, thank you. with a possibility that the plane flew for hours, maybe four, five hours longer than thought, the vast indian ocean may now become the new focus for an expanded search. let's bring in jim sciutto. he's working this part of the story. jim? >> wolf, speaking to u.s. officials involved in this investigation, it's my understanding that these pings are now an important clue connecting to other clues that they have that leads them to the direction of the indian ocean. the radar signature that we've been reporting for the last couple of days that showed the plane go north, take this turn and then head out towards the indian ocean, they added to that the sense of the range that barbara mentioned as well. the amount of fuel it had in its tanks could take it this far. what that creates, then, is a search area that is bigger and

it creates a very big search area and much shallower areas, space and lots of ships going around, much deeper waters, much wider that's going to be a challenge going forward. do you remember when we talked about the air france crash in 2009, it took place in the middle of the atlantic ocean, it took them two years to find that plane looking under the water, a very deep water with submersibles but they knew in general where that plane went down. here they are working on less information. a very long search operation here and as they are doing that, imagine those deep waters as well. this is going to be what they are looking and listening for, the flight data recorder. we always call it the flight box. the bigger the search area is, the deeper the water is, the harder it is to find. >> we have emergency locators. we're going to show our viewers what that is about.

i want to introduce peter goelz, cnn law enforcement analyst tom fuentes. peter, let's talk about this new development and it's a huge development now because if in fact this plane flew four or five hours after the transponders stopped sending signals, where could this plane be? >> you're absolutely right, wolf. one, it's good news a little bit because it's showing that the agencies and malaysian government are cooperating more, looking at the radar together, the satellite data together, they are making decisions that our government and their government can agree on. that's a plus. but as you said, this area is tremendously large. this is an impossible task. they've got to narrow it down more.

>> and correct me if i'm wrong, as a result of this new development, the likelihood that there was a catastrophic mechanical error as opposed to some human getting involved and doing this, the likelihood of mechanical problem has dimmed. >> that's right. the mechanical structural has reduced and human increased. >> so where does that leave the investigation now, tom? you've led these investigations in the past. i know there is cooperation with the malaysians but there are a lot of questions out there. >> there is no question about that but what this means is that even from the beginning they would have been looking at the human element and did it get

hijacked and did the pilots fly there? that tends to confirm the speculation that came from the source of the air force general or whoever he was from the malaysian air force that that plane did make that turn, it did go west toward the indian ocean or farther, could go as far as india or pakistan if it stayed on that course. >> it could have reached pakistan. it had enough fuel to do that. >> it had enough fuel to do that. somebody was flying the plane in that direction on purpose. whether it be a hijacker or the pilots themselves, someone was in control of that plane while it stayed in the air. >> somebody took the transponder and turned it off. turning it off. we'll get to that in a moment. but there's no doubt, you've been checking with intelligent sources here in washington, do they think it was terrorism? do they think it was pilot suicide? what do they think is going on here? >> their assessment has been consistent and it's been nothing yet to indicate an act of terror

but they are not ruling outer ror. you've heard john brennan echo that a few days ago. i asked if it changes the assessment and they said it changes nothing. still no hard indication of terror but they leave that option open. >> when you look at the raw data, how reliable is this information, that there were pings coming from the engines, going up to satellites and they were determining that the flight could fly for four or five hours? barbara just said it's not 100%. >> it's not 100%, just like the radar is not 100%. there's some arc to interpreting this data and i think they've got to get the pings, they've got to confirm it through a second or third source but i think they are headed in the right direction. it sounds more compelling that all of the agencies are now agreeing with this decision. >> here's what is worrisome and

i assume it's -- it's taken six days to learn all of this and you say there's good cooperation with the malaysian police but what about the malaysian government? there's been a lot of confusing statements including flat denials earlier in the day that we are now reporting. >> i think the confusion has been the information of the different interpretations of radar and pings and transponder is really beyond the expertise of law enforcement. so even the best cooperation and even the military people, this has to be now the art and science of the best technicians in the world looking at that data and making the interpretations and having time to actually integrate that data from the different sources. >> what are you hearing from u.s. sources? are they satisfied? angry? for them to send ships to the indian ocean, they must believe that this information is pretty good? >> i've heard frustration early on that there was concern that all of the raw data that was not

being shared. that some of the data was shared after malaysian authorities made their own interpretation, particularly when you have this wealth of experience and knowledge with the ntsb, fbi, et cetera, to share the raw data so you could make those judgments which you say is an art. it's not purely a science. the other point i would make is that it doesn't have to be a traditional act of terrorism. there is pilot suicide and other incidents that come to mind. no evidence of that but there's possibilities that investigators are considering. >> someone can come man dear that plane. not for terrorism reason but who knows. why do they get pilots the option of turning off the transponder to begin with? it's so critical for folks at air traffic to know what is going on? >> well, they give the pilots in today's planes the ability to

squawk in an emergency so that if the plane is in difficulty, they can squawk that it's under a hijacked situation. it would be very rare occasion where you would turn off the transponder, only in some sort of severe electrical situation. >> so there's a legitimate reason for a pilot to have that option? >> there is, but it's very rare. >> because there are two of these on a 777. >> it's very rare. it would be very seldom. >> i can't tell you how many people have sent me tweets asking me, why do these pilots even have that option of turning this off since it's so critical and i'm not sure we have a good explanation for that. guys, thanks very much. don't go too far coming up next, a special report, the u.s. brings a powerful new search capability for the hunt for the missing airliner. we'll get details from the commander who is aboard in the region and they are searching. when it comes to good nutrition...i'm no expert.

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welcome back to our situation room special report. a navy destroyer involved in the search may be headed to the indian ocean right now. that could be the new focus for the missing airliner. joining on the phone is commander marks aboard the "uss

blue ridge." is the "uss kidd" heading towards the indian ocean? >> it is. yesterday we sent the "kidd" south. it's now in the strait of malacca in that northwest section so that is to the west of malaysia, west of the gulf of thailand where we were previously searching. >> how long will it take for the "kidd" to get to the indian ocean? >> it is technically going through the strait which is the main entrance to the indian ocean. not smack in the middle of the indian ocean. we are still very much close to malaysia right now. >> and the reason the "kidd" is moving to the indian ocean, because of the pings that went

up to the satellites? is that right? >> most of the several has shifted to the west. i can't get into the details of why we're shifting to the west. that's really for the malaysian government and a few other folks to tell you. we're adjusting accordingly. >> do you have specific coordinates that you are moving towards or are you going to be part of the massive search in this huge body of water? >> well, what we're doing right now is moving to the northwest entrance of the strait of malacca. a couple of things are going to happen. one, we have a search fairly close to the strait of malacca but what that does, as the area increases, the ships and its helicopters become less effective because they are kind of a close-in search asset and

the p-3 and now a p-8 which we are just now sending today, those are long-range search assets. those become even more important. >> tell us about the technology that you're using. >> the p-8 is the very latest in the patrol craft technology. up here in seventh fleet in the pacific, we get the newest and latest technology and that's part of the rebalance to the pacific. so the p-8 represents a huge leap forward in technology for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance. so, yes, it's a big leap forward. it's essentially the best plane the navy has going for that right now, one of the best planes in the world. so that adds a huge capability. that's arriving later on today and we'll get that immediately

into that search rotation. >> and you'll be able to -- you need that technology. the indian ocean, the depth of the indian ocean, it's a lot deeper than the south china sea, for example, the indian ocean, 12,990 feet. that's almost 113,00 feet. the empire state building, 1,feet. the psoiden technology, how deep can that search for? >> well, right now essentially when you have such a huge area, we're focusing on the search and the radar we use for the surface search. so it's essentially going to be the surface to the water. but really if you think about this, it's a completely new game now. before i described the box in the gulf of thailand kind of

like moving chess pieces around. now it's a completely new game and now it's like we're on a football field. so we went from a chess board to a football field. you have to come up with new strategies and tactics. that's developing right now as i speak. and we'll see with the longer range and better senses. >> just to sum up, commander, the search in the indian ocean, based on new information that you've received, you don't want to share the details of that information but it's solid enough for the u.s. navy to be moving ships in that area but this is a major, major undertaking. it could take a while, right? >> yeah, that's correct. and at this point fatigue starts to become a factor. you have to look at that. we have 700 sailors about in the area. they've been out there every day working 24 hours a day. so you have that personal fatigue. you also start to have equipment fatigue. you cannot operate equipment

continuously 24 hours a day and not give it maintenance and not rest it. so we're looking very closely at personal and our commitmeequipm fatigue. we flew out chaplain and grieve counselors because it's demanding on a personal level. we're watching that very closely. >> a quick follow-up, jim sciutto has a question. >> commander marks, thank you very much. malaysian officials are telling our troops on the ground in malaysia that the primary search area is to the east side of the peninsula. u.s. navy moving assets out to the west side of the indian ocean. is it your information that this is now the focus of the search, the indian ocean and that the u.s., because of these new indications, is giving up in effect on the eastern side or are they both covering both the chess board and football field? >> well, it's important to realize it's a coordinated

international effort. we're not out here freely and it's not just something the u.s. military does. this was request by the u.s. government. they asked to move our ship to the west and to the strait of malacca and so we look at every request and if we can support that, we do. and so in this case we can support that and so that's where we're going. but it is coordinated so certain ships and aircraft are staying on the east and then some go to the west and we're moving to the west. >> already, commander, thank you for sharing that information with our viewers here in the united states and around the world. commander william marks of the u.s. navy's seventh fleet. he's aboard the "uss blue ridge." we'll check back with you tomorrow, commander. thank you very much. you've been a big help to us throughout the week. good luck to all of the women of the united states navy and

marine corps. coming up, how planes can communicate by satellite pings even with the transponders disabled. more of the breaking news right after this. ♪

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we're following the breaking news. u.s. officials telling cnn malaysia flight 370 may have flown for hours after its last transponder signal. tom foreman is joining us with a closer look at how planes can communicate even when the transponders are disabled. what are you finding out, tom? >> a modern jumbo jet is a flying communication station. that's why it's astonishing to believe that after 45 minutes it went utterly silent, that one system might fail is one thing. that all of them would fail is different. let's talk about these communication systems on board. i want to start with a cockpit. that's where you have the most basic communication system on a plane like this. the radio. it's used by pilots all the time. they used it on this flight. apparently without incident.

until shortly before they disappeared. even if they were to have a catastrophic fire or a giant loss of pressure zags, the masks can easily send out a signal and nothing from this plane after it disappeared. on the underside of this cockpit is where you can find the transponders that we've been talking about so much. they work with ground radar in the sense that it works with the ground and says i see a plane there. they are electronically answering and saying, yes, we are this malaysian air flight and this is where we're located and where we are going. the transponders were turned off in this plane. it's not a hard thing to do. they can turn it off quite easily but there's no reason why it would be turned off especially at the moment that the plane disappeared.

we hear a lot of talk about the flight data recorder. they have an enormous amount of information about everything that is happening to this plane about the angle of the plane, where all of the flats are, every system on board is being recorded there. tremendous amount of information and voices from the cockpit so you can hear what is going on there. the problem is these do not transmit. they carry that information. they can be collected later to review an incident but they don't send out any information which brings us to one of the last systems we have to talk about because this is the really important one, wolf. and that is the acar system. this system is a system that transmits information in an ongoing way about some of the systems on the plane. when we've talked about the engines transmitting information about the fuel usage, the performance, analysts have suggested that may have been through the acars system.

up until now we've been told that there is no information coming out of the system but now it seems there might have been and if so it was coming out of the system or some parallel system. if this turns out to be another false lead, it will be another instance of where this plane went utterly silent despite the ways in which it could communicate with the ground and just didn't. >> this has been strong enough to have the fleets move to the indian ocean believing that the airliner could have flown for four or five hours. tom foreman, thank you so much. joining us is bill palmer, in san diego. clive irving is also joining us, the former ntsb investigator is here in washington with me.

there's been so many conflicting reports over the past six days. do you think these pings that we're learning about today are pointing in the right direction? why are we just getting this information now? >> i think it's very significant that the navy is moving those assets into the indian ocean. i don't think they would be doing that just by being asked to do by the malaysians but without some kind of sense that it is worth the expense and attrition of moving such incredible equipment out there into what is -- i don't think this has ever happened before, that searchers had to go out into the big void. this is an area which is not covered by radar. it's not -- it's very difficult to tell whether there's any satellite coverage of it. there's nothing basically to be watched. satellites can, of course, be moved into position from where they are. they can be moved into a different orbit if there's a

purpose for moving them. but if there's no satellite watching this area of the indian ocean, then there would be no satellite record of the appearance of this flight. so i think what we are now dealing with as journalists and investigators is, what kind of equipment is necessary. if we are faced with this unprecedented challenge of the vastness of the indian ocean, i think well-equipped as the u.s. navy is, it may need the help of others, too, because the area is so great and if the plane flew on auto pilot until it ran out of gas, it would be basically nearly to the east coast of africa. >> it could be beyond india and pakistan. so this is the switch, tom, for the transponder that you can easily turn on and off. i'm still not clear why pilots have that option of turning it off and making the plane invisible to ground communication. this is transponder itself. so once this goes dead. >> right.

>> how reliable are those pings that would enable investigators to now determine it may have flown for hours towards the indian ocean? >> well, i don't think the movements we seen are from the acars data. what the malaysian government said this morning is based on information from looking at the primary radar they are now expanding the search area. i think the team has gotten together, they've gotten all of the radar data from both the military and from the civilian side, they've broken the code on it and they can finally look at the primary data and they've come out with a plot that is starting to make sense. that's why they are moving assets to the area. acars says you've been up for hours, not where you are s they've picked p something from the radar information to give them a better idea. >> so let me bring bill into this conversation. what do you think this new information that we're getting that the plane may have flown for several hours after the transponders failed?

does it point more to mechanical failure, pilot suicide, hijacking? what's your sense? >> it's hard to speculate. i mean, we have so few data points to go by that you can draw the lines of possibilities in just about any direction you want to go. but the -- you know, to turn off the transponder is quite easy for somebody to disable the acars data if in fact that is much more sophisticated and requires much deeper knowledge of the airplane to be able to do that. if that was done intentionally, it would not be a trivial bit of information to accomplish. it would be key to know if there is any data being transmitted by the airplane or not and, if not, then i think it's likely to conclude that some event took out the power to the transponder and that acars transmitter at the same time. >> bill, clive, tom, thanks.

lots to digest, no doubt about that. up next, false leads turn into dead ends and families are growing more desperate. what role is the government playing in giving out confusing information and how difficult would it be to find the jet in the vast indian ocean? i'll speak with a scientist who searched for the ill-fated air france flight. i reckon a storm's a brewin'. reckon so. reckon you gotta hotel? reckon, no. reckon priceline express deals will get you a great deal. wherever you...mosey. you reckon? we reckon. vamonos the spring hotel sale is on at priceline.com. save up to 60% on any express deal hotel, when you use code: spring '14. i reckon this is one deal you won't want to miss. you created light.

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let's get back to the breaking news. officials say pings suggest the missing airliner may have flown for several hours longer than

originally thought. but after false leads and dead ends, the search for the missing airliner has been a source of bitter frustration. so what role is the malaysian government playing in giving out confusing and conflicting information? brian todd has been looking into this part of the story for us. what's going on? >> the latest denial adds to all of this confusion. today they denied reports that data showed the plane had been flying for at least four hours past its last contact. now, as we've been reporting, sources telling cnn signals indicate that the plane may have been in the air longer than believed. all of this making it hard to believe what to believe as the mystery goes unsolved. when it flight 370 vanish? officials first said it disappeared 2:40 a.m. local time saturday morning. a day later, after issuing six statements, a new time on when it was lost. 1:30 a.m. where did it go? the flight path a major point of

confusion for six days. malaysian officials said it first vanished in the south china sea. then an air force official said it turned west and then a malaysian official said that was not correct. then we're told there was a radar blip but we don't know if that was the missing jet. >> the best experts are there ready to help. >> reporter: on wednesday, malaysian police tell cnn they searched the home of the pilot. a day later -- >> suggesting that malaysian police searched the homes of the mh-370 crew are not true. >> reporter: now, sources close to the family say police have been outside the captain's home but haven't gone inside. critics say the malaysians are constantly giving conflicting accounts, can't control the flow of information and if american officials were in charge -- >> you have organizational meetings immediately, you would have groups formed to look at

different areas, experts on weather, maintenance, on air traffic control, every aspect of it. >> reporter: there's no indication that the malaysians haven't done that and fiercely defend their handling of this. they only hold back information when there's more analysis needed. >> this is a crisis situation. it is a very complex operation and it has not always been easy. >> reporter: analysts say part of the problem could be cultural. there's been one coalition leading malaysia for decades. >> in the glare of international publicity. >> reporter: and it's not just the malaysian dealing with media, which has been an issue. vietnamese temporarily stopped their search because of incommunication from the malaysians. the malaysians say they have asked american experts for their help in analyzing radar data. wolf? >> there's been strains between china and malaysia as well.

two-thirds of the passengers aboard that aircraft were from china. all right. thanks very much for that. let's get some more now, malaysian officials bundled the investigation and the search? joining us now, once again, law enforcement analyst, former fbi assistant director tom fuentes. peter king, a congressman, republican from new york, a member of the house homeland security committee, he's very irritated with what he sees as the lack of cooperation from the malaysian government. he says, from his perspective, what he's seen and been briefed on, he's frustrated. he's angry and i've heard that from other officials as well. >> there's not a lot the u.s. can do to help other than what they have done and send ntsb and faa experts there to look at the radar, the data and try to find out exactly what it all means. the biggest problem that i've seen from the malaysian government is the public relations aspect of this because they don't know how to get a

unified message out. i think they have conflict within of the information going between military and civilian authorities and senior officials in the government. i think from an investigative standpoint, my understanding is that the work is going forward in a cooperative manner. they are sharing information with us as needed by us but there's really not much for the u.s. to do in this situation. the malaysians themselves have to conduct and lead and coordinate and get everybody to be doing the right amount of investigation in the right direction. >> what several experts have said to me is they are well-intentioned, the malaysian authorities, but they don't have a lot of experience in dealing with a disaster like this, they really need help, especially from the united states. should the u.s. simply take charge of this investigation? >> no. the u.s. can't take charge. >> well, they could if the malaysian government said take charge. >> that's different if they ask for assistance. >> clearly they don't have a lot of history and a lot of experience in dealing with something like this. >> well, this is something that

i've seen all over the world, that you have governments who don't want to admit that they can't handle something like this when it happens and they are simply overwhelmed. here in the u.s. we have so many different types of crisis situations, we have multiagency manner and we're used to coordinating the efforts of wide range of federal, state, local, and international agencies. many governments in the world don't foresee that they are going to face that degree of a problem and when it happens they are overwhelmed. >> here's what bothers me. one day the malaysian police, the kuala lumpur police say that they are going into the home of the two pilots to investigate what is going on. there's been a history, as you know, the pilot suicide and the next day the government says they are just outside, they are not going in. shouldn't they be going in, shouldn't they investigate what was going on with these pilots? wouldn't that be prudent? >> i think so and i'm not sure why that wasn't done or what

they are thinking at this moment but certainly you would want for both pilots and for the whole crew, the caterers who dealt with that aircraft, workers, anybody who had access to that plane before it left the ground or while it was in the air needs to be investigated. phone records, you know, here we're so used to that, get the computers, look at the e-mails, phone records, what are they doing, interview family, friends, colleagues, does the person have a mental problem? there's a degree of intensity when we investigate these kinds of things and again they may not be sure to challenge someone with a high status -- >> it's not that they are bad. just lack of experience. thanks very much, tom fuentes for that. we'll continue the breaking news. ahead, debris from that crash, what might searchers be looking for? i'll speak with an expert who led the recovery of air france flight 447.

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we get back to breaking news about malaysia flight 370 in just a moment, but first, a potentially ominous development. thousands of russian troops conducting drills near the country's border with ukraine right now. let's go to our senior international correspondent nick p payton walsh who is in crimea. what are you seeing? what's the latest? >> reporter: here in crimea we've seen the continued movements of what are obviously russian troops around bases. the pictures you just saw are from a different part of the ukraine. that's another city in the east on the ukrainian/russian border where troops moved on to the russian side to conduct drills. they would familiarize themselves with unfamiliar territory. that's causing alarm bells to

ring right now because there's been a clash between pro-russian and pro-ukrainian in another eastern city in donetsk. we don't know their affiliation politically. that violence is causing many ukrainians to be concerned about what we might see in the east of the country. most consider crimea to be a done deal. it will happen on sunday regardless of the last-minute diplomacy between john kerry and his russian counterpart sergey lavrov tomorrow in london the fear is does it stop here? is what we're seeing on the eastern borders of ukraine perhaps a harbinger of something to come in the days ahead, wolf? >> and this referendum that's supposed to take place on sunday, by all accounts the vote in crimea will be for crimea to leave ukraine and become part of russia, is that the expectation? >> reporter: well, certainly, the ballot paper doesn't give you much choice. it says do you want to be part of russia or do you want to go back to the 1992 constitution

which leaves crimea as being an autonomous part of ukraine. a way of saying crimea being an autonomous republic. the choice is to leave ukraine either way. i think we're expecting a vote to do that on sunday most likely bringing the country into the russian federation. a lot of news here of that already under way. suggestions of electricity being brought here, mobile phone services being changed. the crimea de facto government taking control of oil and gas here. diplomacy really it seems over, frankly. >> ominous developments in crimea and ukraine in the border area with russia. thanks very much. nick paton walsh for that report. coming up we'll get back to the breaking news as our "situation room" special report for the search of malaysia flight 370 continues. did it fly for hours after its last transponder signal? tonight an all new episode of cnn's original unscripted

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happening now, breaking news on the mystery of flight 370. another stunning lead suggesting the plane may have flown for several hours after it vanished. we're working our sources. we're sifting through confusing and conflicting data. i'm told the u.s. warship just moved into the entrance of the indian ocean as the search area is dramatically expanding right now. we talk about the challenges of looking for the jet across a very deep and massive expanse of water. after six days of futile searches and several false

leads, have malaysian officials been holding back information or mishandling this investigation? 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. >> and we begin with the breaking news. the new information that's led investigators to believe that flight 370 may, i repeat, may have flown for several hours before it disappeared. we caution nothing is certain in this rather bizarre mystery, but here's what we know right now. u.s. officials tell cnn malaysian authorities think they have several pings, pings that were sent from the jet up to five hours after its transponders, the signals went out. based on that information and other data, investigators now believe the plane may have made it to the indian ocean. the commander of the u.s. navy's seventh fleet told me just a short while ago an american warship just turned into the entrance of the indian ocean to search the area. he said the u.s. has moved at

the request of the malaysian government. our correspondents are working their source. our cnn effort is using the global reach to cover this story like no one else can. let's go to our pentagon correspondent barbara starr first. she's got new information, barbara? >> wolf, a senior u.s. official told me that the malaysian government has now said to them, to the u.s., it does have several pings from what they do believe is this airliner. they're not clear about how much data is actually involved, but essentially electronic pings that have led them to calculate that a plane like this one with engines like this plane had flew several hours out into the indian ocean. they come to this conclusion, we are told, based on the pings being transmitted to satellites. the satellites calculating some information from those pings as well as the reasonable conclusions about the fuel that remained on board from the last

time they had real contact with the aircraft. this all is now leading to the expansion of the search west of malaysia into the indian ocean to see what they can find. it is uncertain, wolf, u.s. officials have been down this road many times with leads over the last several days. nothing is 100%, they're cautioning us, but now they'll start to look in the indian ocean. vast amounts of water. the question is how do you find potentially bits of wreckage floating around in such a large area? wolf? >> barbara starr, thanks very much. i want to go right to our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. he's got more. >> reporter: speaking to u.s. officials, my understanding is that these pings that we're hearing about are an important new clue that they're now connecting to other clues which leads their attention in the direction of the indian ocean. what are those other clues? the satellite, radar data

rather, that we've been reporting the last few days which showed the plane come north, take a turn, then head out west towards the indian ocean, which they are then combining with an understanding of how much fuel was in the plane when it was flying and they get this range here. 2500 miles. an amazing area to look at. now, along this course that it was taking, could have taken a turn anywhere in here, which then begins to expand your search area to these limits, possibly even bigger. you know, we had someone on the "uss kidd" one of the destroyers now coming out to this search area, he compared the old search area to a chezboard. he calls this one a football field. imagine the scale and the resources they'll need to look here. remember the water's deeper as well. compare fod the air france crash in 2009, that crashed in the middle of the atlantic ocean, they had a sense of where it was, still took them two years to find that fuselage. an incredible task at hand.

but add some caveats, this san investigation. they have a number of clues. they're trying to connect those clues as best they can. they've had clues, for instance yesterday those satellite images that turned out to be a false lead. but what gives them confidence is they have more than one clue that leads in the direction here. really one of the key ones is that radar data. they've had more time to analyze that radar data to get more confidence that this is the heading the plane was on when they lost contact with it. >> has this new information, jim -- and i know you're well plugged into the u.s. intelligence community -- increase the likelihood that all of this was terror related as opposed to some kind of mechanical problem? >> speaking to u.s. officials they have nothing to indicate this is a terror event but they haven't ruled this out as the possibility of a terror event. i asked them today this new information does that increase your worry about a terror event? they said no, we're in the same place we've been for the last several days.

>> fran townsend is here our law enforcement analyst, our national security analyst, also rene marsh is here. you're looking at a very specific part of this investigation. >> that's right, wolf. this is our own version, this is very much like the plane that is missing now, flight 370, and when it's 35,000 feet in the air, there are three ways a plane can get urgent messages down to the ground. and that critical information is transmitted by voice or data through satellites or radio frequencies. tonight, we look at all of the ways the crew or the plane's systems could have communicated to someone that something was terribly wrong. inside the cockpit of a boeing 777, there are multiple ways pile ots communicate with the ground. the akar system automatically beams down information about the health of the plane. until today we thought the last transmission was 1:07 a.m. local time. now there's word it may have been transmitting data hours beyond that. give me details what kind of

information is being beamed down? >> commonly what's downloaded is engine parameters, engine burn, discrepancies. >> reporter: airlines monitor the realtime data. another way to communicate, radio. all right, good night. the final call from the pilots as the theft malaysian air space. a common phrase when changing controllers. >> we are in a dive here. >> in alaska airlines flight 261 when the plane dived out of control, pilots radioed what was happening. but no may day from flight 370. in the event of an emergency, is communication secondary? >> yeah, the first thing is to fly the airplane, navigate the airplane, then communicate. that's the order of precedence. >> reporter: a third way to communicate, by transponder. 1:21 a.m. flight 370's transponder signal goes dead. it transmits the plane's location, speed, altitude and

position. is there any good reason that a pilot would want to switch that off? >> clearly if all the power was lost to the aircraft or something happened to take out that part of the electronics, i mean the electrical system, that would turn it off, but certainly one aspect of turning it off is because you don't want to be seen. >> reporter: radar tracks flight 370 flying for another nine minutes. at 1:30 a.m. local time the plane vanvanishes. but the one piece of the plane that's likely still communicating, the flight recorders. only sonar equipment can detect their pings. and time is of essence. the signal only lasts for about 30 days. all right. and those flight recorders located right here in the rear of the plane. now, there is one other way na the plane could communicate a problem. it's through the plane's emergency locator transmitter or elt. it can be manually activated or it can automatically activate on

impact. the signal is sent to the search and rescue teams via a satellite system, but the elt stops working if it sinks below the water's surface. a senior official told cnn's barbara starr no emergency beacon activated in this case. and wolf, you have one right there in front of you. that's the elt that we're talking about. >> we have another one over here. we have two of these elts. this is the transponder. this is the -- to turn on and off the transponder and the switch and this is the transponder. this is what they call the black box, but it's really orange, the flight data recorder. >> we talk about those pingers that send off that pulse one time per second. they're located right there, that gold area. that's where the pingers are located. it sends off that pulsing sensation and you cannot detect it with the human ear but if you have sonar equipment, you can pick it up. >> richard quest is with us as well. i want to go to you right away. what are you hearing, given this new rather dramatic information

that we're now collecting, the u.s. navy moving ships into the indian ocean, we just heard it from a commander in the u.s. navy seventh fleet. what are you hearing? >> it's time for the malaysians to actually give some more information. and it's ten past 6:00 in the morning in kuala lumpur, but the shear breadth and depth and turn, wolf, this has taken in the last hour, the suggestions that are now flying around that you've been reporting, of what this plane did, where it went, how it behaved, what was happening in the cockpit, it clearly suggests we're not being told very much about what the situation is. and i'm guessing in the next hour or two, as that press conference gets under way in malaysia, it's going to be a very raucous affair. >> it will be a tense moment. fran townsend, you're on the advisory board of the cia. to a lot of folks, it's increasingly looking like this was not some sort of mechanical

failure, this was looking like it was man made. >> i think that's right, wolf. but we have to make a distinction even among a man-made event, that doesn't necessarily mean terror. it may mean that somebody took control of the cockpit, but that could be a pilot. we saw in egypt air 990 where the pilot intentionally downs the plane. we're not saying that happens here bs we don't know. it does look like if this plane was in fact in the air for a number of hours after the responder went -- was turned off, you got to presume some control of the aircraft by somebody capable of continuing to fly it. >> how do they determine that? what are they doing? take us a little bit behind the scenes. you were the homeland security adviser to president bush. you've had extensive background in the justice department in these kind of investigations. what are they looking for if they are working under the assumption that a person took the switch and turned it off with a transponder and then commandeered the plane for whatever purpose, whether a crazy person, whether for some

political reason or whatever, what do they do? take us into this investigation. >> so the first thing, we heard that the malaysians had searched the homes of the pilots. you're looking for -- >> now the malaysian government denies that. they say they stationed police outside the homes. they say they didn't go inside. i'm surprised that they didn't go inside. i'd like them to make sure they investigate not just the pilots but everyone. >> you can be sure u.s. law enforcement and intelligence officials are in fact looking at everyone they know to have been on that plane including the pilots. what are their relationships, what are their affiliations, what travel have they done? did they have online contact and with whom? particularly in a counterterrorism investigation, if they're trying to rule that out, they'll look at the pilots or anyone else on that plane that's had electronic contact or phone contact with anyone who's a known extremist. those are the sorts of things. they're looking for the transfer of money. they're looking for written documents. anything that will give them a hint to motivation and relationships. >> hold on for a moment because

andy pasztor of "the wall street journal" is joining us. you broke a major story on the front page of "the wall street journal" today on this investigation. and you're suggesting that it's even taking some more -- shall we say intriguing twists right now. what's the latest information, andy, that you're learning? >> well, if it weren't such a serious business and taking place in a big swath of asia, it would be almost like fiction. so what we have in addition to an aircraft that reportedly crashed into the water and there's no debris whatsoever from that accident, we now have increasing indications that investigators strongly suspect that this aircraft had its engines running and was flying around for up to four hours after its last transponder transmission to civil air control, air traffic control. >> so go ahead. what was that last point? i missed it.

>> that it was flying around for up to four hours after its last transponder transmission. so that means the plane was intact for much of that time, for all of that time and perhaps flying around, perhaps landing, investigators believe it's even possible to have landed somewhere. but the point is from the scenario that folks had originally that this plane went down when its transponder stopped transmitting and crashed somewhere near its last location, we now have a widening search looking for a plane that was going to an unclear location and flying around perhaps for up to four hours which is pretty amazing in this scenario. >> i just want to be precise on this, because this is very dramatic, explosive information if in fact u.s. authorities u.s. investigators are now looking at the possibility as you've just reported that this plane may have landed somewhere, that whoever commandeered the cockpit forced this plane to land

somewhere, is that what you're hearing? >> this is certainly a thread of the investigation. i'm not suggesting its a ps the main part of the investigation or that they have very strong evidence supporting it, but they were looking into that because the transmissions from the aircraft indicate that it was intact and it could have landed somewhere. they do not know, honestly at this point they do not know where it is or if it may have crashed subsequent to some of those transmissions. but one thread of the investigation we've been told pretty strongly is a scenario where someone, either a pilot or some passenger or someone on board the aircraft intentionally turns off the transponder so the plane would be invisible to radar and then has some kind of a nefarious scheme to take it to some uncertain location for who knows what, as someone told me, to do something with at a later date. >> we're talking with andy pasztor, a reporter for "the wall street journal." this is your reporting, andy, a and it's pretty dramatic.

i want our panel to weigh in here. they may have follow-up questions. fran, i'll start with you, first of all. because if in fact u.s. authorities are now investigating as andy is reporting from "the wall street journal" that they're looking at the possibility the plane didn't crash but it actually landed somewhere, this takes this whole investigation to a whole different area. >> that's exactly right, wolf. so you look at the area of the search and you say where would that be possible? this is not a small plane. you didn't land this on some remote island in the middle of the south pacific. so it needed -- it would have needed a large runway and you just look at the grid area. it seems unlikely to me. is it possible? look, with as many twist and turns as this investigation is taking, you can't eliminate anything. i think it's unlikely but they'll look at this search area. >> jim sciutto, have you heard from any of your sources that they're investigating the possibility of the plane -- yes, reported that it flew for four or five hours but the assumption that it crashed into the indian ocean not necessarily that

somebody commandeered it and made it land. >> i've not been told by anybody that's a serious scenario. but listen, they don't know where the plane is so they have to by their nature, intelligence analyst, keep all their options open and see where the clues lead them. it's an important point as well because we're looking at that search area and the other piece of the pie, right? there is the possibility that the plane took some turns. so it expands the search area. every time you talk about a turn -- >> maybe you can walk back over to that map and show the area where it could have gone -- it could have gone to india, it could have gone to -- there's a whole piece of land that plane could have gone to. i want to get richard quest into this conversation. andy pasztor from "the wall street journal," don't leave us. your reaction to what we just heard? >> it adds one more extraordinary bizarre element that tells us that this is completely and utterly unprecedented. can i ask andy one quick

question? >> please. >> andy, it's richard quest here. this, the strength of data upon which the authorities are working on, never mind the landing aspect of it, just the strength of data that they believe proves this plane continued flying around, is it pings, is it hard satellite data? what's your understanding? >> my understanding at this point is that it's actually these pings that you refer to, which means that the system on board the aircraft is trying to get in contact with the satellite. it would have transmitted some data, but it doesn't transmit any data for some reason, it's not quite certain, not clear why. these repetitive attempts to reach a satellite and investigators believe that only an intact plane would do that. i want to add -- they're not suggesting this is the central theme of this investigation but the bottom line after almost a week of intensive searches is

that this 250-ton plane didn't leave any debris if it crashed into the ocean. no matter whether it's a supersonic dive, vertical dive into water or a chesley sullenberger gradual belly landing on the hudson, a plane of this size has got to leave some debris. everybody agrees on that. somebody will float whether seat cushions or parts of galleys or something. so that's the big conundrum here. if you don't have debris, you don't have a crash site. and so that's why investigators are starting to look at some of the data and say well maybe it didn't -- it didn't go down in the drink. >> the possibility andy pasztor of "the wall street journal" reporting that investigators are looking at the possibility -- and this would be a huge, huge development -- the plane didn't crash but landed somewhere. i'm going to ask andy pasztor of "the wall street journal" to stand by. we'll continue the breaking news right after this. (vo) you are a business pro.

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for our north american viewers, this important note, "crossfire" won't be seen tonight so we can bring you more of our special report on the mystery of malaysia airlines flight 370. we've been following the breaking news, very dramatic news, andy pasztor of "the wall street journal," he's been on the phone with us, he's still on the phone, he's reporting that there is a possibility, he says u.s. investigators are looking, are looking at the possibility that this aircraft may actually have landed somewhere. this is "wall street journal" reporting from andy pasztor, not cnn reporting. i want to get to andy in a moment. but jim sciutto is over here at the magic wall. jim, if in fact this plane landed after flying four or five hours after the transponders

shut down, stopped sending signals back to ground stations, where potentially could it have landed, if you look at the amount of fuel that it had? >> well, let's look at the options then in the range. you have coast of australia here, you have the coast of india here, but presumably these are countries with mature civil aviation systems, defensive systems, they would notice a plane that size and i'm sure as friends of the u.s. would let us know. you have other smaller, you've got some islands here and here, you have diego garcia which is a major military installation that would have surveillance capability in the area. so the options aren't great once you look at that. there's the possibility that it could have landed in indonesia early on in the flight. here's the path as we know it. to our information we haven't heard this as a major theory that investigators are looking at, but even if it's not landing, it does at least give you the potential that the flight's making turns, turning

around and a thousand other options in there which does at a minimum make your search area very large. as we were saying earlier, the original search area over here in the south china sea, chessboard. that's a football field. much harder to find an airplane. >> let me bring andy pasztor of "the wall street journal" back into this conversation. a dramatic amount of reporting you're doing, andy, the possibility that this plane may actually have landed as opposed to crash landing into the waters, whether the indian ocean or someplace else. can you give us a sense how seriously you believe based on your reporting investigators are considering this possibility? >> i don't think in my mind there's no doubt that they're considering the possibility and looking at it. they have to weigh all the evidence they have, so i think that will determine how seriously they continue to go down this path. but to add one more level of complexity to what is already an incredibly complex situation, until the wreckage is found

there's actually nobody to lead the investigation. so we keep talking about an investigation as though it were a vibrant living thing, but in fact until the wreckage is found in some country jurisdictionally according to international treaties takes control as the former chairman of the national transportation safety board jim hall told me at this point literally nobody is in control. there's no real investigative work. there's searches for wreckage, but in terms of really trying to understand what happened aboard this plane, that can't begin until some country establishes its authority and begins to collect evidence talk to witnesses and look at the technical data. and that just complicates things even more because the longer that gets delayed i believe the harder it might be to really find the truth. >> i want to stress this is reporting from andy pasztor of "the wall street journal" and cnn has not confirmed this. i want to go to kuala lumpur. andrea steve-- andrew stevens i

there. i wonder if you've heard anything at all in malaysia itself to suggest that there's an investigation that instead of this plane crash landing somewhere may actually have landed? >> reporter: getting information out of the malaysian authorities, wolf, as we all know now is proving quite difficult. i mean, if this is true, even the point that the plane was flying for another four to five hours, this is an extraordinary development given the fact that less than 12 hours ago the malaysian authorities leading the search, leading all the information at its disposal basically put that theory down. they said it was an inaccurate report. there was no evidence they had to suggest certainly that the plane was still flying. the defense minister who is leading this investigation says. i would like to refer to news reports suggesting that the aircraft may have continued

flying for some time after the last contact. as malaysian airlines will confirm shortly those reports are inaccurate. and they base this inaccuracy on the fact that there was no information coming from the engines of that plane to suggest that it continued to fly. now they've got experts from rolls royce and from boeing down here. they checked that with them and that's what they said. but you've got u.s. investigators now saying this is a distinct possibility that this plane may still have been flying. we put calls in several hours ago now, wolf, to the malaysian authorities, to the civil defense authority here. we haven't heard anything back yet. it's now getting on towards 6:30 in the morning. this is obviously going to be a major line of inquiry today. at the moment we get a single daily update from authorities here. i don't know -- we don't know yet what time that will be. but if the u.s. is saying that this plane probably kept flying and malaysian authorities are

saying, no, it didn't, what's going on? >> andrew stevens reporting for us from kuala lumpur. this flight, 370, the search crews, they're facing a daunting task looking for the aircraft. they're combing the vast indian ocean right now for traces of the plane. they'll be guided by lessons from past air disasters. cnn's pamela brown has been looking into this part of the story for us. what are you learning? >> we're learning every crash is different, but we've been speaking to aviation experts and planes are like tin cans, when they break up or fill up with water, they sink, but there are enough parts of the plane with buoyancy that could provide clues as to where the wreckage is. it was called a miracle because u.s. airways pilot sully sullenberger pulled off the seemingly impossible safely crash landing his passenger-packed jet in one piece on the hudson river. >> kudos to him, man,