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, did a

great job. >> reporter: most of the time is wreckage is not in one piece, debris scatters, some sinking, some floating. >> life jackets could be in there, seat cushions, anything in the bins that floated. so it's certainly possible that substantial pieces of lightweight debris, not aircraft structure, could be found floating six days after if the aircraft struck the water. >> reporter: air france flight 447 crashed into the atlantic ocean in 2009. in this case floating debris led search crews to the wreckage five days after it went down. the debris field was relatively contained. that shows it broke up when it hit the water before some of it sank 2 1/2 miles to the ocean floor. in 1996 twa flight 800 exploded in the sky near new york. debris scattered far and wide. investigators had to map out several debris fields. the cockpit sank, but the

fuselage and wings scattered far because of how high up the plane was when it exploded. >> the initial pieces of floating debris just give you a clue where to start looking and listening for the pingers, the transmitting devices that make a ping sound that a sonar picks up that are on the recorders. >> reporter: in the case of the 1996 hijacked ethiopian plane when the pilot tried ditching the aircraft in shallow waters, it broke into three segments with the fuselage floating and the rear section submerged. in the case of the still-missing malaysia airline flight 370, investigators are trying to cover all their bases conducting searches by air, space and sea. you talk about how difficult it is to find a needle in a haystack, but in this case we don't even know where the haystack is, because there's not been any debris located yet, you are seeing the search area expand more and more. now covering 27,000 nautical miles. >> that's a huge, huge area. pamela brown, thanks very much.

a commander with the u.s. navy seventh fleet confirmed to me just a little while ago that the "uss kidd" has moved into the entrance of the indian ocean searching for the missing plane. >> when you have such a huge area, we're focusing on the surface here and the radar we use for the surface search. so it's essentially still going to be the surface of the water, but really if you think about this, it's a completely new game now. before they described the box in the gulf of thailand kind of like moving chess pieces around. now a completely new game. now it's like we're on a football field. so we went from a chessboard to a football field. so now we have to come up with new strategies, new tactics. that's developing right now as i speak. >> strong words. let's bring in david gallo. he's director of special projects at the woods hole

oceanographic institution. he's part of the team that found air france flight 447 in the atlantic ocean off the coast of brazil. how difficult is it? the waters of the indian ocean, specifically, from those waters are very deep. what, about ten times the height of the empire state building. >> yeah, that's right, wolf. it's going to be very different, much more difficult than working inside the gulf of thailand where the water depth is less than the length of the airplane. here we're talking about water depths 2 1/2, 3 miles or more. and also it could be anything from the smooth sediments on the bottom of the bay of bengal to steep rugal volcanic slopes. it just depends. that's an awful long way. it can take it almost all the way across the indian ocean beyond india into the arabian sea. so it depends on just where we're talking about. >> how fast are those currents move in the indian ocean? >> yeah, there's that too, you know. we should be collecting that data right away.

because if we do find bits of wreckage on the indian ocean, we'll have to backtrack it almost a week, more than a week to find out where that x marks the spot on the surface is to begin to draw our search area. it all depends on the winds, depends on the tides, that's data we should be collecting right now. >> just some perspective, david. took about five days to find some initial debris from that air france jetliner off the coast of brazil, but it took two years to actually find the flight data recorder, the so-called black box, right? >> that's right. you know, but it wasn't a continuous search for two years. it was several phases. probably a total of about six weeks or more, maybe eight weeks out on the ocean doing the survey. and the problem is the first two phases it was the wrong haystack and looking for the needle. the final phase right haystack, right tool, right team and we found the plane within almost about a week. so it all happened very quickly

then. but you know, we thought that was the toughest of all searches, but this one is certainly turning out to be one incredible mystery. >> certainly is. david gallo, thanks very much. still ahead, more the breaking news and the stunning possibility being raised that the missing plane may have landed. and a very emotional interview with the wife of a passenger on that missing airliner. the heartbreaking gifts he left behind. >> the most amazing husband and the most amazing father. so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 a month?

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we're back with the breaking news, new information that's led investigators to believe that flight 370 may have flown for several hours after it disappeared. the mystery getting stranger every hour. let's bring in the former faa chief of staff michael goldfarb and our senior security analyst peter bergen. it is so -- have you ever seen

anything like this before? >> no one has. we have a plane that took off at kuala lumpur and disappeared. that's all we have. we have no facts. we have no debris. so what's happening is we're having this kind of breaking news du jour. yesterday we were all excited about the satellite image. >> the chinese satellite. >> because it was consistent with the flight path. it was lucky, it was a lucky hit that they probably saw something in the ocean that would allow the -- >> turned out to be a false lead. >> now with a turn to the left, maybe it is terrorism, maybe it is suicide, but let's just look at the other theory. if the pilot in command turned that plane back and then was overcome in some manner through a slow decompression or through some kind of structural problem but not a failure, aloha -- hawaiian airlines disintegrated in the air, lost half of its hull and landed safely. the notion of catastrophic or nothing is not the way the investigators are going to look at this. they're going to look at the maintenance logs and look and

see if that plane met all of its air worthiness directives. everything is on the table but it's just a bit suspicious that that primary radar feed that the military put out is enough and rolls royce is denying the notion that the aircraft was pinging data on the performance of the engine. >> i think they're not commenting. i don't know if they're formally denying. >> you know, wolf, such a mess. not to beat up on the malaysians, they just got caught off guard over their head with a huge investigation. i think what you're starting to see is the faa, ntsb begin to put some quality control into this investigation. >> because the malaysians really don't have a whole lot of experience. >> they need help. >> the ntsb and the u.s. authorities and others who really have some experience. a lot of folks, peter, and you've studied this, they're increasingly looking at the possibility this was not some mechanical failure but this was someone commandeering, if you will, that aircraft. >> there's a distinction between

commandeering and hijacking, hijacking is for a political purpose. before 9/11 commandeering a plane was not all that uncommon. a fedex plane in '94, southwest airlines, alaska airlines in 2000 and one before 9/11. that's much harder to do in the united states now. we continue to see commandeering. sometimes people seeking political asylum, sometimes people are suicidal. so you can't rule any of those things out. right now. >> we spoke to andy pasztor "the wall street journal" reporter a little while ago. and he's reporting -- we're not reporting it. he's reporting based on information he has that u.s. investigators are looking at the possibility that this plane actually may have landed somewhere as opposed to crash landing into the water. >> think about that for a second and what it would take to land a plane unknown to any authority on a runway anywhere in the world, a plane of that size, how it would go undetected.

how would the passenger if they were conscious not use cell phones to communicate. it has to be on the table. but the reason they're on the table is we don't have a clue. we don't have a clue yet six days into it. in fact, the investigation is really just starting last night. and that's why you're starting to see -- >> why it is just starting last night? it's been going on for seven days. >> for us it has, not for the authorities. they have people to turn to for experience in this. let's take a step back, take a breath and look at what we really have here and let's validate it. that's why the radar feed of the military -- >> if it was mechanical problem, they immediately ground the entire fleet for 24 hour just to make sure. as far as i know all those other 777s they're flying right now. >> here's the nightmare for boeing and the faa. we need probable cause. why? because people get on every day other 777s. usually accidents are a unique

set of things. maybe it affects other 777s. that's why it's imperative and they will find it, imperative they find probable cause. ultimate cause could take three or four years. >> you're an expert on terrorism. have you seen any indication that anyone out there, any terror group, lone wolf terror group have claimed responsibility or talking about this, chatter, if you will? >> the short answer is no, wolf. we did see chinese martyrs brigade which is something we've never heard of claim responsibility, but that reminded me a little bit of the jihadi terrorist group who claimed responsibility for the blackout in new york city in 2003 which was just a blackout. so it's very easy to claim responsibility. and the one claim we've had doesn't have any validity. >> so these bursts of data that they're now investigating which suggests to u.s. authorities the plane was flying for four or five hours after the transponders was shut down, simple. i still don't understand why

pilots can shut down the transponders. >> pilots want anything in the cockpit they want control over. but it makes no sense. the transponder being turned off whether voluntarily or through force, the akars reporting would continue. malaysian air hasn't come through with any other information about other structural issues. just the engine. and i think the ntsb had said that they didn't have the data package for the structural part of that, that's why it's only the engines being reported. very strange indeed. >> very strange indeed. michael goldfarb, peter bergen, thanks very much. indications the malaysian airliner may have kept flying for hours after its last control with ground control. ♪

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all of user serare seriousl frustrated but for the passengers' families, it's sheer agony. one woman says her husband left behind a couple of gifts for her two young sons. >> he said, i'm going to leave behind my wedding ring and watch. should anything happen to me, i want to ring to go to the first son that's married, and the watch to the second. and i said, don't be stupid,

come back and i'll give it back to you. you can give it to them then. so, i'm praying that i can give it back to them. there's no finality to it. we're not being given any information. whether they know it and not tells us, at this stage, i'm just blank, waiting and praying. >> what kind of man is paul? >> he's amazing. he was the most amazing husband and the most amazing father. he spent so much time with the kids. bathed them every night. took them to the zoo. lincoln was his shadow.

and jack, he's extremely intelligent and worked hard. just tried to everything right for his family. all the jobs, everything he does, always thought about us. was doing this for the right reason. this was his dream job, and worked weeks to get up to speed and hit the ground running. that's the kind of man he was. >> her husband paul was on his way to a mining site in mongolia, had a month-long assignment there. it's early friday in china, watching for updates on flight 370. especially to today's breaking news of signals showing the missing plane may have flown for hours before losing contact with the ground. announcer ] she won't remember this,

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cnn's coverage of the mystery of flight 370 continues at the top of the hour on erin burnett "outfront." but we're also watching other stories. russian troops with drills at the border today. asking john kerry how he can help with an aid bill that st stalled in congress. he was referring to

international monetary reforms. and a national gas explosion in a new york city neighborhood. search crews were slowed because of a sink hole. and police in austin, texas, say an intoxicated driver was trying to get away from police and ran into a group of people. two of the people he hit are dead. 23 others are hurt. the suspect is alive and will be charged with capital murder. and a grueling day in the trial of oscar pistorius. a new development to a story

that we brought you first, a strip search of an indian diplomat created outrage. that's it for me. thanks very much for watching. erin burnett "outfront" starts now. next, breaking news. u.s. officials say there is evidence that flight 370 may have been in the air for four more hours after its last communication. plus, why some are calling this plane the biggest mystery in aviation history. let's go "outfront." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good evening, i'me