that ice all for us tonight. anderson cooper starts right now. good evening. it is 10:00 here on the east coast of the united states. 10:00 a.m. in malaysia. for the first time in weeks since flight 370 vanished, there are new developments that could point to some answers, including one item strongly suggesting that investigators are now focusing sharply on foul play. we're talking about three new pieces of information about what may have happened to the 777 after air traffic controllers lost contact with signals from its radar transponder. barbara starr reporting on a classified analysis suggesting the airliner made a left turn

and flew eastest west or southwest into the indian ocean, before likely crashing into the sea that. is one item. the second one ties in additional details of how the jet was flying. malaysian military radar showing the plane climbing to 45,000 feet soon after disappearing from civilian radar screens, then reportedly desends to 23,000 feet, then climbs again as it heads into the indian ocean. there are doubts which such drastic changes are possible. "the new york times" citing american officials and others saying the plane also altered course more than once as if still under the command of someone. the obvious question is who and why? item three in the new reporting is from andy paster, suggesting the presence of at least two bad actors, one to turn the plane, another to disable some of the electronics. he joins us shortly. first i want to go to pentagon

correspondent barbara starr. the u.s. has put together these two analysis. what more can you tell us? >> this is in conjunction with the malaysian authorities and radar specialists, everyone putting their heads together looking at all the data. what they have calculated is that these two search boxes in the ocean that you showed, essentially these two areas are the most likely areas where the plane might have disappeared finally. it flew for about five hours. it sent some pings, if you will, to a satellite. the satellite analyzed those. there were some radar returns showing it was headed in this direction in the indian ocean. what this tells us is they don't have to look over the entire indian ocean, which is massive. what they still cannot explain,

however, is this erratic flight path. it did fly in multiple directions. the question of the radar is still out there, but it begins to narrow the search and give them more of an idea where to look. >> i want to bring in michael schmidt, one of the reporters who wrote this story about the change in direction and the different altitudes. michael, do these erratic altitude changes give credence to a specific theory what may have happened to the flight? and can you explain more about what you know about the altitude changes and course of direction chan changes? >> what it could suggest is that someone was flying the plane manually, and who was that person and why were they doing that? but the other thing that we've been told is that pings coming off the rolls royals engines from the plane show that it fell 40,000 feet in the span of a

minute. when american officials were told this, they said this doesn't make any sense. they said they couldn't believe that it fell that fast in such a short period of time. so what's happened is the american officials are looking at all this stuff and they can't make heads or tails of any of it. in some ways we're looking for clarity, but all this stuff raises more questions. >> so the pings from one of the communication devices indicate the plane essentially plummets 40,000 feet in the span of a minute. is that even possible? >> well, american officials didn't believe it when they were told it. they said it didn't make any sense to them. the americans only have so much insight into the investigation, and it's -- the only stuff they really have is the stuff coming off the radar and their own sort of military imagery and such. the investigative information that the malaysians have about

folks on the plane and other things that may come into that has not really been shared with folks here in washington. that's begun to frustrate them. so the u.s. only has so much visibility in what's going on. >> i just want to high light what you just said. that's a stunning part of the story that essentially the sharing of information has been far less than probably a lot of people in the united states believe, that officials that you've heard from have been very frustrated by the lack of information they've been getting from malaysian authorities. >> because the ntsb and the faa have so much experience in this, they have ways of getting information from different manufacturers and such that receive basically pings that came off of this plane. so in that sense, they have some information. that information the u.s. says has gotten better and better over the past few days and anticipate will get better going into the weekend. but on the investigative side, the malaysians have kept the u.s. at a distance, and the u.s.

basically says, well, we are incredibly good at the stuff, we've done a lot of it before, why don't you let us? but that hasn't happened yesterday. >> so michael, from multiple sources you're hearing that the plane, after it lost contact around 35,000 feet, it went up above 40,000 feet, which is my understanding is above the level that a plane -- that the 777 is supposed to be flying at. what would happen at that level? is that a dangerous level? >> what i believe happened is that the oxygen masks would come down because the air is too thin, at some point the oxygen would run out and everyone on the plane would die. so the question is was the plane taken up that high to kill everyone on board or was it just a mistake that it went up that high? why was it up that high and why did it go back down to around 20,000 feet below where that

plane should have been flying. then it goes back up again. so we all want clarity here. unfortunately, this just baffles me even more. >> and barbara starr, from what you're hearing from u.s. officials, they -- i don't want to put words in your mouth. in terms of where they believe this flight ended up, what are you hearing? >> let me say that as they look at the radar data, they're very familiar with the variations in the altitude. they believe at this point, u.s. officials believe that radar data from the malaysians may not be accurate, that the plane was flying too far away from the military radars that picked up these altitude readings for those readings to be accurate. what they do believe is that it went out into the indian ocean and they now believe that there is a very great likelihood, a very great probability that the plane crashed somewhere into the water. >> barbara starr, appreciate your reporting. joining us now is lon brown and

david gallow, and bob bair. ron, these altitude changes that barbara starr has been following up, the altitude and course changes, does that require a human being to make those changes? >> most of the time it does, but i would like to take two seconds to say thank you for having me on your show and your crew. i really appreciate that you put a pilot that has experience in this area to represent the guys that are flying now and the guys that have flown in the past in asking our point of view. and the answer to your question is, most of the time if you see erratic changes in altitude and direction, someone is controlling the airplane. >> and when you say someone is controlling it, that has to be controlling it from on board,

it's not something that can be done by remote somewhere else that somebody can hack into a system or something like that? >> well, that sounds a little hollywood to me -- >> that's why i'm asking. >> yeah, that's -- you know, hollywood is great at entertaining us, but the real fact is, common sense that i don't think it could have been controlled by someone outside the aircraft. i think it was controlled inside and i don't think that the computer itself, the autopilot was making changes like that. a human being had to be making inputs, either manually or manipulating the controls of the autopilot, so the answer to your question is, yes, i think it is a person. >> bob, you agree that the person was most definitely redirected by a person? >> i think absolutely. you look at all the circumstances, the turning off the transponder, the flight

direction. i also agree that it's probably crashed into the indian ocean somewhere. but the real fear all along was, if we have gone all these days not knowing what happened to this plane, what if somebody had grabbed it as a weapon and continued to europe or the united states? i think that was always very up likely but a possibility that the intelligence community was looking at. >> and there's questions if this plane was flown back malaysia, how did it get across malaysian air space without any red flags, if military radar was checking it. david, you say despite having narrowed down these two paths barbara starr was reporting on, it's far too big of an area for an effective search, correct? >> well, very hopeful that they've got it down to these two places, because the other search area was bigger in space than the entire north atlantic ocean. so this is hopeful.

but i have to question the idea that they're saying the plane crashed. that's the word that's been severaled times, crashed. where does that information come from and howreconcile those that with the idea that the airplane was airborne for five hours plus? what were they doing for all that time, just zigzagging back and forth? doesn't make sense that the plane would be airborne that amount of time and only have gotten that far, unless i'm missing something. >> i understand your question. we're going to take a quick break. bob, david, ron, just stay with us. we have more breaking news on the growing possibility of some kind of human involvement, whether it was sabotage or we don't know frankly, but of human control of the aircraft. we'll talk to a reporter from "the wall street journal" about what his sources are now telling him. it's a story that's just broken. stay with us. 75 a month? yup. all 5 of you for $175.

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from point "a" to point "b." capella university is designed for your profession, so you can learn what you need to go further, to your point "c." capella university. start your journey at capella.edu. welcome back. more breaking news to report. "the wall street journal" joust broke a story reporting that investigators are focusing on sabotage. michael paster joins us now with details.

sorry, andy paster with details. just minutes ago, you posted a story about that first turn the plane took. what can you tell us? >> so this investigation appears to be moving very quickly toward a law enforcement or terrorism path. every day it's harder to come up with a credible argument this was an accident. what we're putting on the website and will put in tomorrow's paper are details about what investigators suspect was happening on that plane, some deliberate actions. in the space of six hours, someone or a group turned off three different signaling systems on that aircraft to hide its location, and investigators also believe that about an hour after takeoff, just after the transponder stopped operating, someone manually made the aircraft turn to the left. in addition to that, there are strong suspicions in order to disable one of the signaling systems, someone had to go down to the lower portion of the aircraft, leave the cockpit, and

disable that system. so therefore, that presumes that someone else may have been in the cockpit to control or monitor the plane. these are all aspects that the investigators are really activity looking at, and it just adds much more ammunition to the notion this is some kind of sabotage, terrorism, whatever you want to call it. but not an accident. >> then of course it raises questions about who would have been involved. was it the flight crew themselves or passengers on board the plane who tried to take over the plane. that we don't know, right? >> that's right. it's very early, and i think everyone agrees that investigators have a very long way to go to determine that, and also your viewers should believe aware that just because it becomes a criminal investigation, some of the imagines will not disappear. they'll get a lot worse. if the malaysians are heading up the investigation, as is likely,

their track record has not been stellar in leading the investigation so far. and so it's really going to be a tough task to make sure it's a thorough and efficient and accurate investigation. and just today, malaysian officials i think gave out the stunning information that they weren't sure that the plane actually flown for five hours after the transponder was lost, when everyone else is basically looking at that data and feel certain it flew for that period of time. and the search is now more than 1,000 miles to the west over a huge area near the indian ocean. >> so i want to reiterate what you have just said. this is the first time we are hearing this and you posted online, and lit be in "the wall street journal" tomorrow. based on your reporting, all your sources are telling you that the plane was manually -- had to have been manually turned and perhaps based on what

they -- based on the succession of communication devices being turned off, that likely two people had to have somehow been involved, someone to remain in the cockpit, someone to go below and turn off one of the communication devices. >> certainly more than one person. i mean, it's unclear where they are, what their purposes were. it's very unclear where the plane is currently. there's only one incontrovertible fact in all of this speculation. if the aircraft went into the water, there has to be some debris somewhere. if it went into the water, something floats from the overhead bin, from the galley, life rafts, life preservers. it is impossible not to find debris if this 250-ton aircraft crashed into the water, no matter what trajectory it took to get there. >> are you hearing from officials they still believe it likely ended up in the water? barbara starr reported that's what she had been hearing. david gallow asked the question,

how do we know that? how are people coming to that belief? my understanding, and i don't know if you have heard or you know from your sources, is that because the pings stopped at a certain point, and they're making the assumption they would be able to tell it was on the ground or not is. that your understanding? >> well, that's right. we have to be very precise. the pings stopped and the aircraft were still in tact. either it crashed into the water, a deliberate act or because it -- something happened on the plane or it landed somewhere. i would say most of the investigators and folks who have been watching this would say the less likely option is that it landed somewhere. but it is an option, and at the time of the last transmission, the plane had about an hour's worth of fuel left. so it's not as though it was

constrained, it could still travel many hundreds of miles in any direction. >> and i want to bring back in my panel. ron, first of all, what do you make of what you're hearing from andy? >> well, it's very, very interesting, but when i talked to you the first night, i said there was three things, the aircraft, the crew or intervention. and i think we're kind of nailing it down to intervention at the present time. this airplane couldn't have done things with a malfunction. this was somebody intervening. >> it could not have continued to do what it did with major malfunctions on board? >> that is correct. >> bob, what is your take on -- go ahead, ron. >> i was going to say it's just like you driving your car. you take your hand off the steering wheel, it's going to go somewhere, but you have to steer that down the road. so either the pilot or autopilot

is in control of where that aircraft is going. >> david, i want to get your take on what andy is reporting, as well. >> again, i'll accept that. my and our expertise really begins on the water and underneath the water, but we have a vested interest in knowing if we're in the right spot, so all of these things play into that. the question is where does the information come from that says the plane crashed? and two, it doesn't take five hours to get to those two search hours, at least from my calculations, only a couple of hours. so what was the plane doing for the rest of the time? >> andy, do you have a read on that based on your reporting? >> well, those are all very good questions and it's early in the investigation. people don't have any answers. but i think it's pretty clear and it's been publicly stated by the satellite company, the plane was in tact and presumably flying for five hours.

investigators believe it's possible it could have landed somewhere in that interval. very unlikely to land and take off again. so the best operating theory currently is that it was flying for those five hours. where it was flying, it's not clear. some of these transmissions to the satellites did give a location and altitude and speed. so they're trying to piece all of that together, but i think we have to believe that the most likely scenario is somewhere it went into the water. but they're keeping open the possibility that it did land somewhere. that can't be ruled out from what we know currently. >> bob, in terms of the investigation, not that the investigation into passengers or crew members or anybody on board that flight really has stopped, i was surprised to learn they haven't searched the home of the pilot. i'm not casting any aspersions on anybody, but if you are looking at personnel, that would

be one thing to do. clearly with what "the wall street journal" is reporting, barbara starr reporting, the investigation into everybody on board that plane takes on continued urgency. >> oh, absolutely, anderson. i mean, it's clear that with the evidence we have so far that a team got on that airplane. it was either the crew coordinating it or a team that hijacked it. and the answer is in kuala lumpur. apparently they don't check very well who gets on those airplanes. we still don't know about the two iranians, what their role was. the fact that tehran said there's no connection with terrorism doesn't tell me anything, nor the malaysians being forthcoming. that's where the fbi and cia are going to be asking hard questions. they do have a background that can be traced. >> ron, just briefly. you're an experienced pilot. that altitude change, if in fact the plane did go above 40,000

feet, is that something that an autopilot would do or does that -- that has to be manually done? >> that has to be manually done, and it has to be done by somebody having their hands on the controls or somebody having their hand on the autopilot and changing the altitude. otherwise, if the airplane is on autopilot, it's going to stay at the heading that it was given. so to do erratic changes like that, somebody was controlling that airplane and flying it outside the envelope and not knowing what the correct way to fly the airplane was. >> we've got to take another break. i would like you to stick around, andy pastor, as well. based on the people he's talking to, it seems now evident that the plane was manually turned after the communication device was switched off and authorities

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welcome back. we're talking about tonight's breaking developments. indications that flight 370 changed course and altitude

several times sharply before heading out into the indian ocean. and authorities believe the plane was manually turned after ground controllers lost contact wit, and someone was needed to go below deck on the 777 to disable one key piece of electronics, suggesting sabotage. back with our panel. barbara starr, you are getting information about the human hand perhaps being involved in this disappearance, which seems to corroborate what "the wall street journal" is reporting. >> right, anderson. i've spoken recently to some u.s. officials. what is going on is in the last 48 hours, since it's gotten all this technical data analyzed, the blips off the airplane, the satellite data, the u.s. intelligence community, the u.s. national security community, faa, ntsb, analyzing the technical data, and as they have looked at it now and have had the time to look at it, sort

through it, what they are coming to is a conclusion, i am told, it may, may be harder they stay to write off the notion that there was not some sort of human intervention in this flight. this does not go to the notion yet in our reporting of motive, of sabotage, hijacking, whatever you want to call it. but what does it go to is as the u.s. intelligence community has looked at the technical data, they've asked themselves the question, how could it be? how could these changes have happened? what are the reasonable ways these very significant changes in flight path, the erratic part of the flight path, the altitude changes, what can we explain away, what can't we explain away in aerodynamiaerodynamics, how happen? and they look at it in the last many hours as they have looked at it, it is becoming harder to

write off the notion that there wasn't human intervention it. >> barbara, i want to ask you a question which david gallow put to us a few moments ago and it's an excellent question about it, and we talked to andy pasztor about it. but officials you were talking to believe the plane ended up in the ocean. how can they believe that if we were led to believe this plane went for some five hours, how are they saying it ended up in the water? are they saying that definitively? what leads them to that conclusion? >> let me start with, nothing is definitive in this story over the last week, as we know, other than this plane is missing. they have made some calculations based on this technical data, and what they believe the flight path could have been if they could have calculated it based on the radar returns, the so-called