breaking institution overnight. the search, the mystery intensifying for missing malaysia airlines flight 370. new clues suggesting the pilots may have changed course while they were still in contact with air traffic control. and this morning, reports of a new area of focus in the search for this plane. we are bringing you live team coverage on the latest breaking news overnight. and also breaking overnight, could ukraine and russia be on the brink of war? the fight over crime mia turning deadly, as russia warns the rest

of the world that any country that gets involved will face consequences. we are live with what's happening and the very latest overnight. good morning, welcome to "early start." i'm glad that you're with us. and rosa flores. >> and i'm john berman. we do begin with the latest in the search for malaysia airlines flight 370 now missing. cnn has learned that the flight was programmed to make a turn at least 12 minutes before they radioed air traffic control saying "all right. good night." is this a possible sign of some kind of foul play in the cockpit? at the least, it looks like some kind of deliberate action in the cockpit. the search has grown to roughly the size of the united states, nearly 3 million square miles. cnn's jim clancy who has been in

kuala lumpur for us so long, tracking all the latest developments. jim, let's now start with this new time line. word that the computer may have been reprogrammed before the point of last local contact. >> reporter: well it seems significant on its face, it would point a finger once again towards the cockpit crew, one or other of the pilots on board that aircraft. but at the same time, some aviators for a pilot to put in his dwoord knits that would take him to the nearest place if he had an emergency. in that case, this is just prudent action. this is a person in charge of a plane load of passengers. some aviation experts suggest once he got beyond kuala lampur he might pick another location that he wanted to transit to. or something more sinister. we need evidence to sort that out. the australians were really out

in action today, coordinating, as we had three aircraft, very advanced u.s. navy poseidon 3-8, orion p-3, trying to get them to join in the search as they transit to the areas southwest of perth, approaching antarctica. so they have started in that end of the search where investigators believe would be the farthest that plane could go on the southern arc. start there, work their way in with the indonesians in the north. still some stalls with the indonesians, trying to get other nations' search craft up and in the skies. the race is on. we're in day 12. they need to find some trace of flight 370. >> the map of that search area, jim, so interesting, as you point out the southernmost point

on the southern end of australia. reuters, the news agency, is reporting today that seems to be the area of the greatest focus now. and as you say that would be the farthest point they believe that this plane could have flown, given what they know. >> reporter: yeah, and it's also the most logical place for the australians to begin. i think the plan was always they worked this out with the indonesians, but the plan was that the as you trail yans would pence sure it in from the other end. it takes so long to begin their search in the suspect area, that they're not able to do as much as they would probably like. there are limitations. there are complications. there's bureaucracy, there's all kinds of problems that they're confronting. but you've got hins of people in the air and on the ground that are searching for this migging airplane today. john. >> our thanks to jim clancy in

kuala lumpur today. thanks so much. if you're wondering how countries are reacting, israel are stepping up their defenses into fears that someone may have flown this jet north into asia with plans to use it in some sort of attack. cnn analyst fran townsend, advice tore president bush, tells cnn that is unlikely. >> if you look at the northern route, would have had to go close to the pakistan/indian border, probably one of the best defense it's in world. and over the united arab emirates which also has incredible air defenses. i'm not sure where that takes you. i couldn't imagine it navigated that far and skirted all those air defenses and the theory is you landed where. to load up with some sort of weapon. but in fairness to israel, it's a tiny country, it's not as

though -- you know what i mean, they take this air defense system very seriously because they don't have a lot of time to react. until you know where the plane is, do you know it's in the indian ocean, until you've accounted for it, it's understandable that they'd go to a heightened state of alert. >> also this morning, how they continue to ask how no one on the ground witnessed anything when this jet disappeared. simon austin is in new york talk to someone who told us they think they saw something flying over the gulf of thailand. saima joins us, tell us what they say? >> in a couldn't called tote th kota bharu, they had fallen

asleep fishing, when two of the fishermen were approaching the south china sea where they say they saw a low-flying aircraft, so low they saw the lights that looked like the size of coconuts. they said we turned to one another in complete shock. and we said, what on weather is going on, one said, is the pilot crazy, what's happening here. so i spent the morning out at sea with them. we went not the boat, they talked me through exactly what they saw. they went back, they told their colleagues and their families. then someone said you should report this to police. i asked them why is this so unusual, because where they were out fishing, rosa, is along a usual flight path. this is where airliners fly out. and first take off from kuala

lumpur and of course, there's a lot of international flights going on there. he said this is incredibly unusual. i have never seen a plane flying so low. they reported it to police and it was only a few hoyers later that they learned about flight mh-370. and that is why they decided to talk to us. now, we checked out the times, rosa. now, they reported this happening at 1:30 a.m. that is, of course, around about the same time, shortly flight mh-370 made its last known location clear and identified itself as mh 370 on those radars and those systems that we've been talking about for the past days. did it turn around shortly afterwards? well, we brief that it did. that's what investigators are telling us. also, one other important fact about this town kota bharu where

i am right now, could they been facing difficulties, could the plane been turning back to the cota baru airport. this is an airport that has low runways, 2,400 meters. >> one of the things that's fascinating about this, saima, is the details that they're able to provide. and how investigators are using this information in this investigation, where we know that there's been a lot of criticism of the flow of information. what are these people telling you? how were they interviewed by authorities and how was this information used? and has this information been even released out to the public from the investigators? >> reporter: well, this is the big question. how much are the dots being connected, rosa. we come out on our own, of course, to speak to them for

ourselves to try and corroborate the information. one thing i must point out, we cannot confirm whether that plane they saw was mh-370. but if we try and connect the dots, yes, it was 150678930 in the morning, yes, they were out in the south china sea between kuala lumpur, malaysia and japan. that is the exactly the time we know mh-370 to have made contact with the radar identifying itself as that aircraft. so their story does match up with what we know as where flight 370 was, and of course, various agents telling us it was flying low. now, they have trortd to local police. local police have taken police reports from them. we're trying to get all of that and speak to police. they haven't been forthcoming so far. we are waiting for this evening, perhaps. have they reported this to

versuses in kuala lampur. and does seem to be how the gathering of information is working whether they offered information from various sightings and people reporting and adding up the dots themselves. but we are on that trail for you. we are trying to check this out for outside. and i've been out there at sea today to find out exactly what they believe they saw. rosa. >> saima mohsin live for us in malaysia. thank you so much with fascinating details. 11 minutes after the hour. there were three americans on flight 370, including philip wood, an ibm employee who was returning home to beijing after a trip to the united states. his partner tells anderson cooper she believes the jet was hijacked. she believed swood stiwood is s alive. >> and i don't have any expertise in flight, planes and

satellites, but i have intuition, and i have a feeling that they're still alive. and common sense to say, if i was a terrorist, what would i want to do? i would want to protect the valuable assets on the plane because that would be the leverage point. so if we spents much energy looking into motives and potential places where that plane could be hidden, maybe we'd be coming up with different answers. but the reality is, whoever has done has been successful. they have fooled all the experts and all the governments in the world. they have made a very serious point. but i think they can accomplish their goals without hurting people. because, you know, in the end, in the end, the families and the god of whoever is doing this could forgive them creating this crisis. you know, it's a terrible thing that they've done, but i think they couldn't forgive if they

took incidenocent lives. you know, i'm just hoping, i'm hoping, and i'm asking please to not hurt the people on the plane. you know, find some other way to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. but don't hurt the people. let philip come back to me, please. >> some tough details there. now, i understand that we have pauline chiou who has more details about the families. >> so many people are affected by this. pauline chiou is covering the families that are there. so many of them are chinese, in beijing. i understand they're planning a hunger strike unless they get more clarity? >> reporter: --

>> all right. we seem to have lost pauline. we will go back to her in beijing, she's with the families where so many of the passengers are, they are demanding answers and not satisfied with what they're getting. some threatening a hunger strike until we find out more. >> and we, of course, will continue to follow the mystery of flight 370 all morning long. but first, ukraine authorizing its forces to shoot after a deadly attack on a military base, they're vowing to keep crimea from leaving the country. could war be moving? we're live after the break.

welcome back, 17 minutes past the hour. breaking news this morning in crimea where ukrainian forces have now been authorized to fire in self-defense, after a soldier was killed when armed men stormed the military base near crimea's capital. it's first military death since russian forces marched into crimea last month. and those armed men who attacked were apparently wearing russian uniforms. this just add to get confusion over the fate of crimea now that it has signed a treaty with russia, formally making it part of russian federation. frederik pleitgen is live in moscow with the latest. fred, we're hearing reports that protesters may have broken into the fence into the navy

headquarters in servastopol. what are you hearing? >> reporter: it appears at 8:00 a.m. local time, this morning, and at some point, protesters broke through the front gate of that naval headquarters. what they did, they stormed inside and took down the ukrainian flag and raised the flag of the russia and the russian navy. and what we hear is going on between the protests are and the ukrainian military personnel are clearly outnumbered and that's one that is very dangerous because of yesterday, the ukrainian forces were authorized to use force on the ground if attacked. this would be clearly one of those situations. it seems at this point in time cooler heads are prevailing

there in this very chaotic situation. as you said, it's really unclear which country crimea belongs to. the russians say it is now theirs. the ukrainians say it is still theirs. they consider the forces on the ground to be occupiers, they want them to get out. it's a very difficult situation, the russians are pushing ahead, moving forward the legal process to annex crimea in spite of sanctions put on them by the west. and of course, also the threat of further sanctions that, for instance, vice president biden has been talk be about in his current visit to europe, vees. >> you know, i talked to a ukrai ukrainian-american family last night to get their reactions. i know one of the first things they asked me is one of the things they're afraid of, this means that russia would be moving into eastern ukraine. what are you hearing on that side? does it stop in crimea or

continue into eastern ukraine, i know that is one of the big fears? >> reporter: it is one the big fears. the short answer is no one knows. vladimir putin held a big speech where he announced that crimea would be part of russia. and in that speech, he said they do not intend to move into ukraine. they are massing forces on the eastern border with ukraine. there have been gigantic military exercises going on.the ukrainian government is ringing the alarm bells and saying they believe an envision might be imminent. again, that's what the russians say they do not plan to do. it's very difficult. but the bottom line here, rosa, is that the russians certainly don't fear any sort of intervention from the west. they don't fear the u.s. in all of this. they believe that with them taking over crimea, that the u.s. has blinked, that europe has blinked. and that they are now in charge of the situation. certainly the sanctions that have been put on them.

if you look at the reactions that have been coming in over the past 24 hours, russian politicians mocking these sanctions. and the russian aparliament asking for own members to be put on the sanctions list because they consider it an honor to be sanctioned by america. it certainly shows they are in no way of any fear of retaliation certainly any of economic kind from the united states, rosa. >> all right. frederik pleitgen, live from moscow. thank you so much. 21 minutes after the hour. we're following the breaking news overnight. new clues in the search for missing malaysia airlines flight 370. a new time line of what happened in that cockpit just before it vanished. one expert pilot, he will offer his theory. you haven't heard this one. that's coming up next. ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] cheerios. with flavors your heart will love.

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we are following breaking news this morning into the investigation of the disappearance of malaysia airlines flight 370. cnn has learned the flight

computer was reprogrammed to make a turn at least 12 minutes before the co-pilot said "all right. good night." to air traffic controllers, pointing again to possible foul play in the cockpit. the search area for this jet now tops 3 million square miles. that's roughly the size of the united states. >> now, there have been a number of theories in what might have happened to this plane. what might have happened to the cockpit. some people with theories or experts including former pilots, barry shift was a former twa pilot for 34 years. he thinks that the simplest explanation could be the right one. that the reprogramming, that the turn was the result of pilots trying to deal with some sort of problem on board. >> if you have a serious problem aboard a jetliner like a fire, one thing you want to do is get on the ground as soon as possible. and turning back is the first thing i would do.

the most imperative thing is to take care of that fire. the last thing you're going to do is communicate unless you have the time to do it because no one on the ground can help you. now, i seriously doubt that anyone would try to land a jetliner in the ocean at night. without lights. the ocean is huge, and i simply don't think that they found it yet. i don't know that all the ocean has been looked at yet. i kind of doubt it. my guess is, and it's strictly a guess that they will find pieces of this airplane some place soon. it's very soon that they were working their -- offs to try to overcome a problem that may have been overcome from perhaps a fire, perhaps smoke, from everything i've seen about these pilots, they were pretty sharp guys. >> a lot of possibilities. we just don't know until we find any trace, any clues. >> there's a lot of pieces to the puzzle and we'll following

the new choose on malaysia airlines flight 370. live team coverage next. you're comfortable here,

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breaking news overnight. the mystery of missing ma labor airlines flight 370 intensifies. did the pilots change course before they lost contact with air traffic control? new questions, and this morning, reports of a new area of focus in the search for this plane. we have live team coverage with the very latest dwechts. more breaking news this morning. explosive tensions in crimea. concerns that fighting between ukraine and russia right on the brink of serious, serious confrontation. we're live there as well. welcome back to "early start," everyone. i'm john berman. >> and i'm rosa flores. it's 4:30 in the east, 1:30 in the west. glad that you're here with us. new this morning, we have breaking developments in the search for malaysia airlines flight 370. a senior u.s. official tells cnn the