of the political ruling party there. he was sentenced to jail just hours before it took off. so a lot of malaysian press are questioning whether the flight has something to do with that, although we don't see anything about that. >> insight into all of the questions people have about every passenger who was on that plane and crew member, as well. sam, thank you. good work. appreciate it. and we're flat out of time. but we're continuing this story, so stay tuned now as my so stay tuned now as my colleague, wolf, takes over. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com hello, i'm wolf blitzer reporting from washington. we have significant developments on the disappearance of flight 370. the fbi is examining the hard drives of the computers belonging to both the pilot and the co pilot. a law enforcement source tells cnn, fbi investigators also are looking at the hard drive of the captain's home made flight simulator. malaysian officials announced earlier today that some data on

that simulator had been deleted. it's not clear who erased the information or when. but a forensic team is now working to try to recover it. and also right now, to that sharp turn to the west. that the jet took about an hour after takeoff. senior u.s. official tells cnn, the altered route was actually entered into the plane's guidance system, at least 12 men minutes before the co pilots signed off with air traffic controllers with the words, quote, all right, good night. mean time, a u.s. government source says all available evidence indicates it's far more likely the plane is in the southern search corridor than up north. and australians leading the search there are narrowing their focus to the waters off of perth. they hone the search based on ntsb analysis of the jet's fuel reserves. waiting for word of the plane's fate is taking a very, very emotional toll on the families

of the 239 passengers and crew members. and many are getting increasingly frustrated with what they see as a lack of transparency by the malaysian government and malaysia airlines. some protested today at a hotel in kuala lumpur. it was an extremely chaotic scene, as security officers physically removed one distraught mother from the room. watch this. [ crying ] [ screaming ] >> awful, awful, horrible scene. malaysian authorities later released a statement, calling today's scene at that hotel regrettable, and they promise they would investigate. we're going to have more on what actually happened coming up later this hour. we're covering all of these developments as only cnn can. our correspondents and analysts, they are all standing by. but let's go to our chief

national security correspondent, jim sciutto, here in washington. we found out, jim, today the fbi is actually examining the hard drives of the pilots' computers, as well as the captain's flight simulator. tell us what we know about this. >> what it shows is that until they know what happened to this flight and why, they're going to check and recheck everyone involved with that plane, particularly the pilots. and is you'll remember yesterday malaysian authorities said they looked at the hard drives, looked at the simulator, didn't see anything suspicious, but now are taking it to the next step. you have copies of those hard drives, mirror copies of those hard drives now. quantico, virginia, where the fbi, fbi analysts experts can piece together data there. look for anything suspicious. as well as piece together what you mentioned, wolf, the parts of that flight simulator that -- or the data from that flight simulator that had been deleted. and that's what they're doing right now. again, they haven't found the clue that is suspicious. but they're going to be -- they're going oh to keep looking until they have scoured it to

the point where they can feel comfortable. >> i understand it's not really all that hard to retrieve deleted data from these hard drives. unless it was done in a very, very sophisticated way. >> well, that's the question. depends on how much it was deleted. i think we all have this impression when we delete e-mails or files that they disappear. they don't disappear. experts, particularly the kinds of experts the fbi has, that do this on a regular basis, they can piece it together like pieces of a puzzle. you know, that it might not all be in one piece, but they could bring them together and get an idea, and i think that that's exactly what they're doing right now. i think it's unlikely there would be no trace of those deleted files. the question is, and the challenge will be to what degree it was deleted and therefore how much they could bring it together to glean something important and addictive from it. >> jim sciutto, thank you. with us now our cnn aviation analyst, former ntsb managing director, peter goelz and aviation analyst, former american airlines pilot, mark weise, and cnn law enforcement

analyst, tom fuentes, former assistant director of the fbi. tom, it's significant that now the malaysians are at least letting the fbi go into those hard drives and investigate. >> right, wolf. and they'll be able to tell deleted files that were not written over. and that's the problem with this. i mean, you can commercially buy programs for your own computer to go back to files you've deleted. what technically happens is, you delete a file, actually only the first letter from the name of the file is deleted. so it doesn't come back up. and when you go on your computer and say how much room do i have? it doesn't count that. it says that's available space. the next question is, when you save a new file, did it save over the top of -- in other words, erasing the previous file, or just pick new or different space. and that's what they have to look at. they bring up every deleted file that they can, and determine whether or not it's been written over in the interim. >> how suspicious should we be about the deletions from this hard drive of this computerized

flight simulator? why would someone who is doing this kind of stuff go ahead and delete certain files? >> well, it could be that his hard drive was getting full. i think just the act of deleting a file off your computer is not an indictment of anything. we have to dig into it deeper. and we should have been doing this about a week ago. >> better late than never. >> right. >> they'll still be able to find out -- i assume they'll be able to find out what was deleted, right, mark? this should not be that difficult. >> no, i would think they would be able to get that. remember, if you're going to be using a sim later, you want all the graphics possible. that seems to be a pretty sophisticated simulator, which would have taken up a lot of memory. >> what would raise suspicions? if they see some of these flight routes that this pilot was practicing on, for example, they would -- that would raise some alarm bells. >> well, the problem with it is, in a way it will raise alarm bells and in a way it could be insignificant. in other words, here's a person who loves flying and might have put in destinations because

malaysian air flies all over asia. they fly to the major cities, australia, for example, the major cities of china. so maybe he finds out he's going to have different routes later and wants to practice on. they so finding out that he was going to brisbane australia and erasing it. >> what if he had practice runs to somalia. >> exactly. >> or pakistan or afghanistan. that could raise some alarm bells. >> it could raise alarm bells, but he could be towing it just for the fun of it. and that's what you don't know. he could put in he wants to go to the north pole, you know, or one of these hot beds of terrorism, a place like that. and, again, what you don't know is, whether he's just for recreation purposes going, well, what's it like if i go here or there. and putting it in there and then realizing, well, that was fun, erase it for the next time. you just don't know. >> and now it looks like it's pretty hard -- it's confirmed that 12 minutes or so before the co pilot said "all right, good night," seemingly suggesting that everything is fine, the computer on the cockpit was

actually programmed to make that sharp left turn. even though it didn't necessarily make it then, it was programmed. and what does that say to you? >> well, i think if it holds up, it's pretty damning evidence that whatever was going on in the cockpit, the pilot and the co pilot had to have known about it. one of them had to have entered the data. but i'll defer to mark. >> what does that say to you, mark? >> well, first of all, i'm not sure who would have gotten that information, that it happened 12 minutes before. >> the programming. >> it was programmed there. i'm not sure how that data would have gotten to somebody on the ground. so i'm still suspect on something like that. let's assume that that's real. okay? certainly -- that certainly puts more light on the potential for one or both of the pilots to have done something. but it also now heightens the suspicion that somebody could have entered the cockpit, either invited in or illegally gotten in there one way or another and put that in after the flight plan was originally put in on

the ground, and agreed to. you know, the way the flight plans are put in, the pilots would get a hard copy of the flight plan. then it would be uploaded by the company's operations into the flight management system. and you would read back the data points from the flight management system to the paper. and then you check that off. if the pilots had left the cockpit because this would have been done on the ground in kuala lumpur, then somebody could have gotten in there at that time and put something in. >> all right, guys. don't go away. we're going to keep you here for the hour. much more coming up sophisticated u.s. surveillance plane stuck on the tarmac in malaysia right now. we're going to find out why one u.s. navy search and rescue mission hasn't gotten off the ground. this is shocking new information we're getting. also, pure heartbreak for the families of those on board this missing plane. 239 people have van irished. now their loved ones reaching a

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malaysian officials say the search involves at least 57 ships and 48 aircraft from 13 countries. there have been, though, some frustrating delays. here's our own atika schubert at the subban air base in malaysian with a look at how one u.s. search and rescue mission was simply grounded. >> reporter: as you can see a, e plane is set to go, but it's been delayed for hours and it's a big frustration for the crew, because they just haven't had clearance to fly over indonesia to begin their search. they have begun five missions so far. and the p3 is ideally suited for a search and rescue mission.

we're going to attatake you ins and show why. while they wait for clearance, the crew goes own the plan to search 37,000 square nautical miles. the p-3 orion was originally designed for hunting submarines, but now looking for flight 370 in the indian ocean. the mission commander introduces us to some of the 11-man crew. this is the electronic operator. right now petty officer enriquez, in charge of running the radar system. >> reporter: you've already done five missions so far. can you run us through what you do with each mission? >> i run the radar, the madd system and the camera. so the radar is a primary sensor for search. anything large in the water will show up on my radar. i'll take the camera, zoom in and make sure it's nothing of interest. but if it's something that might be of interest, then we'll drop down low, and we'll use observers, the flight station, and our eyes just to make sure

that it's nothing that could be, you know, survivor, wreckage or anything like that. >> back here we have our port and star board observer windows, always two of them. always manned. we constantly rotate so they don't get tired so we always have a fresh set of eyes in order to help out with the certain, as well. >> reporter: i just want to get your sense of what it's like to be on a mission like this. it's obviously pretty unusual. >> it's really quite an honor to be able to be out here, participating in this search and rescue effort. basically, as he was explaining, we probably have the most important job on the plane, keeping constant eyes on the ocean. any clue we find or see that can help out in the search efforts, obviously could make the difference in finding this plane or not. >> reporter: the crew was kind enough to take us inside and show us around the plane. but it's still on the ground. they have been delayed now for four hours. and it just goes to show, the frustrations of this search, why

it's taking so long to find flight 370. atika schubert, cnn, at the subban air base in malaysian. >> and we have learned that the -- this u.s. plane never took off. the flight was completely cancelled, because it never received the okay from indonesian officials to enter their air space. let's bring back our panel. tom, this is pretty shocking that everyone is supposed to be cooperating, including indonesia, but they won't let a u.s. p-3 fly through their air space to look for what might be some wreckage? >> you're right. i have no explanation for why they would do that. >> do you have any explanation? what are they afraid of? >> i think it's further evidence that when you have the indonesian government being nervous about the malaysian military being nervous about this investigation, it reflects the same thing. the ties did not reveal their radar data so nobody asked. if this were more civilian-run

investigation, i don't think you would have these kinds -- >> there's tensions, clearly, between some of these governments out there. they don't trust each other. and as a result, a sophisticated u.s. surveillance plane is not allowed to fly through indonesian air space. >> you would think just for reciprocity, because of indonesian airlines or international carriers, if this happened to one of their aircraft, they would want the full support of all of the nations involved. and certainly as an ikao member, you would expect them to want this, the international krifl aviation organization. >> they wait all day for hours and hours, this flight crew, to finally go out there and do something, and they don't get permission so the whole mission, at least on this day, has been cancelled. why are they focusing in now on the southern arc, if you will, off the coast of indonesia, not far from australia and that whole area as opposed to the northern arc? based on what? >> i think the u.s., faa, ntsb radar experts have agreed that

given the handshake returns, that that's the most prominent search area. and had we been involved earlier, that's where we would have been, since day one. >> day one, they were looking in the south china sea. >> they were looking in the opposite -- >> total waste of time, based on everything we have now learned. approaching two weeks, hard to believe. this mystery has now been going on for two weeks. and we always have to remember, 239 people were on board that plane, if you take a look at the passengers and the crew members. and our hearts go out clearly to all of them. let's say they're looking out there. finding debris with these aircraft, that's a difficult, difficult challenge. >> it's a needle in the haystack. if you've ever flown out of open water and tried to spot something, it's enormously difficult. >> and a lot of junk out there, too, tom, as you know. just -- a lot of random stuff floating around. and you could get confused.

>> right. and when you travel around the world, you know, many of these cargo ships and cruise ships just throw garbage over the side. they flush their tanks. they do all kinds of things that are terrible for the environment. but they don't care. and if they think they're in international waters, that debris can drift in and, you know, land on the coast of any of the countries involved. so that's another frequent thing, just standing on the coastline, you see junk come pouring ashore that some ship dumped out at sea. >> and we micssed the opportuniy to try and find a fuel slick. it's broken up by now. it's gone. >> nearly two weeks into this. all right, guys, don't go away. questions raised about the political leengs of the missing pilot were the airlines flight. come up next, our own christiane amanpour sat down with a key malaysian opposition later to hear what he says about the speculation. a live report from london. and christiane. that's coming up. no matter how busy your morning you can always do something better for yourself.

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malaysia's opposition leaders speaking about the political inclinations of the pilot at the controls of the missing malaysia airlines jet. chief international correspondent christiane amanpour just sat down with anwar ibrahim. christiane joining us from loobloob london. what did he tell you? >> reporter: this is the most extraordinary case of this incredible mystery intersecting with malaysia's democratic opposition later. he was very upset in that he said how can these people be connecting us without a single shred of evidence. he denied pointblank that the

pilot was in any way motivated by being upset at his current legal case that was reinstated in court. listen to what he told me about knowing the pilot. >> he is related to my daughter-in-law, who is now working in new york. and i've met him on a number of occasions during party meetings, clamoring for a forum, supporting us in elections for democracy in malaysia. >> reporter: i want to read how one of your spokesmen described mr. shah, the pilot. he is anwar's son's wife's mother's father's brother's son. does that sound right? >> that's a bit too complex. but my daughter-in-law told me that he is a family member, not too close, but -- she calls him uncle. which is quite common here. but i know him basically -- as a

party activist. >> reporter: do you think that he was a fanatic? >> certainly is not. i mean, he supports our coalition. he supports a democratic reform. he's against any form of extremism. we take a very strong position in clamoring for change through constitutional and democratic means. although the electoral process is fraudulent. >> reporter: so he also said that the pilot was not in the court when his case was being adjudicated. this case he's been talking about, he has been sentenced back to jail, a target of the government because he's the main opposition threat to the government. so he is saying the pilot was not in court at that time. he also said something really interesting. that the malaysian government should have been able to track this flight with no trouble whatsoever. he said when he was finance

minister, anwar ibrahim, that gentleman i interviewed, finance minister, they procured very advanced mar coney radar systems that he told me should have been able to detect and to track that flight at any time, anywhere, in that greater area. >> fascinating material, christiane. and i assume anwar ibrahim is not very praise worthy of the way the current malaysian government, he's the opposition leader, is conducting this investigation, right? >> reporter: well, you can imagine that he's not at all -- in fact, he says that part of blaming him is a smear to deflect from the criticism that the government is getting. but he also said something very interesting. this government and for years and decades in malaysia, has never had a free press, he said. so they are not used to this constant questioning by the independent press who is there right now in droves to try to get some answers. that everything that happens in that part of the world is shrouded in all sorts of secrecy, and they tend to wrap

things up in the cloak of national security. and he said that's one reason why perhaps they're simply not used to answering these questions. that in addition to the fact that it obviously has been pretty badly mishandled now 12 days into this mystery. >> certainly is. all right christiane, thank you very much. christiane amanpour, reporting from london. the mystery surrounding flight 370 is becoming more painful by the day for the families of the passengers and crew members. 239 people were on board that plane. that anguish boiling over today. the emotional scene is coming up next. 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,

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families of the 239 people on board flight 370 will holding out hope their loved ones will be found alive. the partner of one of three american passengers, 51-year-old phillip wood, believes the plane was hijacked. she made this emotional appeal last night on "ac 360." >> i'm hoping and i'm asking, please, to not hurt the people on the plane. find some other way to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. but don't hurt the people. let phillip come back to me, please. >> other families are demanding more answers from the malaysian government and malaysia airlines. they held a protest today at a hotel in kuala lumpur. one mother broke down as she appealed to international journalists for help.

[ crying ] [ speaking in foreign language ] as you can see, the grieving families reaching their breaking

point. it must be incredibly painful not knowing if your loved one is alive or dead. what happened to them. mark donbrof, aviation attorney in washington, has represented airlines in these kind of flight disasters. what do you say to a mother like that who is screaming out in anguish because her son is lost. >> i think the airline, malaysia airlines, in this instance, wolf, is in a terrible predicament. i think that familinesses, in our experience, over the years want information. that's what they want. and there just doesn't seem to be any information. there's lots of speculation, lots of rumors. there's lots of reversals, of course. but what the families want is information. and the airline is the point of contact for them. and to the extent that the wrath or the anger or the emotion is directed, it's directed at the airline, which itself wants the answers. so i think that saying, be

patient or we're working on it or the investigation is on a full-court press, frequently is not enough. >> so if malaysia airlines hired you, like other airlines have done in these kinds of disasters, what would you tell them? what should they do? what advice would you give? >> i think there are very sophisticated organization, they operate in the united states, they have a family assistance program in place, whether the accident occurs here or yells can where, where it occurs. they have brought in third party providers, companies that are experts in dealing with these disasters. i think that one of the things that i would suggest, and the problem is that they're not running the investigation. malaysia airlines doesn't run the investigation. >> malaysian government. >> the malaysian government runs it. so to a certain extent, even though it's the national airline, they are indeed at the mercy of, and under the control of the government. >> same thing could happen here if there was a united disaster, the ntsb or faa would take charge. >> correct. and indeed, under malaysian accident investigation rules, and they have relatively

sophisticated rules, all investigations are deemed to be private, which means no information gets released. if an accident occurs in this country, the airline is not permitted to comment about the investigation at all. they are party to the investigation. all of the information comes from the national transportation safety board, and customarily, the member of the board who is present on the scene will brief the families on a regular ongoing basis. or the investigator in charge will brief the families. >> these families believe malaysia airlines and malaysian government are withholding information from them. >> that is a credibility gap and a trust gap that could be as more time goes by very difficult to overcome. i think if i had a criticism, the criticism is not directed at the airline. the airline is in an impossible position in this instance. the airline industry has been so safe for so many years, that you do not have the institutional experience that most airlines in terms of how do you deal with these situations. moreover, the very best

emergency response plan is only good for the first several hours. and after that, you're responding and trying to stay out in front. and when, in fact, you don't have the information, you're really limited on what you can say to the families. >> mark dombroff, thank you for coming in. >> my pleasure, thank you. up neck, investigators trying to figure out why data was deleted from a flight simulator that belonged to the pilot of the missing malaysian airlines plane. we'll get reaction from the virginia company right outside of washington, d.c., that actually made the simulator. [ chainsaw whirring ] humans -- sometimes life trips us up. sometimes we trip ourselves up. and although the mistakes may seem to just keep coming at you, so do the solutions. like multi-policy discounts from liberty mutual insurance. save up to 10% just for combining your auto and home insurance.

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as crews keep up the search for malaysia airlines flight 370, a key part of the puzzle could be a flight simulator taken from the home of the pilot of the missing plane. we have learned that data from the simulator was actually deleted, at least some of that data, early last month. and work is now under way to try

to retrieve it. the company that made the sim later is actually based in alexandra, virginia, right outside washington, d.c. and brian todd is here. you actually went out to the company and just got back here to the studio. what did you see out there, what did they tell you? >> they didn't tell us anything. they didn't want to speak to us. we were told the head of the company was not available, wolf. an update to what you just said. we have been told by law enforcement officials that u.s. law enforcement officials are examining the hard drives of the pilot and the first officer of the missing plane. the hard drive includes software information from the home flight simulator owned by the captain, zaharie ahmed shah, the captain of the missing flight. investigators, as you mentioned, did discover some data was deleted from the simulator, not saying what was deleted or who deleted it. and it's not necessarily any evidence of ill intent here. we have to say that. but as far as how unusual this is, on a web forum, one person who uses flight simulators say that that piece of information

is meaningless. the people add and delete, load and delete data from simulators constantly. but the owner of one simulator, manufacturer, says he believes it is unusual to delete data, because these files are very small and pilots often keep them on there to measure their progress in flight simulation. so getting differing opinions of whether it's unusual or not to delete data from a flight simulator. now as far as that company you mentioned that manufactured the software for captain shah's home simulator, that company is pmtg simulations based in alexandra. they make that software. we could not reach their -- the head of that company, robert n rondozeno, but he did issue a statement on a web forum last night and here is a quote. some commentators have focused on captain shah's love of the flight simulation hobby as a suggestion he may have played a role in the disappearance of mh370. such wild conjecture is not only

insulting it those of us who wear or worn the stripes of a captain, but he also said it could hurt the flight simulation hobby industry, and he also said that other than being a customer, captain shah had no connection to his company. >> so at this place in alexandra, right outside washington, they just do the software. >> they make the software for simulators and i'm not sure if they actually manufacture whole sim laters or not but do a lot of that type of thing and very representable company and their product is good but they didn't want to talk to us. >> and now we're told the fbi is going through the hard drives to see what was deleted, if there is anything suspicious at all, no indications yet. >> that's right. >> thank you. up next, the many of you who have important questions about flight 370, we're going to try to get some solid answers to as many of them as possible. our panel of experts standing by. and later, tensions in crimea threatening to get bloodier. we're going to tell you about a standoff at a ukrainian naval head quarter. your education is built to help move your career forward.

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many of you have very specific questions about this mysterious disappearance. we're going to put some of those questions to our panel right now, joining us once again, our aviation analyst, mark weise and peter goelz and tom fuentes. here's a question, peter, for you. how could the plane climb to 45,000 feet and then down to 23,000 feet if they reset flight

plan and cockpit? plane doesn't do that on its own. >> they do not. and those numbers and that scenario is still under great question. because the drop to 23,000 feet would have had the plane approaching almost the speed of sound. but when a plane is at the outer edges of the radar's effective range, the returns become very -- >> so you don't necessarily buy that notion -- >> no. >> 35,000 -- went up to 45, down to 23. that was reported a couple days ago in the "new york times." >> say we hold that one. >> here's a question, tom. with the largest u.s. naval base in the indian ocean, why didn't the u.s. navy see this plane? we have radar there. >> if the plane didn't get anywhere near it, that's a gigantic area. and if they weren't looking and nobody said until several days later that it even went west, there would be no reason to be looking for it. and know it went through their

space. may not have gone through their radar space. >> here's another question, mark. mary kirk patrick wants to know, why wouldn't the flight attendants alert air traffic control that something was amiss on the flight? >> well, you have to alert air traffic control from the cockpit. >> you can't do it from the -- beyond the cockpit? >> no, you can't. >> no button you can push that a chief flight attendant or anybody could push? we've got a serious problem here? >> there's no method in the cabin. >> why is that? that sounds like that's a problem. >> well, i'm not sure that's really a problem. you think about it, it's also a security control. >> if somebody gets into the cockpit and locks the door, and it's a bad person, wouldn't the flight -- wouldn't you want the flight attendant to report to the ground, ground control, hey, we've got a problem up here. >> there's been a lot of controversy whether or not you should have locked and cockpit doors. that has certainly been one of the questions always asked. but at this time in answer to mary's question, no, you can't respond to the ground control.

>> should they reconsider that, put some procedure, some button back there that a flight attendant could use that we've got a disaster going on here? >> well, on 9/11, betty ann called from an air phone. i think there might be some unintended consequences to having that capability in the back of the plane. i think it needs to be looked at. i think it's got some challenges. >> here's another question for you, tom. there was no increase in terrorist chatter after the plane went missing. was the chatter level too quiet after such an event? >> no, i think from a what i've heard, wolf, it was just about the average amount of people calling each other and talking about things. the chatter that usually -- what they were looking for was the bragging chatter. because, among the terror groups, look how great we are. we pulled this off, we did this, we did that. and then other people calling other people, did you hear what they did. and so really, it's more of the post event glory that they're

seeking. >> one person -- one expert said to me, i don't know if this is realistic or not, i'll throw it out to you. you used to work at the fbi. in the aftermath of all of the nsa surveillance stories, these terrorists out there, they suspected everybody is listening -- or at least the nsa is listening to their chatter, if you will. and they don't talk on the phone or on their cell phones or pass messages along on their computers the way they used to. >> well, the problem with that theory is that then they can't coordinate any attack and can't arrange for anything. so they still have to -- >> they do it -- >>is they still have to talk to each other. no matter if they think they are being listened to or not. that's the problem with them. here's the other problem we haven't talked about. how many times did they think they were not talking or e-mailing anyone. in the four hood shootings, assan was e-mailing in yemen,

but noting his coworkers. he was not -- no one in the u.s. or coworkers knew he was thinking about that. that's the other problem. we had other attacks where there was no advance. you look at the boston marathon bombing. >> i ask you this every day. me can tal failure or human involvement. >> i'm leaning towards that. >> i think it was human intervention. >> if you have questions about flight 370, post them to twitter. 370 q. later tonight at 10:00 p.m., don lemon will host a special report

on flight 370. he and an expert panel will answer many more of your questions. we will have much more on the missing plane coming up here on cnn. there now indications you could be getting more violent. an expert promoting democracy. what can be done to end the crisis if anything. bl ...and a choice. take 4 advil in a day which is 2 aleve... ...for all day relief. "start your engines" suddenly you're a mouthbreather. well, put on a breathe right strip and instantly open your nose up to 38% more than cold medicines alone. so you can breathe and sleep. shut your mouth and sleep right. breathe right. so you can breathe and sleep.

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we are going to get back to the missing plane in a moment. first another important story we are working on. a new ultimatum that could push the crisis to escalate to some bloodier sort of conflict. the acting president told pro russian authorities to release all so-called hostages.

including the ukrainian navy chief and stop what they call all provocations by 3:00 p.m. eastern later today. that's just an houro so from now or ukraine will take action of technical or technological character. cnn is checking on whether that could mean military action. the latest statement comes as ukrainian officials say nearly 300 armed pro russian supporters stormed ukraine's naval headquarters earlier today. u.s. officials continue to keep a close eye on the growing number of ukrainian border. congresswoman, thanks very much. it's pretty scary. >> the whole thing is pretty scary. i sure under estimated it.

putin would not annex crimea because he hasn't annexed the two territories between russia and georgia. swift operations in crimea that intimidated voters. is he being provocative? you bet he is. >> is he going to move beyond crimea? there other russian forces now poised on the border with ukraine. there is a lot of theory out there that crimea could be step number one, but then he moves to other parts of ukraine, even though in a speech before the doom of the russian parliament he said he was not going to do that. >> it's hard to get in his head. he is clearly a bully. he is trying to brush off the efforts of the west to impose sanctions and to beef up nato forces and with exercises along the borders with russia.

president biden is there and he is more in touch with this than i am. i think the right answer has to be we don't know. we have to have a very clear response. i think we have to step up the economic sanctions not with standing the objections of many firms in the u.s. and europe who have close economic financial and energy ties and depend on energy from russia. i think we have to think medium term, there is a good oped from tom friedman to match the space race. the last time we were in a cold war paradigm with russia, in a smart way to develop all of our energy resources including renewables and energy and have a strategy to export to europe and keep us independent and if we do those things, that could truly scare russia and the goal now is to push back against a bully. this guy is a bully with a view of russia.

calling him names is not helpful. cornering him in a way that can be effective would be helpful. >> a diplomatic off-ramp. is crimea part of russia? >> that has to be yes. that was predicted by folks and bob gates said it was gone. i think the things, one thing i didn't mention and beefing up nato resources around the borders of russia to support our allies, they could invoke article five. we would have to come to their defense. the other thing is to help

ukraine had bad governments since its basic revolution. even the savior there is an olegark and her government is not given high marks. standing up something different and helping them do that and providing aid and around the impasse will be better. >> we have to leave it there, but we will continue this conversation. that's it for me. a special two-hour edition of the situation room. newsroom starts with brooke baldwin right now. thank you, fwrit to be with you. more on the missing flight 370. let's get there. we were told that the pilot's at home flight simulator seen behind him came up clean. nothing suspicious. now we have learned that data was deleted from the simulator. now we know that the fbi