they do not want to hear information that lifts them up and gives them hope and drops them down again. jake? >> sara sidner, a very difficult time for those families. that's it for "the lead," i'm jake tapper. i turn you over to wolf blitzer. he's in "the situation room." wolf? >> jake, thank you. happening now, breaking news. the mystery of flight 370. >> the air search is about to begin in the southern indian ocean. some 1500 miles off the coast of australia they are confident that they can retrieve it from the simulator's hard drive. a chilling scenario in which

deadly smoke took over everyone on board, leaving the plane to fly itself. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." a search official calls it, and i'm quoting now, the best lead we have and it's adding fresh urgency to malaysia flight 370. here are the latest developments. it will soon be daylight in one of the most remote places on earth, the southern indian ocean, some 1500 miles west of us australia. that's where images show a large piece of debris. an aircraft will head over there once again to try to locate the objects. a norwegian cargo deck is already there and they are trying to spot the debris. an fbi forensic team is confident it will be able to release some of the files deleted from the pilot's flight simulator.

they will also analyze the websites that the pilot and co-pilot may have visited. our reporters and analysts are standing by with the kind of coverage that only cnn could deliver. let's begin with our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. jim? >> wolf, within hours search planes will be back on site in the possible debris site as daybreaks in the southern indian ocean. they are using the most powerful technology in the world to peer down at the surface and determine exclusively if this is debris from flight 370. we learned that president obama is getting regular updates on the search, including news of the new satellite images, which australian officials are calling it their best lead so far in the hunt for flight 370. from miles up in space, a possible breakthrough in the search for malaysia flight 370. australia says these satellite images of two objects floating in the southern indian ocean 1500 miles off the australian coast could be part of the missing jet.

one object is 18 feet across. the other is 79 feet. and surrounded by smaller pieces of debris. they were located 14 miles apart and just southeast of the main search area as now defined by u.s. and australian analysis. >> it is credible enough to divert the research to this area on the basis it provides a promising lead to what might be wreckage from the debris field. >> it's probably the best lead that we have right now but we need to get there, find them, see them, assess them to know whether it's really meaningful or not. >> reporter: officials caution it could just be containers that have fallen off ships. they sent surveillance aircraft and so far the debris has not been located. >> poor visibility has been reported and this will hamper both air and satellite efforts. those are great concerns for the

crew and passengers on board. >> reporter: china announced it is sending nine navy ships to the southern indian ocean. in total, four out of five aircraft involved in the search effort are now in the south or heading south. the search for clues from the flight crew could also turn up new leads. fbi investigators say it's deleted information from the pilot simulator and his and his co-pilot's computers. the bulk of some 18 aircraft and six helicopters now involved in the search focused on this new search area southwest of australia. among them now, the australian navy warship which has the ability to recover objects if they are determined to be part of the plane. and wolf, the australians say they are receiving and studying more satellite images from that area to help determine if this

debris field is from flight 370. >> it's a critical moment and the sun is about ready to come up over there around daylight it will help in this search. jim sciutto, thanks very much. u.s. officials have thought for some time that a strong likelihood was that the plane went down in the southern indian ocean. let's bring in pentagon correspondent barbara starr. she's been all over this story. so why are they so confident that this is the right place to look, barbara? >> wolf, the path, the evidence, the investigation about what happened, all is taking them there essentially the most likely scenario for days, they say, has been the southern indian ocean. let's start with a new fact here. why not the north? well, we've now learned that the u.s. when the northern path emerged, very quickly looked one more time at chinese radar capabilities and came to the conclusion that the plane went anywhe anywhere near china, the chinese would have seen it. nothing goes into their air space that they don't see. that turned their attention back to the south.

they started moving, based on the radar and the signals that the plane emitted, towards the southern indian ocean. then it was a couple of days ago when it even worked its way further south because the australians, once they took over, began to calculate, along with the u.s., the number of days elapsed, the drift of the ocean, the current, the wind, all of the factors. a lot of high-level classified analysis has been applied to this and this path keeps working its way south. officials have told me that this is really the most likely scenario where they believe will find debris, wolf. >> barbara starr, thanks very much. let's dig deeper with mark weiss, security con sut stant, also a former 777 pilot along with peter goelz and fran townsend, and cia external

advisory board. jim sciutto is with us as well. mark, based on the pictures that we have seen, what you are hearing, does this look, does this feel like this could be wreckage from the plane? >> it certainly does based on what we found in the air france search off the coast a few years ago. everyone is hoping that this is a real, confirmed lead. >> peter, do you agree with that? >> i do. their best people have identified this geographic area. let's hope that the satellite has picked it up. >> fran, let me play for you what the australian prime minister tony abbott said in making this announcement. >> new and credible information has come to light in relation to the search. the maritime safety authority

has received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search. the task of locating these objects will being extremely difficult and it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight mh-370. >> but fran, you know the australians. you know what is going on over there. there is no doubt -- there's no doubt that the prime minister thought long and hard before making such a dramatic announcement before the parliament of australia and i'm sure he consulted with allies, including the united states. he made it clear that this is the most likely, probable lead that we've had so far. >> that's right, wolf. and, you know, the intelligence sharing, the classified sharing relationship with australia, there are only -- we call it the five eyes.

we have a particularly close relationship with australia in terms of our willingness to share and be very transparent with them in terms of our satellite coverage. we would have shared with them our analysis. they would have asked us our opinion and it's likely the prime minister, in making the judgment he did about the likelihood that this was going to lead to a positive result in terms of the search would have coordinated his statement with the united states. and so interestingly enough, just last night i was with a senior administration official who works in the classified area and was familiar with the satellite information. i mean, everyone is sounding equally optimistic with the australian pm. they feel like this is a very, very positive lead and development. >> jim sciutto, the australian and chinese have a very close intelligence operation relationship?

>> it spans on everything. terror investigations and in light of a u.s. investment in the asia region, we talked about the rebalancing and balancing of resources to asia with china in mind, of course. and this sets up not a confrontation but interaction. you have nine u.s. navy ships down there, all on the same team, in effect, but warily by each other and certainly watching each other's capabilities. it's a motley crue of nations involved in the search. >> let's say this is wreckage from the airliner and they confirm that over the next few hours now that the sun is coming up over the indian ocean and we get an announcement like that. presumably they would nen then able to focus in on this, the flight data recorder, the voice recorder but that could take a while to find it and there's a time -- there's a clock ticking

because there's only about 15 days or so left before the battery-powered ping ends. >> that's exactly right. the wreckage has been floating for close to two weeks now. it's going to be some distance from the main debris field at the bottom of the ocean. we're still weeks, months away from finding the main field. but if we can find this, it might show us something. there might be soot deposits, something that show us how the airplane came apart and then victim remains as well. >> so it might be helpful, even if you don't have the black boxes, if you will? >> that's right. you start to put the pieces together. >> here's what is sort of depressing and you'll know this, mark, because the air france plane that crashed off the coast of brazil, they found debris within five days but it took them another two years to find this, this flight data recorder. >> ye

>> yeah. and that really brings up the issue that the regulations need to be altered. they need to have a longer life to them so the families don't have to go through this any longer. >> fran, as you look at this situation, do you, in all your years of government service and watching this, do you remember anything along the lines of this kind of mystery? >> no. look, wolf, until you have sort of the pieces as the other panelists have said that you can begin to put together because you need to understand not only what caused it but what was motivating, what were people doing inside the plane at the time it went down. we have no clues yet. this may be the start of it but it's going to be a long road, as others have said, to get to the black box. we did not understand where the pilot ditched the plane until we had it and that was a very

chilling recording for government officials to listen to because we then -- we had perfect knowledge about the last minutes of flight egypt air 990. it's a long way to finding that black box here but that's what you really need to understand what happened. >> peter, let's not forget, even if they find this flight data recorder, the voice recorder, it may be empty. there may be nothing on that voice recorder. >> that's right. >> for a crazy reason that they only record, what, the last half hour or so of a conversation in the cockpit? >> in this case, the last two hours. but in any case , it should be the last 24 hours. there's no reason in the world not to have data recorders digitally recording. >> let me ask the pilot. is there any reason why there shouldn't even be a video camera in that cockpit watching what is going on, just as there is a video camera watching the school bus driver going on, why not have a video camera, a voice recorder to make sure we know what is going on in the cockpit,

given the life and death responsibility that the pilots have and the fact that there have been pilots that have committed suicide by flying the plane into the water or the ground. >> well, they have, woulf. and you can't get away from the reality of fact. years ago there was an american airlines flight that took off out of chicago and an engine came off the wing and that airplane went right into the ground. they had a camera on that airplane and people were able to see inside the airplane exactly what was happening to them. there is a downside but the upside would be to help investigations. >> there's a huge upside in a situation like this. and if you're a pilot, i know the pilots don't like to have the notion of having someone recording everything they are doing or watching what they are doing, but you know what, it's a huge responsibility to have. >> you could create protections for them and their privacy. we've got to go in that

direction. i think the pilot union has to be more proactive. up next, two large objects floating, one of them 79 feet along. we're going to show you how analysts are reaching their conclusions. and debris from the airline may have been drifting for several days now. you're going to see how that makes the search even more difficult. we asked people a question,

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not only is the weather in the search area a serious problem, even if the debris can

be located and it turns out to be from the missing plane, it's important to remember that it's been floating in the ocean currents now for nearly two weeks. let's bring in our meteorologist chad myers. there are enormous problems here. chad, walk us through some of the problems. first and foremost right now, planes are flying over, ships in the area, the weather is pretty awful. >> it sure was last night. it's getting better today, for sure. they are in the middle of a high pressure. i know this is going to be hard to think about, but everything is backward in australia. so fronts move, in our mind, the wrong way. the cold front is moving up towards our kyung lah. she's going to get bad weather today but the searchers are going to have better weather today. tomorrow will be good but a big weather front is coming in again for saturday and sunday and this is our exclusive high-res model, wolf, that red right there where the debris is, that's 40 to 50

mile-per-hour winds and that will certainly hamper any efforts. that will make the waves so large that -- >> chad, hold on for one moment because i want to go to kyung lah. i know you can hear me. it's getting pretty bad there. set the scene what is going on in perth. the reconnaissance is flying over the area where the debris is located. >> reporter: well, in about 30 minutes they are actually scheduled to take off, the very first p-3 orion plane but i have to tell you, wolf, the weather in the last hour has gotten very, very bad here. it's almost hurricane-type conditions. rain coming side ways and very, very windy. but the australian air force telling us that they feel pretty confident they are going to be able to take off. two are scheduled, one at 6:00

a.m. and one at 8:00 a.m. they have been talking about how difficult this area is to get there, 4 1/2 hours down there and only two hours to circle before they have to return. the weather down there considerably better but here it's going to be tough as far as them taking off on time, wolf. >> you think the p-3s that the u.s. and australians and others have, it's a bigger version of those surveillance, that they will be be able to take off? because you're absolutely right, the weather looks pretty awful where you are. >> reporter: yeah, pretty awful might be a bit of an understatement right now. the storm that has come in is very, very bad. when i spoke to the pio, it was right before all of this weather started and he seemed very, very confident, the officers were here, they had been briefed. they've been here for several hours and they were ready to take off. they felt pretty confident back then but this weather is pretty bad. we'll have to check in with them

again. >> kyung, i'm going to come back to you but right now i'm going to go to chad. they are going to have to fly in pretty horrendous conditions, right? >> very bumpy flying through that cold front. ironically, wolf, the storm that kyung is that, it's as big as a pinhead on my happen but it's a big storm right there. it will go away rather, rather quickly. now they are going to worry about the currents here. where did this stuff, 4 1/2 days ago that they saw, where did it go? >> south of the pacific, we're talking about the indian gyre here. it goes around and around and around. the current that we're worries about here now also has these eddies in it. where did the pieces go? if you're over here, you're going this way, a piece over here is going this way. it's the swirling of the current there in the southern indian ocean and it's not going to be

any easier. this is going to be a difficult recovery if they don't get it done coming in 48 hours. the weather in 48 hours is much worse than what we are seeing now for sure, wolf. >> they have to move over the next few hours and try to get it done. explain what a gyre is. >> it's a swirling mass of water. talk about the one that we know about the most, right there. it's in the pacific. it's the same reason why we had the tsunami debris coming off japan. we got it back towards the insurance. eventually that water goes all the way around in a very big circle. this could take years for that circle to go around and what we have here is a different one. this is the one here in the indian ocean. let me see if i can open that up so you can see it. this is a gyre that goes this way around. it's probably not -- this has

been how long since the abachi earthquake? ten years. so it's probably really broken up. but it would be in this debris circle. but in the middle of the junk is here. where everything spins around and nothing ever leaves, this here, we're on this northward or northeast ward track of that part of the gyre, wolf. >> chad, thanks very much. up next, a closer look at the two large objects. another one 79 feet long floating miles apart in the indian ocean. so how do analysts reach their conclusions? also, we're exploring why the jet may have flown for so long. potentially there's one theory out there without anyone sounding an alarm. the chilling so-called zombie plane theory. that and a lot more coming up.

search planes will go out and look for the best lead that we have so far.

so far, they have not found the apparent debris that has been picked up on the satellite images. what is going on? >> these satellite photos were taken four days ago but the burning question, what do they show? credible sightings, australian officials call them, two large satellite photos, one about 79 feet long and the other 16 feet. >> we need to get there, find them, see them to find out whether they are accessible or not. >> reporter: what gave them confidence that these two blurry objects may be images of a plane? this comes from a colorado company called digital globe. digital globe satellites fly at 4 miles a second snapping huge swaths of pictures at a time. >> how would the searchers have taken these satellite images and

determined that this was debris? >> they are looking for bright objects against the dark sea and sometimes you use a detection software to do that and in other cases they have lots of eyeballs. >> reporter: google earth satellites can zoom down and capture very detailed pictures, like these of planes at reagan international airport. but these satellite pictures of the objects in question are fuzzy. intelligent officials likely saw higher-resolution versions than the ones released to the public. >> and that's because they don't want to share that with potential adversaries, for example. >> reporter: why did it take four days for the pictures to go public? they had to send them in a different process and send them to the australians in a different format. >> how do ydistinguish between

white caps and a piece of debris? >> it's much more difficult to determine a piece of debris so it would require more attention and more eyeballs to make those distinctions. >> reporter: and now what is making the search more difficult is what kyung lah and chad myers just reported. you just saw it's getting worse. >> if they get to see these objects, so they finally find these objects, it's still challenging. could take some time to get a final answer whether or not it's wreckage from the plane. >> that's right, wolf. officials say they have to locate that debris and confirm that it may belong to the aircraft, recover it and bring it to australia for analysis and analysts say these pictures are a moderate step forward. >> brian todd, thanks very much.

we're joined now by van gurly and peter goelz and fran townsend. van, you spent 26 years in the navy. so describe a little bit of the challenge that awaits those. >> the southern oceans are distant. it's an isolated place and very hard to get to. the discussion is already -- >> for both planes and boats? >> for everybody. if you wanted to find the end of the earth, this is probably where you would start. >> really? >> so one is a very remote area. it's hard to get assets in there. and then once you get in there, it's hard to deal with the weather. the good part is that the good weather is farther south typically than what they are looking at now and that's not helping in today's search and tomorrow's search with the p-3s and p-8s. >> chad myers said out in this area where the debris -- if this

is debris from the aircraft where the satellite images showed this debris, there's a 48-hour window now where the window is relatively okay? >> that's exactly true. there will be a series of storms that move to that area that will continue to be an issue that they have to look at and search. the other thing that complicates this is assuming this is really the wreckage and we hope that they are at least on a lead now, it's not a straight line to figure out where it came from. the currents are always changing, as some of your previous reporters have mentioned. the fact that you have storms moving through the area, you've got currents that continue to shift around will make it very difficult to sort of backtrack that wreckage to the possible impact point. even in the case of air france 447, the company that i'm with metron had a hand in figuring out where to look. we had a contained area, only a 20-mile circle that we wanted to look at based on the information that we had. it still took six days and over two years to find the aircraft at the bottom.

>> it's a lot more challenging. and it's 1500 miles off the coast of australia, perth, australia. th it could take four hours just to get to this area and then you can spend a couple of hours -- and then you've got to get back depending on the amount of fuel that you have. it's a real challenge for those who are looking. >> there's no ground base that they can work from that isn't a real reach. so this is going to be a challenge. but these guys can do it. >> let me bring fran in for a second. because fran, a lot of people are worried that the malaysians aren't doing everything that they can, that the indonesians are not letting u.s. planes fly through their air space, you really need full cooperation in an international search and rescue operation like this. >> look, wolf, the best news that we have is that the australians, frankly, by pox i

am tproximity alone are leading this effort in the remote south area of the south indian ocean. we know that australians are confident. we know that our information sharing with them is unsurpassed, frankly, and we've got kind of a real experience, really capable partner now looking over this. but i will tell you, you know, we have to understand, the malaysians -- there's no question, their ability to coordinate the investigation and the release of information has not been very good. but they have been overwhelmed. this is a period now that we are in in the search and rescue operation where the australians will provide the backbone and the support, the leading edge, if you will. the problem is going to be going forward, the guts of the investigation have been handled by the malaysians. the good news is, for example, on the flight simulator they have asked for the fbi

expertise. expertise that we don't believe that they had. so again, to the extent that the malaysians are willing to accept the help of a more capable and experienced partners, we're more likely to yield the sort of information and results that we need. >> i want to bring van in to this. there's a video. i'm going to show him the video and i want you to explain what is going on. this could be very critical. it's a sonar buoy. you see this plane and you see something come out. that's the buoy. explain what happens as it enters the water and you see a series of steps that unfold. >> all right. so this is a standard piece of equipment employed by our and the australian's p-3s and p-8s. what you've got is one type that goes to the surface to have a radio antenna and now you have hydrophones that are coming out of the buoy casings themselves. this becomes a short-term listening device at that point in the ocean. it's got a radio antenna so it's talking to the aircraft the

entire time and they can hear what it hears. >> and presumably hear the pings from the flight data recorders, the so-called black boxes? >> correct. >> so that would be pretty significant. do we know if they actually dropped those buoys into where the debris may be located? >> i heard about buoy deployments yesterday to look at what the currents are doing but we'll need that information to backtrack to the possible impact point. i'm not sure what has been deployed in the area. i think more importantly is getting to, is it the right wreckage before we start listening for the pingers. because the range is very short. >> all right. we're going to get back to you but it's a good explanation for those sona-buoys. we're hearing a lot of important information. up next, could the disappearance of flight 370 be a case of pilot suicide? we'll look at lessons learns from the crash of an egyptian airliner. and time is running out to

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as investigators dig into every conceivable reason for the disappearance of flight 370, one possibility they can't rule out yet is pilot suicide, a deliberate move to bring down the plane by the pilot. it wouldn't be the first time. cnn's athena jones is looking into this story for us. athena, give us some background. >> wolf, this is one of many scenarios investigators have to

look into could one or both of the pilots of flight 370 have decided to crash the plane? that's what u.s. officials say happened when egypt air flight 990 plunged into the atlantic in 1999. investigators say the egypt air co-pilot who learned he was probably going to lose his job took control of the plane when the captain stepped out of the cockpit. he pushed the yoke forward sending it into a nose-dive saying, i rely on god 11 times according to the cockpit voice recorder. the captain returns 15 seconds later saying, what's happening? he struggles to right the plane but the co-pilot turns off the engine sending the aircraft into the sea, killing all 217 people onboard. the last words heard in the cockpit, the captain saying, pull with me. so could that have happened here? >> the only thing the evidence points to is that somebody in the cockpit was directing this

aircraft off its normal course. we don't know who. we don't know why. >> reporter: but there are some similarities. >> if you've got a perfectly good airplane with absolutely nothing wrong that ends up tragically in the water, you've got to look at every explanation. >> reporter: the egypt air pilots never sent a mayday call. the malaysian airlines pilots didn't send a distress signal either. egypt co-pilot didn't turn off the transponder. flight 370s transponder was shut off. authorities began looking into the background of the egypt air pilots. investigators are doing the same in the malaysian airlines' case, searching both pilots' homes. so far, no evidence either pilot was involved. >> it's something that most of us should never consider because

it is so extremely rare, it is beyond -- almost beyond imagination. >> now, it could be a very long time before they get to the bottom of what happened in this case. and even when they do, it doesn't mean everyone's going to agree. egypt disputes the finding that the co-pilot was involved in the egypt's air crash. they blame mechanical error. wolf? >> athena, thanks very much. our analyst, peter goelz, is still here with us. you were involved in every step of the egypt air disaster. do you have any doubt that this was pilot suicide? >> there was simply no doubt. we were able to match up both the data recorder and voice recorder and we know that the co-pilot flew the plane into the ocean. >> and simply because he was about to lose his job? was that the reason? >> he had had a very trough trip to new york. his chief pilot told him the day before, you're done with the

airline, you're not going to make it to your 60th airport, you're out when you get back. >> and the egyptian government disputed that? >> they disputed it once they saw the evidence but while the evidence was being developed, we know that they agreed. >> peter, thanks very much. that's one of the theorys in this flight as well but no evidence to back that up. at the top of the hour, a situation room special report. we're taking a closer look at what is being called another theory, the so-called zombie plane theory, which could explain why the jet flew the wrong way for so long and nobody sounded any alarm. and as every second runs, batteries are running down and equipment that may explain what may went wrong but can it be found before the batteries go dead?

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a "situation room" special report on flight 370 only minutes away but we're watching onlious new developments in the crisis with russia. a u.s. official with access to the latest intelligence says in vent days an estimated 20,000 russian troops have assembled in what are called motorized units right near the ukraine border. today only hours after russia's parliament took another step towards formally anecking ukraine's break away province of crimea, president obama announced a new round of targeted economic sanctions against the russians. and the russian, they quickly hit back by banning visits by some u.s. lawmakers including senator john mccain. more drastic sanctions may just be around the corner.

>> i signed a new executive order today that gives us the authority to impose sanctions not just on individuals but on key sectors of the russian economy. this is not our preferred outcome. these sanctions would not only have a significant impact on the russian economy but could also be disruptive to the global economy. >> our senior international correspondent nick paton walsh is right in the middle of all this in crimea, that disputed area right now. the russians say that is part of russia. the ukraine says it's part of ukraine. how is all of this playing? the sanctions, the u.s. imposing the countersanctions, the russians are leveling against u.s. officials. how is it playing out where you are, nick? >> well, it's still really a done deal here in crimea, wolf. we're seeing increased pressure against those remaining ukrainian military bases causing them one by one to fall. some ships in sevastopol harbor

stormed today as these pro-russian protesters and troops move in clearing out the remnants of the ukrainian army here. but fears, as you said, still really focused on whether or not crimea is the extent of vladimir putin's ambitions. we've heard from western officials including the nato chief that actually they believe the annexation of crimea was simply the start. but what was remarkable today, wolf, was to see, in fact, the fierceness and how well targeted the sanctions announced by the white house actually were. for the first time u.s. treasury officials laying out who they say they believe are vladimir putin's cashiers, his personal bankers, intimating that a larger wealth you might expect someone to have accumulated on simply a presidential salary. targeting his chief of staff, targeting key banks where top russian officials are supposed to hold money. very personal, very direct and actually i think more effective than many people had anticipated giving the initial round of

sanctions announced monday and, of course, this executive order which says that perhaps parts of the russian economy in general could be targeted if this continues. that's the real fear, i think, here. what we heard today from the white house was punishment for crimea and prohibiting many important people from having access to the global economy in many ways. the question is are they really trying to sound enough of a warning shot to prevent any intervention in eastern ukraine? that's the real concern now. >> a very jittery situation right now especially with 20,000 russian troops poised on the border with ukraine right now potentially to move in. the president warning against that, president obama warning against that. nick paton walsh, we'll check back with you, of course. time is quickly running out to find the missing airliner's flight and data recorders. you'll see why this is adding to the urgency of the search. the so-called zombie scenario, a chilling theory in

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and prevents gum irritation. fixodent. and forget it. happening now, breaking news. search in jeopardy. a plane is scheduled to take off right now from western australia resuming the hunt for the possible flight 370 debris spotted by a satellite over the indian ocean. will severe weather put this latest critical effort on hold? time running out. the plane's voice and data recorders are sending out location signals but not for much longer. will searchers be able to find them in time? and holding out hope. a distraught father talks to cnn about the agony he and hundreds of families are enduring right now. why does he think his son and all the passengers are still alive? i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." this is cnn breaking news. >> and let's get right to the breaks news about the search for

malaysian airlines flight 370. it's daybreak right now in western australia where the first of two royal air force planes are set to take off heading for a spot in the indian ocean where a satellite has spotted possible, repeat possible debris from the missing airliner. horrible weather is now threatening the mission. we'll go there live in just a moment. overnight a norwegian cargo ship scoured the area with crew members looking with lights and binoculars for floating wreckage. and experts are confident they will be able to retrieve at least some files deleted from the hard drive of a flight simulator owned by the flight 370 captain. cnn is dedicating its global resources to this story. our correspondents and analysts, they're working all angles. let's go to our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. she begins our coverage. a week ago you first reported i.

now the entire world is focused in on that area. what's the latest you're learning tonight about the search? >> as you said, wolf, at this hour, the sun is coming up over western australia. four military aircraft, six merchant ships going out to have a look more on the way and perhaps most critically satellites overhead silently gathering more information. out of the public eye, the u.s. is using some of its most highly sensitive technologies and top secret government and industry analysts to help find flight 370. >> i wouldn't get into the specifics of each and every one of those tools because, you know, some of those tools we don't talk about. >> reporter: the u.s. believes australia's search area off its west coast is the logical place to find the wreckage. sources first told cnn on friday that, based on a classified

analysis, u.s. officials thought the overwhelming likelihood was the plane went down in the indian ocean. the most recent clue? these satellite images which may or may not show the plane debris about 1500 miles off the coast. >> it is probably the best lead we have right now, but we need to get there, find them, see them, assess them to know whether it's really meaningful or not. >> reporter: australian analysts went over the images but it's who took them that is the most telling. they were taken by digital globe, a denver-based satellite company that has a $3 billion contract with the u.s. intelligence community and military. the company positioned its satellites in recent days over the search area after talking to u.s. intelligence agencies and the australians according to an industry official. this as american intelligence military and aviation officials continue to analyze and refine

bits of data to knit together the likely path of the plane. the likely scenario took them into the indian ocean. several officials tell cnn. that initial classified analysis concluded it was likely the plane crashed into this specific area of the southern indian ocean. then the analysis was updated as the days passed, the search moved south to here along australia's west coast. and hints of another big secret from malaysia. >> i can confirm that we have received some radar data but we are not at liberty to release information from other countries. >> reporter: information from other countries, wolf. i have to tell you there are a lot of people who think it is possible that there is additional classified data from an australian and u.s. radar and satellite installation in the australian outback. a highly classified facility and

wondering if everything about what that facility may know is being shared. >> that's an intriguing thought. barbara, thank you. let's bring in our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. you have new information about chinese involvement in this search. >> well, this is a sign of how seriously this international coalition is taking the search area that barbara talked about. it's about down here. china has already sent five ships down here in the previous days. we learned today that they are adding another four. that is nine chinese ships. of course, big portion of the search because the bulk of the passengers on the plane were chinese. but this is an unprecedented overseas deployment of chinese forces. the biggest one we've seen before this was participation here in the anti-piracy efforts that were international off the coast of somalia. nine ships there now. what's interesting as well, barbara referred to this a bit, you have an incredible mix now in very close quarters of some of the most advanced military technology of both china and the

u.s. you have u.s. most advanced surveillance airplane up in the air, you have some of china's most advanced warships, amphibious landing ships, rescue ships, armed destroyers all mixing in this area with the same job and the same goal but some tension in the background as well. >> as barbara just reported the search clearly focused on the southern arc in the indian ocean. does that effectively mean they've given up on the northern arc? >> well, what the malaysians said today is they made clear that the northern arc is still active. in fact they said that these countries here, laos, vietnam, thailand, kazakhstan all the way up here, china which has a massive radar display as well as satellite coverage here, that they are all allocating resources to look and still continue to make sure that nothing is up here. but when you look at the overall allocation, you really get a sense of how this is increasingly become the focus. because of the 29 aircraft now involved in the search from a number of countries, four of them up in the north, 25 of them down here in the south. >> yeah, that says a lot. all right, jim, thanks very much. severe weather clearly

threatening the air search right now. royal australian air force plane was supposed to take off at this hour. cnn's kyung lah joining us from perth, australia. when we spoke an hour or so ago, the weather was horrendous. what does it look like as daybreak starts? >> reporter: that horrendous weather appears to have passed, at least temporarily. we are seeing some very strong wind gusts here. some rain, but it's the wind, i think, that's the biggest concern. i have reached out to the folks here at the air base to see if they are going to be able to take off or if they've already taken off. at 6:00 a local time, that's five hours ago, that's the very liftoff of the first ship -- the first plane, that is. the p-3 orion. then at 8:00 p.m. eastern time is the scheduled departure of the second one. right now we haven't heard if

they've had a delay or if it has indeed taken off. still waiting to hear on that. but when we spoke to the air base before that horrendous weather, the spokesman was telling us that they are looking at a very tough day. that the people who are going to be boarding have been here for several hours. they were briefed. they were going to board. then it would be a 4 1/2 to 5-hour trip to that area and only two hours to circle to look, then they have to make the trip back. what he kept stressing to us is that this is not easy. it's going to take some work and it won't move as quickly as everyone who is watching this around the world would like it to. >> these are critical hours right now. they've got to find this debris and see if it is the wreckage from the plane. kyung lah in perth, australia. remember, a 1500-mile flight out to where that debris supposedly is. let's bring in our panel of experts. mark weiss, retired 777 pilot

here in washington, also michael schmidt of "the new york times" and our cnn law enforcement analyst, the former fbi assistant director tom fuentes. michael, first, what are you hearing in general about this investigation? >> someone was briefed on the investigation that i talked to today said that investigators were still working very closely with boeing to try and figure out how far this plane could have gone. they were looking at directly at wind speeds and they were also looking at what altitudes it could have been at. because what this person said was if the plane ended up where they think -- where they're looking for the debris, it would have been pretty far. not that it couldn't have gotten there, but it would have been pretty far. but as we know, the water has been moving and it's been two weeks, so what does that location mean from where it could have landed? >> and four days since those images were taken. mark, you know, the currents could move that stuff around pretty dramatically, hundreds of miles possibly. >> absolutely. we're talking before about

really what's the range of that aircraft? when you take out the destination, the fuel that it had, taking into account the altitude. that's a possibility. we still don't know if that could be a debris field. we don't know if that was the impact area. >> i have to go back to perth. jeffrey thomas is managing director of airline ratings.com. you're there in perth, you're an expert. do you think this debris that the satellite images discovered that the australian prime minister says is a great lead, a great new lead, you think this is wreckage from the plane? >> look, i think it's very credible that it is wreckage. the place we're talking about here is about 60-feet long. this is not small wreckage that you find in the sea all the time, small debris. this is a very large piece, consistent with maybe being the horizontal stabilizer of the airplane. like we saw with air france 447. and there's another piece which

is about 30-foot long. and it's also in precisely the area that the united states, australia and new zealand have been searching. it's just to the east, which reflects the drift of the ocean. so this kind of all comes together. it looks highly likely. >> and if you think about it, you're australian, geoffrey, the prime minister of australia goes before parliament and he raises this possibility saying it's a strong possibility this could be wreckage from the plane. my gut tells me he wouldn't have done that unless they scrubbed that information very, very thoroughly. but you understand australian politics, the australian leadership a lot better than i do. what's your assessment? >> look, that's a very good assessment. i don't think the prime minister, mr. tony abbott, would have got up in parliament unless they were really certain that they were on to something very significant. and don't forget, we've also got the assistance of the united states navy, the defense force,

also the new zealand navy. all of these elements are coming together and it's been a very targeted area they've been looking at, very specific. i mean, it's a big area, but in the context of the entire search area, up to china, this is very targeted and all of a sudden we're finding some debrisp about i think this is -- i think this is very strong. >> hold on for a moment, geoffrey. i want to go back to michael schmidt of "the new york times." these satellite images, we've seen the pictures, four days old. what are you hearing about these satellite images? >> i heard what they're doing is overlaying them and trying to see what -- getting down to see every little thing that they can. it's not necessarily that they're looking at new images. it's that they're taking the images they have and getting as granular as possible to try to find things like this. the thing i wonder is whether they have satellites that can track these things as they move. do they know where this is now compared to where it was four days ago? are they going back to that spot or are they going to where they

think it went to based on the tides? i don't know. >> geoffrey, do you know the answer to those questions? >> well, look, i think that's a very interesting point that's being raised. and i wonder in fact if we are being told the whole story and whether they actually have even better intelligence that's verifying that this is debris and that gives rise to the prime minister to get up and say we think we've found something. i think he's getting more intelligence than maybe they're letting on. >> let me bring tom fuentes into this as well. there was a very important intriguing article in "the washington post" today. you probably saw it, about what's called this swift upgrade in which the plane, if they would have had it, malaysian airlines, would have given speed, altitude after all communications were cost. and it would have cost $10 per flight if they had it. they didn't install it. "the swift upgrade is

technically the capability of bandwidth that the system can operate upon. the need for swift has never been mandated and all our aircraft has what's called the aero h satcom system." . i know you've been looking into this and you've worked with other countries in these kinds of investigations. what do you say? >> well, you see this in governments all over the world including ours. that budget decisions get made that are not the smartest decision and you look at something say it's so logical and so inexpensive, we really need to do this, yet when the ax falls, you may not get it. we're finding a number of systems with these aircraft that could have been upgraded in terms of the technology with the type of data being transmitted and you wonder why it wasn't in place. so i think there will be

valuable lessons learned down the road. >> you're a pilot. doesn't make any sense. for $10. a huge company like malaysian airlines, you can't invest in this? >> i'm not sure you can put reason behind decisions that are made. hopefully with next-gen, this will be a thing of the past. >> geoffrey, you're in perth. we heard from kyung lah, the weather is easing a bit. the australian, the u.s., these other planes will be able to take off and fly over this area about 1500 miles away. is that what you're hearing and seeing? >> look, absolutely. this is just a localized thunderstorm that's just passing by. we expect both aircraft to be launched very shortly, probably 6:15, 6:30 local time and about 8:00. that should go ahead without any problems at all. however, the weather out 2500

kilometers out to the southwest is something else again and reported to be rain, poor visibility and we've only got about two hours when they get out there to search before they have to return because of the fuel range of the aircraft. >> michael schmidt, what are you hearing about cooperation now? obviously the united states and australia, they cooperate tremendously, but with other countries right now, what are you hearing? >> well, a lot was made in the initial week that there wasn't a lot of cooperation, but as we sort of look back on it, what seems to have happened was just the fog of this thing, the initialness, that the malaysians were caught flat-footed and they really weren't sure what to do. now we see cooperation with the united states that the u.s. is pretty happy about, but it took two weeks. the question is what was lost in that period of time up until now? are there clues that they could have found about the pilot there or is it stuff related to the search that could have been

different? i still think -- this is so baffling sometimes. there's such a level of interest in it. and everyone wants know and everyone has a theory, but at the end of the day there's only so many facts and that just sort of leaves us -- >> i do think these next few hours could be critical if those surveillance planes, the poseidon or the orion, the p-3, the p-8 if they get over this area and ships get closer, maybe they'll be able to touch and feel effectively what this wreckage is, what the debris is and we'll know is it part of the plane or is it a container falling off some cargo ship? i suspect the next few hours will be critical. don't go toofr away. still ahead, they may help solve the mystery of flight 370 but flight, voice and data recorders will soon fall silent and stop sending location signals. can searcher s beat the clock? a father holding out.

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to our north american viewers "crossfire" won't be seen tonight so we can bring you more of our special report on the mystery of flight 370. adding to the urgency, the search for the malaysia flight, the plane's voice and data recorders will soon stop sending

their locating signals. and without those recorders, solving the mystery of flight 370 may be impossible. rene marsh is here and she's working this part of the story for us. what do we know about these flight recorders, the flight and data, the voice and data recorders? >> right, so wolf, as you see, they're bright orange and they're bright orange because they want these search and rescue teams to easily be able to spot them at a crash site but finding them in this case is a mounting challenge. the battery is dying. the section of ocean is thousands of feet deep. and that means the signal is much, much harder to hear. these two objects in the indian ocean may be the best hint yet at what happened to malaysia airlines flight 370. but even if they are from the missing plane, the real key to understanding what happened could still be miles away at the bottom of the ocean and its calling, but time is running out. >> so the minute this is no longer broadcasting, things

become much more difficult. >> reporter: the cockpit voice recorder stores at least two hours of audio and the data recorder contains at least 36 hours of instrument data, both crucial to understanding what happened. transmitters on the recorders send out a locating tone. but that only lasts for 30 days. malaysian officials say without the pings, they don't have the technology to find them on their own. >> looking and then before that becomes an issue then malaysian submarines don't have it. >> reporter: it may have sunk far from where the debris has drifted. the water can be 13,000 feet deep, ten times height of the empire state building. >> it becomes a situation of trying to hear a very tiny signal in a really complex background noise. and that's a hard problem no

matter what. made only worse by this being very deep which makes the signal lower. >> reporter: these tones can be heard from two miles away, but only by using special underwater listening devices, planes even drop buoys like these to help listen. one bit of good news, the data on the boxes is preserved long after the pingers go silent. it took two years before investigators found the recorders belonging to air france flight 447 on the bottom of the atlantic. the data was still there. but even if they do find them in this case, since the cockpit voice recorder is only two hours long, there's no guarantee it will answer every question as to what happened to flight 370. one major manufacturer of pingers tells cnn that since the crash of air france flight 447 there's been a push to require pingers to be attached to the body of the plane, not just the black boxes and those pingers would have a range and it would

be required to have a range of about six to ten nautical miles. much further than the two nautical miles and minimum battery life would be extended to 90 days instead of the 30 days. of course they would make those proposed rules only for newly manufactured planes. >> learn lessons from this and incorporate those down the road. rene, thanks very much. with news that debris may have been found in the indian ocean, families of flight 370 are coming to terms right now with the potential grim reality. one that some refuse to accept. cnn's david mckenzie joining us once again from beijing. david, you've been meeting with family members. our hearts, obviously, our hearts go out to them. but what's the latest? what are they saying to you? >> reporter: well, the latest, wolf, is that they believe that this isn't the plane. they're convinced, the ones i've spoken to, that they will still potentially find their loved once alive. you know, all of these family members, their loved ones aren't

numbers, they're real people. wen chang was a 30-year-old businessman on the plane. i spoke to his father. and he's holding out. >> translator: i can't sleep each night because all i thing about is my son. up until now what else can we do? this is about his flight. there is nothing you can do to help. we can only wait for further updates. >> reporter: is this the hardest thing you've ever had to go through? >> this is the first time in my life to experience something like this. in the past, i just watched other people's stories on the news. i watched explosions, ships sink and plane accidents. those were other people's stories. this time it is my turn for bad luck. it is my turn to actually experience this. this is not watching news. it is living it. >> reporter: do you still believe your son is alive? >> translator: i firmly believe that my son, together with

everyone on board, will all survive. >> reporter: what message do you have for your son? >> translator: come back quickly. you have made everyone in the family very nervous. everyone in the family is waiting for you to return. he has to come back. everyone on board. he can't come back by himself. >> reporter: well, wolf, it's interesting that mr. wang was determined, not tragic, he had tears in his eyes, i asked him how on earth can you keep it together during such a difficult time? he said the rest of his family members are there in the hotel waiting as well. he said the head of the family, as he put it, he has to keep it together and be strong for them and for the rest of the families in that hotel. >> let's not forget 239 people were aboard that plane. two-thirds of them chinese. so how are the authorities there in beijing where you are preparing for the news if and

when it comes? >> reporter: well, i've spoken to several psychologists who are voluntary counselors on the scene, wolf. they say they're very concerned with the news that is coming, then going away, the leads that we are following that are then extinguished. they believe when the news does come, it could be overwhelming for those family members. it was interesting to see several ambulances on the scene at the hotel as well as a dozen paramedics, extra security as well. so they're preparing for the worst. one very troubling piece of news i got was that a psychologist telling me that several of the family member ps having open suicidal thoughts. china has a one-child policy. many of these parents have just one child that is on that plane. so the stakes for them just couldn't be higher, of course. >> a heartbreaking story indeed. david mckenzie in beijing. thank you. a sighting of possible

debris has mobilized a massive operation in the sea and in the air and about 1500 miles southwest of perth, australia, it's unfolding. our senior washington correspondent joe johns is here with a closer look at the ships and the planes, the satellites involved. this is a massive undertaking. >> it's amazing, wolf. staggers assets are being used in the search for the plane. 43 ships along with 58 or more aircraft. one expert we talked to says it's likely a dozen satellites have been utilized. now as the focus has turned to the remote southern indian ocean, equipment with military intelligence technology is playing a key role. a massive sea search that requires an equally massive amount of resources on land, air and seas. it starts in space. satellite images transferred to the australian geo spatial intelligence organization. the pictures of possible plane debris captured mar