that's it for us. thank you very much for watching. "piers morgan live" starts now. this is "piers morgan live." your host will be back next week. until then i'm bill weir filling in. we begin with breaking news tonight as search planes in the air right now fast approaching the site of what looks like debris from flight 370. could it be this long strange search taking us into one of the loneliest corners of our planet? because of course late last night our time the australians revealed a tantalizing lead in a case almost completely devoid of leads. this satellite image of something floating in the southern indian ocean, something white in color, something almost

80 feet long. hard to tell, actually what it could be, even harder to actually go find it. because this image is over four days old. this is what the surface of that sea could look like in the next couple days. this video shot by some sailors in 60-knot seas. that means winds of around 70 miles per hour. weather in this area has been calmer than this in recent days. it's anyone's guess what the winds and tides have done with that chunk of debris since march 16th. but with a storm brewing that could be this strong or stronger, the clock now ticking. to complicate matters further, this is also a place prone to garbage patch guyers, swirling currents that can congregate sea junk. even if they find it tonight and confirm it is a piece of the boeing 777, then comes the hard part. doing the math and then going down here. this area is near a trench, a range of undersea rings and

trenches with a maximum depth of around 4 1/2 miles. to better understand the challenges of such a search we'll be talking with the best of the undersea business tonight. we'll meet a whan whose brother vanished in a plane about a decade ago and is still waiting and hoping for information. but our big story begins down under. kyung lah moving from kuala lumpur to perth, the staging ground for this latest search. are the planes in the air now? they're getting close i understand. >> reporter: they are in the air. we don't know how close. we do know they did leave just a little bit later -- the first one a little bit later than originally scheduled because we got hit with a massive storm this morning here at the air base. got delayed a little bit but then everything else appears to be going on schedule. two more left about an hour ago, one more scheduled to leave in just a little while. will be joined by the u.s. navy p 8 orion. if all this air power heading down to this region, four hours

to get down there, will spend about two hours and then have to make that long journey back, bill. >> i'm a little surprised the planes didn't leave earlier so they'd get more daylight. but i'm just interested if you know how effective these searches can be. a size of new mexico they're telling us when they only have about two hours out there before they have to turn around and fly four hours back. >> reporter: yes. that's really frustrating. so take out your pencil because i want you to do a little math with me. yesterday the australians had four aircraft in the air, four aircraft. and they covered 23,000 square kilometers, 23,000 square kilometers. the entire search area according to the australian military is 600,000 square kilometers. so if you do the math here, divide the two, 26 days. that's how long it's going to take to search that entire area. now, they do have additional aircraft there. they have one more plane in the air. they have other ships,

commercial ships as well as military ships steaming to that area. so they will have more assets in the region. but if they don't pick up the pace, 26 days. that's how long it's going to take to clear all of that space. >> let us hope that fortune is on their side. we get word sooner than that. thank you, kyung lah there in perth. let's turn to washington, d.c. now, bring in jim sciutto of cnn with more on the ships and planes searching. what is the american involvement now, jim? >> well, it's a big involvement. this is the search area again we've been talking about. the u.s. has deployed its p 8 poseidon, most advanced surveillance aircraft. can see very far and travel very far and stay on station for a very long time to search for this. also got a p 3 orion taking part as well. you note u.s. is looking at its satellites in this area. commercial and perhaps military to see what they can add to these images we've seen already. in addition to that, the u.s. and australia along with new zealand, the u.k. and canada are part of what's called the five

eyes. this is really the u.s.'s closest allies in terms of sharing intelligence. you can be sure they are able to share intelligence that we can't do even with allies in europe, germany, france, et cetera. that includes the most sensitive satellite data, most extensive radar data. we're much more intimate in terms of technology. but does that lead you to believe, jim, that there are better images than the four-day-old version that they're not sharing with the world that maybe u.s. spy satellites or australian technology has a better picture of what's down there? >> they said in reality the up

withes that would be shared via digiglobe the source of these satellite images, would not be that much sharper, the ones that the u.s. and australians are look at. they said the real key here is not between what's classified and nonclassified but the angle of the satellite. that these satellites are unlikely to be over this stretch of the earth. so they're more likely looking at it from an angle kind of out of the periphery which makes them less clear images. that's really the difference between the kind of clear images we would expect. look at your house on google earth you can spot who's inside. these look like they've been taken from a million miles away. >> we had our hopes dashed -- we thought we had something with that chinese satellite picture it seems like e eons ago that turned out to be nothing. what's the latest with the fbi scrubbing the computers of the pilot and copilot that flight simulator. >> reporter: cnn told they can

find things on those computers. some files had been deleted from the logs from the pilot's flight simulator that he had in his home. but they feel confident they can piece that back together. kind of like putting the pieces of a puzzle back together. as i've said a couple of times, if you wanted a team to do this job it would be the fbi team at quantico. their job is to find stuff on computers that people don't want found on computers, whether it's child pornography or extremist web sites, extremist literature, this is the team you want trying to piece this together. >> all right, jim, good to talk to you as well. let's turn the dial to atlanta now. a guy who as a viewer i've been a fan of this guy for years not only learning about weather but earth science. chad myers, it's good to be a colleague of yours. tell me about the weather conditions coming. is the clock ticking for this search? >> reporter: it is, bill, and thank you by the way. probably 60 hours from now we're

going to have winds right over that dot which is the lat line of where that debris was last seen. winds of 50 miles per hour. that's not the day we had yesterday. yesterday was 30, 40 miles per hour but we had low ceiling, we had low visibility. what's the worst thing you can think of when you're looking for a white airplane? white caps. they were everywhere. the wind was blowing off the top of the waves, and you think about trying to find something white when the top of your ocean looks like that. literally impossible. but today, their today, our tonight, is the day it's going to flatten out. the waves are going to be gone. the sun is going to be high. going to have great visibility. and this is the day to find it. tomorrow's a good day, too. but by the time we get into the weekend this all goes away. there's the debris. not a lot of rain the next 48 hours. it's all west. the issue is the wind. everywhere you're going to see this red wind right there, that's 50 to 60 miles per hour. and that's just too much to get this. even with the ocean so deep and you get rollers not sharp waves

like you get on lake erie because it's so shallow, you're still going to have those white caps all day on sunday and into monday. it's going to be unsearchable again. >> so using your scientific brain here, let's say this find this thing tonight. purely out of luck they come across it and now the search begins. tell me about the cone of uncertainty. how big do you think that search area would have to be given what you know about currents and gires and everything else. >> the currents spin in a big circle. there are five of these across the globe. north atlantic, south atlantic, pacific, indian. that would be the number four one here. the waves and wind has been pushing everything this way for the past couple of days. so if we're searching for the black box which would have gone down pretty much immediately and not floated away with the current you have to kind of back everything up. we have to back everything up not one day or two days but literally 14 days from now. we can do it.

we have the data. we have the satellite data to say which way was the wind going, which way was the current going. the problem is let's say it's a wing tip sticking up out of the water. that means there's a sail area there that's not only going with the current but it's blowing the opposite direction maybe or with the current because the wind is blowing it, too. if it's below the ocean it just sits there and goes with the current and doesn't get blown along. >> fascinating stuff. chad myers, thanks for your insight. let's turn now to the first ship to alive in that remote area of the southern indian ocean. it's actually not a dedicated search vessel. it's a norwegian car carrier that was on its way from madagascar to melbourne when it got a request from australia to lend a hand in this search. and hakim savagna is part of the crisis management team, director for the norwegian ship owners association. i understand you are in contact with this crew, an all filipino crew. the captain has been with the company a long time, almost 30 years.

what are they doing? do they have the binoculars out? do they have any sort of search equipment beyond their eyeballs? >> yes, sir. what they actually do is pretty straightforward technology-wise. they will use their eyes and binoculars. they will also use the radar that is on board. and finally they will use the directions that they get from the australian maritime authorities to the best effect in order to find this possible debris in the designated area. >> and have they had -- obviously they haven't found the big piece everybody's hunting for. but how much junk is out there? are they telling you of other pieces that seem like it might have been and it turns out to be nothing? >> well, so far they haven't found anything of significance, which is the term that they use in the search. they're hoping for good visibility today. yesterday you had patches of fog

and so forth. so actually they have a good observation platform for any type of observation. with good visibility, with binoculars they will be able to search through a relatively large area. let's not forget they're being pinpointed to the area by the australian authorities. so hopefully it's going to be effective today. >> just so we can do the math, if they do spot it from the air, how fast is that gigantic cargo ship? how fast could it get to where it need to go? >> well, it already has an area, a sector that it will search through. they have already agreed to a search pattern, whether that's straight or zigzags in certain segments is really up to the australians. but they will do what they are told to do by the australians

rescue authorities. >> but do you anticipate the australians saying we found the piece we're looking for, we need you guys to get over there and pull it out of the ocean? do you have the capability of doing that? or will that be a different dedicated search vessel? >> well, that depends on how far away it is from what the australians think they have found. yesterday they searched through an area which is approximately 60 nautical miles lodge without finding anything. today the area is a little bit longer. and it's really a matter of calculations and a bit of luck, and hopefully they'll get to what they're looking for. >> we appreciate you dialling us up and sharing that information. and i'm sure the families really appreciate your involvement in this. if your car you've ordered a custom vehicle is a few weeks late at least you can share in the knowledge you were part of this search. thank you. so is this the break the

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more on our breaking news, search planes approaching the site of possible da debris.

big if if this is it if we have finally found some trace of flight 370, what do we know about how it got there? joining me now mary schiavo former inspector general of the d.o.t., she represents victims of negligence by transportation companies including airlines. david souci, author of "why planes crash." a former pilot and professor at aeronautical university join me here for day 14. mary when you see those images, what is the first thing that went through your mind? >> well, hopeful. i wanted them to be the images of the plane so we could find that information before it's lost. there's so much to be learned from the flight data recorder that i just was very hopeful. and that they had finally solved at least part of the mystery. there's much more to solve of course.

>> right, david, a piece that big almost 80 feet, can you make a guess as to what it might be? >> there's some speculation it would be a wing. that would be approximately that size. and mary had pointed out earlier today that if it's a wing as low as it was on fuel a large cavity of air inside that thing. and it is a sealed wing. unless it came apart during the impact. in which case i'd be concerned because the size of the waves would tilt and rock and eventually fill that up with water fit was cracked and allowed water to get into it. >> right, bill walldock, you're a coast guard rescue guy for eight some years. i was harkening back to my remedial physics, archimedes principle. something is buoyed by the water it displaces. are you optimistic if it's floating this many days after a potential crash it will stay up or are you worried it might sink? >> the other issue fit was a

wing you're also going to have vents that potentially with enough wave action you're going to start filling it. i'd almost lean more to it being a collection of smaller pieces probably strung together with wire and some of the other materials. to some extent like what we saw with air france 447. >> david funk, this is the hardest question i'm sure for the families to wrestle with. that's probably why they're rooting against the fact this might be a part of that plane they want so bad. this shows total devastation, right, if this is part of it. no one could have survived out there that long. >> absolutely. and if the australians were able to locate this particular piece, and anyone had survived, they probably would have spotted them in the rafts in the water by this point. as i mentioned today when i was on with mary earlier in the day, if anyone got out on the rafts, each of those rafts has emergency locaters on it. as soon as those things hit the water that beacon goes and we know that within minutes because of the satellite system up

around the world of one of those beacons going off literally in minutes we know exactly where that would be. and since that hasn't happened, unfortunately i'm afraid we may go -- i'm not the eternal optimist. i'm an airline pilot. you have to be an optimist if you're a pilot. i'm the eternal optimist. if this thing hit the water the way it did we probably are going from search and rescue to search and recovery unfortunately. >> bill, given your experience as a crash investigator and and rescue guy, if we find this piece, get lucky tonight and it is a part of the plane, how daunting is the search given the time that's elapsed? >> well, the search itself is extremely rigorous because of where it is. compounding that you've got the issues with the swells and the wind. once we find it, and figure out whether or not it came from the airplane, if it did come from the airplane then hard part really starts. because we've got to track it

back, reverse engineer the current activity, the wind activity, and try to put it back in time 14, 15 days to where the aircraft actually entered the water. from that point, the other thing that's going to be a major issue, things like the flight recorders. if they remain attached to the structure of the airplane, probably are going to be some distance away from where the aircraft entered the water because the aerodynamic forces on the airplane tend to move things, but so do the hydrodynamic forces once it's in the water. wing is designed to produce lift and air. you put it in water it tries to do the same thing. it's just a much thicker media. so with the current activity conceivable we could move a lot of the stuff a long distance away from the airplane that went into the water. >> fluttering around down there. david what are your thoughts? search area air france off the coast of brazil started at 5,000 square miles. this has to be factors of that, right? >> absolutely.

it's just to try to think about how big this is compared to where this thing is underneath the water. i've been trying to think of an example. i just can't. there's nothing that's that massive versus this little tiny needle in the haystack in the bottom. so the search has got to be nearly impossible. >> mary, after seeing that chinese image a few days after the plane went down initially and mistake they called it, the australians seem more confident. they're still hedging. compare that experience to this one. >> and the australians gave us some more clues they'd done a whole lot of homework. that's why they took four days to actually announce this. they said they had consulted with the ntsb and refined the flight tracks. they said they had studied the images carefully. we now know they've called on others to provide and beef up the information. so i think when they stepped onto that podium and announced it, i think that there was a lot they weren't saying but they did

give us a clue they had done an awful lot of work and they felt fairly certain that they had something worth this effort. >> right. well, if the four of you would be kind enough to hang out with me, when we come back we want to turn to the theory people are now talking about as a result of this find. the zombie plane theory. what is it? could it explain anything? we'll explain next.

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back now with more on our breaking news. the search planes approaching the site of possible debris of flight 370. that is a big possible. and a question a lot of people are asking, if that is it, was flight 370 a zombie plane that flew on auto pilot until it ran out of fuel? we're going to put that question to mary schiavo, david soucie, david funk and bill waldock our panel of experts here. david we'll start with you. this is reminiscent of course of payne stewart. how long did that fly? like four hours or something? >> at least four hours until it ran out of fuel as well. that was the result of depressurization in the cab anyone everyone lost consciousness? >> it's debatable whether depressurization or overpressurization followed by depressurization. the outflow valves stuck on that aircraft. there's a safety valve behind it. so if the outflow valve stops, the safety valve doesn't open, all the pressure from the engines that's supposed to be bleeding off stops. and that overpressurizes the aircraft, basically taking you

from a cabin altitude of say 8,000 feet down to below sea level immediately. and it causes physical damage to you at that point. and then back up again after that up to 30,000. >> david funk, what do you make of this theory? i guess it could be also smoke or some sort of fume that would knock these guys out in the cockpit or i guess a struggle or terrorist attempt, which knocks everybody out? >> that's possible. because we had some wide variations in the altitude track from the primary radars up in malaysia, i'm inclined to believe that the auto pilots were probably tripped off, at least in the pitch mode, the up and down mode. and that that would explain why the airplane was varying from potentially low 40,000s into the mid 20,000 foot. it could have done that all night long. it's a dynamically stable airplane. dynamic stable is simple. if you put a marble in a bowl it comes to a stop. that's what an airplane will do if it's disturbed seek back to its trimmed air speed.

this very well could have flown with no auto pilot inputs at all which would also explain a much further left turn than would have been on auto pilot when it passed the last programmed way-point it would have just continued on the same ground track it was on until it ran out of gas. that's why i think the auto pilot was out. the two things, the pitch changes and the fact that the headings swung around as far down to the southwest as it did, very likely scenario that that could have happened and all communications systems, transponder, radios, acars, if there was some sort of problem with an electrical fire in that center pedestal area or supply for those things that would have been knocked out. which we may very well have had a zombie airplane flying across the country, aka payne stewart's crash. >> bill, i don't think you buy this theory, do you? >> first off i really don't like the term zombie plane. it connotes a sinister as peck to it. i prefer to call it a ghost plane.

but we have seen things like this before. i know you guys have been talking about helios from 2005. that's a classic example of a pressurization issue where the crew didn't realize what was happening fast enough to deal with it. in that circumstance, the airplane just -- once the pilots passed out, kept going to its destination, athens, went into orbit at altitude, and it too crashed after it ran out of gas. the thing here is, with all of the radical maneuvers up front, and the obvious turn that had to occur to put it on this direct south heading, that argues for something else. and in terms of a fire, i've studied a lot of fire accidents. and literally every single one that has resulted in the airplane subsequently crashing after a known in-flight fire, it happens relatively quickly.

because there's an awful lot of things if it's an electrical fire, for example, you can get arc temperatures and electrical short somewhere between 7,000 degrees fahrenheit and as much as 16,000 degrees fahrenheit. the electrical component of the fire acts as an ignition source for things around it. swissair 111 being an example. my lar insulation in the overhead had literally caught on fire after being ignited by the electrical short. the crew wasn't aware of it and they were running the cockpit smoke checklist. in every single case where there's been a fire like that, the crew's been able to communicate with air traffic control to let them know what the situation was. in miami in 1996. the cargo compartment fire. the crew didn't know the fire was there until it burned through the floor of the passenger cabin. once it was there they got on their masks, contacted atc after they stabilized the airplane. unfortunately the fire burned

through the control cables, put the airplane down. so i'd be real hesitant to focus on the fire. but the big question is going to be how is that airplane able to fly for another five hours after the original sequence. >> mary, when a plane does run out of gas on auto pilot, how far can it glide? >> well, it can glide very far. in the previous accidents where that has happened, both the payne stewart and the helios, they responded differently. in helios one engine ran out of fuel, the other was flying still and went for ten more minutes. that continued to fly and it did have a glide pattern. but payne stewart's plane, the engines failed at the same time. they happened to have a recording on it and they could hear the engines spooling down together. what happened there it made a right turn and then it started to roll. so they responded differently in each way.

but if it did come down, for example more like helios and was able to fly down or not go into the roll, i suppose it's possible it could have landed on the water with less of an impact. but we've seen in other water landings, not like sully who did it without this, but a wing will often clip on a wave and then it will tumble. so it remains to be seen if this is the wreckage how this ended up. so we might get lucky and have big pieces or not. >> well, it does remain to be seen. those planes are on their way. we'll let you know what they find when they find it. our thanks to dave davids, both davids, mary, bill, appreciate it. what if flight 370 is never found? a grim question faced by all those loved ones. what is it like to live without knowing for a very long period of time? i'll talk exclusively to a man whose brothers vanished on a plane 11 years ago.

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>> translator: this is not confirmed. i think this is definitely not the plane. >> translator: both governments i thank them. if it is true it is okay. i will accept it. such an emotional tug-of-war going on right now. searchers, governments, airline hoping that piece of flotsam in the south indian ocean is a clue to the plane. the families hoping it's not.

it would mean the certain perishing of all of their loved ones. i want to bring a man whose brother ben padilla got on flight 727 in angola in may 2003 and that man has never been heard from since. joe padilla joins us exclusively. thank you for being here, joe. >> thank you for having me. >> tell me about your brother and what happened to him? >> well, all i know is the fbi had told me in the beginning when this happened that my brother was on a plane. he boarded this plane and then it took off. and no one knows what happened to it. days after that i had found out that the plane made all kind of crazy ground maneuvers before taking off. so that's telling me that he was hijacked.

then i later learned weeks later that someone went to the airport before my brother boarded this plane, paid 93,000 u.s. dollars cash to have this plane fuelled like i said before my brother stepped on this plane. and i have learned all through the years about different people from al qaeda that had been seen at this airport. so i really believe my brother had been hijacked. >> he was the only -- there was himself and one other man. it wasn't like a plane full of passengers, right? there were only two confirmed people on the plane? >> yes, him and john matontu, a person from the congo. >> right. and i understand that along the line you have been so frustrated in the lack of information, this certainly was no search the way we're seeing now. and he was a suspect, i'm sure, for a lot of this time. >> yes, that's what i was told at one time. and this is ridiculous. i had to do -- all the things

that i have learned i've learned on my own through talking to reporters and looking on the internet, doing my own research. but as far as our government, the u.s. government did nothing to help me except one person at the state department, that was mr. jack markey. he was the only help i received. but our u.s. government did nothing as far as the search for my brother's plane. they had asked the african authorities for their help to locate my brother's plane. but as far as all the help that the passengers on this plane, their family members are lucky. because they have almost the whole world searching for them, for this plane. i didn't have that luxury. i had to do the searching myself. >> that must be an agony most of us cannot understand. michael verna, he is an aviation trial attorney, won a $23 million settlement for the victims of air flight 447, that air france plane that went into the atlantic. michael, when you hear this

story here and you think about those folks in beijing and in kuala lumpur and around the world, what is it that they're going through emotionally, do you think? you've seen the families ride this emotional roller coaster. what is that like when australian government comes out and gives a lead like this? >> well, the grief is incalculable for these families. the grief is something none of us can imagine. but in terms of the australian government coming out with this information, we have this problem where there's basically a conflict between this insatiable need to have more information and the lack of any reliable information. and those two sometimes conflict. the real impact of this that i've seen as a lawyer representing victims in these crashes is on the families themselves. their hopes get up and then their hopes are dashed. their hopes get up and then their hopes are dashed.

in this particular case i think it's very important to be mindful that there's two very significant legal questions that exist here. number one, was there even an accident? and then secondly what was the cause of that accident? all we know there's some debris some 1500 miles off of perth. we don't know if that's this airplane or not. even if it is all that does is give us an answer to the first question, was there an accident? if we could identify that debris as being part of flight 370. it still doesn't answer the question of why. to answer that question you need to have the flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder that is probably at the very bottom of the ocean right now and took almost two years in air france 447 to be found. >> what are the next steps legally, michael verna? we saw a report today that with china's one child policy it's something we don't think about here, those parents, that was the only child they had. they're worried about suicides.

does that add into the legal aspects, the recourse that these people might have going forward? >> well, it may. as i said the other night, the legal structure for resolving claims against malaysia airlines is that known as the montreal convention. an international treaty that's both china and malaysia are signatories to. but the chinese evenly though that would establish liability on malaysia airline, the chinese families would still have to prove their damages. that would be based on chinese law. and i am certainly no expert on chinese law, but i can assure you the way chinese courts or chinese law interprets the value of a loss of a life is very different than the way american courts do it. >> joe, what advice -- you're still going through your own form of sort of psychological torture all these years later. but what advice would you give these families watching this search knowing what you know? >> just don't give up hope. it's too early right now to give up hope.

don't. all these stories coming in is really hard like the gentleman just said. it's very hard on them. brings their hopes up then brings them down. but i don't believe they should have heard a story where they believe that the plane is off what 1400 miles off the west coast of australia. now the families are thinking that their loved ones down in the bottom of the ocean. they don't need to hear news like that. but hopefully they'll get some good news. i hope they do. but don't give up hope. here it is 11 years later and i'm still hoping that i will see my brother one day. it might not happen, but i'm still giving hope. >> we're hoping with you, joe. thank you for being with us. >> thank you so much. >> all right. >> thank you. with search planes fast approaching the site of the debris, what happens once they get there? will radar find the other pieces? what about drones? more experts next. gunderman group is a go.

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continue to get closer and closer to the site of possible debris in the southern indian ocean, possibly from flight 370. how will they search once they get here? joining me now, radar expert, author of "small and short range radar systems" and missy cummings. good to see both of you once again. let's start with you, the p-3 orion, p-8 poseidon, named after the god of the sea and the sun. how good is the radar, these are sub hunters? >> that's right. one of the most important pieces of gear on these planes is the radar mounted on the nose. >> how does it work? >> what it does is searches the horizon out to the front and side of the aircraft. it searches of what is out and around it to very high resolution, maybe better than what we've seen already. >> we would think from the naked eye, a piece of, you know, man

made machinery would jump out of the waves, but that's not how the radar sees it. >> no, no. it sees it like if it's liquid metal. >> how does it know when it's found the plane? >> that's good question. it's down to the operator who is watching the imagery. what he's going to see is, if we consider this as the ocean here, this piece of aluminum foil and this is a large piece of debris, on a good day, it lays nice and flat. but when it's rough out, it becomes obscured by the ocean. what the operator has to look for, he needs to look for that debris moving a little bit differently than the waves. >> right. so missy, if they do see the debris down there on the sea of aluminum foul, what happens next? how do they market, -- mark it, how do they know where to find it floating? >> the aircraft is in constant

communication, so they'll relay their gps coordinates and they'll drop beacons in the water that will transmit the position of where the beacon is, and lay down several in a pattern to keep track, particularly at night when crews have to go home. in fact, this is a great example, this entire mission of why we need to start looking at replacing these manned missions with unmanned drones, because the crews can only stay out so longed and the fuel doesn't last as long as maybe a drone aircraft. it's possible we do have drones over there using the same radars. but we also have aircraft that are big airline sized aircraft that are jam packed with these radars. we may be working with the australians to use those, as well. >> you say maybe, we hope maybe, this is classified, they can't

tell us exactly everything out there. you would think moving these resources in the area, they have more to go on than a 4-day-old image than whatever it is. >> right. what's happened here is that the public is being given these images, but i would be very sure that they had some corroborating evidence from other images, either from our nation's resources, but probably other nations. other nations have good satellites and spy planes, as well. i'm sure there are multiple nations putting their resources together. we may not be able to see those images, but i'm sure that they have more than the images than we've seen on the news. >> how high are they flying, missy? >> it depends on the aircraft. you could have relatively low aircraft, if they were trying to get down low they would fly 1,000 feet. so they'll fly right over the surface potentially looking. and the aircraft will take

altitudes all the way up to u-2 aircraft flying low earth orbit, which is 60,000 feet. so you'll see a range in there. where you put the aircraft will determine just how effective that radar is, and certainly the weather conditions can have a dramatic impact. so they'll move the aircraft quite often just to get better resolution on the imagery. >> greg, they can't see underneath the surface, right? >> no, no. >> because the sub hunters were just periscope hunters. compare the image to what we saw on the satellite to what these guys are seeing on these planes. >> their radar could potentially form an image that if there's a large piece of fuselage there, you could count the windows on it.

>> fascinating stuff. thank you for bringing in the props. missy, we appreciate your information, as well. the former fighter pilot and professor of drone research. we'll be right back with more on the search for 370. stay with us. [ male announcer ] this is the cat that drank the milk... [ meows ] ...and let in the dog that woke the man who drove to the control room [ woman ] driverless mode engaged. find parking space. [ woman ] parking space found. [ male announcer ] ...that secured the data

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in 1834, a kid named richard henry dana left harvard to sail around the world on a schooner. after watching a few men go overboard he wrote later that when a man dies on shore, the body remains with his friends and a stone marks the spot. but at sea, nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. and to use a homely but expressive phrase, you miss a man so much. i went back and read it today and it seems so poignant. all those loved ones missing and waiting tonight. they would opt to dwell on hemingway's line, it is silly not to hope. besides, i believe, it is a sin. they, of course, are hoping what these planes that are on their way to the south indian ocean find is not 370. we're about to go to "chicagoland" the great documentary here. if anything comes up, we'll break in with that breaking news and keep you posted there and at cnn.com. i'm bill weir.

thanks for being was. see you back here tomorrow night. cnn's original series "chicagoland" is proudly presented by -- previously on "chicagoland" -- >> the miracle on ice. >> mayor manuel loves to create a crisis. he loves to exploit a crisis. >> he's tearing down our education. >> we're looking at zero dollars and zero cents. >> violence ain't going to be over until everybody is dead. >> we at fenger. >> there's a new fenger because there's a new principal. >> summer is around the corner and every year something happens. >> murder, murder, murder. i don't want any of that.