here, what we would consider september. the storms are going to get farther and farther to the north for them. >> chad myers, fingers crossed for tomorrow. that's it for "the lead." i'll turn you over to wolf blitzer in "the situation room." mr. blitzer? >> jake, thanks very much. happening now, breaking news. the mystery of flight 370. a british newspaper says it has a transcript of the radio communication between the airliners' pilots and ground control from takeoff until the plane vanished with a mysterious message before those final words "all right, good night." planes will begin their hunt for the possible debris in the most remote place on earth. but bad weather may also be closing in. and time is running out to find the airliner's recorders. one of those so-called black box

could be a blank box. i'm wolf blitzer. this is the situation room. we begin with extraordinary new information just coming in involving the disappearance of malaysia flight 370. no apparent struggle, no apparent panic. a british newspaper says it has a transcript of the final 54 minutes of communication between the cockpit and ground control. it allegedly shows nothing out of the ordinary beyond an unexplained call minutes before the final transmission. fbi experts are working nonstop to recover clues from the hard drives belonging to the pilots, especially from the captain's flight simulator. we have new evidence that files were deleted later than previously thought. and it's morning in the indian ocean. search planes are getting ready to resume looking for possible debris from the airliner but may

once again face rather rough weather. we have the kind of coverage only cnn can deliver. our correspondents and analysts are standing by. let's begin with the new information coming in on this transcript. it's potentially, rene marsh, very significant. >> that's right. we have a copy of the transcript right here. translated from mandarin to english, all of the wording may not be quite exact. but usually, we can tell you this, air traffic control tells the pilot when to push back, taxi to the runway and take off and the pilot communicate's the planes altitude. now we are examining the transcript of this 54-minute conversation between one of the pilots of flight 370 and air traffic control. a purported transcript that details what malaysia airlines flight 370 told air traffic controls from takeoff until it disappeared has been obtained from telegraph newspaper.

one pilot flies while the other handles radio calls. the conversations match with what malaysian investigators and u.s. officials have told cnn, that the recordings indicated a normal flight. the radio calls were slightly casual but gave no sign the plane was about to disappear. at 1:07 a.m., a message saying that the plane was at 35,000 feet, a potentially odd sign identified by the paper because that same communication had already been given six minutes earlier. at 1:19 a.m., malaysian authorities say that the co-pilot makes his final transmission to air traffic control, all right, good night. two minutes later, the transponder that helps the plane be tracked goes off. flight 370 hasn't been heard from or seen since. >> all right. and the newspaper says that they've had malaysian air lights as well as the civil authority

to confirm the transcripts but the prime minister said that they would not release that data, wolf. >> originally the co-pilot was speaking to ground control in english but there's a transcript that was translated into mandarin and it's been retranslated into the english? >> exactly. and for that reason we're making that footnote that some of the wording may not be as precise. >> it's a retranslation. no doubt about that. rene, thanks very much. cnn is also learning information about the hard drives from the pilots' computers and their laptops. what are you learning? >> we're gathering information from our sources and my colleague, evan perez, has said that files have been recovered after february 3rd. that's when the malaysian authorities said the deletions

were made. we don't have a lot of critical information here, like when the deletions happened and who made them. the fbi did not receive the hard drive until this week, nearly two weeks after the plane went missing and consultants have been meticulously combing through that hard drive. they are looking for valuable and they are being looking at whether it was done in a routine manner which, of course, would be more of a red flag. s investigators are looking at information, such as a browser history, visit to chat rooms and online research that the pilots might have done, anything to help them build profiles of the two men flying flight 370. at this point, it's important to note that we have no information indicating that the pilots were planning the flight disappearance and it could be an

insignificant part of the process. we just don't know. >> they are working hard to figure that out. thanks very much, pamela brown. let's dig deeper right now with our justice reporter evan perez who has information on the investigation. also with us is mike weiss, a 777 pilot and peter goelz, and former fbi assistant director tom fuentes. evan, let's start with you. you're talking to your sources and learning new information. tell us what you've learned. >> wolf, the leading theory, we're hearing from counterterrorism officials here in the united states, is that they believe this is ultimately going to prove to be an accident. now, they are not ruling out anything. there are still a lot of questions that they are looking into but they have come to this initial conclusion at least because they've looked at online profiles, they've done interviews with neighbors, friends, and they have done

everything that they think they can to put together profiles of these two pilots to try to determine whether there was anything that indicates that they could have done this and what they've come to is that this is the only theory that they can come up with. >> these are counterterrorism experts? >> correct. >> these are counterterrorism experts. they see no evidence of terrorism. do they see any evidence potentially of pilot suicide? >> well, you know, that's obviously still an open question. they are still looking at that issue. but similarly, they are trying to figure out if there is anything to figure out on the pilot's background that might give them a clue on this and so far, nothing. >> they see no evidence two weeks into this. >> that's right. >> of any terrorism as a result they have concluded most likely it was some sort of either

catastrophic failure, whatever, or pilot suicide but they haven't seen any evidence of terrorism? >> exactly. >> mark, you're an aviation expert. these are counterterrorism experts. what do you think? >> well, remember two weeks ago they thought it was a hostile takeover of an aircraft. the speculation is just that at this point and there's no validity in either direction. >> what do you think, peter? because you've worked with various branches of the u.s. government and sometimes they come up with different conclusions. >> well, i think if they've done that kind of scrubbing, that we'll accept it to date. but let's keep looking. we've got to zero in on the cockpit. we've got to know what happened inside there. we just don't know yet. >> tom, you're a former assistant director of the fbi. if counterterrorism experts are telling evan that they haven't seen any evidence of terrorism along those lines, as a result they suspect some sort of a

mechanical failure or something else, what do you say? >> i'm skeptical of that, frankly. i think it's too soon for anybody to draw a conclusion or say we don't think it's terrorism, we don't think it's suicide or mechanical. i think that somebody -- with the amount of data that we have so far that would come to that kind of conclusion i think is pretty premature. >> all along, peter, you've suspected that there was a human being responsible for this horrible situation? >> that is where i've come down. that's at the top of my list. i haven't eliminated any other potential causes but that's where i've been. >> and you also believe a person was responsible for this or persons? >> yeah, there was human intervention that caused this catastrophic accident. >> so you're surprised that there's a tentative conclusion? >> yes. >> evan? >> nothing has been ruled out. there's still plenty of investigative work to be done. these guys are being looking through everything that they can, everything from these

interviews that have been done with family members, with financial records, online records, they see nothing that can explain this in any other way. and so right now that's why they are resting their theories. that can change, obviously. >> you used the word accident. is that different than mechanical failure? what does that mean, an accident? >> that's a broad theory that covers a lot of that. it means that they believe that, you know, nothing so far indicates someone did this on purpose. crashing the plane on purpose, wherever it is. >> wolf, 11 months ago we had the boston marathon bombings and in that case the two brothers who committed the bombing didn't tell anybody. nobody knew what they were thinking. going to school, their friends, their relatives, you know, family. there was nothing to indicate what they had on their mind until they did it. so we've had other cases of lone wolves that really you would have to read their mind and just because they didn't go to jihadi

websites or exchange ec-mails with bad guys, it doesn't mean that one or both of these two gentlemen in the cockpit didn't become self-radicalized. >> or somebody else on the plane did something to force the plane to move hijackers, if you will, along those lines. it may not be one of these two pilots responsible. >> correct. >> counterterrorism officials might say we don't suspect a wider conspiracy, al qaeda was behind this thing. that's one thing. but to rule out that anything happened on this plane at this point is wrong. >> mark, you've read the transcript of what the co-pilot was telling ground control during the first 50 minutes of this flight before it took the sharp left turn. anything untoward pop up at you? >> not necessarily suspicious but, you know, on a quick read, there's a couple of questions with the six-minute delay, why

you say twice here your altitude. he could have forgotten that he had been there or reported back into. so on a quick read, not that suspicious. >> the only thing i saw was that early in the fright they were quick to respond to air traffic control. three seconds. late in the flight, it took them minutes to respond. now, i don't know why but that's -- that's what the transcript shows. >> all right. hold on, guys, we're going to take a quick break. we've got a lot more news. we're following the breaking news here. also coming up, the ferocious winds, the raging seas, the very rough weather. this is known as the roaring 40s. and malaysia makes an urgent appeal for the latest in search technology. we are taking a quick look at the tools available in the hunt for the airliner. no matter how busy your morning you can always do something better for yourself.

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it's now morning in the search zone and planes are getting ready to search for possible debris spotted from barbara starr, what is going on? >> the australians have just announced the plan for today, of course. the sunrise coming up in australia right now, four military aircraft will go up and search and now they have two, two commercial long-range jets that will also go up and search. they hope to find something. cnn has learned defense

underwater surveillance in searching for the data recorders. this, after a 30-minute conversation between hagel and malaysian defense minister hussein. >> the defense minister of malaysia asked secretary hagel to consider providing some undersea's surveillance equipment to help them look for the black box and whatever wreckage might be underwater. >> the malaysians are looking for pings from the data recorders and deep ocean salvage capability to raise any debris from the sea. but experts say first the debris must be found in order to begin to know what to do next. the outlook for finding debris is discouraging. so a new plan. >> knowing that we got no radar detections yesterday, we have replanned the search to be

visual. so aircraft for highly skilled observers looking out of the aircraft windows and see out the objects. >> some sensors are being dropped to monitor water direction and speed in hopes of further narrowing down the search area. but still, the mystery about what happened. inmarsat which monitored the last data from the plane believes that it likely went from a stable altitude raising question about whether the plane was flying on autopilot. wolf, this aerial search now has gone on so long that these aircraft and their crews are going to have to take crew rest days, land a full day for route teen maintenance. they can't keep going around the clock. it looks like the u.s. is going to take its turn and then other aircraft. don't expect at this point to see the u.s. fiilying in the ne 24 hours.

it's routine crew and maintenance, at least at this point. >> we'll check in what is going on. barbara, thanks very much. talk in the middle of know where. the search for the missing airliner is focused on one of the most remote areas on the planet. the search conditions are extraordinarily difficult. brian todd is here and has a closer look at this part of the story. brian? >> one oceanographer says it's close to the ends of the earth. you could not find a place more remote than the southern indian ocean and with the coming change in seasons, conditions are about to get worse. these are the kind of extreme conditions that searchers are up against. indian ocean can face massive swells. this ship is having a tough time that is looking for malaysian air flight 370.

>> it's about the most inaccessible spot that you can imagine on the face of the earth. >> the search area, roughly 1500 miles southwest of perth, is notorious for its horrible weather and sea conditions, especially in the fall and winter. the season is about to start. mariners call that area roaring 40s. starting at 40 degrees latitude, until about 65 degrees south latitude, almost to antarctica. there are no land masses in tla area. so you have a weather pattern that doesn't break tup. you get high winds and high seas persistent with major storms rolling through every three or four days. >> reporter: high winds from those storms create the worst conditions for ship. aircraft has to navigate through rain. >> when you have aircraft doing a search of the surface in a rainy, low, overcast environment, it's a hard time for them to get down low enough

to see anything. >> reporter: and because there's no land masses, vessels can't stop anywhere to load up on food and water or address a maintenance issue. >> it's not something that they are going to wrap up at the end of the day and go home. they are just going to sit there. >> reporter: they may need to pull along a sonar sled from the ship. that's called a towedaray. >> it's a much more powerful system. >> reporter: but that requires crew members to be on the deck of the ship for a long time. and how can they stay on deck when this is happening? now, another feature of that region that makes it problematic for search teams, a sea floor that has not been well-explored. there's been no detailing map of the topography of the bottom of the ocean and with depths of 10 to 13,000 feet, that's a problem. >> a lot of trash floats in that

area under normal circumstances, a lot of ships just dump stuff into those waters. how big of a problem is this right now? >> it could be a significant problem. in some regions it is. they call it a circulation of current. often huge chunks of trash get caught up in this thing. that's more of a problem in those busier shipping lanes in the atlantic and pacific and of course with the weather and everything else it could still add to the problems. >> another problem there. thanks very much, brian todd. coming up, the sun now rising over western australia. search planes are preparing to take off. will they take off? we're going to go to australia for the latest on the search. and we'll give you the expert opinion for the joint chiefs of staff, robert moret. they are walking into the situation right now. we'll discuss what is going on. stand by.

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search for debris in the remote part of the indian ocean and a u.s. surveillance plane will not be among them on this day. naval vessels from several cour countries are heading to the area. the staging area is perth, australia. cnn's kyung lah is there with the latest. what is the latest? >> reporter: wolf, we're about 30 minutes away from the real daybreak here. you can see it's just on the cusp of it and when it happens here in australia, we're expecting that the planes will take to the skies. so what is going to happen today? three p-3 orions from australia, one from new zealand will be taking off from this military installation, heading the four hours down to the search areas, taking two hours to search and then returning. the p-8 orion, we have just learned from the u.s. navy, will not be taking to the air today, the second day in a row it will

have routine scheduled maintenance. wolf? >> what does that mean? maintenance for the second day in a row. are they giving you any information with the p-8, the poseidon will not be involved in the hunt on this day? >> reporter: it's not very clear. they have to have a certain number of hours down and we're not sure why it has to be two days in a row. we need to check in on that and have more information for you. >> kyung lah, thank you. there is a massive hunt for the airliner to try to pinpoint a location. suzanne malveaux is picking up this part of the story. suzanne? >> as you know, wolf, time is running out quick to find the data recorders that are likely deep in the sea. they have a battery life of about 30 days. we're 14 days into this. the malaysian government is asking countries around the world to step in and step up and

provide the best equipment to find this missing flight. a robust international search is scouring a treacherously dangerous area, 1500 miles off the coast of australia in the frantic hunt for missing malaysian flight 370. >> let me just stress that the most sophisticated planes, aircrafts and vessels are headed in that direction. >> reporter: from norway, the first ship to arrive, from china, three warships, an ice breaker and aircraft. from australia and new zealand, the p-3 orion. then, there is the u.s. navy p-8 poseidon, which can search for as long as nine hours. earlier in the week, the surveillance planed picked up 400 radar contacts during the flight but, unfortunately, none of them were from the malaysian

plane. the altitude they fly at is 5,000 feet but can drop to 1,000 feet. >> the information is going to have to come from a visual search, whether that's from people looking outside of the plane or whether things like the satellite imagery. >> reporter: the plane will drop sonobuoys into the sea. >> it's a compact module. they can be deployed from a ship or in this case, a plane. it drops into the water and when it makes contact with the water, there's a variety of hydrophones, which are like microphones that deploy oit out of it. the sonobuoys have a radio frequency transmitter. so what they are listening to with their hydrophones is sent back to the planes that deployed them by radio frequency. >> reporter: operators on board the aircraft are trained to listen and read the signals.

>> perhaps an analogy we might all be familiar with, you're listening for your cell phone in the middle of a subway when the trains are running by. it's a signal that we know exactly what it is but it's quite quiet relative to the background. >> reporter: but even with all of the sophisticated equipment in the world, finding the missing plane also depends on mother nature. >> you're dealing with relatively deep ocean, a very, very quiet signal, these black boxes don't produce much sound at all. and especially when -- if it's very deep, it's very hard to hear. >> so, wolf, we're talking from satellite to visual to sonobuoys to robotic submersibles. this is all in an effort to find that is manying plane and we're talking about time that is quickly running out. wolf? >> thanks very much, suzanne joining us now is the former director of the geospacial intelligence agency along with

the former joint chiefs chairman, retired general richard myers. thank you very much for coming in. general myers, first to you. how extraordinary is this search? you're a former chairman of the joint chiefs. have you ever seen anything like this before? >> you know, probably we've had searches of this magnitude before and what is encouraging here is the number of nations that are participating and it sounds like malaysia has put out the calls and my guess is there will be more. given the size that they are searching, they are going to need a lot of eyes on that area. we don't even know if this is the right area. >> but a lot of the nations don't like each other. will they all contribute their best? will everyone give them their best high-tech equipment or will they hold back? >> my experience is, it's along the scale of a humanitarian issue, they want to do well. >> you're an expert on radar and satellites. you understand this stuff a lot

better than i do and our viewers do. why is it so difficult out there to find a 777 given the technology? >> the first issue is the delay, so to speak, that we had between we didn't know which area to search and it wasn't really until about last saturday until a week after the disappearance of the aircraft that people knew we needed to focus on the southeastern indian ocean off the west coast of australia. i think the second factor is the challenges over a vast area of ocean, especially given the currents and so on over the week or so before we knew with any precision at all where to look for the missing aircraft, based upon the delay that we talked about earlier. and i think the third factor is not just the challenges for any kind of technical sensor or for the surveillance flights that we've talked about here tonight, when surveying the high seas, darkness, fog -- >> you saw the satellite images that were released. >> i did. >> showing a large chunk of

something, from the commercial satellite, you've spent your career looking at those kinds of images. did that look like a 777 to you? >> we don't know, wolf. there are a lot of things out there. there wasn't enough -- and you need to go to an imagery analysis to determine. >> how big of a problem was it not getting this information for a week after the accident? >> as time goes on, if this is really where the plane went down -- >> in the southern indian ocean? >> the bigger pieces could have sunk and then you have smaller pieces that are going to be dispersed by the currents and the wind down there and so it becomes more difficult. it's not going to be as concentrated. >> do commercial satellites have the same capability of a u.s.

government satellite? i mean, you've studied these and i don't want you to give away any sensitive or classified information. but how good is the resolution from way up there to look down at the water and see something on your government satellites as opposed to commercial satellites? >> i can't comment on the capabilities that we have. i can only say that i'm very confident if we had any data at all that was action able at all, we'd be providing it. >> even if it compromised sources and methods, you'd share those messages? >> i don't know that we need to go through. we've had a lot of experience, the gulf oil spill, hurricane katrina, we've gotten fairly sufficient over the last couple of years releasing information that needs to be released without compromising where it

came from. >> on their own they have been using resources to help look and nobody has asked them to do that. they did that early on. >> have they found anything? >> no. >> from all your indications, your sources, have you heard if they are making any progress in locating where this airliner is? >> no, i have not heard anything. >> have you? >> no. >> is it your sense -- and both of you are experts in this area -- and i'll ask general meyers first, was this a mechanical failure or were individual or individuals responsible for the aircraft? >> first, you don't know. nobody knows and i don't think anybody that opines is -- knows. they are all guessing. probability, when an aircraft mishap happens, probability is, it's pilot error. that's been historically true since oroville and wilbur flew and then misconduct, aircrew member, some passengers, somebody -- terrorism or something like that i think would have to be considered. >> as far as your concerned --

>> they all ought to be looked at and people ought to keep it wide open to address all of these. >> do you agree with all of that? >> absolutely. >> do you have confidence that the malaysians know what they are doing or do they need an international consortium to come to their aid? >> i think the international consortium coming together is important. the fact that so many people are participating is a good sign. >> do you have any indication of when we're going to find this plane? >> we don't. one thing i'd mention, wolf, assuming the search should be focused on the southern indian ocean, it's very, very challenging and comparing, for example, if this aircraft had gone down in the mediterranean, it would be a simple task to find debris and locate it but in this part of the world, it's several orders of magnitude. >> if it had gone north over land, in the air, pakistan,

kazakhstan, you think there would have been some indication of that? >> it's possible. all of those countries have radar. they would have picked something up. if the transponder is off, it would be a lot more problematic but an easier search if it went down over land, an easier search than the ocean search. a sea state makes such a difference. >> thank you for coming in. up next, time is running out for finding the flight data recorder. we're going to explain the newest theory of sabotage and a transcript that shows the last conversations between flight 370 and air traffic control. what clues does it hold? i reckon a storm's a brewin'. reckon so. reckon you gotta hotel? reckon, no. reckon priceline express deals will get you a great deal.

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the clock is racing as search teams scour the indian ocean and beyond for flight 370 and it's all important flight data and flight recorders. a new theory has some worried that the search for the so-called black box may be for nothing. athena jones is joining us to explain. athena? >> wolf, apart from finding the plane, these recordings are the most important part of the investigation. if they don't find them, it could remain a mystery forever. and even if investigators do find them, there's still going to be a question about what is on them. time is running out to find the flight data recorder for flight 370. the devices could be thousands

of feet under water and their batteries are only required to last 30 days. >> it is a needle in a haystack and obviously it becomes substantially more difficult to find them once the pingers have gone silent. >> reporter: the flight data recorder tracts more than 80 points of the flight including the pitch, altitude, cabin pressure and auto mags codes and whether they turned manually or autopilot or a combination of both. that information is essential in figuring out what happened. >> there's a rich amount of data on that flight data recorder, you a assuming it is in tact, it's found, and some circuit breaker wasn't pulled. >> reporter: that's right. there's a possibility both recorders were shut off, either because the circuit breakers were intentionally pulled or due to a catastrophic power failure. even if they find both, there's a big chance we won't hear any voices on the voice data

recorder. why? unlike the flight data recorder which goes for 36 hours, the voice recorder only records on a two-hour loop. so if the plane kept flying for seven hours or more, as authorities believe, we may not ever know what was happening at that critical point early on when it changed course. but experts say even if the device was deliberately shut off, that doesn't mean investigators would be out of luck because it would still record the moment the breaker was pulled. but why is it even possible to shut off these devices? >> pilots want to be able to turn everything off if they can. if you have an electrical fire, you need to have the capability of taking the energy out of every box you have. so it's a safety thing. >> reporter: now, a lot of folks are wondering why those voice recorders only go for two hours before looping back. is there a technical reason? the answer is no, technology can store many more hours of voice data than they are doing now but some of the issues is pilot

unions who have been sensitive to recording in the cockpit, whether via a video recorder or hour-long voice recordings, for perhaps fear of liability issues. i reached out to the pilots association to talk about this and they didn't get back to me. wolf? >> let's bring back peter goelz. this is a potentially a big problem, that there may be nothing on the voice recorder, the flight data recorder that we have here. that would be awful if you didn't hear anything because there is just a two-hour limit. the last two hours would be recorded and could be silenced. >> that is more than likely. the event is not going to be covered. it is likely recorded over or, as miles pointed out, they could have pulled the circuit breaker just before the event started. . >> can they pull that? >> yes, they can.

>> do they have to go outside of the cockpit? >> no, just within the cockpit. >> that sounds so crazy. given the history that there are pilot suicide episodes out there, that someone could just pull that circuit breaker and end it? >> it has been an issue with the ntsb, faa, and pilots for years. >> after this is over, everyone is going to sit down and learn lessons from this and make changes to make sure we don't go through this again. if we don't learn from history, we're bound to repeat it. >> absolutely. just ahead, what were the final communications between flight 370 and air traffic controllers? a transcript may, repeat, may contain clues. and deleted files on the pilot's flight simulator even closer to flight 370's takeoff. cnn is digging for the latest information. you get 4 lines onw at&t's network...ilies including unlimited talk unlimited text

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getting back to our search, our coverage of the search for flight 370 in just a moment. but first another urgent story we're following right now. the united states troops closely watching as russian troops are amassing on the ukrainian border. the obama m is suspicious of the military movement is a further push into ukraine. >> wolf, it is a question that white house reporters have been pressing this administration to answer all week and that is whether the u.s. is reassessing it's relationship with russia and earlier today, national security advisor, susan rice

gave a pretty straightforward answer to that question and that is yes. rice who spoke at the white house briefing earlier this afternoon declined to answer what she thinks vladimir putin's -- thousands of troops building up on the ukrainian border. here's what she had to say. >> it's not clear what that signals, the russians have stated that they are intended military exercises, obviously given their past practice and the gap between what they have said and what they have done, we are watching it with skepticism. >> if the russians were to move into other parts of the ukraine, the u.s. would start ramping up sanctions very quickly. next up in the sanctions is the energy industry. wolf, all of this is going to overshadow the president's overseas trip next week, he's

scheduled to meet with leaders from the g-7, the president of china, leaders from nato, all about ukraine and of course all of this comes as the president already has a very busy agenda for next week, he's already scheduled to meet with the pope in rome and king abdullah in saudi arabia. >> are you hearing anything about the president delivers potentially a direct message to the russian president vladimir putin? >> i put that question to susan rice earlier today and she said that the president has been doing that all along, he didn't say that he wouldn't. i would expect the president to do that once again next week, and keep in mind that the president's key speech of the week will be in brussels, white house officials say that will be on european security and much of it will be on the ukraine. wolf? >> coming up, we're examining the final 54 minutes of communication between flight 370 and air traffic control on the ground. we're going to show you what we're learning. and it's the fbi's top priority

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liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? happening now, a situation room special report, breaking news on the mystery of malaysia flight 370, the search. new efforts are about to get under way as daylight breaks in the target area, i'll talk to a u.s. navy commander overseeing part of this massive operation. final communications, a transcript emerges of the latest exchanges between the cockpit crew and ground control, will it reveal new clues? . >> zombie flight. was the plane flying for hours with everyone on board incapacitated? i'm wolf blitzer, you're in "the situation room". and we're following breaking news of the mysterious disappearance of malaysian airlines flight 370.

among the latest, we expect the airborne search for the plane to resume any moment now with daylight breaking in the indian ocean off wester australia, australian officials say six planes will be taking part today. also, britain's telegraph newspaper has obtained what it says is a transcript of the final 54 minutes of communication between the cockpit and air traffic controllers on the ground. a cnn is dedicating it's global resources to this story and our correspondents and analysts are working all angles right now. let's get more now on that alleged transcript that's emerged of communications teen the cockpit and air traffic controllers. what are you finding out? >> well, wolf, we finally got our hands on the transcript, it was first in english then translated to mandarin and then back into english. so all the worthing here may not

be exact. usually air traffic control tells the pilots when to push back, when to taxi to the run way and when to take off. and the pilot communicates the plane's altitude and now after reviewing the transcript of the 54-minute conversation between one of the pilots and air traffic control, nothing stood out that suggests this plane would disappear. a purported transcript that details what malaysian flight 370 -- air traffic control, this is mh 370, good morning, one of the pilots says, a routine start. the conversations match with what malaysian investigators and u.s. officials have told cnn that the recordings indicated a normal fight. this is mh 370, flight altitude

350. the radio calls were slightly casual but gave no -- a message saying the plane was at 35,000 feet, a potentially odd sign identified by the paper because that same communication had already been given six minutes earlier. at 1:19 a.m., malaysian authorities say the co-pilot makes his final transmission to air traffic control, all right, good night. two minutes later t trance responder that helps air traffic controllers track the plane goes off. flight 370 hasn't been heard from or seen since. >> we should tell you the newspaper says that they have asked malaysian airlines as well as the civil aviation authority to confirm the transcripts were authentic, but the prime minister's office would only say they would not release that data, this transcript doesn't tell us what went wrong on that

plane, but at the very least, it answers the question of in these minutes leading up to the plane disappearing, did the pilots say anything that would indicate trouble in the cockpit. >> originally they spoke in english, this is a translation into mandarin chinese, but now it's been retranslated back into english, so you could lose something in that translation. american investigators say they found deleted files on the pilot's computer even close to the final flight date than initially thought. pamela brown is working this part of the story for us. what's going on here, pamela? >> so far they're not jumping to any conclusions about the pilots, but sources tell cnn investigators have uncovered evidence that files from those hard drives were deleted as previously disclosed by those officials. experts at the fbi as well as

outside consultants are work around the clock to find out what may have been deleted and also how it may have been erased. >> the captain seen right here in front of hiss flight simulator simply deleted files on his computer's hard drive or using more sophisticated meths to scrub the files from the device. cnn has learned u.s. investigators have uncovered evidence files were deleted even after that, closer to the plane's final flight two weeks ago. >> was information deleted in ways that weren't routine? they would probably have a pretty good sense of the level of sophistication of the pilot, did they use a lot of encorruption? >> and sources tell cnn investigators aren't just interested in files from the pilot's simulate tofr software, instead, investigators are -- as well as the hard drive taken from the home of his co-pilot,

27-year-old fariqu hamid. >> there's going to be fragments of information left on your hard drive that a qualified expert can find. >> reporter: investigators want to look at information such as browser history, visit to chatrooms, or even information on life insurance policies. >> did they go, for example, to a map that shows all the air field more than 5,000 feet capable in the region? did they test out different routes, not just on the simulator, but with satellite? >> meantime today malaysian officials confirming there may be one other key piece of information that could open a window into the final moments -- they're investigating reporting of a cell phone call made from the cockpit just minutes before takeoff.

>> u.s. investigators have compiled profiles of the two pilots based on interviews with friends, neighbors and family members conducted by malaysian investigators along with a search of their online activities and so far sources telling cnn's e van perez that they have turned up nothing that would give any explanation for the plane's disappearance and there's nothing to run on yet to suggest otherwise. >> they have got a lot of work to do. we're also learning now details about the search about to get underway at any moment now in the indian motion, including which planes will and will not take part today. we're hearing that the posieden is not going to fwli today. tell us why? >> the crew's been working hard, the plane has been working hard and this has now been going on so long, all of the aircraft from all of the countries participating are going to need

to take some time off, a day off for crew rest and routine man maintenan maintenance. there are going to be a number of other aircraft going out, four military aircraft from various countries and quite interesting, we're hearing, two commercial long range jet liners, with observers on board, also going out, all eyeballs, all technology, everything they have got looking at the surface of the ocean to try and find debris, wolf. >> we're also hearing, barbara that the defense secretary chuck hagel had a second conversation today with his malaysian counterparts. what is he asking for and will the u.s. give it to the malaysians? >> no promises yet from the pentagon, that's the message here tonight, wolf. the malaysian minister spoke to hagel for about 30 minutes, there was a discussion, the malaysians would like what

they're referring to as under sea surveillance technology, they want two capabilities essentially. they want some acoustic capabilities, thing they can put in the water to listen for the black boxes, the data recorders, if you will. and also under sea salvage technology once they locate the wreckage and they want the technology to go after it. but, wolf, there's a couple of issues here, this is some of the most sophisticated, most classified technology the u.s. navy has, they may not even be able to legally share it. the malaysians may not have a platform, a ship or an airplane to second down to the indian ocean. so a long way to go, the malaysians want it, hagel now has assembled a high-tech team to look at what the pentagon has and what is possible, wolf.

>> thank you, let's get some more now on the airborne search. on the west coast of australia, it's just getting daylight. have any planes actually taken off yet? >> we don't have confirmation that any planes have taken off. if day one or day two is any indication, this is the exact time that the very first plane takes off. so what is going to be taking to the air today? there's going to be three australian planes, the p-3 orions taking to the air, there's going to be one new see land plane as well as those two civilian planes barbara was talking about. they're going to fly from this air base, four hours away, they're going to circle for two hours above that area, the military here telling us they want to clear 36,000 square kilometers, that is more than yesterday. they're trying to flood the zone, they want to try to clear

as much sea as possible and try to bring all those men and women back safely. >> what about the weather on this day? >> reporter: the weather today, at least here is markedly better than yesterday. yesterday we were hit by some extreme weather, almost hurricane force winds, range, it's much better today. clear skies, there isn't that much wind, as far as weather down there, it is pretty good, from what we understand, yesterday, they had very, very good conditions, the conditions very critical, especially when you have spotters in those civilian planes because they're going to use their eyes to see if they can see anything floating in the water. >> thank you, let's bring in our panel right now joining us, michael schmidt of the "new york times." peter gold, the former fbi assistant director, tom fuentes.

you heard the conversation with u.s. counter terrorism officials saying these first two weeks they have seen nothing that would indicate terrorism, if you will, so indicated on that deductive logic, they're increasingly thinking this could have been some sort of accident, catastrophic failure, or maybe even pilot suicide, something along those lines? >> i can understand why they would think that and want to come to a conclusion that it's not terrorism. >> they haven't come to a formal conclusion, this is what they're thinking. >> what they're thinking isn't as important as what the person committing the act of moving that airplane to the south indian ocean, what that person was thinking, we don't know that yet, we have an indication from phone searches, internet records, conversations with friends, colleagues, relatives. but we have had terrorism cases where even best friends didn't know that a friend or colleague was about to commit a terrorist act or an unusual violent act. we just don't know what we don't

know. >> your instinct has been from the beginning, peter, that this is likely human being that was responsible, for whatever reason, for this terrible situation? >> once it became clear that there was a controlled turn and almost a reversal of course, i have zeroed in, it had to be a human in the cockpit, we don't know what his motives or her motives were, but it's gotting to human activity. >> there's a plane missing, they hadn't investigated it that much and they were pretty concerned. but as they dug in and they looked back, whether or not there was chatter leading up. go back into that, they see whether anyone was talking about anything like this in the time running up to it. they looked in their data bases, they did link analysises based

on their manifests. they did all this and they said we can't find anything that leads us to believe it was terrorism. and if it was, this is a new paradigm, this is something we have never seen before. >> we have seen situations where it's a whole new world. i want to go back to perth, australia, jeffrey thomas, editing chief and managing director of airline ratings.com. are you hearing anything over there, your investigation that's going on, jeffrey, whether this is more inclined to be a human being responsible for this or some sort of mechanical failure? >> look, wolf, we're hearing the human being element. as was just mentioned, this plane, we know has made several turns, several changes in altitude, this wasn't in the fmc, the flight management computer, so this has to be

human intervention. there's an interesting element with the co-pilot signing off. he signed off, all right, good night. that's not normal signoff, he should have said mh 370, he should have read back what air traffic control told him. he just said all right, good night. maybe that was a coded message saying i'm not all right. i don't know. it's one of the many mysteries of this extraordinary disappearance. >> the british newspaper, the telegraph, as you know, they published what they say is the transcript of those 54 minutes of communications between air traffic controllers on the ground and the cockpit crew, the co-pilot in this particular case, what we have seen is an english retranslation from the mandarin original conversation was in english. what are you hearing about this transcript? >> wolf, i have yet to see the

exact transcript. all i know is the last signingoff. that is certainly not by k.o. protocol, it was slack at best, too casual if you like or was it a coded message? >> let me ask peter golds what do you think? >> it is not anything in iko standard language. the international civil aviation organization. there are treaties that everyone has signed that governs how aircraft move from one country's air space to another, how these kinds of investigations are conducted. >> you want to weigh in on that, tom? because it's pretty extraordinary, the newspaper got a hold of this retranslation from the english to the mandarin back to the english. the malaysians aren't releasing this. shouldibili

shouldibili shouldibility -- shouldn't they be releasing the transcript or the voices? >> you would be hearing this in english between the tower and the pilots. and you would be able to maybe pick up stress or some deviation in the way they say it. the problem with this transcript is that if it's a translation of a translation, you know, the wording matters. because pilots use certain key phrases when they refer to going to a run way or departing, you know, the air space or coming to try to find the next controllers at ho chi minh airport and their air space. what we don't know is, absolutely what the pilot or co-pilot said on the radio, were they sending a message that things aren't going right, this isn't normal and pay attention to us or is it just bad

translation of the transcript? >> one more thing, the faa routinely makes tower tapes after an accident available, usually within 72 hours. the tower tapes are not protected like the voice recorder. >> you're there in perth, australia, why aren't the malaysians releasing this kind of information? >> wolf, that's a very good question, and add that to a have long list of questions, why did the trance responder turn off when it did. the whole aviation community would have taken a very different view of this particular disappearance had that information been released when they knew, which was march 8, march 9, one week later. there's lots and lots of questions that the malaysians must answer. >> is there any we that the malaysians reacted to that

casual signoff which as you point out is not really standard in this kind of communication? >> look, there's no indication at all that they put any significance in it, not publicly to us. but at the same time, i think behind the scenes, they're hopefully looking at this and trying to examine and trying to understand as suggested any stress in the voice of the pilots, but, again, they haven't been forthcoming with that. >> do you have any idea, michael, if the malaysians have made available to u.s. law enforcement, to the fbi, the ntsb, the faa, u.s. experts the actual audio of these 54 minutes? >> i don't. but what i do know is that the u.s. is sitting there and is listening to the folks in this room, in malaysia, where information is coming in about the investigation. the u.s. is obviously not playing a role, but they're getting some of the information from there. but i think the whole way the investigation has been handled

speaks to an interesting part of it. is that the malaysians had no experience with any part of this, they don't have the experience investigative wise that we do here in the united states. they have been thrust in the middle of it and they're completely unprepared. that's why we're seeing this information going back and forth, it allows folks to raise questions about it. that's probably one of the biggest problems. >> tom, you worked with the malaysians when you were with the fbi. we have repeatedly asked for a malaysian government person or someone from the malaysian airlines to talk to us and give some answers to some of these questions. they're having a little news conference every day, they tell us what they want to tell us, they have some questions, but they're really holding back a lot and it's not clear why. >> i have worked with the malaysian air force. you know, they're very good, the

fbi has worked for more than a decade on terrorist groups, al qaeda related terrorist groups, the 9/11 hijackers had a summit meeting before 9/11, so they have been very effective and very successful and very koec koempltive with the fbi. now when we throw innings -- that's a whole new thing, that's not the place-involving the technical experts. and that's where i see the confusion and the lack of being forthcoming. >> let me ask jeffrey thomas in australia, final question, jeffrey, heard a very different tone from the prime minister of australia yesterday, he sounded pretty upbeat that this could be

debris they saw on the commercial satellite image. today they're saying it's just something that fell off a cargo ship. what's the latest thing? >> i know prime minister tony abbott did mention a container,a actual fact, this is too big to be an actual container. this is 24 meters long, they don't get them that big. he's trying to temper expectations, he's wary of the hopes of the relatives in china and malaysia. but at the same time, we're hearing today that the chinese are sending down from malaysia, redeploying three more search aircraft to be based here at pierce, the japanese i understand are also taking to orions too to help in the search. so rather than scale back the search, if you take the prime minister's sort of watering down, they're actually amping up the search with more aircraft

from more countries and more ships coming as well. if you look at the military response, the civil response on the ground and in the air and in the water, it's all positive. more assets are being pushed into this search. i actually believe they're on to something and i believe that the intelligence they've got, they haven't necessarily shared all of it with us. and i think they really strongly suspect the zone they're searching is where this plane may be. >> we'll continue to stay in touch with you, jeffrey thomas in australia. thank you very much to our panel as well. for more on how you can help in the effort to find malaysian airlines 370. still ahead, new information on the airborne search for the missing plane, i'll talk to a u.s. navy commander, he's in perth australia.

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the search will begin again any moment now. we're joined now on the phone by u.s. navy lieutenant commander adam shauns, he's in perth, australia, overseeing operations on the ground. thank you for joining us. what's the latest, first of all, on the search, as the united states has started moving more asset into the indian ocean. >> we're still working, we're flying just about every day, we're putting our crews out in the search area, they're doing their jobs and we're doing our best to contribute to the overall search effort. >> have you found, have you seen anything yet? >> we have not, but we don't consider that a failure, we're eliminating areas every day and concentrating efforts in new places. >> we have heard, commander, the posiedne, the new surveillance

plane won't be flying today, is that right? >> that is a true statement, sir, we are taking the day off, not flying today, we have crew limitations so we're giving the crew off today, we coordinated this ahead of time through the australian rescue coordination center and they have taken that into their overall search plan. >> what about the orion, are you going to be flying one of those today. >> we're not, sir. the u.s. only has the signal p-8 here. >> you don't have any orions, australia, japan, other countries will be searching this area in the southern indian ocean, but the u.s. is not involved. what about other naval vessels, anything like, that any ships involved? >> there are at least two civilian ships out there working. i understand there are several different military ships from different nations inbo