whitfield. following new details in the mystery of flight 370. first the search, malaysian authorities say france gave them a third satellite image today showing them possible debris in the same area of southern indiana ocean. chinese and australian sites have spotted objects there. eight planes searched the ocean.

they did not find anything. they found a wooden pallet with strapping belts, pallets used in the airline industry but also used in shipping. it's not clear where this pallet came from. also malaysian authorities clarified what was in that last transmission from the acars communication system at 1:07 minutes before the plane had its last communication with the ground. officials say it showed nothing unusual and the plane was at that point still headed for beijing. that undermines the theory that the plane's computer was preprogrammed to take a different route before that 1:07 transmission. i want to go to our reporter in washington. he's been following that story particularly on this information since the beginning. what can you tell us about this development and how significant is it? >> jim, it's pretty significant. one of the reasons why there was a lot of focus on the pilot, and one of the reason why there's suspicion something went wrong in the cockpit was because there

was this belief that the malaysians had data that indicated there was a preprogramming or reprogramming of the flight computers that took it away from the course to beijing somewhere over the gulf of thailand and sent it on the westward course that we have now charted. now, it's not clear why that information was relayed to u.s. authorities last week but we do know from malaysian authorities today that everything was normal in the computer system and that the acars system, the system that relays that system back to home base didn't indicate anything was amiss on the way to beijing. >> is there any reason, evan, we should doubt this new information? as you know there's been conflicting data from the malaysian authorities? it's gotten better. is there any reason to doubt this particular update? >> not really. one of the things that the malaysians have done is to say,

you know, i believe last weekend was when they raised the question of whether or not there was some foul play, perhaps, involved. they also raised concerns about whether or not the turn away from the flight path was deliberate. so now they appear to have more information. they are for the first time telling us what exactly was in the computer system. i think that's a very important thing. this doesn't rule out anything. this doesn't rule out that there might have been foul play. there might have obviously some theories that remain on the table, terrorism, hijacking. there might have been some mechanical difficulty on the plane that caused -- that caused the plane to turn around and perhaps caused the pilots to make some additional errors. so all of those things remain on the table and we should also point out that authorities are doing some of the same guesswork we're doing simply because they have such little information to go on. >> bringing together pieces of

the puzzle. the investigation and frankly the certainly for the airplane. evan perez in washington, justice correspondent. thank you for joining us. mary schiavo, attorney for victims and families of transportation accident kip darby, pill, aviation consulting firm. clive, contributor for "the daily beast" and cnn analyst tom fuentes and david soucie, authorize of the book "why planes crash." a big panel. i want to start with the first question. viewers may be joining for the first time and learning this development about se quinquenci. malaysian horowiauthorities saye turn off course, raised questions whether this was a

premeditated action by the pilots. i wonder if i could begin with you again, mary, your experience with the ntsb investigating accidents before and explain to our viewers in short-term why sequencing is important. >> today's development is important because it does not -- it's more consistent. if pilots put in this way point they were going to turn to, they knew in advance of the last communication they were going to turn. it was a premeditated act, turn off the course to beijing. if it was not premeditated, it does fit closely with the scenario that whatever happened happened suddenly and they turned to get back to an emergency airport. >> this is helpful putting in context. other news off the top of the

hour, french provided satellite, nothing confirmed yet, satellite indications of possible debris. rick, in light of your experience on airplane recovery and your own book "finding malia" and significance of the satellite data, where would you place the progress of the search now? >> we don't have you there, sorry. we don't have you, rick. why don't i make that to kip darby, you're a pilot yourself, the new information, how much does it help us with assets here? >> i agree there's nothing to indicate the pilots. from a technical point of view, flight management does allow you put in a new route called an alternate route that wouldn't show up on acars reporting. just because it gives an indication of the way point, one after that, would give us a map

where the plane is expected to go. in the back-up case, you could put another route in and not activate it until needed. there would be no indication from the acars reporting that route had been changed. >> thank you, kit. that's a good answer on another point, the idea there's a possibility of plugging in another route without preprogramming it. why don't we go to you tom fuentes, we have you as well, former fbi director. you and i have talked many times since the plane disappeared about the progress of the search. you have a little more satellite data today. the trouble is each time one of the satellite pictures come up, they send the plane out to the area and they don't see anything. is that to be expected in light of the expanse of ocean? we should expect, in fact, a long process of looking for this and prepare for days, weeks, maybe longer? >> i think so, jim. it's to be expected. that's exactly what we've gotten for how many days in a row since the first satellite report by the denver company followed by

other satellite reports. i'd like to follow up on what kit darby just said. the issue back when i recall it was the rumor of the day last week and the week before, the flight having been preprogrammed. the basis for that rumor at the time, i remember, "the flight turned too smoothly to be hand flown by the pilot. must have been a new way point or route. i questioned at the time, the radar, the edge of the zone of that radar, if they couldn't tell for sure what it was doing, how could they tell it was smoothly. if it was a turbulent, hand done turn, how coot radar be that precise on one issue and completely ambiguous on other issues about that turn? >> that's a good point. two developments today, new satellite data in the search. still nothing found when planes take another look. the other development regarding

the investigation. the idea no indication from the acars data, wireless transmission of data from the plane that the plane was preprogrammed. i have clive next to me. you're experienced in these issues. as tom reminded, it wasn't just acars transmission that turned out to be false that gave an indication, it's that the plane flew steady by way points, less likely for you or me if we were experienced pilots to handle than an autopilot. aren't there ways for the pilot without preprogramming, turning the dial, the heading. >> i think this underlines something, this plane does not disappear. what disappeared was our ability to see it. this shows shortcomings in the way of acars. they were dispatched every 30 minutes. between those messages there's this yawning gap. this is a quite considerable change they have come up with again today, which is confusion. in one senseette takes out the sinister implication, something

sinister about preprogramming before it disappeared. now we're left with trying to conjecture whether it was a flown turn or computerized turn. before or after, it was deliberate and carefully flown turn in some kind of emergency, which would be the natural thing for the pilots to do. >> that's a key point. even in an emergency, a pilot might make a control turn. >> he's flying 500 miles an hour at 3200 feet. not like world war ii. you have packages to think about. >> a sudden event in the cockpit trying to get this under control. >> once you get a new bomb dropped into the poll, which we've had with the latest information, have you to reconfigure the possibilities. >> understood. we have many more questions to answer. i'm going to ask the panel to

stay with us. thank you for asking us now, more questions to dig deep in. the focus on a recovery, not a rescue mission sadly. our next guest says he thinks there is a chance there could still be survivors. right after this blah. break. gunderman group is a go.

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doing at any time and it sends it to the ground. acars sent the last transmission at 1:07 a.m. it was expected to send another transmission at 1:37 a.m. but that never happened. malaysian officials said they don't know exactly when the acars systems went off in that 30-minute window. we did learn when it sent last communication there was nothing to indicate in the last communication pilots preprogrammed the turn to the west of that's one of today's key new developments. i want to bring back panel, mary schiavo, ntsb, kit darby, retired airline pilot, head of a consulting firm. tom fuentes, former assistant director of the fbi. clive, i wonder if i could bring you in first. if we could talk about the system and failing of the step,

how it contributed to the mystery of where it is. >> it's not giving us what we should get. it's not giving a complete and continuous picture of what's happening to this plane until the moment when whatever happened happened. acars is intermittent. also, it's not designed to describe the preamble to an emergency. it's designed to send, if you like, checks of the systems of the plane, engines, basic systems, health check. in that sense we're putting emphasis on what acars does and doesn't show. we have to look around the corner to see other things that are indicators, too. i've argued since air france 447

we badly need a system -- streaming system, live streaming what's going on in the plane. that can be done. >> we talked to analysts and experts about the cost, seemingly manageable cost. >> $1500 a month. bring that down per passengers it's cents. >> okay. certainly something to think. as we focus now if i could speak to the panel as well on just the investigation here, it seems that we've seen all the information investigators have. as you look at this, are there any other promising paths where before you find actual aircraft, presumably in the ocean, they can lean more information. are they working with you think -- i'll start with you, mary -- all they have. is there hope to find more data streams that can help them figure out what happened to this plane? >> there are a couple of slights

on the immarsat they had provided coordinates to the researchers two days after the accident and where they are searching now. it also suggested more data from satellites and radar points to come. certainly more and more nations are providing information and assets to help in the search. of course you'd also want to wrap up back at home base, if you will, on the issue of what was in the pilot's information to close that door, that alleyway once and for all. what was in the maintenance records, anything outstanding. a lot of it is shutting down avenues so you don't have loose ends. hopefully additional coordinates coming in from other countries and from the satellite company will help them honey in. at this point if they don't get any wreckage, they have to theorize where the point of impact might have been based on few satellite handshakes or pins, where it would have run

out of fuel. they have to calculate fuel burn, aircraft maintenance and fuel logs. >> i just want to ask, mary brought up the search there as well. it seems it's paltry information so far -- or at least incomplete leading them to devote so many resources in the air, sky, indian ocean. are you surprised on that focus based on the information they have. do you think is irresponsible at this point to eliminate the other possibilities, even that northern arc where this flight could have ended up. >> i think that's a really tough decision for them to make, jim. if they don't devote enough aircraft, surface vessels to check the areas where they have had satellite imagery, and then they are off in other areas where they found nothing, they are going to be criticized for not following enough on the satellite imagery. meantime while they are down there following up on satellite imagery, what fewer resources

are devoted to the northern arc of that route and the rest of that arc, if they are concentrated so much on that area 1500 miles southwest of perth, australia, they can't be everywhere all the time. they are making conscious choices on where to conduct the search on what they have and other things aren't served while that's ongoing. >> that's to our panel, tom, clive, kit, mary. we're going to bring you back later in this hour to delve deeper. searchers are looking for debris in the indian ocean. one terrorism expert said the possible of survivors still exists even to this day. we're going to talk to him right after this break. so you can get out of your element. so you can explore a new frontier and a different discipline.

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satellite images from france may offer a new clue in the disappearance of flight 370. malaysia transport minister said the images show possible debris. the focus right now is on a recovery mission there. our next guest says the fact no one is talking about a possible rescue mission would infuriate him as a family member.

great to have you on. this is a possibility that doesn't get talked about much. it will seem a surprise to many in light of 16 daisy after the plane has and. how could it be possible to still be survivors? >> thank you, jim. i'm not saying it's a probability. but with so many different scenarios out there, i work off analysis table, there are still several theories where survivors remain a possibility. remote but a possible. it seems to me that our priority should be on people. if there are survivors we need to do everything we can to find survivors and the plane in the secondary sense. we've had examples of surviving crashes. i was lucky enough to survive a crash where we had been left for dead. we had a pan am airplane go down in the 50s ditched in the pacific. everyone was able to survive that crash. theta into the life raft.

that was encouraging. we all remember more recently the miracle on the hudson. so is it possible to survive one of these incidents? yes, it is. when we think about the size of the objects that have been detected by multiple country's satellite assets right now, i would invite you to go online and take a look at the slides for 777 and they are almost a match for size seen floating. slide rafts that deploy automatically. perhaps we have slides out there. for all of us that fly, if you find yourself in this situation, lashing together gives a bigger picture so people can look at satellite imagery and see it. my point is this. we have lots of theories. many of them -- not many but some say it's possible to have survivors. i was very pleased to see

australians the other day mention they were still looking at the potential for a rescue. >> it's a fair point. i wonder how would the search and allocation of resources change if that were the case. it seems they are working as fast as they can. would you do it any differently being a survivor yourself? >> jim, i don't think we know everything everybody knows about this search. there may be people that have information there are no survivors and for protection of national technical means can't tell us that at this point. if it hasn't been eliminated, i would certainly want to send out airplanes like c-130s that have the ability to drop survival rafts, equipment right over people, drop jumpers if need be to help people who may still be in the water. the fact we don't have any aircraft capable of doing these

air drops out there, orion and poseidon but even put people with eyeballs on the ramp looking around. we just haven't been putting assets out there to maximize possibility to favorable react if we are fortunate to find one, two, three survivors. until we know all 239 personnel have lost their lives, i think we should doing our operations in a way that gives us the possibility, even if we save one survivor, it would be a tremendous thing to come out of this operation. >> it may change. i i understand hms success australian ship going to the search area, it also has the ability for recovery in addition to search. one c-130 dropped a signal buoy around one of the search sites.

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right now authorities are analyzing a new satellite image released by french officials, potentially a fresh clue that could aid those in the search for missing flight 370. >> the area coverage, again -- >> also, new details unfolding on what really happened inside the cockpit minutes before the last transmission. >> it's a game changer. >> this as the world responds with more planes arriving into the region. but the weather could hamper those efforts. what are the families, waiting, worrying, and praying. we have all the angles covered. you're in the "cnn newsroom." welcome back. i'm jim sciutto in new york. panel of experts, tom fuentes, mary schiavo formally ntsb, clive irving contributor to "the

daily beast" and kit darby, former airline pilot, retired airline pilot himself. i wonder if we could begin with this new information from the malaysian authorities. there is no indication at least of preprogramming of that turn to the west. doesn't mean it wasn't done on purposish at least preprogramming. i wonder if i could start with you, kit, as a retired commercial airline pilot yourself. the turn could still be dlibd, of course, even if it was not preprogrammed. it could still be dlieliberate d under control even if it hadn't been plugged into the flight management system. >> at this altitude, the pilot is almost always on autopilot. i won't say it can't be felony by hand but the air is thin, you're going fast, so it's on autopilot by design.

he turns a new direction, a smooth turn is accomplished right apolo the threshold where many people sleeping in the back wouldn't know. if you had to fly it by hand, he would try to accomplish the same thing. depending on his skills he would not wake anybody up. still a gentle turn. at that altitude, everything is gentle. >> let me ask you a question to follow up. you're in the cockpit, there's an event, fire, failure of systems, you want to turn the plane, turn it back to a safe harbor, airport, that is a way you might turn the plane to change the heading? >> absolutely. i want to keep the autopilot on. it takes brain power. i need it for the emergency checklist, communicate with the other pill. if at all possible i want to leave it on. if it's off, i'm going to turn it on. very unusual to not use it unless it was not available. i. >> i want to bring you in.

a turn he pilots say deliberate without nefarious, you're investigating something like this. they get say you had your fbi hat on again. how would that change your calculus most likely explanation as to why the plane disappeared? >> i don't know that it would change anything. so many contradictory statements. now we're going on two weeks and can't tell if the plane turned, in the hands of the pilot or autopilot. now they are saying it wasn't preprogrammed when they never knew for sure it was. i think as long as these conflicting statements come out as to when systems were turned on or off. whether the pilot was in control or not in control, it really makes it difficult -- >> criminal investigators aren't trying to determine at this point. they want to keep gathering all the possible facts in spite of the fact the aspects of facts concerning the airplane are changing. >> thanks very much, tom. you make a good point.

the questions are still there. too early to eliminate any possibility. let me thank tom fuentes, mary schiavo, kit darby. live inside a cockpit flight simulator where our own martin savidge will break down the significance of flight 370's transmission and what we learned about those transmissions today. dear sun, you created light. you are loved. celebrated.

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new details from malaysian authorities on the last communication from flight 370's acars system. 1:07 a.m., last transmission, shows nothing unusual, the original routing to beijing. that undermines the theory that someone may have preprogrammed in a new route before that last acars transmission. our martin savidge live in a flight simulator. flight trainer next to him. a familiar thought we've seen you in. i wonder, martin, if you could help explain to our viewers the significance of the new information about the last acars transmission and sequencing as it would play out in the cockpit. >> it would certainly seem to downplay some of the sinister sense you would have gotten if somebody preprogrammed a turn. let me show you what we're talking about as far as being able to point it out on the dash.

this is the acars system. a system does many things on the aircraft. it allows pilots to send text messages to the ground, allows the ground to do the same with them. an alternate communication system. most important for this scenario, that system would report to the ground every half hour or so parameters of what this is doing. speed, altitude, direction. it did that at 1:07. at that point everything was good. if there was a preprogrammed change, it would have been entered in this thing. this is the flight management system. essentially a robust gps. you could make that course change with eight keystrokes. that apparently didn't happen. it doesn't mean there was no turn. it is quite possible. i think i can do this, mitchell, take it off autopilot. you get an alarm because you've done that. you could make this turn manually. now, acars did not report in a

half hour later. i'll let you get it back. at 1:37, half hour later, acars should have said now it's doing this. acars going silent. means it was shut down deliberately or accidentally or transponder went off. if you take this new information essentially it means you had an aircraft reported in normal and then sometime immediately after that the transponder and acars system stopped functioning and appears there was a turn on radar. is it deliberate all this stuff was shut down? it could still be painted as somebody wanting to hide movements or it could be an accident. back to that, jim. >> other pilots told us a few minutes ago there's another way to turn the plane tlibtly but still under control, not under

control of pilot on the yoke but turning the heading in which case the computer would still be flying the plane, autopilot under control and hit those way opponents we talked about perfectly. could you show us how that would work? >> go ahead, tell us. >> the autopilot is controlled through this panel. we call this the remote control panel. all it is, the number you see here is heading. degree magnetic this is compass, cartesian points, north, east, south, west. all you have to do is turn the nobody and the airplane will turn that direction. >> feel it now. it's being done automatically. nobody touching the yokes. it's done smoothly. if you're a passenger, you can make it turn significantly without spilling a drink or making sure something is wrong. >> let me ask a follow-up.

there's a fire, decompression, you want the plane back to safe harbor, airport behind you, is that something a pilot would do in those circumstances, turn the heading, get headed back in a direction, safer direction? >> that's absolutely correct. the plane at that point in our case would have been on autopilot. fire, decompression. you're donning the mask, getting down and getting to the nearest airport immediately. you would do that using heading bug. asking for vector, mayday, mayday, my day, have an emergency, need to get to the airport immediately. clear an emergency. priority. heading back to the airport using the vector they gave you and then you're down and getting to the airport. >> obviously can't explain, what stands out, jim, the fact there's no radio communication, none at all. >> they made the turn without saying the mayday call. that's one of the big mysteries. thanks so much.

i feel like you're both aviation experts now in there. thanks for spending so much time in those close quarters. we appreciate it. the southern indian ocean tough climate on best of days. rain, high winds, this week's weather factoring into the search, the difficult search for flight 370.

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the southern part of the indian ocean is already known as an inhospitable place, winds of more than 40 miles an hour are commonplace. how is weather factoring in right now. chad is back, he knows weather well, director of research of george aquarium. great you're at the wall there. can you walk us through the forces convening in that tiny area of world they are searching now. >> certainly this is one deep ocean. there's not a lot of topography. you talk about the spreading here of the ridge, mid-atlantic ridge. this is what the bottom of the ocean looks like here. >> spreading happens very, very slow. mostly what you see on the bottom here is flat, featureless oozy mud. >> ooze. >> technical term, ooze.

made up of all the bodies of plankton. over time it makes this thick layer of ooze on the bottom. >> so is it turbid but so deep there's no currents down there. >> there are currents on the bottom and they are hard to understand and predict but chances are the water is quite clear right down to the bottom. once you get in touch with the bottom if you disturb that you could muddy it up quickly. >> 10,000 feet, winds above, a cyclone up there making rough waves, this is rough stuff here. >> challenging at the surface and harder under the surface. when you consider the 12,000 foot depth and black box pings about 14,000 feet you have to be right over the top to hear it. >> this goes 14,000 feet to the top. or really close to the surface 14,000 feet this way and this way. if it's this far down you have to drive on top of it to hear it. that's really -- we listened to

those pings yesterday. they are not very loud. >> they occur in a frequency range not common, that helps resolve it against background noise. there is a problem having to be over the top of it. it assumes all things ideal, density layer, those can act as a mirror and reflect sound away. >> all of a sudden lets say we find something and have to be below. there as ship, not just ro v attached to a ship pitching and rolling. >> you always have to deploy off a ship. even to deploy it off the ship you need ideal conditions. you use a special kind of crane to lower the robot. to do that conditions at the surface have to be right, you have to get rov to the bottom and find whatever it is you're looking for. it's a technical challenge. >> category three isn't helping.

>> no. >> this is north of australia in the warm water. when it gets down close to where we are now, we know the water near the certainly is 50 degrees. that won't support a cyclone, hurricane. they are the same thing, different oceans. still waves generated here. those waves are splashing out in the wind we're seeing here, 115 miles per hour. you have rollers at 30 feet. can you do anything with that? >> not really. needs to be frit calm, level. you would call it a flat down if you're out there to successfully deploy underseas equipment. those waves are not going to help. there's nothing temperature cyclone and search area to interrupt that, fetch in the waves just going to get bigger. >> there's a storm coming in itself, winds of 30. what does sea state look like when have you big swells and winds of 30 on top of that. >> depends which way the wind is going compared to which way swells are going. if you have wind in the teeth of the swell, those waves can stand up and make life on top of the

ship pretty difficult. >> we talked about this the other day. we have waves, blow off and looking for a white plane and thousands of white caps. you literally see nothing. >> i can tell you having done aerial survey work, when you're looking on days with a lot of white caps, your eyes play all sorts of tricks on you. that's why it's important they rely on automated techniques and radar. remote sensing is so important. >> thank you. jim, good information here. >> no question. walking us through how difficult it is to searchen one of the most remote corners of the world. that is all for me today. i'm jim sciutto. thanks for watching. randi kaye in for the next hour of "cnn newsroom" and that's right after this short break. so you can get out of your element. so you can explore a new frontier and a different discipline.

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. hello, everyone. i'm randi kaye in today for fredricka whitfield. we are following new developments in the mystery of malaysian airlines flight 370. we have updates on the search and intriguing information about the last data sent from the plane. first on the search, malaysian authorities say france gave them a third satellite image today showing possible debris in the southern indian ocean. chinese and australian satellites have also spotted objects there. today eight planes and a ship searched that area of the ocean but they didn't find anything. crews did find something yesterday. they found a wooden pallet with strapping belts floating in the water. pallets are used in the airline industry but also used in shipping so it's not clear where that's from. malaysian authorities clarified what was in the last communication from acars communication system at 1:07 a.m. officials say it showed nothing unusual and the plane was still heading for beijing. that debunks the idea that the plane's computer was reprogrammed to take a