a source close to the investigation is telling cnn that the aircraft took a sharp left turn. then dropped to a very low altitude before it vanished from radar. that is a very different picture of the time line officials were working on until now. much more in a few seconds on cnn. meantime, airplanes from the united states, china, japan, britain, australia, all on their way again to a remote part of the indian ocean with eyes on the water. it is another day of looking for debris that might not be there and chasing satellite images taken several days ago. the space they're searching is vast. the pieces they're trying to find are relatively small. let's go live now to kuala lumpur. i just said that a source told cnn about this updated radar data. how does this picture change with this new information? >> reporter: it changes so many things. it really does bring us more

detail. it is a small amount of detail but significant, don. in this investigation into what happened on board flight 370 shortly before it disappeared off the radar and disappeared for the past two weeks. day 17 here as the sun rises in kuala lumpur since the plane took off. let me tell but the detail we have from this source close to the investigation. what we understand is some time between 1:19 and 2:40 a.m., a military radar believes that the plane not only made a turn but it dropped to 12,000 feet. that's around 4,000 meters. the turn it took around two minutes on a 777 to make. that could be anything from 90 to 180 degrees. a complete u-turn effectively. but crucially, the new piece of information we've learned about the dropping of altitude to 12,000 feet open up a lot of possibilities, and clarifies the picture for us, don. one thing i must say is that we

don't believe that dropping to 12,000 feet was anything sinister to try to avoid radar or anything. let's just clear that right up. dropping to 12,000 feet does not remove a plane from any kind of radar. so it was still visible, particularly to this military radar, of course. but what it does tell us is that something went wrong on board that made the pilot or somebody inside the cockpit take that plane right down. now there are a number of possibilities, which i would like to share with you. one is depreciatization. were they trying to bring the cabin pressure down to an altitude where people could breathe easily because of something going on on board. were they turning the plane around and bringing it down to a lower level to try to avoid other air traffic. this is a very busy part of the kind of air traffic. were they coming out of the way of other flight aircraft because

they were having trouble on board? were they turning around, don, to try to make an emergency landing? last week i went to the northeast of malaysia on the eastern coastline. just off the south china sea. we met some fishermen who were out at sea that night when the plane went missing. just below where the flight was, they say they saw a low flying aircraft. we can't independently verify that but they said they had never seen an aircraft flying so low before. more importantly, don, that airport is the nearest airport to the last known location when the aircraft identified itself as flight mh 3. this airport has a runway long enough to than on. 7,900 feet, around 2,400 meters. that's enough for a 777 to land on. if it was trying to head there for an emergency landing, that would be the nearest airport to do it at. is that what the pilot or

co-pilot on board were trying to do before the plane disappeared? many questions raised by this new development. but certainly a very important piece of the jigsaw puzzle. and let me remind you, where i am in kuala lumpur, there are a lot of families waiting for every piece of information that they can get. and holding on to it because this pieces together where their loved ones might be. >> 239 people on board that plane. thank you. live for us in kuala lumpurful let's get our panel of experts in to explain the possible significance of this brand new information. joining me now, mary schiavo, moo mark weiss, a former american airlines pilot and a security consultan. miles o'brien is one of our cnn aviation analysts and a pilot himself. les, a 777 pilot and a cnn analyst. bobby is a retired navy captain and a retired navy diver. lieutenant colonel ken christianson is an aviation

consultant. also, david is the author of why planes crash. the fight for safe skies and a cnn analyst so thanks to all of you. mark weiss, what do you glean from this new information? >> i think you have to start managing expectations. we've heard so many conflicting reports over the last number. days. i think this information needs to be vetted. certainly if it is real and legitimate, it brings up a whole new set of circumstances. but as was brought up in the last hour, the descent to 12,000 feet, if it depends on how rapid that was. and also, did it climb back to another altitude? it certainly at this point could have said a number of things. there could have been somebody in the cockpit. we still don't know. that forced the pilots to descend because they wanted to turn the aircraft around. without question, this could have been a procedure that would have come about because of some type of catastrophe on board the

aircraft. and procedurally this is what you would be doing. it still leaves open the question of no communication. particularly going through a heavily trafficked air corridor. >> yeah. >> mary, does this tell you anything about the pilot and the co-pilot's actions? >> yes. it does. it says they were fighting mightily but it also says one other thing. in some planes, we hadn't talked about this. in some planes there is an emergency descent mode aside from the pilot niinitiating it. if the plane senses that the pressure has fallen below what it should be, the plane itself. this will happen in the citation jet which isn't a 777. the plane will initiate a 90-degree turn and the plane itself, smart planes trying to keep us alive will initiate the descent with the 90-degree turn in descent. it says the pilots might have been fighting the troubles and the plane itself made the turn

and started the descent. >> david, this new information coming in. the question is, where is this plane? >> well, it is still significant. this piece of information for a lot of reasons. the one reason, the one thing that concerns me, even if the pilots didn't have time to communicate this. there are other systems on the aircraft that automatically report it. again, i'm referring to the eight car system. so why that did not report it, try to connection and make an attempt to connect and report that something was going wrong. that's what concerns me a lot. the other thing is that if they were not able to communicate. the thing that's common between them, the vhf and the vhf radios is the communications bus which powers the communications systems. although it is two different buses temperature, there is one common bus that could potentially trip that up. that concerns me a little bit. that could answer why they

didn't communicate. that makes me think that something happened down in that compartment to make this all go out. >> ken christianson. we've been talking about the information coming out. they're contradicting themselves. does this till about the malaysian authorities. their information and also, what do you glean from this? does it tell you anything about the pilots and co-pilot's actions? >> it does. if the plane in fact did go down to 12,000 feet, and descended, if it continued to fly on. if it straightened out and continued to fly out, it would never reach where they're currently searching now at 12,000 feet. it would be an increased fuel burn and it would never make it that far. at the lower altitude. >> les, you've been trying to get in here. >> that last statement was

absolutely correct. i think that we're all making an assumption that this plane is in the water. and i've contended before with reference to the elt activation, the emergency locator transmitters that are in the rafts for the purpose of ditching, we never heard a signal or a latitude from the satellite which they're capable of doing. so yeah. i think that maybe we ought to explore looking over land once again. >> bobby, i see you are shaking your head there. >> if i were the salvage commander or the coordinator of the search efforts, that would be my question to all the aviation experts. how does this affect what we're going to the resources off the coast of australia. we have lots of resources tied up looking at the satellite, looking for the debris that we picked up on the satellite

imagery. we probably have a lot of resources tied up. looking at the satellite data. specifically covering that part of ocean. and maybe not lucas closely at the satellite imagery of maybe the other parts of the indian ocean quite as closely possibly. because that's on the arc that we were looking at. how does this new radar information affect what parts of the indian ocean we are concentrating on right now. and tying up all these resources in. that's something for the aviation experts to be feeding back to the people in charge of the search efforts right now. >> and miles o'brien, everything that we get, like a piece to a puzzle. the major information would be they have found something or they have found the plane. do you know what i mean? every little bit that we get

certainly help investigators piecing together what happened. and this is certainly significant if indeed true. it is certainly significant. >> yes. i have a question to our 777 experts. on this communication bus, does it happen to be in proximity to the oxygen? is it possible that it could have taken out both communication and the oxygen for the crew? that would explain a lot. >> les? >> that's a great question. >> the answer with my knowledge as a pilot is absolutely no. there is a circuit breaker in the overhead panel that will shut off the display unit. but most of the guts of it is down in the compartment. the avionics bay.

that's why i contend this might have been a come opponent failure as a result of a fire or something that occurred in response, a supplement to david's compliments with regard to the not reporting the malfunction. this was a different system than air france or the fact that malaysia did not buy the entire package. something that i personally am not aware of. that could be possible also. how does that play out? we'll be in a flight simulator after this. i dunno, i just ah woke up today and i said i need something sportier. annnd done. ok maxwell, just need to ah contact your insurance company with the vin number. oh, i just did it. with my geico app. vin # is up to the loaded. ok well then jerry here will take you through all of the features then. why don't weeeeeeeeeeee go out to the car.

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even make beautiful sunsets. dear sun, you might be number one, but we're getting closer. innovation and you philips koothsds. we have news on cnn and it involves the plane's making a sharp turn and dropping to 12,000 feet in altitude, coming from the cnn source.

that plane making that turn. there you see it just before it reaches vietnamese air space. last sight. site of last contact. makes the turn and drops to 12,000 feet. that's according to a source, military radar tracked that. martin savidge joins us. i understand we're about to see how this might have played out. >> what i've been told, here's what happened in our scenario. we've had a sudden massive decompression. so i want him to get the plane down to where people can breathe. and get us 180 back the other way so we can land. so tell me how this works. >> throttle title. we start deskrenl and a turn. i would be on the radio letting them know what's going on.

>> i'm telling you a check list. >> of course. yes. one of them talking about the, both the brake, how fast we're going down. the idea is we have to get it down for passengers to breathe. we've got a limited amount of oxygen ourselves. i believe it is 15, 12 minutes. >> idea is to get below 10,000 feet so we can talk with air traffic control and assess the situation. that's the bottom line. >> we're now passing 28,000. >> i wouldn't be overspeeding the airplane. that's the danger of pulling it apart. but a rained decompression so there might be a hole in the aircraft. any overspeeding will worsen the problem.

so you want to keep it within limits. overspeeding is saying you're pushing the aircraft so fast that it could have pieces of parts come off it. naturally if you've had some sort of explosion that caused this sudden decompression, you may have weakened the air frame in some way. that overstressing what already happened. we're still at 24,000 feet. so in other words, this would take some time to get down there. >> it would. >> even though we're considering it to be an emergency circumstance. and of course you would be talking to air traffic control. would be running through a check list. him responding to me, me responding to him. don't forget we have flight attendants, we have passengers. talking to them. we have a phone here. so it is just, you know, following that check list. everything as per the check list and using everything we have including the radio. that's important. >> 22,000 feet. 21.

to go all the way down to 12,000 feet takes a while. it does not in any way fully simulate the potential chaos that could be going on in that cockpit at the time. >> we're going to stick with you. we have time. so continue on. we'll jump in if we have any questions. he were saying that this would, it provides a lot of stress for the aircraft. >> rapid decompression. some sort of compromise. structural integrity of the aircraft. the last thing you want to do is overspeed the aircraft and worsening that problem. >> what is he doing? >> it will notify you if you're doing that by the alarm system, the indicators onscreen. >> we were talking about when you would do that.

i think it is called, what do you call it? overspeed when you stopped it -- the speed brake. you would pull the street brake. if you pulled the speed brake lever, marine and mitchell, that would indeed put even more stress on to the aircraft, correct in. >> yeah. it would increase it. it would add some stress, yes. but you want to get down and expedite your descend as much as possible. i have the speed breakout here because i know we don't have a lot of time and we want to get down. >> are we at 15,000 feet yet? >> yeah. >> i guess at this altitude you can breathe. but you want to get lower. >> what is the rate of descent? >> over here we have 5,000 feet per minute. between 4,500 and 5,000 feet per minute. that's extremely high.

>> just passing 13,000. again remembering -- >> as we get close to this, marty works this have been uncomfortable, martin and mitchell for the passengers in back? we're almost at 12,000 feet now. >> yes, it will be extremely uncomfortable. it depends how big the hole would be or whatever has been created. you would have wind, cold, air blasting in. and then on top of that, the banking of the aircraft. not to mention the human shock. so yes, i would say in this scenario we're painting. and there are many other ways you can pain this. >> are we there yet? >> we're below 10,000 now. >> we're about 9600. so we took it farther. >> you took it a bit farther. >> i didn't see what time we came out of break. how long do you think that was,

marty and mitch toll get to 10,000? two and a half minutes in. >> two and a half. >> two and a half. >> we have lots of questions for you. stand by. mitchell and martin. we'll be back to talk with these guys after this break. [ male announcer ] frequent heartburn? the choice is yours. chalky... not chalky. temporary... 24 hour. lots of tablets... one pill. you decide. prevent acid with prevacid 24hr. you decide. so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 a month? yup. all 5 of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line, anytime, for $15 a month. low dues, great terms. let's close!

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this is from a source telling cnn at some point military radar was tracking this flight 370. and all of a sudden there is

evidence or information that it made a sharp turn and then it dropped from 35,000 feet to 12,000 feet. and we have been putting that into the flight simulator to see exactly how that might play out. marine and mitchell have been doing that. now our panel of experts are weighing in. they have some questions for you. first, cnn aviation analyst, mark weiss, what do you want to know? >> first, i want to remind everybody that a number of years ago a united airlines 747 out over the pacific lost a cargo door at altitude. and was able to make a safe emergency landing. so structurally the aircraft stayed intact. but the question i have, and this is primarily for mitchell, when we're talking about electric buses on the airplane. the buses are basically the power source, let's say, for the electrics and it is broken up into different areas. kind of like what you would have

in your house with circuit breakers. same type of an idea. but the question i have is, again it has been a while and i don't have the manuals in front of me. does the number one radio, the captain's radio, come off the emergency bus that would be powered at least by the battery in case of failure of the other buses? is it separated that way? >> my understanding is it is connected to the primary bus. i'm not sure if you're referring to the hot battery bus or the emergency power bus. i don't think it is. i think it is just the bottles in case you're on the ground. basic things you need on the ground in case of emergency. the trans ponder is on that but i don't believe the captain's radio is. no. >> thank you guys.

>> they're geeking out about pilot stuff. i think it is very fascinating for our viewers at home. i want to get ken christianson in now. >> yes. i think what i didn't see there during the simulation going from rapid depressurization, initially what happened, the other person would be getting the oxygen mask on. then the smoke goggles. then a transfer of air traffic control from one pilot to the other pilot. and then the other pilot would be getting their oxygen mask on and their smoke goggles. then there would be a crew communication between co-pilot and the pilot. get that com up before they talk with anybody else in the back of the airplane. they're the ones up front driving on the business end of the airplane. they would have to get that going. and then initiate the descend and then make the radio calls.

>> mitchell? >> [ inaudible ]. >> marty, marty, stand by. stand by. your mic was not up. repeat what you said please. >> i was just saying that mitchell actually told me all this before we did this scenario that there would be a lot of what was just described for the simplistic sake of making the turn and showing it, i sort of narrated that. so yeah, there is a lot more that would be going on and we do not have that particular apparatus here to demonstrate to you. so you're quite right to bring out that detail. there would be a lot of activity on top of just simply flying, navigating and eventually communicating. >> you have to understand we're in a simulator that's built for entertainment purposes. this is not a simulator certified by the government. so we have limited resources. we don't have masks. i don't have flight attendants hear.

we don't have a system up and running, the communications, it is entertainment. we're within the limitations of that. >> understandable. understand. stand by. i want to get to retired captain, navy captain bobby:y. we continue to talk about the scenario as if this was something that happened as it was going back, over land. we forget that, we shouldn't forget there are searchers out there, planes going out now into the southern indian ocean now facing some very big challenges, trying to find any sort of sign of this aircraft. >> right. and as we look at all these different scenarios, right now we have all these resources tied up looking at the current scenario that we've all been talking about for at least a week, maybe longer. and we have a lot of ships and aircraft tied up. and we have people actually out in some pretty nasty weather who

are doing some fairly hazardous work out there. based on the current scenario that we have in place. now we have this new information that we're all discussing. and i think that that could possibly change the scenario. the search scenario. a little bit. and maybe change what we're doing with our resources. but we haven't confirmed that this new information might change our search parameters at all. we have to be careful. we don't want to start moving our resources around based on a little information here, a little information there. because it takes a lot of time to move the resources around that great big giant ocean out there. ship don't move very fast. aircraft can but we don't want to start moving aircraft around either. we can't make a lot of decisions. based on some information that

we just received. so we have to be very careful about what we do with this new breaking information. on the other hand, we don't want to tie up our resources unnecessarily for this aircraft debris when we know that we have time constraints working against us with this weather. >> more on our news after a very quick break. don't go anywhere. c'mon, you want heartburn? when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast, with tums. heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact. and goes to work in seconds. ♪ tum, tum tum tum... tums!

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we have some news on cnn that may shake up the theories on what took place inside malaysia flight's 370 cockpit. military radar shows the plane dropped as low as 12,000 feet after the plane made a sharp left turn. the source says the left turn seemed to be intentional. the source also says the plane flew through a heavily traffic

corridor where the low altitude may have helped avoid other traffic. earlier today malaysian authorities suggested the sharp left turn was not preprogrammed. right now a growing fleet of planes are in the sky scouring the indian ocean for any physical signs of malaysia flight 370. ten search planes including some from china and japan will make the journey today from perth, australia to the remote turbulent waters. official just announced the search has resumed. i see you have a guest there. the question is, does that mean that airplanes are now on site at this search area? >> not quite yet but they are heading that way. there are a total of six planes in the air. and joining me here, jeffrey thomas with airlines ratings.com. a local aviation experts. let's talk about today's search. why is today so critical? >> it is really critical.

there is a window of clearer conditions. there is a storm approaching. and so within about 12, 18 hours, they might have to suspend the search and that may stay the case for a day or so. depending on the severity. >> we're talking a tough search. only two hours to hover. then you add bad weather on top of that. >> and we're hoping they will launch another four or five flights so we might have 10 or 11 in the air today in total. this could be the weather. >> idea is to have more coverage of that area. let's talk about this breaking news we're hearing on cnn. the 12,000 feet report that we're getting. what is your read on that? >> look, if the plane went down to 12 and we've also heard, it might have got as low as five at one stage. then if that was an automation

failure. then it can't be out here. because the plane would have had to have climbed back up to 37,000 feet to arrive down here. because at a lower altitude, it burns a great deal more fuel. at 5,000 feet probably talking twice the amount of fuel be burned up. >> so it would not have made it to the indian ocean. >> they're searching down here because they believe it cruised at 37,000 feet to get down here. and they know it continued for another six hours after that 12,000 feet report. so the sense is it must have climbed back up. it has to be human. >> it has to be human. if it drops back down to 12, it can't automate back up? >> no, no. >> very interesting perspective. jeffrey thomas with airlines ratings.com. thank you for joining us. that's the perspective. the read from here of that breaking news. >> say, stay with us. jeffrey may want to weigh in on this. i want to bring in our 777

pilot. when the breaking news came out. i was trying to, that's the information i was trying to get out of you. what happens. what is plugged into the auto pilot and what have you if the plane was indeed turned. is it going on continue to go the way it is turned or is it going out to this southern arc that we've been talking about? i thought just from listening as layman, this would negate that whole scenario. that the plane ask the searching area. he appears to be saying if this is correct, if it is, he said the plane isn't out there. >> well, let me say that it doesn't actually have to be an automatic, an auto pilot or a manual function. by virtue of the fact it has gone down to this lower altitude, it won't make it to the area where all the resources are being deployed to. we had report of 45,000 feet. then just diving down to the 23,000 feet. then down to 5,000, climbing

back up. so who is to say this data is yekt the 12,000. and here's an interesting point. if it is a situation where it is a decompression or even the scenario of the fire to remove smoke, 10,000 is the number that sticks in our head. so was that primary radar data really accurate? 10,000 is the number we use continuously. we know it is an altitude that people can survive and breathe at. >> mr. thomas, and kung law, we're gleaning from this information. we don't know. that is credible and that's why they're out there searching. indeed if you are right, if les is right, if you are right, then this plane may not have gotten to that southern arc as you have said, mr. thomas. >> so jeffrey cannot quite hear you but i'm going to ask what

you he is asking. he is saying the plane wouldn't have made to it this altitude. and you brought up the idea of a left turn. a second left turn. >> tracking northeast toward beijing, we know it turned left toward the malaysian peninsula. we can it descend down to 12, possibly even 5,000 feet. then to get here it would have to make another left turn to go due south. so you've got four or five actions that have to be human. it wasn't programmed to do this. the flight program is to go northeast to beijing. >> and you've had this theory all along that it has been human. >> it can't be anything else but human. if it was a de appreciatization, if that happened. and this has happened before. the plane would have continued to go toward beijing. it would not have turned left, descended, climbed, deskrenled, turned left again. >> jeffrey thomas, thank you

very much. >> thank you. thank you very much. more with our panel and news after a quick break. so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 a month? yup. all 5 of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line, anytime, for $15 a month. low dues, great terms. let's close!

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welcome back to cnn's breaking news. we're getting news of the change in altitude and a turn here for flight 370. i want to get my panel back in. mary skafo with the u.s. department of transportation. mark weiss, miles o'brien arch aviation analyst, and a 777 captain. a retired navy captain and

diver. and ken christianson, an aviation consultan, u.s. air force retired. also, the cnn analyst the author of why planes crash. fight for safe skies. let's get to my first question is, for, let's get david in. you've been listening to the information. and you did not get to respond to the simulation of this happening. what kind of descent that would be. >> it was more about what miles had brought up. he had mention that had the oxygen with the relationship of the oxygen to the acars system is. the oxygen is not near the acars system. i wanted to clear that up. i did come across, i looked at this. it is called airworthiness

directive 2014-05-03. now we're talking airplane geek again. >> yes, you are. i wanted to make sure everybody knew what that directive is about is mandating inspections on the sat com antenna mounting area. that's nowhere near front area of the aircraft. it is in the back of the aircraft. and what it entails is putting a reinforcement there. until it is installed, it requires an inspection. a routine inspection. so i wanted to make sure we got that on the table now. that it was addressed and i just don't in my mind connect that with the rapid depressurization. the directive says it could cause a rained decompression. it is not anywhere near that door that mark weiss mentioned earlier. he soy wanted to address those two things.

>> okay. mile o'brien, that's a good lead in to you. what david says with regard to this 0-pilot geek stuff that you do. there's a certain procedure that is in a manual. a check list. and you have that check list. can we go through that? and i want martin and mitch toll listen to this and then we can all discuss it. >> before we do the check list, when we start talking about these air way directives, we need to see the records to see if they complied. let's do the check list. >> go ahead. >> i've got les looking over my shoulder. i'll be a little hot under the collar so you correct me if there is a problem. this is what you do. in the world of aviation, they call this a red box item. that means, the checking list is in your gray matter. it is so critical that you have to memorize it.

the first thing you do. this is called a cabin altitude issue. that means a decompression scenario. and bear in mine the environment that this might mean for the pilots. you have a sudden pop, explosion, whatever you might say. things are flying. you might have loss of lighting or power. you might lose your primary flight display. the screen you use to fly. you might be using little gauges. it is a very chaotic environment. and they say that flying is long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror. this is a stark terror moment. so obviously the oxygen masks go on first. that's number one. they drill it. you should be able to do in it two seconds. remember i was telling but the context. this is incredibly loud now. the most important thing. forget air traffic control, forget the back of the airplane,

the pilot needs to be able to talk to the co-pilot. you're getting ahead of me. can you go back? the pilot needs to talk to the co-pilot. they establish communication. they're wearing these masks. they have to make sure they have communication. so then they check the cabin altitude one more time. and then it begins what they call the high dock. you disengage the auto pilot. you were talking about auto pilot. they wouldn't want to go to manual flying, i'm pretty sure. was that the procedure? to do manual for this? >> could you do either one but i think the gut reaction of most of us would be to disconnect the auto pilot. could you do it by automation. >> so down you go. and you want to go down as quickly as you can without breaking pieces off the airplane. so we saw martin and mitchell do it. they put out what they called the boards. the spoilers. they flip up backwards to

undermine the air foil. and down you go. i think they can a 9,000 per foot descent. this is about what you would expect to not overstress the airplane. so in that hectic time, the captain would likely take control of the aircraft. the first officer would be responsible for the other duties including the communication. and that is where something went wrong. and why did it fail? why did the transponder fail? that is the big part of the mystery at this point. part of this is descend to 10,000 feet where you can get enough air to breathe. then you continue your trouble-shooting. so in a dramatic form, watching martin and mitchell. you know it is a simulator but it is gut wrenching watching that stuff. and you can imagine the scenario in the real world.

when it was happening and how they were trying to respond. i want people to understand what it might be like for the crew and why maybe a communication didn't occur. again though, you had multiple failures, transponders and radios. >> when we come back, we'll respond. no matter how busy your morning you can always do something better for yourself. and better is so easy with benefiber. fiber that's taste-free, grit-free and dissolves completely. so you can feel free to add it to anything. and feel better about doing it. better it with benefiber.

we have been following breaking news all this evening. it involves a radar system according to a source tracking that missing plane. making a sharp turn and then also dropping to an altitude of 12,000 feet. my panel is back. i'm going to start with mary schiavo. you heard about doing this under duress.

what do you glean from this new information? >> from the new information it tells me that clearly something was going on in the plane, be it decompression, fire, smoke, explosion, that they had an awful lot to do in a short amount of time. it could have been the plane itself sensed a depressurization. did a 90 minute turn and started the descent. following up with what david said. i'm a member with him in the tech no geek club. it is important to look at the may not nanls records. i can't count the number of cases i've worked. they left some items undone. they were going to do it at the ne next maintenance turn. let's hope malaysia grabbed it and held on to it. >> you mentioned david. let's go to him. >> although the fact that it took that dive which i'm not 100% is good information. typically radar doesn't give that kind of altitude information that quickly and

that reliably. i want to hold off on that until i figure it out that there was distress going on in that airplane. >> bobby? >> from a search and recovery perspective, we've just got to get our hands around this and see how this might affect where we need to look. and what we need to do about it. and be careful about how we handle this. >> ken christianson? >> focus on e radar date, a where it was lost and follow -- >> i think you said don't effect on on where it was lost. you said focus on the radar data, correct? >> the data that you have, that's where you need to go. and then you'll find the aircraft. >> mark? >> well, 12,000 foot is the altitude du jour. we don't know how quickly that came down. we don't know if it was human intervention or a mechanical

problem. i would be reserved in what we have to think about. >> miles o'brien, i'll save you for last. >> all these theories, you have to remember the plane did fly for seven hours. if there was any kind of smoke, fire, electrical failure, is that really possible for seven hours? >> marty savidge? >> the same point. that's the one flaw in this emergency scenario is that this aircraft, at least according to the data, continued to play the on in the air for a long time. doesn't match emergency. >> right. >> that's a great point brought up by mitchell and also martin savidge. the plane did fly on for hours. miles o'brien. >> boeing builds hearty aircrafts. we've seen them fly without cargo doors, we've seen fly without a roof like we saw in aloha airlines.

if there was a high dive like this. it takes implication, we cannot point the finger as much at the craw. either it was malfunction of some kind, a bomb or somebody commandeered in my opinion to precipitate that high dive. it probably would not go that way if the crew was complicit in all this. >> we've had great information this hour. we've thrown the rule book out and had great conversations. the reason i saved you for last, martin -- i'm sorry, mile o'brien, is because we're so glad to have you back at cnn. especially what you've gone through. you're just a trooper. when i heard about what happened to you, my heart sank. and seeing you on television, it makes my heart explode in a good way. we're all glad to have you back. continued success to you and health and happiness and i'll see you back at 10:00 p.m. i'm don lemon. thank you for watching our continuing coverage of these new developments surrounding flight

370 continues one hour from now with a special report. and you can always get the very latest on cnn.com. first the cnn original series, "death row series" that begins just moments from now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com on this episode of "death row stories," a terrifying crime. >> the victim was so innocent. >> a condemned man fights for his life. >> no matter how much i begged no, one listens to a convicted murderer. >> until a compassionate priest helps dig for the truth. my heart dropped to my stomach. what else is here? >> it's the biggest smoke screen i've ever seen in my life. >> there's a body in th