this is cnn breaking news. >> hello, everyone. i'm don lemon. welcome to a cnn special report, the mystery of flight 370. we would like to welcome our viewers watching around the world this hour on cnn international. we're going to begin with this breaking news, a major new development tonight about the missing boeing 777. it is not about where it is, we still don't know that, it is about the heading and altitude of the plane before it vanished from radar. a source close to the investigation tells cnn that according to military radar records, the plane made a sharp turn. and dropped a considerable distance from -- towards the ground. that's important because our source also tells us that maneuver was done abruptly in

just two minutes. meaning the pilots likely did it intentionally. tonight, we'll explore some reasons why they would do that. and these are the people who are going to help us through this experience. aviation experts and air incident professionals. also, wherever you are around the world tonight, we're taking and answering your questions about that missing airplane, especially the new information that cnn has just come across. make sure you get with us on twitter. and use the hash tag, 370 qs. so let's move on now. making things even more intriguing, a detail from malaysia officials today, apparently seems to conflict with the sharp turn the pilots made that took the plane off course. officials say the last transmission from the boeing 777 showed nothing unusual as the plane was on course for beijing. joining me now is cnn's will ripley, live in kuala lumpur, malaysia, with the latest. will, listen, what more do we

know about this last communication from flight 370? >> well, this is really interesting. we have been talking a lot, don, about the critical time, 1:19 a.m. when the co-pilot said, all right, good night. now, based on military radar, we're learning more about what this plane did over the next hour and 21 minutes. this is really big here, the plane, as you mentioned, makes that sharp turn to the west. over the south china sea, heading to the strait of malacca and heads sharply to 12,000 feet as the plane is heading west. now, this is why this is important. 12,000 feet, aviation experts tell us is a critical altitude because if the plane, for example, lost pressure, if you go down to 12,000 feet, that's when you can actually safely depressurize the cabin, making it safe for everyone to breathe, making the atmosphere livable on board. we don't know if that's the reason why the plane dropped, but i can tell you this, 12,000 feet, a boeing 777 still very visible on the radar.

so whoever dropped the plane down to 12,000 feet wasn't trying to evade the radar, but they were well below a heavily traveled air corridor. planes travel on the highways in the sky, they share the air space with lots of other aircraft. 12,000 feet allowed this flight 370 to avoid all that air traffic, but they were still on the radar being tracked until about 2:40 a.m. >> will ripley, the day is just beginning. any word on if officials will comment about the drop in altitude of this plane? >> no official comment. cnn confirmed this through a source with very close knowledge of this investigation. the official word we're getting from authorities here in malaysia and also in australia is that the search efforts are under way right now. some planes took off several hours before, taking off before daylight to try to maximize the amount of time available in this search area. we have for the p-8 and the p-3 orion, the backbone of this

operation. they're using radar equipment, sonar equipment and good old-fashioned eyesight, people lining the side of the planes looking out the window seeing if they can spot the debris picked up by satellites in three different countries, australia, china and france. >> will ripley, great reporting from kuala lumpur in our breaking news tonight. thank you very much. for our special report, we have a bevy of experts to break down the new radar information on malaysia flight 370. joining me is les abend, a former 777 pilot. a current 777 pilot. aviation analyst jeff wise, a science journalist, mikey kay, former adviser to the uk ministry of defense and aviation analyst maria schiavo, christine densen, oercean explorer and mis o'brien, a pilot and aviation analyst as well. miles, i'll begin with you. this new information, a game changer. if so, why? >> i think so, don. what we're seeing there is the

evidence of a crew that was dealing with some sort of calamity. we don't know what caused that. that could have been a number of things we can talk about later. but was trying to get an airplane that was at 35,000 feet with -- where the air is very thin as we just heard, down to an altitude as quickly as possible where the air would be satisfactory for people to breathe. so that is what we call a high dive in aviation. it is -- we still have to look at a few things, how rapid the descent rate was, a few details we need to gather, but the impression we get is of a plane that is turning around, 180 degrees, and getting down as quickly as possible. so what would lead to that? a rapid decompression of some kind, perhaps a fire, perhaps a tuation where there were hijackers who commandeered a crew. it tends to take away any sort of implication toward the crew itself because if the crew was

complicit and had a plot on its own, doing this kind of maneuver would not be anything that would necessarily be required. so, you know, this is one of many scenarios we have looked at, but we certainly have a game changer here. >> miles o'brien, stick around. we'll need you to help me out with this. i want to bring in now les abend. you've flown a 777 many times. does this new information reduce suspicions about foul play in the cockpit? >> on the surface, it seems to. i don't want to discount any other possibilities. but yeah, very much so, that it seems like this is the action the crew facing some sort of emergency. >> i want to ask you this, i want to go to mike. this is your expertise. you and richard quest talked about the radar, a military radar tracked this flight. is this a game changer in this investigation? and why was this information released earlier? >> i'm still treating the

altitude data that we're getting with a lot of caution. a number of reasons for that, don. the first one is that the evidence we have so far suggests the transformer was turned off or the transponder was off. there is a number of reasons that could happen, i won't go into that now. the bottom line is the transponder gives you position, attitude, speed and information. if that was off, you won't get altitude information from primary radar. primary radar drops off at 125 miles off the coast anyway. secondly, surveillance radar with the transponder drops off at 200 miles. my question on how they're tracking altitude, i find a little bit -- have to be cautious with it. the only way military radar could do that is ground base air defense system which would use a pulse doppler tracking radar. but because of the nature of that, high prf pulse repetition frequency, short wave, which means it is short range. >> so bottom line, of course, what are you saying? >> what i'm saying is i would

like to ask the malaysian military authorities what radar they're using in order to give thus altitude information, because the altitude information will be key to where we go next. otherwise, it is supposition. >> you're shaking your head in agreement, jeff wise. >> i heard from my sources too that primary radar is very inaccurate at determining altitude. and, you know, again, i think the point you raise is excellent, don, why are we hearing about this now? especially in the context of these conflicting reports about whether the acars is indicating a change in way point before 15 minutes or wherever, it seems very odd that this information should come out so late or should be changed so late. should have been clear. >> does this support or change your theory about what happened to 370? >> i think we all have a probability matrix of what happened. i don't know what happened to this airplane. i ascribe higher probability to certain outcomes than other people would. short answer, no. >> maria schiavo, should the new

information change the scope of the search? should they call off this northern corridor search or i think it changes it when it comes to the southern search, not necessarily the northern search. >> that's right. the northern search, they didn't seem to be emphasizing that or we haven't heard anything about it anyway, that they were doing anything on the northern search, particularly after thai radio and the thailand authorities said it did not go through the thai air space. so everyone looked to the southern ark and looked down that the plane went out, made the left-hand turn and continued down into the ocean. and this doesn't change my opinion on whether they should be searching we are this are now. i think that's very important. but they also ought to analyze this data and look at how far the plane could have gone given the new set of circumstances including if the dive is correct, if the altitude data can be relied upon, it might not be where they say it is, but in fact would be closer.

>> jim, does this new information clarify anything for you, especially the actions of the pilots? >> not really. because i've got to decide whether or not we're dealing with a hero pilot or a criminal. and i know that sounds like two extremes, but, you know, if he did this on his own, or if he had a -- if he had a gun in his ear, he could have gone to the limits of that military radar and then gone below and then gone wherever he wanted to. there are a couple of islands out there and all that have substantial runways. so i don't know that i have much more now than i had before because i don't know what to count on. >> christine densen, the malaysians say france turned over new satellite images today that possibly shows other objects out there. is this a wild goose chase, you think, given the new information or do you think this is a significant breakthrough? >> i'd like to think that it is

a significant breakthrough in ter terms of the more ocean we can cover based on their seeing debris, the more the -- the higher the probability we will be able to get a hydro phone in the water, once we identify the debris, and start listening for the ping. we're still rupping o inrunning. we're at 16 days, 30 days or so. every day there is a weaker battery ping going out. if we have another area to search for debris, and send more eyes out there, we're going to do that and i think that that will hopefully get us to a conclusion sooner rather than later. >> cnn miles o'brien, you heard earlier of live report from perth and we were talking to our kyung lah and the gentleman who is an official in australia said, listen, this changes everything. if this happened in order for it to be on that southern track, it would have to make a left turn and another left turn and possibly another turn. he's saying that if given -- if this information is true, they're searching in the wrong area. what do you make of that? >> i think no matter which way

you slice this, this piece of information opens up at least a second and maybe a third location where we should begin searching. just for one thing, take that -- 12,000 foot altitude and extrapolate out all the pinpoints we have gotten and see how far that plane would have gotten given the higher fuel burn at the time. i'm also curious about the reports that there was a low flying plane that was seen by a fishing boat off the coast of malaysia. what do we know about that? where exactly does that occur? how many nautical miles did it take to get from 35,000 feet down to 12,000 feet? that would tell us about the rate of descent. and one thing that, you know, we keep coming around in circles on this, we haven't seen the maintenance records on this aircraft. we don't know if they collide with air worthiness directives. those are very important questions which remain unanswered. >> all right, miles o'brien,

thank you. thanks to the rest of our panel. everyone stick around. we'll get back to our panel in a little bit. up next, a live report from australia, where planes left a couple of hours ago to hunt for clues, plus, a look at the weather that awaits them when they reach that search zone. we're back in just moments with the breaking news here on cnn. [ male announcer ] this is the cat that drank the milk... [ meows ] ...and let in the dog that woke the man who drove to the control room [ woman ] driverless mode engaged. find parking space. [ woman ] parking space found. [ male announcer ] ...that secured the data that directed the turbines that powered the farm that made the milk that went to the store that reminded the man to buy the milk that was poured by the girl who loved the cat. [ meows ] the internet of everything is changing everything. cisco. tomorrow starts here. ♪ ♪ so you can have a getawayng from what you know.erything.

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capella university. start your journey at capella.edu. all right, now to the search for that airplane. it is monday morning on that side of the world already. search planes including one from the u.s. navy left western australia at dawn, heading for the open ocean. cnn's kyung lah live in perth, australia. you have great information from the gentleman you were speaking to earlier. this is home base for that

search. what can you tell us now? how many planes are up? are they finding anything? >> reporter: nearly all of the planes are up. the first of which may start to approach this area right now, just a short time ago the u.s. navy's p-8, poseidon plane, took off, joining the search today. so what they're doing is out of the ten expected to be taking part in the search, they're going to actually split the search into two different regions. want to try to cover as much ground as possible, there ray number of governments involved in this today. the united states, new zealand, australia, also joining them, japan and china. so multinational, a lot of attention trying to get to this area. and the clock is ticking today, don. the reason why, inclement weather. the weather is expected to take a turn for the worse later this afternoon. they want to try to get in there, get a good look before that weather turns. don? >> kyung lah, the gentleman you were speaking to earlier, i

forget his title, he said if this is indeed true in his estimation, he thinks that we may be searching or officials may be searching the rescuers may be searching in the wrong area. but that's according to him. >> reporter: well, jeffrey thomas, he works for a well respected publication here, airline ratings.com. he's an aviation expert. he knows many people inside, knows many people involved directly in this search. what he's saying is he actually does believe that the australian government, that the french, chinese, the images, they have it right, the wreckage if this is indeed connected to the missing plane if that is wreckage, that it is connected to the missing plane. so he believes the search is going appropriately. he believes that if the plane did dip 12,000 feet, it had to go back up to 37,000 to make it all the way here because you have to get that far up in order to make it this far south. that's what he believes.

and so what he is taking the leap of is that it has to be human intervention because if you go down, you have to come up by human intervention. >> kyung lah with the search in perth, australia. let's hope they do find something that offers these families at least some information or maybe possibly some hope. thank you, kyung. appreciate it. back to kyung lah. searchers could use better weather as you heard her talking about over the water today. but the conditions will still pose some challenges. i want to get to the meteorologist now p.j. how is it looking out there today in. >> as good as it gets when it comes to the weather. they had recent days of storms cruising through the region. you look southwest of perth, this general region, expansive when you narrow it down, generally clear at this hour, late monday morning. but the concern is what happens later on tonight. the sun in this part of the world sets in eight hours. the clouds will be on the increase. a front in the bottom corner of

your screen that will begin to enter the picture, so the forecast for much of tuesday and unfortunately on into wednesday going to be really rough across this region mainly because high pressure is parked off the north. it is impeding the movement of the storm system. it seems like over the past six or so days we have narrowed down the main focus of the search to this area. we had storms come in every other day and the storm is very slow to move out. we a couple of days to work on the search and get good weather and a couple of days where storm system parks in place. this particular storm has the potential here to produce wind gusts, 55 to 60 miles per hour that puts it at tropical storm force winds. generally speaking, in this area, winds are 40 miles an hour or the name of the game because of the latitude we're speaking of, the roaring 40s is known, 40 degree latitudinal mark, this storm system will park in place, winds gusty. we know swells in the sea could be 10 to 13 feet. white caps all over the place, and you look at the seas out there, self-locating data markers dropped into the ocean,

in the past 24 hours, all was calm, all was clear. but if we think with this storm coming in and not moving not only will it bring down the clouds down to the surface, but also making the weather very difficult for the searcher and, again, it could be a two-day event. we might have to slow thins down again for the next couple of days. >> cnn international meteorologist p.j. new questions in the figsea for flight 370. we're taking you back into our live simulator with cnn's martin savidge. martin? >> we're going to show you what this turn and what this descent could have looked like and what it may have implied was going on inside of the cockpit. we'll show that to you in a minute. gests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. one a day men's 50+ is a complete multivitamin designed for men's health concerns as we age.

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learn more at first5california.com/parents welcome back. we're tracking breaking news tonight. a source close to the investigation of malaysia airlines flight 370 tells cnn according to military radar records, the plane made a sharp turn and dropped from 35,000 feet to 12,000 feet. let's see what that drop in altitude would look like. we want to go to martin savidge in a 777 flight simulator with flight trainer mitchell casado. a turn to 12,000 feet into a busy air corridor, i mean, what would that be like? i'm sure people would notice that. >> reporter: yeah, it surrounds dramatic. but we should point out this

radar was -- data was collected over an hour and 20 minutes. we don't know the rate of descent. and also the turn precipitated the descent, according to the depiction we have. in other words, they made the turn first and it seems look a relatively slow turn if it took them two minutes. that said, we want to give you what might have been a scenario in which something like that could happen, and the way i said it to mitchell is that it is a dramatic decompression. the explosive bam, maybe a bulkhead has given away, maybe an explosive device in the back of the aircraft, get us down, get us turning. and so the plane immediately, we have taken it off of automatic pilot, it is the automatic response of a pilot. you could take it down with the auto pilot, but more buttons, more things to be dealt with. emergency masks would have been put on. we can't demonstrate that to you. we would have been

communicating, pilot to co-pilot, immediately establishing, are you okay, we're talking, mitchell is flying the plane, i would be going over the checklist and many things we need to know to go through to make sure we're preparing as we descend. communicating would also be in there, making sure we reach out, tell those on the ground we have got an emergency, and asking for the nearest airport that we could be vectored to, why you would be turning at the same time, could be going to kuala lumpur or another site. and also, remember, the aircraft is not in a nose-dive. no. it has to be done in a controlled descent. why? >> because of rapid decompression, if you had a problem, a hole or structural integrity comprised of the aircraft if you start overspeeding the aircraft, that's dangerous with an in tact aircraft. this is an aircraft damaged, you're asking for trouble. >> you want to get it down, you want to get to an elevation where the passengers and

everyone can breathe. we have oxygen that lasts for 15 minutes but doesn't last forever. the descent takes some time. we're now passing through 28,000 feet. we started at 35,000. we're trying to get to 10,000. we mentioned that 12,000, but 10,000 is pretty much the standard when you talk about the circumstances. >> yes. the altitude at which -- about which we're required to have oxygen if we're in the air for more than 30 minutes. 10,000 feet is the international standard. below that, you can breathe normally. >> it is a crash dive. it takes some time. here it is going to take maybe five, six minutes to get down to that kind of altitude. all the while, remember, this cockpit would be chaotic. there could be wind blasting through, you had a very sudden shock to the air frame engine, yourself, so this does in no way really simulate that kind of a disaster. but eventually you want to get it down to 10,000 feet and that's the goal as you try --

the next step would be to get it on the ground. you want to stabilize it, see where things are. but very quickly you with like to get to an airport. >> martin savidge, mitchell casada, thank you. no trace of flight 370. more than two weeks after it vanished. and families are running out of patience. we'll see how they're coping just ahead in a live report from beijing. 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! new at&t mobile share value plans our best value plans ever for business. marge: you know, there's a more enjoyable way to get your fiber. try phillips fiber good gummies.

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tracking a major development tonight about the missing malaysian flight 370 and what may have happened inside the cockpit. it is about the heading and the altitude of the plane before it vanished from radar. source close to the investigation is telling cnn that according to military radar records, the plane made a sharp turn and dropped a considerable distance toward the ground. that's important because our source tells us that maneuver was done abruptly in just two minutes or so, meaning the pilots likely did it intentionally. we'll explore some of the y reasons why they might do that. and wherever you are around the world tonight, we're taking and answering your questions about that missing airplane. make sure you go to twitter and use #370qs. now, as the days pass, the despair grows for families of flight 37 0 of the 227

passengers. 153 from mainland china or hong kong. i'll turn to cnn's david mckenzie live in beijing. hello to you. now more than two weeks after this plane has vanished, are the families still -- are they holding -- i imagine they're holding out hope, but how hopeful are they at this point? >> reporter: well, don, good evening to you. yeah, it is a terrible situation here. more than two weeks after this plane went down, people are still publicly saying they're holding out hope, hoping their loved ones are alive, they might be a miracle out there somewhere. they're angry and frustrated. but also, you know, many say that privately probably people at this point are expecting the worst. but here in east asia in particular, the culture is such that you never want to publicly say that to the press or to anyone else, so you can keep strong. now, they are hanging on to every word, every bit of news and they still are angry.

>> translator: this is my first day here. i said what i needed to say. i'm too angry. every day i watch the television and i'm going to go crazy soon. i'm very emotionally unstable. >> reporter: well, don, they are hanging on every word as you see and with each bit of news, every lead that we have been speaking about through the days, that obviously has huge consequences for these family members because then it gives them some indication whether this plane has been lost forever or people might somehow be alive. but certainly, in quieter moments at this point, and resignation, which is very sad. don? >> david mckenzie, china is stepping up its search efforts. tell us about that. >> reporter: well, yes, it is a very extraordinary level of search and capability that china is showing and something that is very unusual for them as well. they are sending several ships

to the region of the area where we now believe the plane might have gone down, including a very large icebreaker that was grounded to the sea and with a skeleton crew, the snow dragon, it is called. china is trying to show that it is part of this international coalition, looking for this missing flight. of course, also, it is about the domestic audience here in china. the communist party wants to show it is doing everything at the can to investigate this. they don't have the capacity that the americans or europeans do in figuring out what happened, but they do want to show they're part of the process because obviously they can't look like they are just standing by and let other people solve the situation. so very difficult for the chinese government, very difficult for china at this time because as you say, so many people on board were chinese nationals, they really want some solutions, some closure as these days drag on. don? >> david mckenzie in beijing. that's where 370 was heading,

flight 370 and the families are holding out hope against hope. thank you, david, appreciate it. more expert opinions on the hunt for malaysia flight 370. ten search planes are in the sky, scouring remote parts of indian ocean for any trace of the missing airliner. the families of the 239 people on board waiting in agony to find out what happened to their loved ones. they have been waiting now for 17 days. i want to bring our panel in now. i want to get to mikey first. how long should the crews keep searching for this plane. that is a question and how long will the countries who are involved, can they continue to be -- continue to be involved in this? >> it is a real dilemma. i think what this particular area is doing is it is exposing the limitations of technology. we have heard a lot of people getting frustrated about, you know, you can track my iphone, why can't we find this airplane. we have the p-8 poseidon aircraft.

it reached initial operating capability in december of 2013 last year with the u.s. navy. this thing has synthetic aperture radar, signal intelligence, a web cam with thermal imaging radar. and yet it still has problems with trying to find debris in the water. it also doesn't have an in flight refueling capability. it gets that in 2015. the p-3 orion, has no inflight refueling capability. they're having to make the long trek out there to get minimal hours on water and go back again. the whole area, the whole search is really testing the limitations of what is supposed to be some of the best technology in the world. >> it takes twice as long to get out there and search, four hours to get out, two hours of searching and have to fly back four hours. >> it only has four hours on

target, so, again, you know, really testing the bounds of the equipment. >> christine, how long before the salt in the water eats away any evidence that may be found on the debris? i would imagine it is a little early now, but the longer this goes on, that becomes a real possibility. >> absolutely. what is happening 17 days into this is that the debris that we had or we think we have located is still moving around in the water, the waters are churning. there are some storm systems. they're tracking to track that debris and find t the loit. we don't know what the debris is. clearly the longer it is in the water, exposed to the elements, the harder it will make for us to really be able to identify a lot or even find it. there are objects that could very well be sinking as we speak. and that's dependent on the conditions and where, in fact, they are. that's difficulty. >> christine, i want to ask you

a question. our viewers are tweeting questions about this -- the mysterious disappearance of this airliner. and so they want to get some of the questions answered. first one, i'll ask this one from dexter and will go to christine. how much data can a flight recorder store? do you know the answer to that? >> i don't. i sort of kick that over to -- >> maria schiavo. >> about -- on this one, probably 1500 parameters which means little bits of data from all the control services, equipment, instruments, et cetera, in the plane, just to tell you everything the plane is doing. >> okay. jeff, donald tweeted this. why not install a shockproof floating beacon ball in the tail of airplanes which would be injected and start emitting on impact. i lost my glasses, so excuse me. >> that's a very good question. it is sort of part of a -- part of a type of question that we're getting a lot, why not have a better system of reporting information about planes that

are about to go down? maybe eject a floating pod that would be retrieved later or why not broadcast via satellite 24/7, wouldn't have to go looking for this black box. a question that came up after they spent two years trying to find a black box. the technology is available. the question is cost. this kind of action is very rare. is it worthwhile? think of the tens of thousands of airplanes in the hour. you want to spend how much money it is to retro fit. so it is possible. >> jim tillman, somebody said why can't the pings on the black boxes on an airliner last for months instead of 30 days? >> well, they should last a lot longer. such a much more robust system that we're using to date. we had this for quite some time. time for us to upgrade it to the extent it was maybe two or three months or more or six months or whatever it takes. we know now that it is inadequate to have to sit here

and count days and hope we get to it before it runs out of gas. >> stand by, everyone. we have more on flight 370 straight ahead. there is another big story that we want to tell you about. our george howell following a desperate search in washington state. it is a major landslide. he's going to be live for us coming up. weekdays are for rising to the challenge. they're the days to take care of business. when possibilities become reality. with centurylink as your trusted partner, our visionary cloud infrastructure and global broadband network free you to focus on what matters. with custom communications solutions and responsive, dedicated support, we constantly evolve to meet your needs. every day of the week. centurylink® your link to what's next. meet your biggest competitor: philips slimstyle led bulb. beautiful quality light with a slim design, at a slim price.

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welcome back, everyone. we'll turn to search for malaysia airlines flight 370. first, here is rosa flores with some of our other top stories. hello, rosa. >> good evening. it is 46 minutes past the hour. total devastation comparable to mount st. helen's, that's how conditions are being described at the scene of a deadly landslide in washington state. more than a dozen people are still missing. cnn's george howell is live with us on the phone. george, what do you know? >> rosa, you were talking about devastation, it really happened within a matter of seconds. you look at the pictures, it is just devastating to see what happened to this community. we know that the day is another day for the families where we are here, in washington. another day for them to wait with unsr. certainty, the uncertainty of not knowing

whether their homes are still standing or destroyed. the uncertainty of not knowing whether family members are still alive. the latest numbers that we understand from officials, we know that at least four people are confirmed dead in the mud slide. we know at least 18 people are unaccounted for, and the search continues here through snohomish county in that area. we know rescuers are basically using helicopters, but the land here, it is very porous. you consider all the rainfall that they had here in the past couple of days, that's why this area is so prone to landslides. and that's why, again, it happened here this time. so the rescuers are doing their best to get in there and do what they can and not doing it by ground. and, you know, just continuing today and will do the same tomorrow. >> you know, we know a lot of these areas are very unstable. do you know how close these first responders can get tos they affected areas? >> right, well, you know, you can't get in to that area on

either side of it. if you look at a map, on highway 530, you know, one side is blocked off, the other side is blocked off. the mud slide goes over that road, can't get there by road. you have to use helicopters at this time. and as i mentioned a minute ago, it is porous here. i used to work here in the seattle area and covered many of these landslides and it happens right around this time simply because this is the rainy season, get a lot of rainfall when that happens you find communities on bluffs. people know many of the areas are prone to landslides, they could give way. so the best way to get this there right now is only by helicopter. they're using infrared cameras to see what they can in this area. but i got to tell you, i just spoke with a woman here, who came by to see her friend at the shelter. and she tells me her friend is waiting here because she doesn't believe her home is still standing, she doesn't know whether her family members are still alive in that area. and that's what you're dealing

with right now. just a lot of uncertainty, people not getting the answers that they really want, that they desperately want, simply because rescuers can't get in there, too dangerous, have to wait day by day, see what they can find safely. >> some tense moments there, george howell, live with us on the phone from washington state. thank you so much. we switch gears here, president obama is on his way to the netherlands. the first stop of a trip overseas. the president left the white house just over an hour ago. the primary focus of the trip, supporting ukraine and increasing diplomatic pressure on russia. cnn's aaron mcpike has a preview of the president's week ahead. >> reporter: president obama is calling for more severe action against russia and that is especially in light of the new military incursions that the russian military has made into the crimean peninsula. that will be the focus for this urgent meeting that president obama is having at the hague on

monday with leaders of the g-7. on wednesday, he'll head to brussels where there will be a summit between the european union and the united states and, of course, the situation in ukraine is likely to dominate that as well. on thursday, he'll go to rome, where he'll be meeting with pope francis and discussing income inequality. then friday, he heads to saudi arabia, where he'll meet with king abdul wlah on nuclear talk with iran and the conflict in syria. much of the trip will be dominated by the situation in ukraine. erin mcpike, cnn, the white house. >> thank you very much, erin. still so many questions about what happened to malaysia airlines flight 370. many of those questions focused on the pilot and the co-pilot. we're answering your questions about them next. 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.

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we are tackling your questions on the disappearance of malaysia flight 370. here now is my panel of aviation experts. we're focusing on questions about the pilot and the co-pilot. les abend, to you, the first viewer question, and this one is from lisa and here is what lisa says. what was supposed to -- what was supposed to happen after all right, good night. was co-pilot free to leave cockpit, leaving pilot alone to

turn off transponder? >> the co-pilot would acknowledge he was able to change over the frequency. who knows what he had done from there. i assume he would stay in the cockpit. the airplane was only airborne for 40 minutes at that point. >> hannah asks, why is it taking so long to get the delete files from the pilot simulator when it takes hours to track deleted texts and e-mails? >> good question. the fbi is very good at that. i would suspect they have already done it and have recovered those. they just haven't released them and that's typical for the fbi. they usually don't release anything in the ongoing criminal investigation. >> this -- i wondered about this one myself, actually. this one is for jeff. this question comes from elizabeth. elizabeth is asking, anyone consider the possibility of the pilot filing a second, a false flight plan to disguise the i.d.

of mh 370? is that possible? >> no. you've got a transponder code. so you're assigned a code, you put it in -- >> the reason i'm asking that, i'm answer the viewer's question, if the pilots -- if other people were in on it with the pilot, if the ground crew is on it and got more fuel to go somewhere, there are ways to despise an airplane and wondering if this was one way, th that's it. >> you can't just switch your code. it is like all of a sudden -- >> you draw attention to that. all of a sudden you're not there anymore. >> have to be way too many people in on it. >> when you walk into work, to go flying, you get all of the details including the flight plan, the co-pilot will enter the flight plan into the computer. the only way of changing that flight plan once it is in the computer is by an authority from

the area radar that you're talking to. if you want to change it, you've got to speak to the area radar. >> you have noticed the lights behind us came on. that means we're here way too late in the building, i don't know if you noticed that. i want to ask this one, this one is for jill tillman, from steven. is it possible the pilots tried to make it to the nearest air strip and realized they wouldn't make it and changed course again? >> yes, that's possible. put we have a conundrum here. the situation was so dire that they couldn't continue and so immediate, that's one thing. but what happened, actual whatever that was, they were able to continue to fly. we have some serious things here. i don't -- to the business of the depressurization either. what does that have to do with transponders and acars. >> wow, go on. that's true. he makes a good point here. >> not only that, they didn't --

we saw martin savidge navigating and going around and doing everything trying to get down, frantically trying to reduce altitude. it is an aggressive maneuver. what we saw on the radar returns was two-minute turn and remaining on heading for over an hour. >> go ahead. >> we need to try to zero in on the things that we can defend. and once you get the transponder an the acars turned off, now the airplane is free, except for that skin paint that the military radar can look at and the military radar that we have been getting reports on just are not that great. i'm really concerned about the pilots right now. >> yeah. you agree with that, right? it is not that -- you agree it is not that great? >> i think jim sort of absolutely is right. i think the air defense radars that we're looking at have a better capability, but my question is if the military is saying it descended to 12,000 feet, that, to me, is something very unusual. why didn't they interrogate?

>> i want to get christine in here. what is the biggest challenges to an ocean search, 17 days after the plane vanished, ocean currents, weather, what is the biggest challenge? maybe both? >> i think both. i think at this point, again, we're still looking for a needle in a hay stack. you've got teams out there that are ready to deploy that are on site in some areas and they're not finding debris. they're being hampered by winds that come in, ten foot waves, 15 foot waves, making their job impossible. i think it is frustrating, but they'll have their time and they're ready to go. >> but, again, as you said, frustrating and up against -- you and i spoke about this after we were off the air last night, most people don't understand just the magnitude of search, how enormous that ocean is. >> it is. and they have a very large area to cover. they want to be so exact and so precise and making sure that if

they did have a satellite image of debris, they're trying to track that, just to be able to eliminate it and say it wasn't that. it was just, you know, garbage, plastic bottles. nothing to do with the plane. >> we appreciate you. thank you very much. i'm don lemon this is a cnn special report, the mystery of flight 370. a few key things are happening at the same time right now. any one of them could finally solve this puzzle and lead searchers to the missing airliner. first, new information tonight about how that jet was traveling when it disappeared from radar screens. a source close to the investigation tells us that according to military radar, the plane suddenly turned left, while dropping more than 20,000 feet in altitude. it was done so quickly that our experts say it must have been intentional maneuver. if we learn why the pilots made that wild move, it could