>> ready? >> all right. >> thank you. >> y'all take care. new hope, new clues. more frustration as crews begin their 24th day of searching for a missing malaysian airlines 370. >> we certainly have our challenges in front of us. the hope from pilots who spotted this. >> four orange-colored objects greater than approximately two meters in size each. >> now ships are headed to the area to retrieve and analyze what the pilots saw. but those clues sparking action. with a battery on the missing plane's black box fading fast, a boat is on the way with a navy pinger locater on board to try

to find it. despite the clues, families of the passengers are a fed up and demand answer. >> we want evidence. we want truth, and we want our family. >> good evening, everyone. i'm don lemon. welcome to our special coverage. just six days remain. that's when the batteries could die on the black box data recorder from malaysia airlines flight 370. flight 370. that battery means no pings signaling the plane's location. though there have been a few promising pings, timing is becoming more precious now. in australia, where the search effort is based, i want to begin with cnn's will ripley. he is following the ocean shield, an ocean ship with a black box detector on its way out into the southern indian ocean right now. is there are no batteries, that means no pings signaling the plane's location. tell us what you're seeing right now, will ripley, as you head out, as you're shadowing this search ship. >> hey, don, we just arrived here at garden island. this is australia's largest

naval base on their western coast. the reason we're here is because we're monitoring the movements here of ocean shield. you see it. you can't miss it, really, it's bright red, docked here at the naval base. it arrived here over the weekend. crews have been very busy here. they've been outfitting this ship with u.s. navy technology that we hope is going to really help in this search. there is the tpl, that towed pinger locator. it's basically a giant underwater microphone. you tow it behind the ship and it listens for the fading ping from the cockpit voice recorder and inflight data reporter. this is critical in the next few days because we know about a week left. that's how much battery life there is before those pings stop. when the pings stop, there is another piece of technology in the ocean field called the bluefin 21. basically, it's an underwater drone. this thing can go down under water and scan the bottom of the ocean. it can map out if there is any debris. great technology, but here is the reason. here is the problem, why they haven't deployed it sooner.

you need a small search area for this to be effective. they can cover about 50 miles a day. with the time frame we're look -- lock looking -- looking at here, they need about a thousand square mile area to cover in about a week. that is about as much as they can do. we're looking at a search area well over 100,000 square miles. so until we can narrow down where debris essentially is, potentially the ocean shield with all its technology will be looking for a visual search just like the one thousand sailors on the eight ships which are currently out in the search area 1100 miles from here, don. >> will ripley, we have you out here. and it's fascinating to see the search ongoing and to see a live shot. show us around, will you, so our viewers can see exactly where you are. >> sure. so we're on a charter fishing boat called thunder down under. this normally they use for fishing tours. but right now as we have outfitted it with mobile technology. you can see the australian navy is here right now. they are making sure we don't get too close. in fact, we may have to move back a bit for our next shot. they have allowed us to get pretty special access to be this close to the ocean shield.

i'll walk you around so you can get a little bit of a view of the boat here. normally this is more of is -- a recreational type vehicle. this is not a boat that can normally make it out to the search area. we don't have enough fuel to go all the way out there. our plan now is to follow the ocean shield for a bit as they leave garden island and head towards the search area and give you kind of a sense this is basically, this is the base of operations where a lot of these ships are leaving from heading out on the search. and we'll show you more. we'll take you upstairs and inside. we're going to be here for the next 24 hours and beyond. >> hey, will, you have plenty of time. i'm going to let you go as long as you want. this is fascinating. so take your time. show us around. how close are you to the ocean shield? take us around the boat and where you are in the water and if you can the ocean shield. you have all the time you want.

>> all right, don, let's go back. and we'll show you, because now what we're having to do is pull away. we need to get back behind a buoy a little farther from the ocean shield. we can zoom in and give you this up close look. once we get out on the ocean, don, we will be able to show you this ship in action. ocean shield is a really fascinating vessel. this is a civilian vessel. it's not a war ship. some news outlets have been reporting it is a war ship. that is not true. this began as a civilian vessel. the australian navy uses it for humanitarian purposes. the eventual goal is actually for customs and border protection here to use it. but right now, as we see the purpose is for the search and rescue operation equipped with the u.s. navy technology. so we're going to be watching this very carefully. there is a 30-member crew on board. we have some military members, and we have a lot of civilian personnel that are helping to operate this equipment. it actually takes 11 people just to operate those two pieces of naval technology they was

-- that i was telling you about. as far as our boat here, as we continue to kind of move away from the ocean shield, if we have enough cable, let me take you inside and show you how we steer this thing. we'll give it a go, don. we walk you in here. this is the living quarters. yeah, we can't make it. don, when we get our cable situation figured out, we'll get you in there a little later. captain ray ruby. yep. >> i don't expect you to go inside. but we like looking out into the water, will. we're going to keep you around for our panel, okay? so stand by. don't go anywhere. and let us see out of the back there and let us see the ship that is going to be searching behind us, the ocean shield behind you. so we're coming back to will ripley. this is fascinating information that we're getting, fascinating pictures coming from will ripley who is out on the search right now. i want to get to atika shubert right now. you have been there for the search for a while reporting on

this, we've gotten those amazing pictures coming from that boat. we heard the australian prime minister came earlier and offered encouraging words to the searchers and also for the families and everyone who is interested in this. what is going on? what is instrumental now in this search? how many planes are in the air and ships? >> we're going have a total of ten planes in the air today. one of the planes has already reached the area and is starting to make the rounds there. there are at least six ships that are in the waters in the search area now, trying to find that potential debris, looking for those orange objects that were cited yesterday. the key here as you heard from will earlier is time. there is a window that is closing. so it's really imperative that these search teams get out there and cover as much as the area as they can. now i spoke with australia's prime minister tony abbott in an exclusive interview, and i asked him four weeks into this, still no plane.

you know, are we sure we're even looking in the right place? here is what we told me. >> it's the best information we have. it's the best analysis we can get. and it's the most professional search that can be mustered. >> and you're confident in the information you're getting and that you're searching in the right place? >> we are searching a vast area of the indian ocean. this is a very, very difficult task. it's far more difficult than the search for the air france aircraft in the atlantic ocean a few years ago. because we had very precise information as to where that aircraft had come down. we've just got very general information about where this aircraft has come down. but nevertheless, we are giving it the very best shot we can. and if anyone can find this aircraft, it's us. >> it's a tremendous effort. there is ten planes in the sky today, as many ships. but it's also exhausting every day.

so how long can this be sustained realistically? >> the effort is ramping up, not winding down. we'll have more aircraft in the sky tomorrow. we've got more ships in the area. so we are ramping this effort up. we owe to it the families of the 239 people on board. we owe to it the anxious governments that want to know what happened to their citizens. we owe it to everyone who travels by air and wants the skies to be safe. we owe to it the whole world, which has been transfixed by this mystery now for some time. we owe it to everyone to find out as much as we can and that is exactly what australia is doing. >> the key here is australia is not only coordinating the search, but also now the investigation. so anything that is actually found out in the water will be brought here to perth. and this is where the center of the investigation will really be. and for that reason, they've now

appointed angus houston as the coordinator for that investigation out here. he is just being briefed today. but hopefully we'll have more details on where that investigation and search is leading tomorrow, don. >> atika shubert with that exclusive interview. thank you very much. i want to bring in my panel of experts now. colleen keller, whose work was instrumental in finding the wreckage of air france flight 447 three years ago. and geoffrey thomas runs a website that keeps an eye on airline safety around the world. les abend, a 777 pilot and mik michael kay, a retired air force pilot. and we also have will ripley who is out in the water now with the traveling, shadowing the ocean shield. and he will be showing what's is going on there. you see the ocean shield there behind him. you think it's a military vessel. it's not a military vessel. do you think this is maybe the best hope yet to find something? this is indeed a vehicle that could do it?

>> i think expectation is the key word here, don. i think we've got some sophisticated technology both in the form of -- sorry, above the surface, vessels and aircraft. but i think the australian prime minister hit the nail on the head in terms of the air force 447. we knew where the haystack was and it took two years to find the black boxes. and unfortunately, the families need to gear themselves for that long haul and set their expectations there. because this is a huge area. what i would be wanting to do in this situation is really try and get some cooperation of the search area, don. we're putting all our eggs in this expectation hope basket of hopefully the search area will give us something. but i would like to go back to the indonesians. i still find it -- i still find it odd the thai radar and the malaysian radar had something on the trace, yet indonesia didn't.

>> i want to stick with the vessel we'll get out there, and we'll get the other things, including the radar. i want to get to colleen now. what does it tell you that several days of work, as you look at this new ship that is going out, no new research, no new search there is a new search area. nothing has turned up right now. they're using this ocean shield to get there with the pinger. and we have those live exclusive pictures of that. and we've got will ripley out there now traveling with that. does this offer more hope now with the new search area and with this new ocean shield ship going out, colleen? >> well, don, by now, we really hope to have had some wreckage brought aboard a ship that would have told us we're in the right area that said, the pinger locator devices have to be brought out to the search area. and we just have to get them in the water while we still have a chance of detecting a target. it's our only hope for narrowing the search area down. i will remind you for the air france search, one of the reasons that the search went on for two years was that we actually decided we did not have

pingers to detect. one or both of the pingers were destroyed or damaged in the crash and were not functioning properly. so the extensive pinger search that we did in the first 30 days after the crash didn't yield a target, which put us into this long search effort using the unmanned underwater vehicles, which fortunately, eventually ended up with detecting the wreckage. >> will ripley, explain to us why this vessel that is going out now that you're shadowing, why this one is so special and why they're relying on this one now? and they've been wanting to get this vehicle there for quite some time. >> well, you know, this is a vessel that is designed for the indian ocean specifically. i mean, we mention it originated as a civilian vessel. it's not a warship. but the australian navy does use this. they use this to patrol the waters for people who are trying to get here by boat from indonesia. it has a sister ship that serves the same purpose. so customs and border protection use the same ship. they also use it for humanitarian purposes as well.

this would fall under that category. what makes it special right now is the fact that it is equipped with this sophisticated u.s. navy technology, the pinger locator, which we can rely on for about a week and needs a more narrow search area to truly effectively search. the reason why they waited this long is they were hoping to have a more narrow area to look, some sort of wreckage to say okay, we found this here. let's look at the ocean currents. let's see if we can try to figure out where this originated from. as we have seen from day in and day out, objects have been sighted. some objects have been retrieved. there were eight ships scouring this area looking for things. so far everything they have pulled on board has turned out to be sea trash or something from a fishing vessel, nothing that can be definitively connected to flight 370. but take a look at this ship. i know we're a bit farther back now so, it's harder to see. it's bright red. we've got 30 people on there. 11 people who are going to be specifically operating this equipment. the tpl for starters, the bluefin 21, the underwater drone submarine as well.

but essentially, its purpose, until we have a more narrow search area, its purpose is going to be a search vessel, just like the seven chinese ships that are going to be in the area, the two australian ships in the area with a thousand sailors who are literally standing along the deck, just like we are right now, holding up binoculars, looking out over the ocean, scan -- scanning the ocean to see what they see. when you're doing that hours on end, your mind starts to play tricks on you. you have to rely on the visuals. if we're looking for debris that is floating at the top of the surface, radar isn't going to do much good. we're also at the mercy of the weather conditions. today it's cloudy. it's overcast. and normally we're told that you know, fremantle, perth's main port is sunny. not the case. it's hard to know what is going to happen. >> so will, let me get in here for people watching at home and even us here on the desk where

you're off garden island. what body of water have you been and how far have you gone? how far have you gone since you left shore? >> so right now we're still -- we're close to garden island. and what do we actually call this port, guys? hold on. i'm going to bring on our affiliate from channel 7 here, because you're the expert. i know this is the australian naval base. introduce yourself and tell what's body of water we're in right now. i know we're going to be heading out to the indian ocean. >> this is the biggest naval base in western australia and the center of the operation for the naval search in the indian ocean. >> and specifically right now, we're not out in the ocean yet. would this be the fremantle harbor that we're still in? >> correct. we're in the sound between the sterling and the main west australian coast. >> so you have been out on these waters before. how long does it take to get out of this area and when we start heading out on the indian area? >> the area is protected by rock nest island about ten miles offshore. you sort of have bay conditions until you get beyond that once you're beyond you're in ocean

conditions and the waves can double or triple more once you're out there. >> so we're actually sharing this boat with our cnn affiliate, channel 7, one of the major stations here in australia. they're going to be broadcasting here as well. and it is great to have these experts along with us to guide us along as we all learn together how this process works. because it is one thing to stand out at the air base and talk about it. but it is another thing to actually head out on the indian ocean, to shadow people. what they're feeling is our best hope to finding something. >> will ripley, thank you very much. we're going to get back to you. great job. don't go away. i think it's fascinating to watch and to see, really, how the efforts happen, how fast they can go. what resources they're using, what technology they're using. and we have that live for you right here on cnn. you're getting your first look at this. and you can see the worldwide resources of cnn, channel 7 this -- there in australia, the

biggest news organization in australia there, one of our affiliates. so coming up, it took two years to find the black box when adventure france flight 442 went down in 2009. the search area was smaller and investigators had a better idea where to look for it. so how long will it take to track down flight 370? my panel weighs in. that's next.

well, if you compare this to air france flight 447, we had much better positional information of where that aircraft went in the water. we supported with a towed pinger locator search. the pingers were nonfunctional on that aircraft due to the damage it received when it hit the water. it then took over two years conducting side-scan sonar searches with autonomous vehicles to locate the debris.

so it can be a very long search effort. >> very long search effort. you know two years to find air france flight 447 and had better information than we do now. so what is the best strategy to find this malaysian airliner and to give answers to the families of the missing? here with me again is colleen keller and geoffrey thomas, les abend. and michael kay are both here. colleen, you were first. you were instrumental in finding air france flight, and you did. tell me what you would do here at this particular juncture. >> well, what we should be doing, don, what we're doing now is trying to keep track of all the different areas where the aircraft could potentially have gone down. we still have possibilities that it could be farther north, it could have crashed farther south. you know, we keep hunting around in these different areas as new evidence comes in.

the approach that we used in the air force search is called applying basian search theory. what this does is allows you to keep track of all the evidence you have and its uncertainties. and at any one time you can refer to a probability map to where the evidence points would be the highest likelihood areas to go search. that's where we would recommend day to day you put your effort. right now it looks like they're chasing a very hot clue that puts them in this northern area, but they're coming up empty, which is lending credence to the fact that maybe it's not the right place to be looking. so it might be that after a couple more days, we should be looking back south. because we did see satellite pictures of large numbers of drifting stuff in the ocean. so they should be keeping track of all their evidence and all their clues and where they have looked to date, and be looking at, okay, where is the next best place to look tomorrow. >> i think that's important information that she is giving us. i want to go to geoffrey thomas now. geoffrey, what do you make of what colleen is saying?

seem to be chasing some pretty hot clues hopefully, but so far nothing has turned up. and maybe we should be look -- looking elsewhere, or start to look in other places, do you agree with that? >> look, it's certainly very, very frustrating, don. the difference between this flight and 447 is that with 447, we knew exactly where it was going. we had a very clear track of it. it still took us six days to find it after it disappeared. with this airplane, we lost it in the straits of malacca. and now we're using satellite pinging data to triangulate. we're getting evidence that we're not privy to. they haven't told us why they're looking in this particular area, and we asked them locally, and they said no comment. we can't discuss it. so we're not sure what the body of evidence is that points to this. i agree. after three or four more days of turning up nothing, then maybe

we better go back to square one and relook at the numbers again. but they did sight some stuff yesterday that was termed as their strongest sighting. that hopefully will get picked up today by one of the six or eight ships in the search area. and we might start to get some closure on this. >> hey, geoffrey we have to ask you. because the ocean shield is out there, we're shadowing it, other correspondents or shadowing it, it's the pinger locator, has a pinger locator on it. >> yep. >> there is concern time may have run out for that or it's either quickly running out. how is this ship going to help you in this search? >> okay, well, look, that's a very good question, don. the university of western australia in fact tracks the currents in the indian ocean all the time. they have all that data stored on computer. so as soon as they identify a piece of debris from this airplane, say it's some time today, they get the coordinates

of that, they can go through their computer modeling and track it right back to its original spot the bit of debris was on march 8th. and they'll send the ocean shield right to those coordinates, and it can launch its pinger. and if necessary, the autonomous underwater vehicle as well. so we have got excellent data on the currents, the eddies in the area. it's just a matter of confirming one piece of debris, and then we can go straight to the wreckage. >> all right. stand by, everyone. we're here for the next hour and a half. we're on until midnight eastern time here in the united states. we're going to continue to follow this. so if or when search teams find the plane, what happens then? we'll tell you. that's next. did you get my e-mail? [ man ] i did.

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what we're trying to find is an acoustic emission from one of the pingers on the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder. typically, these last -- the batteries last for 30 days. usually they last a little bit longer, and that's what we're trying to find. but what is critical is that the teams that are out there searching for the surface debris, they get good position data on that, and they feed it back to the oceanographers to help us determine a probable point of impact for where the aircraft went in. >> you heard captain matthews there. we're living on borrowed time in the search for missing malaysia flight 370. this is why. we only have about six days left until the battery on the flight data recorder stops giving up a ping. colleen keller, michael kay, all back with me.

we'll get back to the battery life first. i want to go to cnn's will ripley. will, i understand you have new information from the australian navy. what do you have? >> yeah, we just got word within the last 15 minutes or so there is now yet another delay, which we have gotten used to some delays, unfortunately, in this search over the past three weeks now, entering the fourth week here. it's going to be at least another six hours, we're told, until the ocean shield can depart. and the reason for that is we have that u.s. navy equipment installed, but they need to send inspectors to the boat today because they need to basically, they're maritime inspectors. they need to look and ensure everything is installed properly and sign off on it before the boat is okay to depart. now we're looking at a departure in the evening hours, as the sun is getting ready to set, essentially. so we're losing essentially another day of that battery life. >> yes, absolutely. stand by, will. les? you're flummoxed by this? >> well, this isn't my expertise. but the boat got there. i'm not sure what the inspection is about. i guess it has to do with australian regulations. my concern is if they're going to the right area with this ship

anyhow and the fact that at least they're doing two different type of searches. they're looking for debris and they're looking for the -- >> right. >> -- airplane itself. >> but if you have the six hours' delay, that's half day or more of search lost, and we only have six days left, mike, for those batteries. >> you're absolutely right searching for anything in the pitch-black is a nightmare. but as les was saying, the key to this is finding the haystack, and the assets used will be the airborne which they have about ten as the previous correspondent said. really the ship should be doing is once it's been identified, the ships can be deployed with the ping locaters and everything else. the ships really are constrained with the amount of ocean they

can cover within five days anyway. so yes, they need to be there. but really, we need to be trying to understand where the location is through the air assets and zoning the ships in. we shouldn't be relying on the ships to find the needle in that haystack. >> colleen keller, what do you make of this delay that we just reported here on cnn? >> i'm disappointed. it was my original understanding that the ship was supposed to deploy on their sunday morning. so we're already well behind schedule. the ship has to steam out to the area. it goes at a nominal 15 knots. so it would take about three days to get there. and remember, the ship doesn't want to go to the place where we're finding the debris. it wants to go upstream from there, which i would assume is maybe another day or so to get to the area where the debris came from. so it's -- we're racing against time at this point. >> well, explain to us to the best of your knowledge, this delay. as you said, it's due to an inspection? can you update us again? >> yeah. you know, don, here, and i think this should come with a caveat that this situation is so fluid. as we've seen time and time again, we could be reporting one piece of information one hour, and then we find out the next hour something completely different. last week is the perfect example when we were talking those satellite images. 300 objects, 122 objects

hundreds of miles south of here. essentially, we thought it was such a promising lead. then new data came out and we had to change the search area. right now we're hearing the delay could be six hours or longer. perhaps it will speed up. i think being out here and covering this story day in and day out, what i have learned more than anything is that nothing about this story is predictable. that's really the bottom line. >> all right. stand by, everyone. coming up, a flight attendant on the missing plane. she is a mom and a wife. now her husband opens up about their struggles as their kids ask where is mommy. the choice is yours. chalky. not chalky. temporary. 24 hour. lots of tablets. one pill. you decide. prevacid. ♪ 24 hour

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of the flight crew aboard malaysia airlines flight 370. for three weeks now the families of these crew members and all the passengers on board have not held, kissed or spoken to their loved ones, and that includes a husband of one of the flight attendants. he tells our paula hancocks how he is simply at a loss of what to tell their children. >> reporter: her 10-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son keep asking where she is. 18 years as a malaysia airlines flight attendant, she was working aboard mh 370. >> mommy is going take longer to come home this time. and i even promised them i'm going to bring her home.

i didn't really know either way, you know. and now i'm not sure whether i can bring her home. you see. >> reporter: lee khim fatt asks me what he should tell his daughter. he says she is caring, loving, he speaks in the present tense. >> i'm still hoping for miracles. but it's just like what we want is the relative, the true story. >> reporter: showing me mobile photos of his wife, he tells me he is angry at the way he is being treated. his wife was part of the cabin crew, but lee feels the airline tells the media more than it tells him. he says he gets most of his

information from televised press conferences, part of the reason he has hired a lawyer. >> it is not their fault that this happened to the plane. so therefore they have to be compensated for their damages. >> reporter: lee and fung were together for 20 years. he says they were happy. now she is lost. lee says he has lost all direction. paula hancocks, cnn, kuala lumpur, malaysia. >> heartbreaking there. uplifting yet heartbreaking. the twitter account of one teenaged girl tracks the agony of flight 370 since it first began close to more than three weeks ago. now, in the first week that marihu goes by the twitter handle gorgeous. she sent out about the missing plane, she called directly to her father. and her father is andrew nari, the chief steward on board. she said come home fast, dad. it's the only thing i want.

daddy, you're all over the news and papers. come home fast so you can read them. don't you feel excited? and then on monday, march 24th, the families of flight 370 heard this. >> that according to this new data, flight mh 370 ended in the southern indian ocean. >> gorgeous, again, whose real name is myra, writes, we love you, but he, meaning god, loves you more. and myra is taking comfort in the arms of the tens of thousands of strangers who are rooting for her online. writing this, i received love from almost the whole world. i'm so touched. i don't know how to thank all of you. support, prayers, god bless you all. we'll be right back.

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we aren't counting the costs. we're just doing what needs to be done to try to get to the bottom of this mystery. and that will go on, and i think we owe it to the people who are on board that plane. i think we owe to it their families. i think we owe to it the countries which have a stake in all of this to do what we can to get to the bottom of it. >> that's australia's prime minister not long ago. some predict the search for malaysia airlines flight 370 could be the most expensive in aviation history. fuel is costly. the search zone is vast. up to ten planes launched each day along with ten ships with crews working around the clock. the latest lead, four orange objects spotted in the water. cnn's rosa flores explains if the debris is in fact from the plane how it could establish where the plane went down.

>> reporter: the search from the air for malaysia airlines flight 370 spans tens of thousands of square miles. when objects are spotted by the human eye, boat crews scour the water with nets. if debris is confirmed to be related to the missing plane, an oceanographer like dr. ryan abernathy from columbia university can figure out where the airplane hit the water by using satellite data. >> what we're looking at is a nasa satellite that orbits the earth and measures very precisely the height of the sea's surface clearly seen in these colored boxes. >> what we take is what these satellites measure, and then we plug it into a computer program that uses those currents to move material around, you know, inside the program virtually. >> so if there are objects in the ocean in these bumps, you're able to measure the movement of those objects? >> exactly. >> reporter: the hope is to find a trace of the 777.

you would be able to calculate back to the crash site of mh 370? >> yes. the hypothetical crash site. now, we don't have any confirmed debris. >> reporter: here is what it look likes on map. >> as you go from red to blue, you go backwards in time. >> reporter: meaning, if a debris sight is in red, the cluster of blue dots would show where the plane hypothetically hit the water. this would help us find the haystack as to where to look? >> that's a very good way of putting it. this will help you find the haystack, but you still have to find the needle. >> rosa flores joins us now. search crews have found debris in the different spots in the indian ocean. it possible debris from the plane could be in two different areas or different areas? >> based on the satellite images we've been reporting about, those objects that we've been seeing and the search area to the north, the short answer is no, according to the oceanographer. and i want to take a look behind us, because this really explains what we're talking about. the oceanographer put it to me like this. the blue dots, the origin.

if you trace back the dots to march 8th. look at these two images. the blue dots do not connect, meaning they're not from the same origin. >> and the red -- this is where the path it would have taken according to the currents, correct? >> correct. so the red dot is where the debris was found. so that satellite image. >> or was seen. hypothetically, correct, from the satellite. and then you trace back in time to the blue dots so it takes you back to the origin. what is really interesting is this cluster over here, because those orange, the red and then the yellow dots, those are different images we were told about, different satellite images. if you just look at this cluster over there, you can see that the same origin is possible. it's blue. so if we only had that information, it would tell us oh, perhaps that is the origin. >> right. >> that's obviously not the case. >> all right. let's talk more about this. i want to bring the panel in to discuss this, the challenges of finding the information, finding flight 370.

any debris from it. colleen keller, michael kay, les abend and will ripley joining us from australia and we have rosa flores here. this is just in from hms toowoomba has made best speed and entered the search area for flight 370 after departing on sunday afternoon. there we go, the ship has made its way into the area where we believe the objects were found. and so they are -- made good time on saturday afternoon. so there we go. we have that ship. we've also got the ship that will is out shadowing. and then we have this new information that rosa flores is bringing us. i want to get to you first, colleen. what do you make of rosa's information here talking about, you know, if the origination of two different places in the ocean where objects were found, and it doesn't -- the data doesn't quite jive? >> it's no problem that the data doesn't jive. the reason is the data is

uncertain. so you could have two separate hypotheses and they could be conflicting. since you have overlap and uncertainty, you have to keep them both on the table until you exclude one, until you have credible evidence that takes one completely away. in the air france search, we actually had three separate agencies that did reverse drift modeling using their own current models and databases. it was the brazilian, the french, and the u.s. coast guard. and all three came up with separate, different origins for where the debris came from. it was very frustrating. we didn't really know which ones to use. we ended up just using the coast guard data because we were affiliated with the coast guard being a u.s.-based company. and we de-emphasized the reverse drift data, the data based on the drifting debris because we were very uncomfortable with the uncertainties in the current. we ended up using other information to try to build our probability maps. >> okay. rosa, you want to -- >> yeah, one of the things that

the oceanographer explained to us is the more time passes, the more uncertain that data is. >> right. >> so the shorter the time period, the more accurate that their calculations would be. so in this particular case, the more time that passes by, literally, the science almost isn't as accurate. >> let's get back out to the ocean shield now, and will ripley is out there. i want to see your shot. i have a question for you in a bit. but i want you guys to talk about it. you see the ocean shield behind will ripley there. and you said it's really disappointing. obviously, this delay, because that ship and that pinger finder, it wants to go where, les, you were saying? >> well, that ship wants to go where the actual impact site may have been and the wreckage of the actual airplane is. so now you have basically two searches. you have got the debris field search, which we have been talking about with the chart that was just up. and then we've got the actual airplane, which could be a

positive thing, because we've got, you know, the possibility -- i mean, the shot in the dark with that ship that is in port right now. >> michael kay? >> i think just again, we need to be best utilizing our assets to try and work out whether we're looking for the haystack or whether we're looking for the needle. there is effectively two independent searches going on. we're talking about, what rosa was talking about, what happens beyond the assumption of where the impact point was and how the currents might affect that. what i would like to go back and -- look at the assumptions where the impact point was. what i mean by that, how far it's traveled there are three to five assumptions that we're using. we're using speed, altitude, we're using endurance, how much fuel did it have. what was the track after the last transponder ping to when it actually turned south. and all those assumption also inform where the impact point was, which we don't know, and

then we're trying to base further analysis and science off where the impact was on the currents and the drift. so it's impossible. >> you said that listen, the ships that are out there now, the planes, they want to get to the debris if possible or objects. that ship wants to get to the plane, to the pinger, right? to the data recorders? >> that's my understanding. now that has been delayed six hours. but that could change. the information has been so free-flowing in this particular story. >> sure. absolutely. right now we know we're look at maybe an evening departure. if they can bump it up earlier, that would be great. perhaps it could be later. we just don't know. another thing i wanted to mention briefly, this has been a huge factor is the weather conditions. we've seen a light rain here. overall things are pretty calm. but i wanted to bring in the captain of our charter vessel if we have time, captain ruby. you have been out in this area of the indian ocean. first of all, you just looked at the forecast for the general area. what is the latest data that you're seeing? >> there is a bit of a high coming through. so a little bit sloppy today, a lot of cloud cover. the next few days, it should be

good. >> which is good news. but as you know, it can be so unpredictable. it can change in an instant? >> look, i've been out at sea some days, it's like glass. and people think oh, beautiful. and then all of the sudden at night it's blowing 20 and 30, up to 40 odd knots. and they wonder why everyone is sick. you said it was going to be fine. we can't predict the weather. >> and nowhere is that more true, don, than out of the indian ocean specifically it seems like. we were just talking yesterday about how weather was expected to deteriorate. pilots came back and reported it was great. and then on days when we expected things are going to be smooth, it was turbulent. and planes actually had to turn around mid flight. >> will, thank you very much. panel, everyone, stand by. more of our special coverage of missing flight 370 right after this very short break. stick around.

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just a short time ago to cnn, one of several search planes that took off from australia is now inside the search area, scanning the ocean for possible wreckage of malaysia airlines flight 370. eight ships are also in the area. in other news now, the confirmed death toll in that landslide in washington state has now risen to at least 21. in addition, crews say that they've located four more bodies, but so far they've not been able to recover them. 30 people are still missing from last weekend's mudslide near arlington about an hour northeast of seattle. governor jay inslee told cnn that searchers still hope to find survivors. the top diplomats from the united states and russia spent four hours behind closed doors today. secretary of state john kerry

and russian foreign minister sergey lavrov trying to resolve the conflict between moscow and ukraine. russian troops, thousands of them have massed on the border, something kerry calls an intentional climate of fear. and today's discussions kerry said they exchanged ideas, but no agreement was reached. they said they would talk again soon. hello, everyone. i'm don lemon. this is our special coverage. it is the top of the hour. every new day in australia brings with it hope that search crews will find something, anything linked to that missing airliner and the people who are on board. at least one search plane has reached the far offshore search area, and we just learned that an australian navy ship is there now too. a short time ago, australia's prime minister spoke to reporters. he is optimistic too and has a simple message for searchers. a short time ago, australia's prime minister spoke to reporters. he is optimistic too and has a simple message for searchers. keep going. >> we are searching a vast area