with ignition switch problems. mary bar rah testified before congress this tuesday. we'll see you at 11:00 p.m. eastern for another edition of 360. smerconish starts now. good evening, i'm michael smerconish, for the second time in a month, i find i'm introducing myself to a new cnn audience. i just came aboard to host a program of my own which now airs on saturday morningings. the day my show launched which was march 8th, that was the first time malaysian flight 370 was in the news. i responded for information on the missing airplane many when we can provide answers to all of our questions, i'm looking forward to discussing the news from a perspective that i find to be lacking in the world of

cable tv. one de void of ideological bias. i like to say the only people i meet who see the world entirely through liberal or conservative lenses are those whom i've rubbed shoulders over the years. when i'm leading my real life in the philly suburbs, pumping gas, shopping for groceries, i speak to people for whom the issues are a mixed bag. they are liberal on some, conservative on others. you would never know that from watching television. in the last 30 years we've experienced unprecedented polarization, consider that in the early '80s on ronald reagan's watch, a fulling 60% of the senate was compromised of moderates. today every senate republican is more conservative than every senate democrat. and every senate democrat is more liberal than any senate

republican. compromise has become a dirty word. that's the same time period that's marked the rise of a polarized media, i don't believe in coincidence, i see a causal connection, i'm trying a different approach. by covering the news of the day in a way that enhances your ability to reach your own independent conclusions. i myself have plenty of opinions they just don't fit neatly under one label. there is plenty i have yet to figure out. take a look at today's headlines, if you ask me, we should be doing less saber rattling in crimea and ukraine. i find it distressing that all the 2016 republican presidential candidates were sucking up to a casino magnet in vegas over the weekend. 6 million have enrolled in obama care, but i remain skeptical of the economic viability of the insurance pool, until i know who's in it, over the weekend i read the report of the law firm

hired by the christie a administration, it sounded more to me like an advocate's brief than an independent search for the truth. i will make you one promise for the week, there will be no litmus tests for watching. and one more thing, i'm nervous. not because you're watching, but because my family is tuned in, my mother is one of 11 children. 8 sisters and three brothers and one of my aunts called my mom when she heard that i would be on cnn in prime time, and she wanted to know whether she should tune in all of the tv sets in the house to cnn while i'm on. my answer by the way was of course, and be sure to set the dvr too. now, let's get started. first off, ten planes and nine ships are closing in on the flight 370 search area right now. but forecasters are warning of bad weather and low visibility, so there's no telling how long

they'll be able to search. my first guest is a man who knows all about the difficulties of a search like this, peter goals is a former managing director of the ntsb, i've waited all day to ask you this question, is there any good news about the search for flight 370? i've been paying close attention to cnn for the last several weeks, it seems like every lead we get goes awry. >> unfortunately, there is not. and the reality is, we've discussed this from day one, that this search was going to be extraordinarily difficult and challenging. months, perhaps years, not days or weeks, and that's because of the enormity of the task. and the lack of hard data to even start to narrow down the search area. >> is it also the result of ineptitude? >> there is noll question that

the malaysian government and malaysia airways were overwhelmed by this at the beginning. they have a guideline to fall back on that's the international civil aviation organization. an ex-13 guidelines on how to conduct investigations that are as complex as this. they apparently didn't fall back on that, they didn't use it, and during the opening week or ten days, there was a tremendous amount of chaos, and most sadly there was a lot of misinformation. >> reports as of this hour, anderson cooper just reported that it seems like time and again we spent time, they spent time looking at the areas that proved to be unfounded based on bogus leads. >> right, the early search toward beijing, toward thailand was a complete waste of time. and i know from my experience with something like this, you start with the radar, and you

focus on that, you get the very best people you can, and with radar, studying it, much of it is technological, a lot of it is art. knowing what to look for, particularly in this situation, where you had the transponder turned off, and you were dealing with raw primary returns. >> let me bring into this conversation mark anania. you said this is like looking for a needle in a garbage patch. i have been amazed time and again at these reports, oh, no, this was just garbage, in terms of how much garbage is in the ocean. speak to that issue. >> well, we're finding out every day just how much more garbage there is, not only in the indian ocean, in the north pacific, the south pacific, the north atlantic and south atlantic and dozens of other areas. >> what kind of garbage? >> most of it tends to be plastic, because plastic doesn't

break down as rapidly as say paper or oregon beganic -- >> this is why when i go to trader joes, i have my own bag now? >> absolutely. >> we're talking about those bags coming back to haunt us? >> those bags, children's toys, anything you can think of that's made of plastic, if you look around your house or office, just imagine how much of that is plastic. >> where is it coming from? are some countries worse polluters than others? >> it's difficult to say what the source is of these vast garbage patches. some countries produce more waste than others. some waste comes from cruise lines or cargo ships. it tends to come from all of us since all of us use plastic and throw it away. >> are you surprised that by now three plus weeks into this, that garbage, debris from the plane has not yet come ashore to some land mass? >> given the nature of the ocean

currents in that area, it's not surprising. see what happens is, these are ocean geiers that just tend to swirl in a circular pattern slowly. like a drain of a bathtub, that's where the garbage collects. the indian ocean is thousands of miles across, and there's no land mass in that area where the garbage would collect. it's just out in the middle of a vast open sea. >> in terms of the models for this investigation, one needs to consider the dispersion route from the airplane to where it crashed in the ocean. when they finally find legitimate debris from the plane, it will have to be pieced back in a pattern where it eventually went down. >> if we find wreckage tomorrow, it could be hundreds of miles away from the crash site. when twa flight 800 crashed off

of long island in 1996, we were in the debris field, we were there the next morning, and it still took us three days to find the actual beginning of the debris field. >> doesn't that mean that there's no such thing as we've already searched there? you could be at point a today, and tomorrow debris could wash into the ocean currents into the area, it's not as if you could check it off your list, right? >> you can't check it off your list. in fact in the search for air france 447 which crashes into the south atlantic, they searched over the original area where they eventually found the aircraft during the first month of the investigation. and this is tremendously challenging. >> is there potentially a silver lining in all of this, that there will be a worldwide cause of action to clean up the oceans and for there to be less polluting, greater fines, more regulation?

>> i think so. that's something all of us are hoping for. this is drawing attention to something that is largely an invisible issue for most people. the indian ocean garbage patch wasn't discovered until 2010 by groups going across the ocean to see if there was a garbage patch there. similar to a fairly well known garbage patch called the great pacific garbage patch. >> the cargo containers? >> i came up from philly on a train, and you see them along i-95 stacked. i'm reading a tremendous number of them fall overboard? they're a part of the garbage picture you're describing? >> right, exactly. cargo ships, cruise liners and again, just about every river in the world drains into an ocean and it's full of -- carrying everything in that river into the ocean. >> mark, thank you very much,

peter thank you as well, we appreciate you having been here. >> congratulations and good luck. >> thank you, sir, i need it. the device that could have kept the plane from ever being lost in the first place. mike rodgers is getting out of washington, and i think i know the real reason why.

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we heard the same question over and over since flight 370 disappeared. how could a 777 with 239 people

on board simply vanish? this image just might show the answer, a vast and changeable search area of hundreds of thousands of miles of open sea. on monday alone, planes and ships scoured 98,000 square miles of the indian ocean, and came up with nothing. they're out there again right now. but are we even looking in the right place? that's our unfinished story tonight. weeks of not knowing has been torture for the families of flight 370, my next guest says it didn't have to be this way. my next guest is the ceo of a company that offers a tracking device that could have told us exactly where the plane is. you sir are an entrepreneur. i read you invested 700 million personal dollars when you acquired this company out of bankruptcy? >> we acquired the company in 2004. and have spent pretty close to that number investing in it

during the last few years. it's been tough times at global star, that's over, a new constellation has been repopulated. and we are happy to be back offering services. >> so here's the question that i ask, is the market going to sort this out? we are all so frustrated, and i have to tell you, on my radio program for the last three weeks, everybody calls with an example of saying, if i can track my iphone, why can't they find this plane? i said the other day, i flu home on jet blue across the country a couple days ago, watching cnn. if i can watch cnn in realtime, why can't we find the plane? you think you have a solution, what is it? >> the technology does exist and there's a next gen system that the faa is mandating which has a component called adsb. it allows you to track aircraft from a signal that is emitted from the belly of each airplane to ground infrastructure, the challenge with adsb is that a

it's not rolled out everywhere, and it doesn't work in areas that can't see ground infrastructure, therefore. if you have service and tracking that you need to occur over an ocean or in deep canyons in places like alaska and so forth. you have to have an augmented system. the augmented system goes over global star, and the result is, you can continuously track one second at a time for continuously across any trip and know exactly where an airplane is, that is invaluable, and in the case of 370, it would have told us whether the plane turned. whether the plane continued straight, and when it stopped emitting all together. >> is the government delaying the implementation of the product that you want to bring to mark sunset. >> they are not. we are in the process of certifying this new product at this time. that certification process is

necessarily lengthy, the faa only wants to put these kinds of devices on aircraft after they're fully vetted. and the implementation path for the total adsb network is required in all aircraft by 2020. >> can the adsb that you're describing be dismantled? if someone who's a bad actor wishes to shut it down, do they have the opportunity to do so? >> i think that's up to the faa. i see no reason at all why the system which we use couldn't be hard wired so it could not be shut down from the cockpit if in fact thats with a the problem in 370. >> is there any opposition to the programming methodology that you're describing from the pilots? i ask that question because i previously advocated the realtime transmission of cockpit data. i know that raises privacy concerns. they would have no issue with what you're describing? >> i have never heard that the pilots unit had -- pilots union

had any problem at all with what i'm describing. i think it's a tremendous enhancement to what we all want to have in a post 2001 world. it just seems so obvious, and since the technology is there, let's use it. >> final question if i might. watching this case as closely as you are, what stands out to you in terms of the evidence or lack there of that we now have? >> well, to me, it's all a great mystery. i don't have any further knowledge than anybody else that's watching it on the news. it just is sad that the information that would be available using devices like the ones that i've been talking about were not in use at this time. >> agreed. jay monroe, ceo of global star, thank you for being here. >> thank you. time is running out to sign up for obama care, more than 6 million people are on board, that may not be enough to make it a success. also the man who says it's in

boeing's best interest if flight 370 is never found? i always say be the man with the plan but with less energy, moodiness, and a low sex drive, i had to do something. i saw my doctor. a blood test showed it was low testosterone, not age. we talked about axiron the only underarm low t treatment that can restore t levels to normal in about two weeks in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18 or men with prostate or breast cancer. women, especially those who are or who may become pregnant, and children should avoid contact where axiron is applied as unexpected signs

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the headlines that got the story half right, first up, from bloomberg.com, obama care enrollment heading to 7 million at deadline. here's what's going on in this

story. the pundits like to treat this like it's a tote board at a bake sale. how many did they enrole. acting as if the economic model under the affordable care act is going to be viable. i think that's not the most accurate metric that we should be monitoring, and drew at man has written about this effectively, he makes the following point. what we really need to know is what's the relative mix of the sick and healthy. unless there's representation from both, then the economic viability under the affordable care act is not going to be something that could be sustainable long term. a better question is to ask about the healthy and sick, and the risk pools are aggregated on a state by state basis. you need to know, what's the relative risk pool for each state. and in addition we should be asking, are the premiums going to be affordable? here's the headline i would have put on this story.

the mix matters most. now, on to number two. representative mike rodgers leaving congress to host radio show. he has an awfully powerful position in washington. it's a republican controlled house. he's a former fbi agent and a very talented guy relative to his ability to articulate. he gives good sound. that's why you see him on television a great deal. i see this as a sign his leaving the congress and going to the world of talk radio of who really wields power in washington, it's not the members of congress who are held in such low record by the public. it's not the members of congress continually plagued by partisan gridlock. no, unfortunately, real power is wielded by those who have platforms and microphones in front of them.

far too often elected officials are taking too many of their e cues from those with microphones instead of constituents in office. conservative radio hosts have more influence than the congress. the last headline from the new york times today as a matter of fact, u.s. agency knew about gm flaw but did not act. allow me to defend trial lawyers, full disclosure, i am one. i say that for the following reason, our civil system. our civil litigation system often maligned is actually a great check on free enterprise. frankly, sometimes it does a better job than government regulation does. think about the following examples, the fab was slow to react to the vioxx cases. the consumer safety commission has malingered to its response

on products such as bb guns. anybody remember the ford pinto? the reality is, that we know what we know about gm today because a georgia trial lawyer hired a florida engineer. they were able to piece together the defective nature of the product that was put into the stream of commerce. here's how i would have written this headline. litigation exposes gm ignition. deadly defects in millions of gm cars. i'll talk to the engineer who discovered them. what if a photo were more than a memory? what if it were more than something to share? what if a photo could build that shelf you've always wanted? or fix a leaky faucet?

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welcome back, i'm michael smerconish. the mystery of flight 370 remains just that, a mystery. even after more than three weeks of searching for the boeing 777 with 239 people on board, we don't know where the plane is. we still don't know if there was a catastrophic mechanical failure. we still don't know if a terrorist or rogue crew member did something horrific. we don't even know for a certainty that the plane crashed. and the list of things that we thought we knew is just as long. we thought that the plane had to be in the south china sea, until we learned it had taken a sharp left turn. we thought that two passengers were stolen passports were to

blame, until we learned they had no terror links. we just learned the last words from the plane were not all right, good night. they were good night malaysia 370. somebody somewhere knows something that they're not telling. it seems not all of these countries looking for the missing flight are too keen revealing to each other about the spying capabilities they have. indian officials were reluctant to discuss radar data along the bay of bengal. why? the area is a weak spot in that country's coverage. a limitation that they wish not to reveal. there have been complaints that china won't share all of its data, and that when it does so, the images have been altered to hide their true capability. thailand has come under scrutiny as well. the radar picked up the jet on march 8th.

thai officials waited eight days to report that the list goes on and on. furious families are looking to hold somebody accountable. some are looking in the direction of boeing? how do you know when a government or a big corporation is covering up? keith masback is here and has extensive experience in intelligence gathering. steven marks says the best case scenario for boeing may just be that the plane is never found. why do you say that? >> the plane has details such as the flight data reporter and voice data recorder. without that evidence we're left with all the speculation that is occurring right now. boeing is participating in the investigation, they have a great deal of information the public doesn't have, may have more information than the investigators. they're providing the

investigators with information. they're steering the investigation as they often do. the foreign investigators have not had experience doing this. >> what knowledge could boeing have that the malaysian officials don't have about what went on here? >> we know there were acars messages. they're also dealing with a company they've had a long relationship with inmarsat. who has done the satellite reconstruction. they're privy to the information the malaysian government is giving it, and other sources, figuring out burn rates, altitude rates, information that only they have the expertise. >> you sound suspension that boeing is not being forthcoming in giving that information to the ma lace investigators. >> i don't know if they are, they aren't in this case.

another case, boeing and the investigators very quickly came to a suicide just like here. there was no evidence of suicide, they tried to fit it into that conclusion. we proved after a lot of investigations, that boeing hasn't accepted the true fact which was that it was a tail rudder problem. every rudder was replaced on every boeing 777. we were able to prove a defect after years and a lot of money and effort we did prove that. >> what's your level of concern that if something isn't discovered within the next few days, by the time the battery on the black box expires, that all hope will be lost? >> this is a tough problem, we have used the satellites to take a look before we were able to get ships and aircraft on

station. now we have ships there, we have some of the most capable sub hunting and aircraft over that area. we are in a tough spot, we are losing the battle against time. >> this is right in your weilhouse. are you concerned that not all the nations are sharing sufficiently their data. i gave the examples at the outset. the chinese image that looks blurry raises a lot of questions. >> we talked a lot about this on saturday. this is a contested part of the globe. you have problems from the sprattly's where you have disputes over mineral rights and oil issues. then you come around and a

longstanding issue in the strait of malaaca, where you had indonesia and singapore come together a little bit in 2004 to deal with the piracy issue, there's a lot of tension and they don't have the sharing regimes, the relationships and the organizations that create the opportunity to share readily. >> is this a blind spot for the united states government. there's been no satellite imagery that's been produced by our government of that area. >> i can tell you imaging in the middle of nowhere is not a blind spot it's just somewhere you're not going to use resources. think about what the national security infrastructure of the united states has to deal with today. they have to worry about tensions between north and south korea, russian armor masks on the ukrainian border. they have to worry about syria. there are lots of things to do, and a finite number of assets.

>> the last words from the pilot apparently not as initially reported. of what significance -- read those tea leaves if you would? >> it's hard to put a lot of significance. the fact that the malaysian government is giving us misinformation, the second and most recent report is a more common report the pilot would give to the controller. it gives you some indication the pilots were acting appropriately. you can tell from the tone, the intuitions, you can tell so much more if you listen to the recording as "posed to a transcript. i heard on your show earlier, there were comments made the transponder was turned off. we don't know for sure if it was turned off. we know it stopped emitting. there's where you jump to conclusions without any facts. without the raw data, the information that's available to the investigation, we can't independently verify what's

going on. >> keith mas billion dack, if only the final two hours are that which is recorded and if in fact this plane was flying on its own devices for several hours, those tapes could be blank? >> absolutely. welcome to intelligence work, law enforcement work, welcome to crash investigation, michael. it is piecing together a puzzle and every new piece of information has to be dealt with in the context of what you already have and what your assumptions are. >> there's such frustration, i feel for those families. but here in the states, around water coolers, everybody says, my god, with the technology we have today, why isn't there a solution to this? why after air france 447 have we put ourselves in a position like this? >> we had all the error messages going back to air france. we knew in realtime what was occurring, what's amazing is that the acars messages stopped

which may indicate some type of catastrophic failure, we don't know it would have been intentionally turned off. there would be no reason to do that. that's surprising. when we have cell phones where hundreds of millions of people can be tracked in the another, where we need to figure out where somebody was, we can do that, we can't follow a 777 around the world is unimaginable to me. the pain and agony these families are facing should have been avoided. >> keith, to his point, this is something that i've come back to. if i'm up to no good, acting with sinister motivation aboard that flight, why am i wasting time with acars, i want that transponder turned off. who cares if there's information transmitted from acars, that's not going to tip off a government as to what's in progress. >> that's one of the mysteries here, michael. i think what's important and what he's referring to is that the capability exists on orbit. we heard about global star,

meridian, we talked about inmarsat. the capability readily exists on orbit, i think you have to go to some of your aviation experts and ask them about the decision process to get these things into the cockpit. >> thank you gentlemen. appreciate you being here. >> thank you very much. what did gm know, and when did they know it? i'll talk to the engineer who discovered a fatal flaw affecting millions of cars and risky business. why so many politicians are getting caught behaving badly. 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.

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gm recalled 1.3 million cars today over a problem with power steering. exactly what they didn't want to do one day before mary bar testifies before congress about a different recall of 2.2 million vehicles for an ignition switch problem that's been tied to 13 deaths. one of those who died was 29-year-old brooke melton. her family's attorney joins me. also the engineer who discovered the flaw mark hood. counselor, tell me what happened to this woman? >> well, brooke melton back on march 10th of 2010 was driving

her 2005 cobalt on a rainy two-lane road when her key shut off, and as a result of her key shutting off, she lost her power steering, her anti-lock brakes. she lost control of her car, it went into the oncoming lane of travel whether it was the collision, and brooke died as a result of the collision. >> as far as you know, had she made contact with the key? >> it appears she did, yes. >> given the fact that it was in the accessory position at the time of the impact? >> mr. hood, you're the engineer who's put it all together. you're the guy who, not the government, not gm but for you, and i read that profile of you in the times recently, we wouldn't know what we know today. can you explain to me in terms that i can understand what you discovered? >> after lance brought the ignition assembly from brooke's vehicle to me. we started diagnosing the way the switch worked, looking at

the particular mechanics inside the switch that holds the switch in the run position. after looking at switches, testing switches from brooke's vehicle, skem particular vehicles and new switches. i found the plunger in new switches was longer than in brooke's vehicle. >> do you have one in your position right now, and if so, can you hold it up so we can see what it looks like? >> i don't have them with me. i think those may be available, though. >> the original part differed from a store bought replacement? is that a way of stating what you detected? >> yes, that's correct. the plunger in the 2005 to 2007

cobalts was approximately 1.6 milli mitters or the width of a quarter shorter than the detent plunger on a new replacement part. >> you put this together by sleuthing at 18 different junkyards, right? >> well, we pulled switches -- we tested a total of 18 different switches. 10 steering columns we pulled from vehicles in salvage yards and tested the torque on those switches, and particularly on all of the 2005 and 2006 vehicles we tests, the torque was low on all of those switches. >> here's what gm is saying in a statement. with the safety recalls and lifetime warranties, we are going after every car that may have this problem, and we're going to make it right. we have recalled some of these vehicles before for the same issue and offered extended warranties on others.

but we did not do enough. your response to that? >> well, there's no doubt they did not do enough. the question is, whether they're doing enough. and the answer is no. they've known about the problem with the ignition switches since 2005. but they also have a problem, where the key is located on the column. even if they repair the switches, consumers are still going to bump these keys driving down the road, because of the how the key sits on the column. the gm engineers understand this, and they should fix it, what they're doing is a partial solution, it's not a total solution, what the company needs to do is step up and completely fix these cars, so consumers can be assured that they will be safe driving these cars. >> what was gm saying to you as an attorney for a decedent before mr. hood, the engineer put all the pieces together? >> we don't know what the problem was. they would not step up to the plate. and it wasn't until mark -- this

is important, mark hood is the primary reason why this recall occurred, in addition to the melton family, who pursued this claim. if he had not done his work -- mark showed them they had changed the switch. it wasn't until february of this year that they finally acknowledged that fact. >> tomorrow, mary barra, the ceo of gm testifies before congress. what do you want to hear her say? >> i want to hear her say we are going to completely fix all of these vehicles. and we're going to make it right for the families who have gone through these horrific experiences over the last ten years. >> one other piece of. this i said at the outset that the government, in my view has some culpability if the facts are as they seem to be unfolding

meaning they had knowledge and did nothing about it. will you speak to that, mr. cooper? >> the government did have knowledge and did nothing about it. and what you spoke about is critical. this is the poster child for a need for a robust civil justice system. the family got to the point where they hired an attorney who hired experts who ultimately caused gm to recall over 2 million vehicles. if it weren't for the meltons and mark hood we wouldn't be here today and millions of people would be driving these defective vehicles in the future. >> how hard, in your estimation, to fix the problem you have uncovered? >> well, at least from the point of view from the switch and here are -- i don't know if you can see, here are two of the detent plungers. it's the difference in the

thickness of a quarter and it's just the change of that plunger in the spring is what we found that makes a difference from the switch portion in if the device works as it is supposed to. >> final question for you, mr. hood, is this, in your opinion, an expensive fix? >> i don't believe so. it's at least from the price of the plunger, you're looking at the other end it's just a very small spring. so at least for the switch, it's -- i would think it's a minimal cost. >> makes it even worse if that's possible. thank you, appreciate you being here. we'll be paying attention tomorrow for the testimony of ma mary barra. richard nixon famously said "i'm not a crook."

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i'm wondering if there is something that separates the politicians from the rest of us. here's why. over the weekend i read the 360 page report from the christie administration hired to get to the bottom of bridge gate. the document read like an appellate brief that advocates rather than an independent investigation for the truth. the public wants to know what chris christie knew and we he knew of it. christie says he did not know of

it until the media reports after the incident had ended. and on page 127 it stated nor dead did we have red isable evidence that the governor had knowledge of the lane realignment while it was occurring. but on page of 88 it says, wildstein claimed he had mentioned the traffic study to the governor at a public event during the period of the lane realignment. if david wildstein claims he told governor christie about the closures while they were ecuring how can the report be do definitive otherwise especially where they are not being intervud. and this is one of many politicians behaving badly. in philadelphia, five public officials were caught on tape accepting cash and gifts from an

government informant. and the mayor of chart and a california state senator were arrested. these stories make me wonder what is it about the politicians, do they possess a personal type that makes them more susceptible to bad behavior than a group of accountants or engineers or busboys or carpenters. the former president of the american psychological association, i asked him. he told me the basis of any discussion about political scandal is the tolerance for risk. he has coined the risk type-t behavior to describe the personality of the big risk taking. the "t" stands for thrill. and those who are big-t individuals -- politicians are risk takers. and there is t plus behavior,

charisma and t minus behavior which is destructive and sometimes criminal. after having studied political behavior for a long time that the risk taking personality and behavior is a key ingredient in much of the corruption and destructive behavior. let me play armchair psychologist. i believe this is what happens when we are represented by a permanent political class. democracy has not developed according to the plan. the idea was we pick the best and the brightest, those successful in life who would serve despite reluctance because of an understanding that the needs of the community require their service for a limited amount of time. and then they go home and resume their productive lives outside the government. those days ended long ago. and today, we have too many who are drawn to a risky profession

for all the wrong reasons. i'm michael smerconish. i'll see you back here tomorrow night, cnn's special report, the mystery of flight 370 with don mystery of flight 370 with don lemon starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> this is a cnn special report, the mystery of flight 370. i'm don lemon. the "wall street journal" reporting that poor communication led to three days of searching far from where the plane is believed to be. so are searchers in the right place tonight? we'll check on that. also is there a new flight path for mh-370 and was this a criminal act? we thought we knew the pilots last words. "all right, good night" were not the last recorded words but good night, malaysian