the only thing for certain is what it isn't -- socialism. i'm michael smerconish. i'll see you back here tomorrow tonight. cnn's special report "the mystery of flight 370" with don lemon starts right now. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> this is a cnn special report. i'm don lemon. big breaking news tonight. a massive 8.2 earthquake off the coast of chile. [ sirens ] alarms went off no northern chile. a tsunami warning is in effect for chile, peru, ecuador, colombia and panama. a tsunami watch in effect for costa rica, el salvador, guatemala and mexico.

seismologists in chile have recorded at least four significant after shocks measuring at least 5.0 in magnitude. there have been numerous quakes in the same area over the past few weeks. a 6.7 quake rattled chile march 16. more than 100,000 people were briefly evacuated from low-lying areas. the strongest earthquake ever recorded also happened in chile in 1960. the 9.5 tremor that killed more than 5,000 people. we're covering this story from every angle. we're joined by chad myers in the weather center and greg stone joins us, as well. chasta, what is the situation at this hour where you are? >> well, don, what we're seeing across chile, across the coast is evacuations. in fact, some of the -- some tsunamis of two meters or six feet have already washed ashore

in northern chile. so we're seeing hundreds, thousands of people moving to higher ground. so far what we've seen is is it's been in a fairly orderly fashion. the deputy secretary of the interior said the biggest problem has been traffic jams with all these people trying to locate to safer areas. what he also said is that there has not been any reported deaths. so far no reports of major damage to infrastructure. again, we don't have information about all of the areas, the epicenter was off the coast of the mining town, so we expect to get more details about that area. some of the roads are blocked, so we know we don't have a complete picture yet. but at this point, it looks like it's a fairly contained, mostly evacuations, and these initial tsunamis, don. >> shasta, you are in south america right now. talk to us more about the 8.2

quake off of chile's coast. >> you said it. this is an area that is prone to earthquakes. chile has seen the strongest earthquake, it's soon some of the deadliest. just four years ago, 500 people were killed in an 8.8 quake. it was also at that point that they were a bit slow to order the evacuations for tsunamis, which is why they're so proactive this time around. they've ordered the entire coast evacuated, even though in the capital they didn't even feel it. but they want to make sure that they're airing on the side of caution. they don't want the fatalities that they saw just four years ago. this is also being felt in southern peru and ecuador. to they're making sure to get people out of harm's way as fast as they can, tdon. >> chad, this earthquake seems bigger than most. what are you hearing?

>> the tsunami is the biggest problem. this is not a shaking issue. the yellow that we see here across chile is a strong shake. but that's equal to the same shake that the people felt in california from the 5.1 just a couple days ago, because the 5.1 was right under them. this earthquake is offshore, at least enough to make the quaking under the water. but isn't that the problem, don? because the quaking under the water is the tsunami issue. there's the quake, there's the town that had a 6.9 foot tsunami wave. that's not too bad. when you think about this land trajectory here, it goes up very quickly. let's zoom in right through here. there's the quake itself. the big orange circle, that's where the quake was, but it was underground. the underground quake is a movement of the land itself. it comes in, and then it pops up. when the land pops up, it pushes water with it. so it's that popping up of the

land on the bottom of the sea floor that pushes water into the sky, maybe three to five feet. then it has to move somewhere. the problem with this town is there this is basin right through here and through here, and that water slid right into here. this is where the bigst of the waves would have been. i'm going to take you further to the north where it's a desolate, barren place because of how sharp the topography is. so people don't live here. this is where the worst of the tsunami would have been, and that's how strong the coast goes up so sharp. that's why people don't live very close to that land. but what we do know, don, this is a dart buoy. it sits on the bottom of the ocean. if it feels the weight of the water going up, even a millimeter, it can measure it. and it measured about a -- it's almost maybe a third of a meter rise right through there. this is the wave that's going

across the ocean, over and over and over, down maybe through here, as well. north america is not really at any risk at this point. but what we're still watching whether they're going to issue any watch or warning for hawaii at all. we'll have to watch whether this wave continues across the ocean. >> i saw you're having some issues with the ear piece. can you hear me? >> i can. >> these earthquakes, are they connected to the recent quakes in los angeles? >> absolutely not. if i see a 6 or 7 somewhere else along this fault line, when the earth moves, it can move other places. but a 5.1 in california i don't believe would make any stress in chile at all. >> chad myers, thank you very much. greg stone is a marine biologist. greg stone, how are tsunamis generated? >> tsunamis are generated by

fundamentally different processing than normal surfing waves. a surfing wave or most waves that you sea at the beach are generated by wind. the higher the wind, the bigger the waves. but a tsunami is generated by d displacement coming up from the sea floor. the key is it happens over many hundreds or thousands of square kilometers. so suddenly you have water that's gone up a little bit in the ocean and it's got to go somewhere. it can pass under your boat if you're out in the open ocean and you want even feel it. but once it hits the shore and it shows up, you've got basically a meter of water that extends back 100 miles. that meter of water suddenly piles up on the shore. that's when you see the pictures of tsunamis, they don't look like a wave as much as a river that comes in on the coastline.

>> i want to ask you, do you believe that it's not connected to the recent quakes in california? we've been seeing a lot of them lately. it feels that way. >> well, i think that -- my answer to that would be i don't know. there's the ring of fire, which is this series of plate boundaries which run along the coast of chile, then right up through california. the whole earth is one contigous system. >> now i want to get to the search of flight 370. we have breaking news to tell you about. the search area shifts eastward towards australia, and the malaysian prime minister will land in perth in a matter of hours. the pressure is mounting to find any sort of evidence.

i want to go right now to cnn's correspondents. atika, new search area that moves slightly east. how is the search effort going at this hour? >> reporter: well, we've got about ten planes up in the air today. the first of them should be reaching the search area now. and it's expected to be fairly good weather. so they're going to try and search as much as possible which will mean a late arrival for a lot of those planes. so far there have been no reported sightings of any potential debris. there were no significant findings yesterday either. so it's disappointing for a lot of the search teams, but this is a how a lot of search and recovery goes. to they're going to have to see if they can keep scouring the area, let the ship knows. >> nik robertson, families will be meeting privately with tech

experts in a couple of hours. what do you know about this meeting? >> reporter: i know journalists will not get a look-in, don. they're being kept a long way away from where the meeting is taking place. the family is hoping to get questions answered. we're told that the experts wouldn't have been available in beijing. we're told they're seeing people who will explain to them the methodology that they've been using to gather data, the data they've been gathering, the analysis they've been putting on this data to try and get closer to figuring out exactly what happened to this aircraft. now, will these answers satisfy the families? again, that's something we may not find out, because in the last day or so, these families seem to have indicated to us they don't want to talk to the media as much as they did before. that kind of implies that they are getting some help, getting

some way to getting these questions answered. but it's closed doors, so it's really not clear precisely what they're going to learn and then what we may learn from that, don. >> thank you very much. we appreciate it. i want to bring in now cnn's richard quest. the malaysian authorities made it clear that they believe the airliner's movement reflect a deliberate action. what do you make of that? but still no clear evidence of that, especially in the recordings. >> no evidence in the recordings, but the nature of the actions leads them, and the radar data, and the way they said that, it was really interesting, don. when they gave us the transcript today, out of nowhere, in the last paragraph of the statement, they just simply said, it remains the opinion that flight 370's movements were consistent with deliberate actions by

someone on the plane. they didn't have to add that paragraph in. so i think they're clearly telegraphing something to us. whether it's criminal or deliberate, they are saying something by just putting that in once again. >> the malaysian prime minister heading to perth today, what is the significance of that? >> severalfold. first of all, to thank obviously the australians. he'll be meeting prime minister tony abbott. the australian prime minister reaffirming the intention to keep this search going, and the understanding of the importance for the families involved to have closure. >> richard, stick with me. i want to bring in geoffrey thomas who joins us from perth. same question to you, the malaysian prime minister arriving in perth later today. what's the significance? >> reporter: good evening, don.

look, indeed there is significance here, absolutely. it's more confirmation, if you like, that we are looking in the right area, with the malaysian prime minister coming down. we've also had the setting up of the joint communication center here in perth. and we also have more assets arriving, more aircraft, more ships. all this adds to the momentum that -- of the search and also confirmation that we are looking in the right spot. >> they're sending an air traffic control plane in the area to make sure there are no accidents, geoffrey? >> reporter: yes, indeed. the australian air force has flown in, in fact three wedge tile aircraft, the boeing 737 with the radar capabilities. it's usually used as a spy plane, like your awacs aircraft.

yes, this is going to be a communications center and air traffic control center to ensure that separation is maintained between all the airplanes that are out there in the search area. >> geoffrey, please stay with me. richard, as well. we'll be following other breaking news tonight, the story of large waves being reported after an 8.2 magnitude earthquake off the coast of chile. tsunami watches and warnings in effect for huge swaths of south and central america. more throughout the hour on this. when we come back, more on missing flight 370. the australians have taken charge of this search but warned it could go on for weeks, if not months. we'll be joined by the australian ambassador to the united states and i'll ask him if there is a plan b if no wreckage is found. afghanistan, in 2009. orbiting the moon in 1971. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation.

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breaking news tonight on cnn. an 8.2 magnitude earthquake off the coast of chile. a tsunami warning now in effect. a tsunami watch in effect for costa rica, nicaragua, el salvador, honduras and mexico. and now we're hearing about significant after shocks going on. we'll get an update on that throughout this broadcast. i want to turn now back to the search for flight 370. the search area has shifted east. the planned search area 925 miles west of perth. ships and plane there is the united states and other nations working in supporting roles alongside the australians. joining me now is the australian ambassador to the united states. thank you for joining us, ambassador. i would like to get your reaction to the prime minister of malaysia visiting perth.

will this visit help further the search efforts? >> he accepted the invitation of the australian prime minister, and it will be an opportunity to -- for him to get a better understanding of our long-term intentions in this regard. he's a very good friend in australia, and we are enormously close to him and close to malaysia. we have a military alliance with malaysia, as do the british and the singaporeans. so we're very used to this collaboration. he will be -- i think he'll be enormously helpful to have him there with the people who are doing the job. >> we were watching on sunday night, monday morning in australia when prime minister abbott came out and said listen, he's not putting a time limit on

this. he's going to take as long as he can, the best minds are on it. how much pressure, though, does this -- does australia feel to find this plane? we heard today that this could drag on for weeks, if not month. >> if you ask the australian prime minister what our long-term intentions would be, he would say we'll be searching for this aircraft until hell freezes over. the character of the search may well change as time goes by but the search will continue. as well as our own people aboard that plane, very good friends in the chinese and the malaysians have an enormous stake in this. and deep sorrow amongst their people for what has happened. and you can't put a time or a cost of what you would be prepared to do to find an

answer. >> so i would imagine is that the answer is you're feeling tremendous pressure, aus trail y ians are feeling tremendous pressure. >> this is a fantastic effort. there are large numbers of aircraft now in the region. there will be more soon. there will be a submarine. the americans have given us some really excellent equipment, will will be deployed i think if it's not being deployed now, it will be deployed shortly to see if there's a chance of picking up a ping from it. that awacs aircraft, it's not actually a spy plane, it's a plane which vectors, military activity from aircraft, and it's necessary to do that. why? because we have so many aircraft now operating in the area. when you add to that the helicopters that are on board the ships that are operating in

the area, you do have the potential for difficulty emerging. so the -- this is the first time i might way operationally that we have deployed those awacs aircraft. so there will be a substantial learning experience for them. but there's a substantial burden on them, because you wouldn't want another tragedy added on it to. >> i want to bring in my panel of guests. geoffrey thomas and richard quest are with me, along with jeff wise. jim tilmon is a retired american arables pilot. arthur rosenberg is a pilot, engineer and aviation attorney. and then mary schiavo is a former inspector general for the department of transportation. captain tim taylor is an

underwater vehicle expert. thank you all for joining us again tonight. malaysian authorities said that they are -- they discussed these transcripts released from the cockpit. over 53 minutes long. >> let's go through how this would be written -- >> and have arthur rosenberg respond. >> absolutely. i am going to give you the words -- i'm going to be the air traffic controller, you are malaysian flight 370. malaysian 370, climb level 370. >> what time are you at, richard? >> 12:50.06. >> how would you respond to that without looking at it. >> if i say malaysian 370, climb flight level 350.

>> i would respond with the name of the plane, flight level 350, malaysian 370. >> which is spot-on to how exactly they do it. then you come further on to the end of the transcript. and air traffic control says, malaysian -- i say malaysia 370, contact ho chi minh, good night. >> now, i would say something like malaysian 370 to ho chi minh at 120.9, good night. >> but instead -- >> he says, good light, malaysian 370. >> in other words, a minor inaccuracy, but everybody is pinning a lot on this, because it's not -- >> do you pin anything on it? >> i pin nothing on it at all. >> i do actually. >> why is that? >> first of all, richard likes to look at facts separately. you have to look at facts in context. if you look at the practice of

this crew, they repeated back altitudes, they previously repeated back a frequency. and here at 1:19, the last communication, we are into the accident sequence. two minutes later the transponder went off. at that point in time, he decides to change his pattern of communication. at precisely the moment of a handoff, which is the point, if you ever wanted to become invisible, that's when you're going to do it. i think the fact that he did not repeat the frequency is reflective of the stress of the moment, that this plan, this change was already in progress. >> can i ask you guys something? we're at 12:50.09. it these malaysian 370 maintaining level. then air traffic control contacts them. >> he says -- he basically

confirms what altitude he's at, 350. he gets an acknowledgement from air traffic control. and six or seven minutes later, he says the same thing again, malaysian 370 maintaining flight level 350. some people are entinterpreting this, why would you repeat this five or six minutes later? i just choose to think they did it again. >> arthur? >> the fact that he did not recite the center or the frequency is significant. i think at this point in time the sequence of events was already in progress. >> jim tilmon, what stands out to you about these transcripts? do you think there's something odd about them not repeating before an earlier communication? >> i really didn't. i would have to try to dig in this because it's part of an

investigation. the kind of phraseology that we're using i've used before, others have. i've heard it in times in the dark of night. so it doesn't automatically jump out to me. >> would you repeat something six minutes later that you already said before? >> it depends on what else was going on at that moment. i don't know what else he may have heard or caused him to say that once again. that's a puzzle. i don't have the answer for that. >> mary, if you were investigating this, would you put any importance on this communication? >> yeah, i would look at it first as a pilot and say he repeated his flight level, the pilot repeated it twice because they were expecting from air traffic control. they were expecting the handoff. and they asked air traffic control twice because air traffic control had garbled transcriptions and had to say repeat, repeat and gave them the flight level twice.

i think they were waiting for the handoff to ho chi minh. but it's odd, they seem to be exacting with their communications. but i didn't read anything -- certainly nothing criminal into it. something might have been starting to happen and they might have been in a hurry, but nothing suggests criminal activity. >> everyone stay with me. we'll have live breaking news for you. the 8.2 magnitude earthquake off the coast of chile and a live update from the search zone on the hunt for flight 370. stay with us. if there was a pill to help protect your eye health as you age... would you take it? well, there is. [ male announcer ] it's called ocuvite. a vitamin totally dedicated to your eyes, from the eye care experts at bausch + lomb. as you age, eyes can lose vital nutrients. ocuvite helps replenish key eye nutrients. ocuvite has a unique formula not found in your multivitamin to help protect your eye health.

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breaking news here on cnn. an 8.0 magnitude earthquake sparking watches and warnings of tsunami in southern and central america. we want to get back now to cnn's chad myers in the cnn weather center. the first waves, chad, are starting to hit the coast of chile. does this tsunami pose any threat to the u.s.? >> for some reason, i lost you at the very last words. i'm going to start talking assuming that you're done and i'm just going to go. i've got a little bit of audio difficulty here. this is the 8.2, 8.0 earthquake, depending on who is measuring it. the reason it's not as big of a deal is it's offshore. that means a tsunami threat but not so much a shaking threat. this is the yellow where most of the shaking happened. now i'm going to take you to what we had here in america just

three days ago. this is a great quake. we did not have a great quake in california. we were down here. but let me show you that same shake map for california. we had the same colors right here because it was right under that area of los angeles. so this is the quake, it's the same shaking as they saw down here, but you have to assume that the buildings in los angeles have been retrofitted, with a little better quality structure than we have down in chile. here's what happened, here's why it's significant. this is a subduction zone. as you see they go under, go under, one doesn't want to go under anymore and it pops back up. when it pops back up, that pushes the water above it high, half a meter high. it's the meter push-up that you

will see that wave. that wave has hit here in chile, probably around the corner now. waves don't like to go around corners. not going to go all the way to the other side of the world, but this is the bottom of the ocean we're seeing right here. this is that big groove in the ocean, and that's why that pop pushed all the way here. that was a 6. 9 foot wave. >> chad myers, appreciate it. now i want to get back to the search for flight 370. it seems like every lead hits a dead end. but the search goes on. i'm joined by leon fox of the royal new zealand air force who flies aircraft in the search area for flight 370. i know that you're very busy. so thank you for joining us here on cnn. you have been coordinating the crew flights for the new zealand p-3. how many flights have your crews been involved in, and have they found anything? >> we've been in the area,

mainly it's been the stuff highlighted, the fishing nets, et cetera. >> this is day 24 for you, your first crew maxed out there at 150 hours and you're on the second crew now. are they getting tired, are they disappointed at all? go ahead. >> we swapped out a crew about five days ago. they're not disappointed. this is what we train for. so we're finding that there is stuff in the area. we'll try and find something else. >> how much territory have you covered and do you have a feeling the search area will shift even again? >> i'm not sure on that. we've covered a lot of

territory, so approximately 1600 square nautical miles every day. that's just one of the aircraft up there. the information is coming in from malaysia and other sources. >> thank you for joining us. best of luck out there. now to my panel. let's talk about this. last time when i spoke with another leader out there, a member of the military out there, sounded a bit tired to me. that was my assessment. squadron leader fox is saying this is what we're trained for, but how much can you go on and not find anything without being disappointed? >> yeah, it's just an endless task. the search area again is based on certain assumptions about the aircraft's fuel capacity. these are just assumptions. unless they have some other information that they haven't released to us, for instance, australia is known to have

powerful radars that might have picked something up. but at the end of the day, all they can do is go out and look and there's a vast area of ocean, all this stuff is moving around. and the longer that we go without finding anything, the lower the probability is that we will find something. >> i think it's interesting, tim taylor, there's so much apparatus in the air that they're bringing out an air traffic control plane. they're bringing in submarines and what have you. is there control for that sort of thing? >> underwater, the submarines, if there's only one submarine, i'm sure there's not a bunch of control. >> but there are also submersibles and other boats and assets out on the water. >> when they're launched, they have pingers on them, so they have an acoustic signal. if a military submarine is on

location, they are there to listen. the unclassified depths of a u.s. submarine is about 2400 feet. i think russia has a submarine that can go to about 4,000 feet. so each if that's unclassified and they go a little bit deeper than that, they're not going to be able to make the bottom. so they're there to listen passively. they listen for all sorts of things militarily. and if they're there on location, it's a last-ditch effort to get that black box and listen for it. >> stand by, everyone. coming up, the clock is ticking to find the black box before the battery dies. but what happens after that? little is known about the ocean floor and that's where the search is headed now. that's next. gunderman group is a go. yes! not just a start up. an upstart. gotta get going.

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we are rapidly approaching the end for the battery's inside the black box of flight 370. that will make the search even more difficult. i'm back now with my panel of experts. tim, we talked about making sure the guys in the water are safe and who watches them and we were talking about submarines, as well. i have a question from our viewer. this is from richard. he says isn't there a submarine in the area that can look under watter?

now we know that the british submarine has joined the hunt for missing flight 370 and has advanced underwater search capabilities. but will this be effective with an area so immense? >> they're working with the same type of equipment that the underwater auv is working with. sonar has to get to the bottom to look. they may be able to listen, like i said earlier, but getting to the bottom and getting the sonar out there, you're going to have to get within 100 meters of the bottom or less. so i don't see that happening. unless it's some super classified piece of gear we're up familiar with, they just don't build subs to go to 10,000, 13,000 feet in the area. >> do you think a submarine has a better chance of finding the wreckage? >> not at this point. experts are saying it's in the

water, but ultimately finding debris on the surface of the water still has to be the number one goal so that you can bring the other assets in. >> and you want those recorders. mary, australia is sending a modified 737 to the area to act as air traffic control. i wonder if this is typical, even for the people out on the water, that someone should be looking after them, as well. >> that's right. they use these planes in military exercises, where lots of different services have to coordinate and make sure that everyone is safe while they're doing those exercises. i just think it makes a tremendous amount of sense, because for example, in the united states every -- almost every year, the coast guard loses someone on a rescue mission. then they go out in just impossible conditions. i think it's wise, good sense. >> tim, let's talk about the

australian ship ocean shield with the u.s. pinger detecter on board. we saw it going out over the weekend. the pinger batteries could run out at any moment, if they haven't already. too little too late? >> you have to hold out hope. if you don't have hope, it's despair. so get it out there, get it on the water. i was speaking to david soucie. he thinks maybe get it out in the deep canyons and work first. give credit to dave, that would be a good idea if we were running the operation to focus on the areas where you're not going to be able to get an auv down there and rule them out. the pinger may have already stopped. it could be like the air france flight where even if you go over it now you may not be picking it up. >> if the plane is believed to be closer to australia, how come their radar did not pick up where it went down?

>> that's a great question. this is like state of the art radar that can supposedly see for 3,000 miles. if they didn't see it, it raises the question, if they had so much confidence in the first search area then switched it, it applies that it didn't show up on the radar. so either the radar is not working or the plane is not there. >> you said you believe the only real evidence is the data ping. can we trust this map? >> the map could be rock solid, but it's all dependent on the assumptions that you feed into it. we don't know really what assumptions are feeding into it. we don't know what model they've got. one of the interesting things that's been developing is there's a lot of people online with technical savvy and they're trying to reverse engineer the data that's been released by the malaysian government to try to figure out what those assumptions are and figure out

that mathematical model so that we can, sort of to crowd source these developments and these models to figure out as the public can look at and figure out where this plane might have gone. >> stand by, everyone. a tsunami warning after an 8. 2 magnitude earthquake off the coast of chile. and later, final thoughts from the guests where they think this investigation will lead to, next. i'm on expert on softball. and tea parties. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for, because i'm raising two girls on my own. i'll worry about the economy more than a few times before they're grown. but it's for them, so i've found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us.

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back to our breaking news here. the u.s. geological survey reports at least nine significant after shocks. nine significant after shocks, a tsunami warning is in effect for chile and peru. and i need to tell you there was a tsunami warning in effect for ecuador. that has been canceled. also the watches. the watch that was in effect for costa rica canceled, as well. all after an 8.2 earthquake off the coast of chile. nearly seven foot waves have been reported in chile. chilean authorities have asked people along the coast to evacuate. we'll continue to follow this breaking news. back now to flight 370. the moment they find a floating piece of wreckage, the focus of

the search will shift to the bottom of the sea. but we know more about the surface of mars than the bottom of the sea. let's move on and describe the ocean floor where they're going to be searching for flight 370. >> well, the average depth of the oceans throughout our planet, and remember, most of our planet is ocean, is about 12,000 to 15,000 feet. and the depth of the water around this search site is mostly in the 10,000 foot range, though there's a trench that drops to 18,000 feet. >> okay. we know more than possibly the surface of mars than the ocean, why is that? >> well, it's simply because we haven't invested the resources in studying the oceans like we

have invested resources in studying the surface of other planets. we have only actually explored about 3% to 5% of our oceans. the rest remain s unexplored. web, the ocean is opaque, you can't see through it, so you need other instruments. believe it or not, there's more mountains in the ocean than on land. >> absolutely. >> and they're towering mountain ranges down there. >> how could the terrain impact searching for debris? the mountains are higher, i would imagine that makes things a lot more complicated. >> it does. in general in the ocean when you have rugged terrain, mountains, ridges, debris or acoustic signals, this black box trans t transmitransmi

transmits acoustic signals that don't travel very far. in this area, this new area, i was looking at the charts before i came on the show. it's mostly pretty flat. we call these abyssal muds. they're very thick muds made of silicone mostly. but then there is a trench dropoff towards the southern end of it. so it depends on, if it's even in this area, which part of the area. >> very interesting. dr. greg stone, we appreciate it. we have a bit of breaking news here. richard quest got the information. this is according to "the wall street journal." they're reporting what, richard? >> "the wall street journal" is now reporting from the malaysian police chief, and this is really significant, because we have a name, according to the journal,

the malaysian police chief says that the flight 370 investigation is classified as a criminal investigation. >> i want to get some information about this and analysis. arthur rosenberg, what do you make of this? >> from the get-go, i always felt there was human intervention. now they've eliminated a lot of things. the information hasn't all been released. i think also by characterizing this as a criminal investigation shrouds everything in a little bit of secrecy. it's under the umbrella of a crime, they don't have to release information. but i think criminal, intentional, it's all part and parcel of the same thing. >> the journal and the police chief says, it may affect prosecution later if investigation findings revealed now, and if you looked this morning when they released the

transcript, one of the reasons they say they've delayed releasing the transcript of air traffic control is because it was a police investigation. >> we'll be right back. (dad) well, we've been thinking about it and we're just not sure.

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back with our breaking news.

according to "the wall street journa journal", the investigation into flight 370 is classified as a criminal investigation. stay with cnn for more. i want to thank all of my experts tonight. thank you so much for joining us. "ac 360" starts right now. good evening. it's 11:00 p.m. on the east coast, and breaking news tonight, an 8. 2 magnitude earthquake has struck chile. the national emergency office asked everyone to evacuate the coast and a tsunami warning is in effect for chile and peru. the interior minister says the tsunami alert will stay in place for at least the next six hours. some 300 inmates escaped from a women's prison. police say 16 have been captured so far. just a