that does it for our special coverage of "ac360," the coverage of the latest developments in the search for flight 370. our coverage continues right now with rosemary church and erin burnett at the cnn center in atlanta. this is cnn breaking news. thanks for staying with us here on cnn, hello and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world.

>> you are watching cnn's breaking news coverage of the mystery of flight 370. well, we begin with a dramatic announcement just a short time ago in the search for malaysian airlines flight 370. >> that is right, if -- watching here on cnn, they detected pings from the flight 370. authorities are now saying they're optimistic the plane may be found within a matter of days. >> today i can report some further encouraging information regarding the search for missing flight 370. on monday, i advised that the towed pinger locater deployed by the ocean shield had detected signals consistent with those emitted by aircraft black boxes on two separate occasions. i can now tell you that ocean shield has been able to

re-acquire the signals on two more occasions. late yesterday afternoon, and late last night perth time. the detection yesterday afternoon was held for approximately five minutes and 32 seconds. the detection late last night was held for approximately seven minutes. ocean shield has now detected four transmissions in the same broad area. wyy@ angus houston there. and also new analysis of the first two signals indicate they did come from an electronic device, and are consistent with the ping of a flight data recorder. the location of the pings has officials tightening the focus of the search under water and on the surface. >> but they're still throwing many assets at this today as we

speak. 14 aircraft and ships are working in about a thousand square kilometers. >> but authorities say it is still too soon to deploy the navy bluefin robotic vehicle. they wanted to find the search area with as many pings as possible before the batteries in the beacon die out. >> that is correct, let's get more information from perth, australia, where we find erin mclaughlin. truly, erin, an incredible turn of events. we are right at the edge of battery life for the black boxes. just walk us through what mr. houston announced moments ago. >> that is right, errol, very encouraging news announced this morning. they are now confident houston says that they are searching in the correct place. they detected not one, but two signals as he mentioned there. the first lasting a total of five minutes, 32 seconds. that detected yesterday

afternoon. the second lasting a total of seven minutes, detected in the evening. houston did note that these signals were weaker than the first two detections picked up on saturday. and he attributed that to either one of two scenarios. the first scenario being that they had possibly moved away from the source of the signal. he said that that was unlikely the more likely scenario that the signals were weaker due to the diminishing battery life of the black box pinger. now as for next steps, the australian vessel, the ocean shield equipped with the american run towed ping locater is continuing to comb the waters in the lateral location. they want more information to be able to narrow down a potential search field. and they need that before deploying the bluefin 21, the

underwater autonomous vehicle. so they're going to continue to search for vehicles until they're absolutely certain that the battery has run out. only then will they deploy the vehicle to go underneath the water and try and find the wreckage. and get some sort of confirmation that this is in fact from missing flight mh-370. but certainly encouraging signs out of perth this morning, errol. >> now, as you were speaking there, erin, we saw one of the maps which basically breaks down what the jacc announced moments ago showing the location of the four pings that have been detected plus what they call the estimated route of the last handshake. i think we can pull that up for our viewers now. even though angus houston said look, we're going to wait for another detection before we drop the vehicle. he still wants to wait longer because there could possibly be life in the batteries and that would narrow the search even

more, correct? >> absolutely, in houston's words they want to make hay while the sun is still shining. they want as much information before they deploy the bluefin 21, why? because the bluefin 21 moves a lot slower than the towed ping locater. so they want to narrow down that search field so they have a more precise location as to where this signal is coming from, errol. >> erin mclaughlin live in perth, australia for us. we're going to now turn to our aviation expert, miles o'brien. he joins us now for more on this. >> yeah, and miles this is extraordinary. you have been following this from the very start. they have four signals to work with now. what does this tell you? >> well, basically what they want to do is they want to kind of build a box, if you will. kind of home in on the black boxes. they believe they're hearing only one of them, not two. but can't be certain about just

that so far. and in any case, each detection sort of fills in a gap. fills in the box. and as they go back and forth in a very specific grid pattern they will start to build dots. and those dots will get tighter and tighter and you will get to a point where you can come to a very tight and close idea of where you would want to put that unmanned autonomous vehicle. and at that point you start to paint the ocean floor with sonar images. and if there is a wreckage there it will be quite obvious. >> now, miles what we see in australia is the larger map showing the search area, on the surface, the debris as it relates to where the pings were detected. on the close-up map, although it shows where the four pings were located and where they faded there is something missing from that map. what is missing from what the australian authorities are telling us? >> yeah, the thing about that map that is a little confusing

is the distance that separates them. how could that possibly be? but what we really don't know is the strength or relative weakness of each of those detections. and that would have a lot to do with the relative distance between the detector and the pinging device. now, if there was one thing pinging, why would it be all over the map? it is the strangeness of the aco acoustics, you want to have all the detection pings. you will have a cluster. >> but miles, if they only have one beacon sending signals, if

they don't receive another one what can they do with the four signals as far as triangulating these? >> this is pretty good, even if they didn't hear another ping, they are still in pretty good shape to start deploying the autonomous vehicle. the reason they hesitate on deploying it is that it covers -- any particular space, any particular part of the ocean much slower. it is about seven times slower than the ping receiving device. so you want to use that as much as you can as long as the pingers are still in play. get as clear a picture as you can. and then you put in the device with the side scan sonar. they have enough information to do that right now. they just want to get it as precise as they can. just to speed things up ultimately. >> and one thing angus houston mentioned is that it takes time once they put this vessel under water for them to be able to

move around and search. it will go on 20-hour searches once they do and triangulate once they 4çaeñdo. walk us through once they do confirm this is mh-370. >> well, then they get into -- obviously the first thing you go after is they get the black boxes. the device that has the scan sonar does not have any way of grasping the boxes. you have to get other autonomous vehicles, remotely operated vehicles on site which would be able to go to great depths. this is up to 15,000 feet we're talking about here. and to go to great depths and literally find the spot in the aircraft where the black boxes are. the flight data recorder,ñ=a5qm

painful wait continues for the families of the 239 people on board flight 370. now, we are joined from beijing where there is a family meeting happening now. we'll get to that. first, pauline, i want to get an idea of the reaction that happens from family members to the very significant news coming out of australia. these two additional signals, four in total now. >> reporter: yeah, i did speak with one relative, rosemary, about the latest developments on the two additional ping events.

and he said it is a step towards possibly finding an answer. but again, the theme that i keep hearing from the relatives here is that they want confirmation before they really will have any real reaction. because they understand this is an ongoing deep sea operation and this could take days, weeks, perhaps months to really get a concrete answer. so they're exercising caution. and this is something we've seen for the past couple of weeks now. rosemary. >> and totally understood. and several americans who lost relatives in past plane accidents just spoke to chinese families, what did they say, pauline? >> yeah, they just had a meeting with the families here that broke up about an hour ago. and these are americans from an organization, a nonprofit. there were three americans there. one person lost her ex-husband in a plane crash. another woman lost her husband on september÷p.t 11th, her husb

had been working in the world trade center. and another american woman had lost her parents when she was only 5 years old when they were on a plane that exploded over north carolina. and this was an accident that happened more than 50 years ago. they came here to give advice and to give guidance to the chinese families. and their advice was keep asking questions. keep pressing the investigators. keep pressing the searchers for what has happened. but they also said you're going to have to exercise patience. and one of the americans said that it took her more than 20 years to find out any sort of definitive answer to what happened to her loved ones, rosemary. >> yes, some critical advice there, pauline chiao reporting from beijing. and cnn is reporting with continuous coverage, with great leads. >> yes, two new pings, they are

optimistic the plane will be found. we'll tell you what is next in the hunt for the boeing 777. is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection. and because usaa's commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve.

following significant new developments in the search for mh-370 this hour. authorities say that the search and hunt for the missing jetliner have acquired data from

the flight recorder. >> boosting confidence, they were so close to confirm thinking was mh-370 that is because the search vessel ocean shield picked up pulse signals twice tuesday, the first lasting five and a half minutes, the second, a full seven minutes. >> authorities say it is still too early to tell whether the pinger signals are coming from the wreckage of malaysian airlines flight 370. the search area is being refined based on the signal detections. >> and officials say it is still too soon to deploy the navy's bluefin-21, the deep water search vehicle. let's get more on the information now from new york. >> he has contributed to flying magazine and he joins us as we said from cnn new york. thank you for sticking around and talking with us, because this is such big news coming from australia. this is what they have been

waiting for. when acquired yesterday, now the two additional signals make it four in total. what does this tell you? >> well, listen, i'm a rose colored glass kind of guy, especially with all the assets deployed out there. quietly i said to myself they're going to re-acquire the signal and they have. watching marshal houston this evening was encouraging in and of itself. all the press briefings that i've seen him give prior to that he just seemed a lot more relaxed tonight. this is great. news. he is being very diplomatic. he doesn't want to give the families or the rest of us in the world you know, any expectations just in case by chance this might not be it. but i'm very encouraged that this is what we're looking at. you can just kind of tell. to add to what miles o'brien was saying earlier if you can put the chart up, while miles was there, with reference to the pinger locations.

he didn't have reference to the map apparently where he was with distance. i can tell you, there you go with the map. between one and two, just using a rough estimate it was about 12 kilometers between the pinger signals and between two and three was just about 15 kilometers. and then, between three and then the fourth pinger was actually nine. my understanding -- this is my area of -- is not my area of expertise, but strange things happen under water. it doesn't quite seem like a pattern. i think definitely for what all the other experts that know about this, it is just wonderful that this -- you know, it sounds very positive. and to me as a pilot when we look at the inmarsat calculations that i think were just brilliant and clever, and all the people that are involved with this whole project this is going to confirm a lot of things where the impact zone was. it will probably take all of those assumptions and calculations and they will be

able to draw back and say hey, this was the speed it was traveling and therefore this was the altitude it was at. a lot of interesting things will happen just even before we pick up the black boxes and even before actual wreckage is sighted. so that is kind of an interesting way of looking at it. >> and as you were speaking we showed yet another map which kind of put them on a time line, all the different search areas that officials have looked over for the past month. this is day 33. it has taken many different nations and coordination, the u.s. sending its towed ping locater to the australian vessel. before we get to the black box which could tell us what happened and caused the flight to end in the indian ocean, already how might what we've seen change in the aviation industry? >> that is a great question. i think you know, we're going to have to discover more on what got the airplane to this point.

but just by mere virtue of the fact that we lost the airplane is probably going to put us -- with more data type streaming, more realtime so that we don't end up with the situation again. i mean, there are a lot of parts of the world including south america which i have flown on quite a few occasions that you lose radar contact. you are experienced. you know that this happens. sometimes the vhf frequencies, the normal radio frequencies we talk over are poor quality. so it is hard to change all that. but with the automation that we have, we should be able to solve those type of problems. and that is what will come of that. >> and les, it was fascinating what you were saying. the distance between each of those pings, so basically from the four that you have even if there was not another one,

mathematics could help in ascertaining where these black boxes are? >> well, where miles said earlier in the program for folks who had not tuned in earlier it sounds the more they get these pings and this data, the narrower the search is going to be and the closer and tighter the areas. and that will save a lot of times for these automatic underwater vehicles that will be the next project. and indication in the discussion that we're having earlier here in the states with the anderson cooper was that this may be -- rather than a few weeks, this may be a few days where they will be deployed. and this is reading between the lines. but this is what it sounds like to me. >> and just to explain to the viewers the map you see on the screen now is showing the lost hand shake, the image they provided to satellites, cross

referenced with the current aerial zone. that is where the aircraft is searching for debris. and you will also see highlighted along the last few handshakes where the pingers have been detected. les, he has flown boeings, i really appreciate your in sight. >> happy to be here. >> yes, a lot of cautious optimism we're hearing. and of course, angus houston, a military man. he has gone so close to saying they have pretty much found the aircraft without saying it at all. he is just being very sensitive to the families. >> all right, we're going to take a short break, new signals, new hope of finding the missing airliner. >> we will bring you more in the encouraging turn for flight 370. stay with us. + lomb. as you age, eyes can lose vital nutrients.

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...and unleashes wrath. ♪ temptation comes in many heart-pounding forms. but only one letter. "f". the performance marque from lexus. all right, welcome back to us, a we recap our breaking news, the head of the australian search operation says he is optimistic malaysian airlines flight 370 will be found in the not-too-distant future. >> and that is because authorities have re-acquired data. >> analysis of the first two signals acquired over the weekend shows they are not of natural origin. that is significant of course.

they are believed to be consistent with those of a flight data recorder. >> but officials say it is still too early to deploy the navy's bluefin deep water robotic search vehicle. they want to further triangulate the black box before they do that. >> yes, it is a very slow process in the underwater vehicle. and officials say this particular area of the ocean bed is heavily covered in silt. >> mr. houston also said there is a weak front moving in. >> yes, it will be complicated. this region, we know very little about the ocean floors, how much of it is being explored. we know 72% of our plan it is covered in oceanins. want to take you to this region, the wallaby plateau, i want to give you a picture where we have

gullies and canyons, and the ocean silt, as much as ten meters in height and thickness. really complicating when it comes to locating the flight data recorder and also debris that may have sunk, where it goes down to 20,000 feet. and ping detection, 7,000 feet deep. in the plateau region, as well. so plenty of range and t topography to work with there. so there is the region where we know it is in the tens of meters as far as thickness is concerned. what a lot of officials here have touched on, when you talk about the meters, 30-plus in silt, the sound will be deflected. as a typical bed rock and sound waves, making it more

complicated to pinpoint exactly what is going on. the cloud cover, minimal, we have a front entering the picture. it is going to skirt by the southern reaches of the search area across this portion. so kpfting clouds to move in. scattered showers to move in. winds looking generally on the commerce side. the vast majority of the strong winds, well to the so the where we really feared. this activity picking up. this point, looking at visibility issues over the next couple of days and at the sea surface of course when you go down to below the sea surface, guys, tens of meters covering the silt in the indian ocean. not only wreaking havoc on the sound visual, but also other areas, as well. >> and the weather has been there the whole way. it has been good weather some days and pretty bad weather other days. we'll see what lies ahead, many thanks, but after a short break

we'll talk to a navy captain and breaking news on the signals being detected. >> that is right. we'll show you what is underneath the surface, we have our correspondents, stay with cnn, we'll bring you the latest on the brand-new development in the search for flight 370. vi

pedram javah this is cnn breaking news. hello and welcome to cnn's continuing coverage of this breaking news on the search for flight 370. i'm rosemary church. and i'm errol barnett. i want to welcome viewers here and around the world. this is an important message, the search debris may be located

from flight 370 in the coming days. >> there were four pings detected, making four since saturday. the analysis of of the first two signals indicated they came from an electronic device and are consistent with the ping of a flight data recorder. now the new development has the officials tightening the focus of the search. >> that is right, 15 aircraft and 14 ships are working a grid of about 75,000 square kilometers. >> but authorities say it is still too soon to deploy the u.s. navy's bluefin robotic search ve%!ñ they do want to define the search area with as many pings as possible before batteries in the plane's beacon die out. meanwhile, search leader angus houston is very cautious. listen. >> what we're picking up is a great lead. okay? we have to visually acquire before we can say this is the final resting place. so there is still a way to go.

but if you had asked me let's say when i arrived last -- last sunday night, i would have been probably more pessimistic than i am now. i am now optimistic that we will find the aircraft or what is left of the aircraft in the not too distant future. >> angus houstongçvav8p there. and let's get more from the search headquarters in perth, australia, erin mcaulifclaughli there and joins us live. and erin, those two signals detected. a great deal of cautious optimism i think we can say. let's listen at what came out of that news conference. >> hi, rosemary, well, certainly

encouraging innie ining news he perth today. angus houston, responsible for spearheading the search, saying they are giving new hope to the search effort, not once but twice. the first occurring yesterday afternoon lasting a total of five minutes, 32 seconds. the second detection occurring yesterday evening lasting a total of seven minutes. now houston did note that these detections were noticeably weaker than the saturday detections which he says was most likely due to the fact that the black box batteries are beginning to expire. we're now on day 32. they were set to expire on day 30. so right now as we speak the australian vessel, the ocean shield is combing those waters in the ladder-like formation trying to detect more signals in narrow down the search field. to get as much information as possible to be able to do that before deploying that underwater

autonomous vehicle. but certainly promising developments out of perth here today. >> so erin, with four signals detected how likely will it be before they can locate the plane and when will they deploy the bluefin vehicle, of course which is a lot slower. and he went over a lot of this information. >> reporter: well, this is a long meticulous process, houston is saying. in the next several days we can expect the towed ping locater to continue combing the waters. they want to be absolutely certain that the battery life of the black box pinger has completely expired. they want to get as much information as possible before deploying the bluefin-21, the autonomous vehicle supplied by the united states. once that goes under water it is as slow as you mentioned, a meticulous, painstaking process. he also mentioned the factor underneath the water is the level of silt on the ocean floor

that could also hamper things. it is not clear what sort of time table we're looking at, rosemary. >> yeah, they seem to be talking in terms of days, which is quite an improvement. erin mclaughlin joining us live from australia, many thanks to you. let's get more on this breaking news from u.s. navy captain matthews. he joins us on the line from perth, australia. what do you make first of all on this development with the two additional pings being detected and the search now desperate ll being narrowed. >> well, it is certainly encouraging to pick up the transmissions from what seems to be a man made device in the general area that we picked it up before. certainly encouraging to be able to detect it again. but we're working to continue to refine the area where we think the beacons might be. where the sources of transmissions might be from so

that we can minimize follow-on search that would need to be conducted by the bluefin-21. >> and how difficult is it to move this towed pinger locater back and forth? angus houston talking about it is actually more submersible as they look for the vehicle. how will they technically try and get another detection? >> right, what we're trying to do is we're trying to narrow down the geographic area. basically what i would like to see is the ability to acquire the signal from whatever is transmitting. and then leave the area, turn around, come back through that same area and pick it up again. that would give me more confidence in this specific location that we then deploy the bluefin-21 to go search. right now, the four detections have been made in you know, relatively close proximity.

however, it is still a pretty large area when you're talking about the sonar searches. and one rule of thumb is it takes me about six days with the bluefin-21 to cover the same area i can cover in a day with the towed ping locater. >> and that is key, because many may wonder, the last signal was four minutes, the last five, the very first signal was two hour, 20 minutes, why not deploy this bluefin vessel while they can detect the signal and triangulate it from there? >> the bluefin-21 does not detect that signal. the bluefin-21 uses an active sonar to transmit and receive signalings. from either side you're talking about 300 meters detection. so the area that it can cover is much reduced compared to the towed pinger locater. now we are concerned that the

batteries will eventually fail on the underwater beacon locaters. so we want to reduce the subsequent area we would need to go search with the bluefin-21. >> right, and we have talked about some of the silt at the ocean's surface there at the bottom of the ocean and a front moving in which could bring some rain. do you know how much time would be left before assets in the area would have to be pulled back or moved? >> no, we certainly watch the weather as it comes. but really the timing factor, we're kind of factored on is about the 45-day point where we can reasonably say that it is likely the beacons have stopped transmitting. we watched the weather on a day to day basis. but i have no requirement right now to move the ships out of the area due to weather. >> yeah, want to be absolutely sure that they get this next detection before the battery runs out. u.s. navy captain mark matthews

on the line with us there from perth. thanks very much. rosy and i will have more for you on the search of missing flight 370 up ahead. >> yes, and for those of you who just joined us we'll replay some key moments for that very dramatic news conference that happened in perth, australia, just a short time ago. stay with us. to buy a passat tdi clean diesel. husband: so it's like two deals in one? salesperson #2: exactly. avo: during the first ever volkswagen tdi clean diesel event, get a great deal on a passat tdi, that gets up to 795 highway miles per tank. and get a $1,000 fuel reward card. it's like two deals in one. hurry in and get a $1,000 fuel reward card and 0.9% apr for 60 months on tdi models.

welcome back to our viewers in the united states and right across the globe we are following significant new

developments in the search for mh-370 this hour. australian authorities say the searchers hunting for the missing jet airliner have re-acquired pings possibly from the data recorder. >> they have picked up shields twice on tuesday, the first one lasted for five and a half minutes, the second for a full seven. >> now, the search coordinator calls it a great lead and says he is confident the plane will be found in the not too distant future. but authorities say they're not ready to confirm. >> they are not ready to deploy the bluefin vehicle you see there, it takes much more time to go underneath the surface. so they want to triangulate before they do that. all of these announcements just developed a few hours ago.

>> yes, angus houston, head of the coordination team, talked about the search, i want you to take a listen on what he had to say. >> today i can report some further encouraging information regarding the search for missing flight mh-370. on monday, i advised that the towed pinger locater deployed by the ocean shield had detected emissions from two black boxes on two separate occasions. i can now tell you that ocean shield has been able to re-acquire the signals on two more occasions. late yesterday afternoon and late last night perth time. the detection yesterday afternoon was held for approximately five minutes and 32 seconds. the detection late last night

was held for approximately seven minutes. ocean shield has now detected four transmissions in the same broad area. yesterday, signals will assist in better defining a reduced and much more manageable search area on the ocean floor. i believe we are searching in the right area, but we need to visually identify aircraft wreckage before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final restingñi place of mh-370. for the sake of the 239 families, this is absolutely imperative. today, the ocean shield is continuing the slow painstaking and methodical work to find the location around the four acoustic detections. we are not yet at the point of

deploying the autonomous underwater vehicle. the better ocean shield can define the area, the easier it will be for the autonomous underwater vehicle to subsequently search for aircraft wreckage. it is important to note that ocean shield can search six times the amount of area with a towed pinger locater than can be done with the sonar on the autonomous underwater vehicle. searching under water is an extremely laborious task. so the more work we can do on the surface with the towed pinger locater to fix the position of the transmission, the less work we will have to do below the surface scouring the sea floor. given the guaranteed shelf life

of the pinger batteries is 30 d days and it is now 33 days since the aircraft went missing it is important that we gather as much information to fix the possible location of the aircraft while the pingers are still transmitting. and further promising information, we have received the results of the data analysis conducted on the signals detected by ocean shield on the first two occasions. this data analysis was conducted by the australian joint acoustic analysis center based at hmas albatross in wales, the center for analysis. the analysis determined that a very stable, distinct and clear signal was detected at 33.331

kilohertz and that it consistently pulsed at a 1.106 second interval. they therefore assess that the transmission was not of natural origin and was likely sourced from specific electronic equipment. they believe the signals to be consistent with the specifications and description of a flight data recorder. after 11 military aircraft, four civil aircraft, and up to 14 ships will assist in today's search. a modified ap-3 c will coordinate with ocean shield in conducting a sonobuoy search in the same vicinity. today, a weak front is moving in

from the southeast and is expected to bring scattered showers. the planned search area is about 75,000 square kilometers. you may have noticed the size of the search area has significantly reduced over the last couple of days. based on ocean shield's detections, we are now searching a much more concentrated area dho drift predications made possible by ocean detection shie b the smaller area has allowed us to base the search in the visual search area. >> you have been listening to angus houston, the head of the australian search effort for flight 370.

he was speaking to reporters in perth just a couple of hours ago. it is coming up to 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. and of course this search continues as they try to find and triangulate with the information they have these four pingers detected now to try and find, locate the mh-370. and another reminder that you can always track fast-moving developments on the missing plane simply by logging onto our website. our address, cnn.com. all right, we are going to take a very short break now. but just ahead, more on what we have been reporting. this new optimism surrounding the search for flight 370. >> yeah, a significant turn of events. we have more details and analysis now on how officials plan to find the airliner in the not too distant future. stay with us. (dad) well, we've been thinking about it and we're just not sure.

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...there's a lot of buyers for a house like yours. (dad) that's good to know. (mom) i'm so excited. i'm errol barnett, with rosemary church. >> now, the head of the australian-led search effort announced that two more underwater ping signals have been heard in the southern indian ocean. they are the first audio signals detected since two were heard on saturday. the latest pulses were picked up on tuesday by the australian vessel, the ocean shield. well, we have an expert on ocean currents with us now. he has been using computer models to map out the possible

path of the debris which he suspects may be floating in some of the world's most treacherous seas. >> that is right, he joins us now from perth. a professor at the university of western australia. we have a couple of maps showing the aerial search zone and the location of the pings. walk us through the massive challenges they still will face as they try and confirm this is mh-370. >> okay, so let me explain the search. they found two signals. that means that they actually are getting the signals from both the -- the voice recorder as well as the flight recorder. so that is a good indication that they're actually in the area and the wreckage is there. so what they actually have to do. by using these beacons, and the

locaters, you actually serve at the area and hopefully the batteries will last. and they can actually come very closely to the location of that -- where the signal is coming from. maybe as close as one kilometer radius, once they do that they will release the bluefin to go down to the depths. the depths there is four and a half thousand meters. so 15,000 feet. very deep. and they will survey the sea bed. so it will take acoustic signals and survey the sea bed which will actually show how the wreck is scattered. then, they will have to put a submersible to go and pick up the debris from the sea bed. >> now, with the information that you have got there -- and it is interesting what you were saying. you feel that both the boxes are giving off signals. we were hearing earlier that there is a possibility that only one of them is actually emitting a signal.

but that is probably up for discussion. but when you look at the information they have so far, these four signals in total now what would you do as far as calculations and possibly determining where the likely location would be? is that sufficient information for you to start trying to map out and get an idea as far as currents go? any possibility on location? is there enough information at this point? >> well, one of the reports on saturday said that they actually almost went through the pathway off the beacon. so what happens is as the ship goes through you can actually see the signal getting stronger, and then the signal getting weaker. just like the effect we were talking about before. so that actually tells you that the ship has gone through let's

say a cross section of the system. it might be to the left or right but has actually crossed the location. so what they do is go and repeat the signal so that they can actually zoom in on that particular location. >> so then considering that you have been using computer models, we're talking math here, statistic statistics, science, angus houston was trying to be very reluctant to confirm that the information they had was coming from mh-370. but is it from the map, they know exactly where the signals were from and they know where to go? >> well, they're still reluctant. they want to be certain. so it is a question, i'm sure they know within a good accuracy. let's say that they know within 100 kilometers where it is. then they would actually try to come back as small as possible in that window that they have before the batteries go out. they can come to zero in, and

they probably haven't done that yet because the signals are not as continuous as what you would actually have. so they are trying to -- rather than putting the bluefin to search, they're narrowing the search area. that is what they want to do. >> yeah, of course, there is always the possibility that there won't be another signal. they don't know at this point. and we're past the 30 days of the black box giving the signal. we're still hearing the positive news there. if they do actually locate the black boxes but there is not a lot of debris, are you able to calculate where they are with the currents to find the rest of the aircraft? >> well, what actually happens is that once the planes -- let's say the plane is impacted with the ocean. and basically it sinks, the currents are very small. it would have very negligible

effects. so they basically would have gone down almost vertically in the system. so what we don't know is how is the actual crash? did it disintegrate? those are the questions we don't know yet. and that is what they would only know by going and surveying and looking at the areas on the sea bed where the plane might be lying. >> but really stunning when you consider the search zone at one point encompass the northern and southernñr hemisphere, they narrowed it down to as you said maybe 100 kilometers. and all of that without any confirmed debris from mh-370. thank you very much for your time here, professor, the coastal oceanography. >> all right, well, cnn, matthew

chance is flying on board one of the search planes right now. he is on an 11-hour mission on board a new zealand aircraft. expected to return to perth in the next three hours. >> that is right, depending only the conditions we heard there is rain moving in. this plane will spend between three and five hours searching for debris. you can bet we'll check in with matthew later in the day as he reports back to us on what officials have seen. but for now, this concludes this hour of cnn, i'm errol barnett. >> and i'm rosemary church, right now on cnn, do stick with us.

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>> hello and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm errol barnett. and i'm rosemary church. you're watching the breaking news coverage of the mystery of flight 370, and there is no new hope this hour that malaysia flight 370 could be found within a matter of days. >> that's right, two more underwater signal pings have been detected. that makes four since saturday. the search leader made the announcement. listen to this. >> today i can report some further