and just when you think your journey has reached an end, you'll be surprised to find that it's only just beginning. but you'll keep going because it's your journey, wherever it goes. >> happening now, the mystery of flight 370. >> we are very confident that the signals that we are detecting are from the black box. >> australian's prime minister says the search area has been cut down drastically. i'll speak with australian's ambassador to the united states. probably not a ping. officials say that a signal picked up from a buoy is not a black box.

sonar sonar technicians are sweeping the bottom of the ocean looking for a ping. how do they do it? and how can they fly for so many hours without anyone looking for it. we'll talk about the delay and the dysfunction in the malaysian response. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." right now there's new optimism in the search for flight 370. five weeks after the airliner disappeared, australian's prime minister says that the search area has been cut down significantly and he is very confident that searchers are closing in on one of the two black boxes. more confusion, though, from malaysian authorities a week after the prime minister said that all of the passengers have been cleared. the defense minister said, quote, everyone on board remains under suspicion. air crews are et going ready to resume their hunt for flight 370 which may have drifted hundreds

of miles since the plane went down. our analysts and supporters are standing by here in the united states as well as around the world with the special coverage that only cnn can deliver. michael holmes is joining us from perth, australia. what's the latest there, michael? >> reporter: wolf, predawn here off the coast of perth and soon the aircraft will join them as they do every day being looking for any wreckage on the surface. it's day 36 of the search and they are hoping that they will find something. the confidence is growing they will find something either above or below the surface. >> reporter: crews are relentless. they are searching for the smallest target zone and the hunt for pings from the black boxes is in an area smaller than that. prime minister tony abbott says

he believes the plane's recorders are down there. >> we have very much narrowed down the search area and we are very confident that the signals that we are detecting are from the black box. >> abbott was referring to the four pings picked up between thursday and saturday. a fifth was picked up using a sonobuoy. but after analysis, the search coordinator now says it is unlikely to be related to the aircraft black boxes. crews racing against the clock to try to hear more signals before they are certain that the batteries powering the black box signals are dead. >> the signal, from which we are confident are the black boxes are starting to fade and we are hoping to get as much information as we can before the

signal finally expires. >> the australian prime minister spoke to reporters during a state visit to china where flight 370 was scheduled to land five weeks ago. the grieving families of passengers listened to his tone of confidence with a heavy dose of skepticism. >> every time some official gives one of those absolute statements of we're sure it's the pings from the black box or we're sure it's in the ocean, we all crash as our feet get knocked out from underneath of us. >> i was talking to somebody fairly senior in the state government here and they are hoping that this leads to something, either those flight data recorders or some sort of wreckage. they are already putting in plans for those grieving relatives to come here to western australia and setting up some sort of memorial service for them. even talk here of perhaps a permanent memorial to those who lost their lives here, wolf. >> michael holmes in perth,

australia, thank you. malaysia's response to the did i ace appearance of flight 370 has been marked with dysfunction. how could the plane fly for so many hours without anyone even looking for it. barbara starr has been looking into this part of the story. what are you discovering, barbara? >> wolf, malaysia says it is investigating how its commercial aviation and military authorities did or did not work together in the confusing hours when the plane first disappeared. how is it that they didn't know it perhaps was on radar and then fell off of radar? they didn't understand that a traps responder was turned off and that they waited several hours before sending an aircraft to look for it. this would be considered a failure of the authorities in malaysia to work together and that causes a lot of concern.

because it's all about the security of air space. what if this really was a terrorist attack. of course, we don't know for sure one way or the other right now. that's the kind of thing that the u.s. is looking at. and what officials are telling me is that in this part of asia, there's been a lot of concern for years that countries like malaysia, its neighbors, thailand and indonesia have very weak structures for their commercial aviation and military authorities to work together in malaysia is very embarrassed in the region and very embarrassed in front of china, which, of course, is the military powerhouse in asia right now. >> should be embarrassed. it's hard to imagine, barbara, this playing out in the united states. the plane's transponder were to actually go dark, alarm bells would immediately go off. stuff would happen. >> oh, you bet, wolf. this is the comparison that u.s. military officials are drawing in this country, of course.

after 9/11 especially. commercial air traffic civil aviation authorities and the u.s. military are always in constant touch around the clock. so if there is a situation where a civilian airliner disappears, heaven forbid, of course, the u.s. military knows about it and then does scramble jets. if there's an aircraft flying in restricted air space, they know instantly from the faa, they scramble jets to go up and try and look to see what is going on. it does raise the nightmare scenario that the u.s. military has faced since 9/11 if there is an aircraft that cannot be identified, that ultimate scenario of having to shoot it down. the concern, when they look at places like this area of asia, they didn't seem to know anything about what was going on in their own air space. wolf. >> barbara starr at the pentagon, thank you. let's bring in miles o'brien,

aviation analyst and former ntsb managing director peter goelz along with tom fuentes. tom, you know, they should be embarrassed, the malaysians, by this failure. plane goes missing, transponder is off. it's flying over malaysian air space and basically i sense they are not doing much, if anything? >> no. it's hard to imagine what they are doing about this, wolf, but in fairness, they didn't experience 9/11 and didn't learn from our experience on 9/11 when we were told that the jets were hijacked, jets were scrambled and got to new york just in time to see the smoke coming out of world trade center. we didn't do such a good job on 9/11. we hope we would do better ever since nine neen but they didn't go through that and maybe this is a wake-up call for them to get it. >> apparently there are stories out there, including from reuters, that the left hand of the malaysian government was not talking to the right hand.

explaining this why there was no scrambling of jets. when we were alerted, we got our boys to check the military radar. we noticed that there was an unmarked plane. based on the information we had, we did not send up any jets because it was possibly mechanical problems and the plane might have been going to penang. what does that mean? >> that they were not coordinating closely with the military. it's not as though that air space is not crowded at night. there's a lot of flight activity and the idea that they would just assume that it was going to penang and not try and reach it and not try to figure out what was going on is really unacceptable. >> do you have any explanation of the malaysian failure in this area? >> it's incomprehensible, inconceivable. i do not understand how a primary target going across the land mass, that they didn't attempt to -- there's no indication they this even tried to reach it on the radio. the other thing we're messing here, what was going on in the

ho chi minh city. there's a little gap which is -- creates a potential for this kind of thing. however, 40 minutes to notify the military a primary target going across your land mass and you're not scrambling fighters, you're not even trying to reach that person on the radio -- >> they obviously should have gotten in touch with vietnam because it was heading into vietnam's air space. two minutes after the transponder died. >> and one of the interesting things is vietnam reported that they contacted a malaysian air flight half hour in front of this one and asked them to reach back. we heard one report, they said, well, we heard some mumbling and then dropped. there's been no report to follow up on that. >> the australian prime minister tony abbott is pretty upbeat,

confident that they are going to find one or two of the black boxes. who gets custody, who gets to look at that first? >> well, who gets to look at it is determined by malaysia. it's their case, their airline, their box. >> australian sailors or u.s. sailors or whatever, they have custody of it. >> the chief of police of malaysia just said today they don't have the ex peer teaperti they will have somebody who does have it. malaysia will designate that the australians work with the ntsb and british and french and work together on analysis of that box probably in australia. >> peter, you worked at the ntsb for a long time. whoever gets a crack at it for the first time opening it up, that's critical. if you don't know what you are doing, you can screw that data up? >> that's right. the first read is essentially that it be done right. my guess is, when they get close to getting the boxes, the

malaysians will be on the ship, they will be there but this is going to the australians because they can look at it within six or eight hours. the americans and the malaysians will be there. the malaysians will make announcement but -- >> do the australians have experience dealing with a black box that the ntsb, the u.s. has? >> they are very similar. they have the same kind of equipment. they cross-train. i have full confidence that they can take the lead and the americans will be there with them. >> the u.s. australian cooperation is first rate. so presumably the best u.s. expert, the best australian experts would have the first crack at it? >> there's no impede dense to sharing anything, including secrets. so i think we can presume there will be a close cooperation. >> we heard the fifth ping 24 hours ago we were all obsessed with the fifth ping. it turned out to be nothing. >> we might not hear another ping. the next couple of days we'll see that bluefin, the autonomous vehicle going down and painting the ocean floor. >> wait to make sure the

batteries are completely dead because that bluefin-21 could emit some sounds that could screw up the towed locator pinger? >> right. it's not possible that we're going to hear another one. it's a large area to search and it's going to take some time but at least it's not as large as it used to be. >> is four pings enough to find this box? >> i think they have stated the more the better. so -- >> they have four. one for two hours, one for 15 minutes, two for five or six minutes. is that enough, within a 17-mile span or whatever, to go down three or four miles or whatever to find that box? >> they say it is, it's just going to take longer. the more they can refine the search, the better they can see the bottom with side scan radar. >> the prime minister is confident that they will find the box. >> there was one ping that was 17 miles outside the box. that's pretty hard -- that's an

o outlier. i'd focus my attention on the other three right there. >> the australian ambassadors made a point to us here that malaysia and australia have a very close partnership and he was formerly the australian prime minister. when that black box is found, it's not going to be a tug-of-war between australia and malaysia or australian and the u.s. i think they will make the right decision and have the right experts look at it. >> guys, don't go too far away. aircraft will resume the hunt for debris for flight 370. we have a large update from one of the search commanders the and australian's prime minister says that investigators are very confident that they are closing in on the black box signals. is that optimism justified? the ambassador to australia ken beazley is here in the situation ream. we'll discuss. avo: wherever your journey takes you

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aircraft will soon be taking off again for what has so far been a fruitless occurrence. the latest pinger from the sonobuoy came from the black box. joining me now is kevin mcevoy, who is deeply involved in this search. air commodore, thank you for joining us. any luck in finding any debris at all? >> good evening, wolf. no, unfortunately, the crews were out yesterday and flew

another mission around sort of four hours in the search area. they were looking for debris on the surface and there was nothing significant to report, unfortunately. they will have a rest day today, maintain the aircraft and be back in the air tomorrow. >> as far as you know, no other nation's aircraft has found anything at all. is that right? >> no. there are a number of aircraft that went out, nine aircraft looking in the search area and another two command and control platforms or aircraft, and a similar effort will be applied today but nothing that we could link to the missing aircraft. >> when you ask experts for explanation of why they have not even found a cushion or anything of that plane floating around, what's the explanation that they give you? >> well, i think that there's a number of variables. first of all, the depth. it's around 4.5 kilometers. it's going to take a while for anything to surface. the second thing is, the aircraft state, we're not quite

sure if it's broken up into little pieces or whether there are large chunks. the air france, they managed to find a tail end but off of nova scotia, they found only small pieces, around 2 meters. our crews are well-trained to pick that up and the we're very confident if there's something on the surface, we'll find it. >> miles has a question for you, our aviation analyst. go ahead, miles. >> i'm just curious, 36 days now since the disappearance of this aircraft. how confident are you that you're all searching in the right place? i know oceanographers have a hard time predicting the currents, particularly with this amount of time. >> so, we are very confident that we've been going to the area that we've been tasked from

the australian maritime safety authority and we have been doing this with the joint agency task forces. the drift models from the currents, they will look at satellite imagery and taking the data from the recent ping and joining those dots. so we're confident that we're in the right here, it's just that it's still a very large area, a very challenging search for us and it's day 36, as you said, and still no information. so we'll keep searching. >> well, you do have some information. you have four pings that are believed the prime minister of australia says is believed to have come from one of the two black boxes. the fifth ping, apparently, turned out to be a false alarm. are you convinced that the fourth pings are the real deal? >> well, i don't have specific information and access to the analysis around those pings.

however, angus houston was talking yesterday and discounted one of the pings, which you've said. so unfortunately, i think he termed it as it wasn't the major breakthrough that they were hoping for. we're still confident that the pings will manage to locate the black boxes. it's still a long way to go and we are trying as much as possible to refind that search area. if they can refine the search area, it will make any subsequent recovery much easier. >> air commodore, kevin mcevoy, we'll check back with you. good luck to you, to all of your men and women working in this very, very extensive search. thank you. >> thank you. up next, australia's prime minister says searchers are very confident that signals they picked up are from at least one of the two black boxes from the airline. i'll speak with australia's ambassador to the united states. ken beazley, mr. ambassador,

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we are hearing conflicting statements coming in from various officials, australia's prime minister telling me one thing, the search coordinating suggesting another, another flat-out optimistic about the search, others sounding notes of caution. let's discuss what is going on with australia's prime minister to the united states, ken b beazley, thank you for coming in. >> thank you for having me. >> here's the prime minister of australia speaking about the search. let's listen to this. >> we have very much narrowed down the search area and we are very confident that the signals that we are detecting are from the black box on mh-370. >> very confident. that's very significant. angus houston, i'm sure you know him, he says that there has been no major break through in the search for mh-370. so what is it?

>> major breakthrough is the verification of those four pings and there's been no major breakthrough since then. but insofar as this analysis of the four pings, the prime minister is basing his compliments on the fact that the acoustic has verified to their absolute satisfaction that those came from the black box. exhibiting the same sound characteristics that the blacks box would have emitted on mh-370 and there's been no other aviation events there in the last four or five weeks, it's got to be them. that's why he's confident. >> it's hugely significant. three of the pings came from one area. the fourth came from an area about 17 miles away but -- so you think they could have came from the two separate, the flight data, cockpit voice recorders, two black boxes? >> i myself cannot tell but i go with the prime minister's confidence. and in a sense, if you look at the slight different events and the things that they say, angus

is in charge of the search. he's got to be very careful in everything that he goes through. the prime minister needs to make a call. the prime minister is talking to the chinese. he's been in china recently. he's talking to china, the malaysians, the people that are deeply concerned about this that want to get a sense of the australian government based on its assessment of what has been handed to them by the search teams. that's the prime minister's decision. >> some of the family members, they are a little concerned. this is a son of one of the passengers from the plane told reuters this, if everyone gets shaken up about the news i think i will put them under a lot of pressure. they used the word confident but that really doesn't mean that they have confirmed it. are they negatively raising false hopes for these families? >> no, i don't think so.

he's going with the best advice available to him and the cockpit voice recorders are good advice and -- or the black box, i should say, is good advice and that's why he is saying what he is saying. all of using a nitz for those poor people who are the families of those -- >> including six australians on that plane. >> absolutely. and there is all of the concern in the world for them. but it's also important that they get the judgment of the australian government which is responsible for the search, not the overall -- >> so let's say they find one of the boxes, the flight data recorder like this one. >> yeah. >> who gets custody of it? who opens it up? who goes through the data? >> well, in the first instance, the people who take custody of it would be people who picked it up. >> let's say it's the australians. what do they do with it in. >> the investigators, the people

who are overall involved in the investigation. the malaysian authorities may well choose to ask the australians to examine the content of that and they have the overall direction. >> if malaysia says they have no experience or at least limited experience in dealing with something like this, you would say, yes, you have chain of custody, you take care of it? >> they are our military ally. we spend a lot of time with the malaysians. we have since 1971. we don't have to have conversations like that with them. there would be a sense of a resolution between us and the malaysian government as to how to best handle it. they trust us, we trust them. >> here's something else that raised some eyebrows, the transport defense minister said that everyone remains under suspicion. this is a week after the police chief said that the passengers had all been cleared.

explain. >> this is a problem for the interception of a criminal investigation once it's on the way. a criminal investigation does not proceed in a straight line. it mir ree an ders. if you want to inspect the investigation and i understand why the media and relatives want to do that. what you have to be prepared for is the changes of a line. that happens in any criminal investigation. why wouldn't it happen in this one? >> is there any reason to believe that passengers should be under suspicion? >> i have no idea why they arrived at those conclusions but i have an idea why criminal investigations sometimes change lines. >> ken beazley, thanks very much for coming in. >> it's always good to be with you, wolf. up next, the fifth ping is now being ruled out as anything but a false positive.

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officials are now saying they are, quote, very confident the signals that have been detected are indeed from flight

370's black boxes. this is thanks to the sonar techs and the grueling work that they perform for hours and hours at a time. our brian todd got some rare access to the company that deployed those. he's joining us with are mmore. tell us what you have learned. >> no one knows their names. they spend hours in an isolated space in the middle of the indian ocean often staring at silence. they may have the most important jobs in the entire search effort. the hopes of finding the black boxes for malaysia airline flight 370 day and night there is no break. they are pretty much on all the time and what they do is so important to us. >> we went behind the scenes at phoenix international, the company that made the towed pinger locator.

sonar techs are tasked with listening and listening some more. >> you will spend days listening to nothing and then you may hear a chiropractor but you don't hear another one. so until you can duplicate it and run it back at different angles, only there are you positive that you have it. >> reporter: even then, experts say that sounds in the ocean can play tricks on your ears. >> several people can look at a signal and see different things because all they are recording are sound energy. >> reporter: both positives from research equipment from debris and thermal conditions, from the vessel itself can also play tricks on the techs. but they are trained to weed that out, to block out other sounds and to be disciplined. paul wilson who worked the search for flight air france 447 describes the work as tedious, time devouring. >> there are two shifts. they work 12-hour shifts. the first crew works midnight to noon and the next crew works

noon to midnight. you're monitoring the weather, the seas, and you're sitting in front of this screen hoping and praying that you're going to hear something. >> does it drive them a little stir crazy? >> everyone looks forward to the mealtime. that breaks up the monotomy. >> reporter: some of these techs have been doing this for more than 30 years. >> everybody is so focused on this task at hand that once you know you have it, it's a tremendous feeling. it's -- that's the high. >> reporter: once signals are detected and confirmed, it's reported up the chain of command. top officials make the announcements that we all hear and the techs simply go back to work with us still not knowing their names. wolf? >> brian todd, thank you. let's get more now with former navy oceanographer van gurley. it's been 36 days now. the batteries might be dead, for

all we know, although they are not ready to send the bluefin-21 down to start looking at the bottom of the ocean. >> wolf, everything that we are seeing in how the australians have approached this problem is slow and deliberate. that's what we are seeing right now. they are doing the right thing but they are doing it at their pace. they are going to wait until every last chance that the batteries might still be alive has passed. i think there's going to be several more days in the very slight chance that they have expended it out to 35 or 40 days. then, and only then, will they start the bluefin work. you can't do the two things at the same time. >> because if the bluefin makes noise, that could be confusing to those guys who are listening. the other point, the battery may already be dead but they don't want to take any chances? >> exactly right. in brian's piece, you saw what they are trying to get through. they are listening through headphones and they need a very quiet background. that's why they are keeping all of the other ships out of the

area because any chance of hearing the ping, you want it to be as pristine and quiet so nothing interferes with that. >> the fact that they heard a fifth ping, a false alarm, the fact that they haven't heard any since the first four, that would reinforce the notion that the batteries are most likely dead? >> it's also important that the false positive, the sonobuoy may have had a hit, that's fairly common in sonar work. you look at the accumulation of evidence and how things line up. they are doing it in the right way. >> your assessment is that by next monday, tuesday, wednesday, they send the bluefin-21 down? >> i think by mid-next week they will be done with the tpl searches. there is one step that i haven't heard anyone talk about. >> what is that? >> you want to make sure you have a good idea what the bottom terrain looks like and we don't in this area. they have another ship, the echo, that can give you a general bottom map and they may decide -- i don't know if they will -- but they may decide that they need that before they put

the bluefin close to the bottom. >> they don't want it to get stuck. >> we only have one of those out there. it's very expensive and a sensitive piece of gear. you don't want it to bump into something that you weren't expecting. >> very good point. thanks very much. just ahead, we're only moments from when search planes will take off again. are officials confident that they are getting closer and closer? and malaysian authorities flip-flop again. are the passengers of 370 still under investigation or not? richard quest is standing by live. there he is. ♪ [ banker ] sydney needed some financial guidance so she could take her dream to the next level. so we talked about her options. her valuable assets were staying. and selling her car wouldn't fly.

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very confident. those are the words of the australian prime minister who is optimistic the latest pings are from flight 370's black boxes. but we've heard some words like that before as politicians have again promised again and again that they discovered another, quote, best lead yet. let's discuss what's going on with cnn's richard quest. so he is a politician. is he giving false hope right now? do you believe, richard, to the families? >> no, i don't, wolf. he's the prime minister of australia and he has the information from his own acoustic defense experts and they are the ones who have said that the pings that they have heard have been consistent, they are stable, they are consistent,

they are 1.01 seconds. all of the reasons that you and i have talked about. it's really important to understand he's not saying we know where they are, although he did say it's in a relatively smaller area. he's saying, i'm and i think that's significant because somebody is, the australians have going to have to find it and that's not going to be easy. >> there are confusing statements, though, coming from malaysia. i'll put one of them up on the screen. this is the defense minister, acting transport minister, mudeen who said this. "everyone onboard remains under suspicion as it stands." that's what ma layer's defense minister told sky news earlier in the investigation, though, the police chief, the inspector general of the malaysian police said all 227 passengers onboard that airliner had been cleared. so what's going on here? why are we getting these two

digit statements from malaysian officials? >> it is confusing. it's marginally disturbing. cleavely only one of them can be right. but i think -- i think in this situation, a -- if we look at any story of any magnitude, there are going to be those occasions when if you pick your way across every statement at every time, there will be inconsistencies. i agree with you, wolf, on this one. it's a fairly major matter. you would have expected that the transport minister would have known that the pass engers had been cleared, likewise that the police officer wouldn't have said it in the first place. the police officer said something like all passengers have been cleared or it was words to those effect. ten days between the two. and i guess you just have to put it down to one of those things. we don't know, the circumstances of the question, we don't know how heated the interview. we don't know how long the interview. i choose to put it down to one

of those things. when anybody's statements are being interpreted in a passing forensic fashion, this is going to happen. >> although we did just hear from the australian ambassador to the united states, kim beasley. when i asked him a similar question, seemed to say in an ongoing investigation like this, i'm paraphrasing, attitudes change, assessments change which leads me to believe maybe in the past few days since that initial statement clearing all of the passengers, something has come to light which says, maybe they shouldn't necessarily all be clear. >> a very, very valid point, and kim beasley should know as the former leader of the opposition in australia. but the problem, of course, for you and me, wolf, is how do we get the politicians and the people to be confident to speak without just simply saying, i don't know, i don't know, or i

can't speak? >> richard quest, we'll speak to you the next hour. thank you. coming up, the air search is about to resume. we're going back to perth, australia, live. planes getting ready to hunt once again for debris from flight 370. we'll also have all the latest g developments on the underwater search and malaysia's own investigation into a disaster response marked by delay and confusion. [ male announcer ] when fixed income experts... ♪ ...work with equity experts... ♪ ...who work with regional experts... ♪ ...who work with portfolio management experts, that's when expertise happens. mfs. because there is no expertise without collaboration.

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we're going to get back to the mystery of flight 370 in a moment. first, urgent stories we're monitoring now. ten people are dead after a horrific crash in california. fedex truck crashed the median and slammed head first into a coach bus igniting a fire that engulfed the two vehicles. both drivers were killed along with five high school students and three chaperons. the bus was on its way to visit a college campus. those five students, part of a grow of low-income and first-generation perspective college students. police are investigating the

cause. the pope is asking for forgiveness, pope francis condemned the catholic church's sexual abuse scandal in the strongest terms yet saying he feels compelled to personally ask for forgiveness and pledged to impose penalties on priests and bishops involved in the scandal and cover-up. a vo kates for abuse victims remain skeptical until the church takes action. the rock 'n' roll hall of family are welcoming six new members, all inducted last night at brooklyn's center. the night was very emotional than usual. this year marks the 20th anniversary of the death of front main cobain. surviving members honored his legacy. up next, as aircraft are about to take off for a new day of searching, we'll have all the latest developments in the hunt for flight 370 and the investigation into what went

wrong. the "situation room" continues in 60 seconds.

happening now, our special coverage of the mystery of flight 370. a new show of confidence that searchers are zeroing in on the plane's black boxes even after a new setback. could they will close to a breakthrough right now? malaysia is addressing concerns that it might bungle the investigation of the flight data recorders if and when they're found. plus, suspicion and confusion. have the passengers of flight 370 being cleared of any wrongdoing or not? we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in the "situation room." right now, search planes are ready to take off from australia hours of the country's prime minister gave a surprisingly upbeat account of the hunt for flight 0.