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 370. to hear him tell it, crews have

a very good idea where the plane's black boxes are even as they keep scrambling to pick up some more locator signals. our correspondents are following all the new developments around the world. we also have our team of experts here in the "situation room." to explain where the search and the investigation stand right now. let's go to aviation correspondent rene marsh for the very latest. >> wolf, as you said, to hear him tell it, prime minister of australia, you'd think a breakthrough is right around the corner. tony abbott is in china to update china's president on the search for flight 370, but it's his tone about how things are progressing that's receiving a lot of attention. forget cautious optimism. australian prime minister tony abbott is oozing confidence. >> we have very much narrowed down the search area, and we are very confident that the signals that we are directing are from the black box on mh-370.

>> we are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometers. >> reporter: his tone stronger and more upbeat compared to the careful wording two days ago from the man coordinating the search. >> i think that we're looking in the right area, but i'm not prepared to say, to confirm anything until such time as somebody lays eyes on the wreckage. >> reporter: but with rumors flying, the black boxes were located overnight, angus houston released a statement saying, "there has been no major breakthrough in the search for mh-370." over the past week, ocean shield detected four pings within about 15 miles of each other. excitement over a possible fifth ping vanished overnight. the signal a sonabuoy picked up was not from the plane's black boxes. >> the signal from what we are very confident is the black boxes is starting to fade.

>> reporter: it's now 35 days since the plane went missing, five days beyond the battery's required shelf life. >> we call it bonus time. the battery is going to start to degrade. it sounds like we're in that period right now. >> reporter: as we prepare to enter week six, no wreckage, no debris, no tangible evidence. just four pulsing sounds fueling hope. crews were once searching all over the indian ocean. now they're looking for debris in zones the size of new hampshire and vermont combined. searching the ocean floor with an underwater vehicle could be days away. and the chinese have moved on from the area where one of their patrol boats picked up pinging sounds. they are now focused on the 18,000 square mile search area where crews are looking on the surface for debris. wolf? >> rene, stand by. there's now confusion today from malaysian officials. they're sending mixed messages about the flight 370 investigation and who is and isn't under suspicion right now.

justice correspondent pamela brown is following this part of the story. what are you learning, pamela? there once again, wolf, conflicting statements coming from malaysian authorities about the investigation into the passengers and crew onboard flight 37 o. this as cnn is learning an internal sbainvestigation is un way in malaysia to figure out why officials from different agencies missed key opportunities to track the plane. the defense and acting transport minister making it clear once again to sky news thursday that, "everyone onboard remains under suspicion as it stands." just last week the police chief suggested the investigation is much more narrow. >> only the passengers have been cleared. the rest, no. >> reporter: the mixed messages from different agencies out of malaysia compounding the confusion about the missing plane and stumping both law enforcement and aviation experts in the u.s. as far as u.s. officials are concerned, no one has been ruled out including the passengers. >> i'm a little bit surprised

that they stopped at, you know, two or three weeks and said, yeah, we don't have a problem with anybody onboard the airplane. >> reporter: the malaysian defense minister acknowledging to sky news lessons have been learned calling the plane's disappearance, "an unprecedented situation." >> there are cultural differences. there are times when we are lost in translation. and basically i'm not saying that we handled it perfectly. >> reporter: malaysia's government says it's now investigating, itself, trying to figure out how different agencies completely dropped the ball on tracking the plane, according to reuters. missed opportunities that may have wasted precious time searching the wrong ocean, far from where the plane is now believed to be. but at the same time, malaysian authorities are refuting cnn reporting that the air force failed to inform search and rescue operations for three daydays that the plane had made a westward turn. >> wolf, malaysian and u.s. authorities are still digging into the five hard drives from

the captain and co-pilot, but as of right now, authorities we're speaking with, sources saying they're still nothing too suspicious jumping out at them. they're still trying to put everything into context. this investigation continues here in the u.s. and elsewhere. wolf? >> take another look at those hard drives which is smart. thanks very much, pamela, for that. let's go to perth, australia, right now, the base of the search operation. michael holmes is on the scene for us. what's the latest there, michael? >> reporter: yeah, wolf, dawn just about to break here in western australia. you know, it's five weeks now, five weeks today since that plane went missing and it's hard to believe there hasn't been any visual confirmation, no visual sightings of wreckage, just those pings. the four pings that everyone seems to be pretty certain comes from those flight data recorders. there was that fifth ping that we heard about from the sonabuoys that were dropped from the aircraft. that has now pretty much been discounted as being from the flight recorders, but they're

ever trying to narrow down that search area as much as they can. try to pinpoint where this wreckage might be. you've got the ocean shield out there still towing the ping locator, trying to get one more ping or two more pings so they can further triangulate and narrow down the search area any further. the batteries, of course, well, they were designed to last 30 days. it's day 36 now. so hopes of finding, they'll get much more in the way of pings. then, of course, wuoncethy star to search down there with that submersible, the bluefin, that's going to be a long and tedious process. it takes pretty much a day to get it down there, back up and have a look at the data and doesn't count going down with a recovery vehicle were they to find anything. this is still a very, very long process, wolf. >> certainly is. michael holmes on the scene in perth, australia. let's bring in our panel. aviation correspondent rene marsh still with us along with aviation analyst miles o'brien,

peter goelz, law enforcement analyst, tom fuentes. you've worked, tom, with the law enforcement authorities. the mixed messages from the police inspector general, the defense minister who's the acting transport minister. how do you explain that, whether or not the passengers have been cleared or haven't been cleared? >> i don't no how we explain it. you know, when they made the announcement earlier that the passengers were cleared, i just said right then, that's not possible. i've been involved in so many investigations. you can't clear anybody that fast of anything. so, to be able to make a statement like that, i thought was unusual at the time and now we're hearing more correcting statement that they have to look at everybody and they're still going to be looking at everybody. >> sometimes you do in these kinds of investigations get different statements from military officials as opposed to civilian officials. >> depending how the civil aviation situation is structured, the military sometimes controls portions of it. civilians the other part. same thing was true in brazil

where brazil handled the air traffic control. there can be miscommunication between the two agencies. >> what are you hearing, rene, about this investigation, especially this known now, pamela brown just reported it, that they're going back and looking at the hard drives, the computers from the pilot, the co-pilot, the fbi has had custody of all of that. they didn't see anything suspicious, but now maybe there's reason to take another look. >> right, taking another look is good, but here's the bottom line really when it comes in this criminal investigation. tom, you can probably tell me if i'm wrong on this. but essentially they're spinning their wheels until they get some tangible evidence that shows or points to some sort of motive. until they have that, it really is hard to say, you know, whether we're going this way or going that way. so at this point, they're right to go through whatever tangible evidence that they do have to see was there something -- >> have you heard anything, miles, at all, to raise fresh suspicions as far as passengers and crew members are concerned

to take another look at some of this? >> you know, what's interesting, when they summarily discounted everybody behind the cockpit so to speak, it seems at that time there was a tremendous rush to judgment to implicate the captain, it was all this subtle and not so subtle statements about the captain's potential motivati motivations. clear he there was a rush to judgme judgment. it's good to see them walking this back, but at this point, who knows where this investigation is. it seems as if it's been a mess from the beginning. >> all right, guys, stand by for a moment. we're getting a live update now from australia. geoffrey thomas is joining us once again. he's editor in chief of airlineratings.com. what are you hearing, geoffrey, if anything, about re-examining the hard drives that the fbi was looking at for the pilot and the co-pilot? the fact that now the acting transport minister in malaysia saying the passengers have not been cleared necessarily. even though the inspector swr o general of malaysian police

force the other day said they had been cleared. what's going on based on the information you're getting? >> it's very interesting, wolf. they've investigated the passengers twice and the crew twiced. they've twice been cleared and now they're re-examining it. i guess the bottom line here, until as has been said, until we get something concrete, everybody probably still remains under suspicion because, you know, when it comes to things like, say, hypothetically a suicide-type situation, in many, many cases, nobody knows that situation's evolving with that particular person until it actually happened. so, i mean, and not that we're suggesting that at all, but that's just one scenario that's out there. but, look, there are all sorts of fragments of information in this investigation from the malaysians which is really causing all sorts of twists and turns in this particular investigation. and really in many ways it's

quite unhelpful that we are getting all these fragments and nothing definitive. >> you know the prime minister of australia, tony abbotabbott. he's very, very confident that they're on to it. they think they're going to find at least one of those black boxes. explain his optimism to our viewers. >> yes. for tony abbott, he's a very considerate man. for him to say he is very confident that we are on to -- the pings are from mh-370 gives rise for optimism that there's more to it than he's actually saying. and, in fact, he did tell media in shanghai yesterday that he wouldn't give any more detail until he had briefed the president of china. so there is a sense that there is a little bit more to his confidence than we are aware of,

and i've been speaking to officials here in australia. there is, indeed, a very strong confidence, but, of course, at the same time, they don't want to raise expectations out of consideration for the relatives and loved ones left behind because there's been so many false hopes earlier on in the investigation, and they're ultra cautious about what they say. >> let me bring tom back into this conversation. tom fuentes, former assistant director of the fbi. first several days of this entire disappearance of this plane were clearly wasted in part, we believe these latest reports including this report from "reuters" because one hand of the malaysian government wasn't sharing information with the other hand. >> well, apparently that's true. the civil aviation authorities didn't notify the defense, we're missing an airplane. then the defense, we're not sure what they did and how soon it took them to figure out a plane that was unidentified crossed their airspace. we don't know the delay there. we don't know for sure whether

they dispatched jets to look for it or not. so there's really a lot of confusi confusion, still, about what the civil aviation authorities in kuala lumpur did with their own defense ministry and with hanoi, with the ho chi minh air traffic control. >> peter, you're still under the strong assumption this was some criminal action by a person or a persons. not some sort of mechanical failure. >> i am. i think you can't explain the way the plane acted following the last signoff. so, if those facts are true, then it's got to be something in the cockpit and we don't know who or what. >> is that your assumption, miles? >> it's so hard to come up with mechanical scenario. even sabotage, small bomb. to have the sequence of failures, communication fail use all occur as they did and the way the flight path went, it's very hard to conjure it up. it's not impossible, but it's hard. >> that's what i'm hearing from u.s. sources. i'm wondering, rene, if you're hearing the same thing.

certainly a tiny, tiny possibility of a catastrophic failure, but most likely some person was responsible for this disappearance. >> yeah, because, you know, the question just keeps on coming up, if it was mechanical, what could it have been that they did not have enough time to communicate something was wrong with the plane? so to everyone else's point, things just don't add up, but, again, we really don't know. >> hard to believe. five weeks, jeffregeoffrey. let's go back to perth. geoffrey, what's your assessment? is it almost certainly a criminal act? >> look, indeed, wolf. it is absolutely no question from all the people i've talked to. a number of check captains, 777 check captains. there's one other element to this, one other element. that is, could this have been a hijacking gone wrong and could those hijackers have smuggled themselves onboard and hidden in the main equipment bay underneath the galley, through a trap door, just behind the cockpit? because you can disconnect the

transponder, you can disconnect acars from down in that main equipment bay. so that's the one inponderable. people have been smuggled on airplanes before, and malaysian authorities say they have checked out, you know, various ground workers. they kind of cleared them as well. but, who knows. >> have you thaeheard that theo miles? >> it's out there. the electronics bay, has significant breakers in there, including the flight data recorder as well and cockpit voice recorder breakers. beneath the cockpit. through a hatch that's actually outside the cockpit door. you have to pull up some carpet to get in it. it is accessible in flight, but not easily. the question is, was there somebody in there during takeoff? that's a question that comes up time and again. >> from the beginning, tom, you've always said they shouldn't just be investigating people on the plane, whether the crew or the passengers, they should be investigating everyone who had access to that plane

before it took off, ground personnel as well. >> right, wolf. even more than that, i was saying early on they need the security camera recordings for the perimeter security of the airport because you could have people that aren't employees breach the security, get into that aircraft, and we just recently had a plane land at dull dulles airport in washington. when the wheels came down, a body fell out. so it's possible to stow away and not be an employee, not be a ground crew workers. all of those factors have to be looked at. we talked early on about an intruder into cockpit. that's why i was frankly shocked when they cleared the passengers. r you have human hands believed to have flown that plane in the manner and direction it went. so it's either the pilots, the crew, or the passengers. >> malaysia, kuala lumpur, they have sophisticated closed-circuit tv cameras all over the place. you'd think they'd be looking at those videotapes right now.

>> well, we assume that's one of the first things they did was review the tape systems, and if they saw something, we would have known about it. we haven't hard that yet. >> right. >> the tape, that's when we saw the video of the two men who got on to the airplane with the stolen passports. >> that time of night, this is a busy airport. you're going to have a beehive. you're going to have people running all around on that tarmac and the caterers, the luggage handlers, trucks coming and going. that's not the easiest task in the world to look at those tapes. >> the achilles' heel of any airport is the backside of the airport, workers, people, caterers, that kind of thing. >> if something like this had happened, he would have had to have, or she would have had to have help and we haven't heard any -- >> all right, guys, we're going to continue our analysis of what's going on. thanks to all of you. geoffrey thomas, thanks to you in perth, australia, as well. still ahead, can malaysia handle the investigation into the black boxes? when and if they're recovered? new information coming into the "situation room" right now. when it's donut friday at the office

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"crossfire" won't be seen tonight so we can bring you more of our special coverage of the flight 370 mystery. malaysia flight 370 was due to arrive in beijing at exactly this hour five weeks ago. and its mysterious disappearance as gripped the world ever since. australia's prime minister now says search officials are very confident they're picking up signals from the plane's voice and data recorders, but what

happens once they're finally recovered? our senior correspondent joe johns is joining us from kuala lumpur right now. he's got more. what are you hearing about the fate of that black box or both black boxes once they're discovered, joe? >> reporter: well, wolf, retrieving information from the black boxes can be a tough job, and for days now, the question has been who's going to do it? now we're learning the malaysian government is not planning to try to do all of the work by itself. over two dozen countries have been involved in the search for the missing plane. any hope of unraveling the mystery and the fate of its 239 passengers and crew rests in two boxes, the flight and data recorders. >> we have more muvery much nar down the search area and we're very confident the signals we are detecting are from the black box on mh-370.

>> reporter: if they find them, the question remains who gets the black boxes and who will lead the investigation to uncover what really happened to flight 370? typically following a crash, the country of origin for the airliner, in this case malaysia, is tasked with taking charge of the investigation. but malaysian authorities have already asked for help. >> we don't have the expert to open up the black box and to analyze what are the contents of the black box, the voice data and the flight data. we have to get experts to do it for us. >> the u.s. national transportation safety board and the british air accident investigation branch as well as australian authorities each have capabilities with sophisticated labs and technicians, but an international working group of experts has also been suggested. if they are found, decoding the black boxes could be complicated. the boxes are built to withstand extreme conditions, including fire and heat damage. depending on the circumstances

of the crash, memory hips extracted from the data recorders could still be damaged and might require cleaning until the raw data begins to paint a picture of what happened. >> we still don't know what condition they're in. and they've been sitting on bottom of the ocean under extreme pressure for, you know, weeks, perhaps months by the time we get them up. the water could have caused some deterioration of the circuitry. you just need to be careful when you first download it. if you screw it up, you may lose vital data. >> reporter: and time is now a vicious enemy. >> the batteries are starting to fade, and as a consequence, the signal is becoming weaker. >> reporter: even if authorities retrieve the black boxes, there's another worry. cockpit voice recorders run on a loop and a lot of critical information and audio can be

erased even before investigators get a chance to hear it. wolf? >> joe johns in kuala lumpur. good report. thank you. let's bring back our aviation correspondent, richard quest. richard, of all the countries involved in the search, who do you believe should get first crack at that black box if it's found? >> reporter: well, it's going to be one of the big major countries that have huge expertise in this area. so i guess you're looking at australian where the atsb is enormously experienced. the british where the waaip, the ben french, or, of course, the united states with the ntsb. today are the countries that would would look at initially because they have had -- there are many countries who can do it. the ones who have really pulled together, pulled apart a black box before and extracted data in very exceptional circumstances. it might be, for example, this might be the perfect one for the

b.e.a. of france which extracted the data on air france 447. it will be complicated and difficult. >> it's a british -- excuse me, it's a u.s.-made plane. it's a boeing 777, but it was owned by malaysia airlines. so it's a little complicated. what i hear you saying, though, richard, under no circumstances given their lack of experience in dealing with this sophisticated black box like this should malaysia get first crack at it. >> malaysia wouldn't want to, i wouldn't imagine. this isn't something that you tinker about with. you don't have a go at it. the malaysian investigative authority will know immediately whether or not they are equipped to decode the black box. and the other point to bear in mind, it is quite common to investigating countries to send the data box to one of the major centers where the data is extracted. one other thing, wolf, don't forget all these other countries

are ayccredited to the investigation. the u.s. is accredited. the uk will be accredited. australia will be. china will be. they'll all be sitting in the room watching the investigation closely. >> remind our viewers of what happened back when in 2012 when malaysia actually lost a cockpit voice recorder, one of those black boxes. what happened? >> all right. this is the report. it came out this week. it's a malaysian airlines 747. and what happened was the aircraft had a faulty engine upon takeoff from heathrow. the plane landed. they didn't lose the cockpit voice recorder. what they didn't do was pull the plug on it. so it continued recording. remember, wolf, it only records for two hours. and because they didn't stop the recording, it went over that which is the investigators wanted. they got a slap on the wrists

from the british aaip. operator procedures for preservation were not sufficient in the case of an incident. revised procedures require the commander to secure the recordings. in other words, if you think there's going to be a need for the cockpit voice recorder, you pull the plug so that it doesn't continue to record over it. a smack on the wrists. >> they lost the data from that cockpit voice recorder. the actual box, they had, but it was useless since they let it record over those two hours, those final two hours. the "reuters" news agency has a detailed report on the blunders, i guess that's the only word you can use, that caused a huge delay in the search looking in the wrong place among other things, the malaysian government did not scramble jets. once that plane, a boeing 777 was missing. listen to what one source told "reuters." "when we were alerted, we got

our boys to check the military radar. we noticed 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 back to penang" which is, what, indonesia. what's going on over here? how do you explain this particular blunder, this miscommunication? >> there's no doubt that this is but to use the phrase the smoking gun. what did -- everything else is incidental. names, captains, good nights. this is the smoking gun. what did happen with the military when they were told about what was happening? >> and so they just -- obviously a plane goes missing, 239 people onboard. and nobody's paying very much attention to that for several critical, critical hours. richard quest, thanks very much. just ahead, a closer look at some of the high-tech equipment being used right now to search for flight 370. including those sonabuoys.

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some of the most sophisticated equipment in the world is being used right now in an effort to find malaysia airlines flight 370 which went missing exactly, exactly five weeks ago. cnn's tom foreman is here with a closer look at some of this equipment. what are you seeing there? >> wolf, one of the first things they're trying to do is get all the equipment off the top of water so only the specialized gear is there so nothing is interfering with it. for example, this towed pinger locator, this had been the one thing that's produced real results so far. all four of the pings that count have come from this. there are many other tools considered as well. for example, sonabuoys are being dropped out there, meant for detecting submarines. one of these picked up a ping but discounted that as in the one that matters right now. beyond that, we talk an the bluefin-21, robotic device for mapping the bottom. it won't be listening for anything. it will simply map the bottom so they can get a picture once they

narrowed in on a close enough ar area. then if we get to this point, you might see other things, for example, the alvin, which could take a human being down there to take eyes on target and look at it or yoond that to the remora 6,000, the type of robot they used with air france to retrieve things from the bottom. right now, wolf, right now all of this technology is poised but only parts of it has been deployed at this moment. and as they move forward, they'll see how they can add more and more to this armada and hopefully, hopefully leads to the actual wreckage. wolf? >> all right. tom, thank you. let's dig deeper right now with colleen keller, senior analyst with the scientific consulting firm metron and worked on the search for air france flight 447. are you very confident those four pings were, in fact, coming from at least one, if not both of those black boxes, colleen? >> well, i have to trust the experts, wolf. they've told us that they've analyzed the signals, they've shown them to the people that

make the beacons, and they verified that it looks like the beacon signal. the one sonabuoy ping that we did pick up appears to have been discarded. i assume they did a signal analysis on it and determined it didn't meet the profile. i'm going to defer to the experts here, they've seen the data. >> who's going to decide the batteries on the black boxes are definitely dead? who's going to decide when those batteries are certainly dead? and that they're going to submerge that bluefin-21 to do a check on the bottom of the ocean there? >> well, i assume they'll zdefe to the folks on the ship. it's the navy and the folks from phoenix international that are actually running the towed pinger locaters. they probably have talked to the beacon manufacturers and they've heard between 30 and 40 days is all that we can expect. for all we know, the beacons are done or they could be just getting so faint that we're not

close enough to hear them at this point but we're predicting that by mid next week you'll see them switch operations, reel in the towed pinger locator and go to the underwater submersibles, the bluefin. >> the bluefin-21. how fragile is that equipment given the nature of the water? it's going to be going down two, three, maybe four miles. >> well, it's built to withstand the pressures at depths, but it's not built to ram into rocks. there is a need to understand what's on the bottom before you put this submarine down there. they would typically map the bottom to get a good idea of what kind of terrain they're looking at so they can determine a flight profile for the submarine flying underwater obviously. i don't know if they're going to take that step. it would be a very cautious step. if you think about it, we only have one of these vehicles in theater, so we don't want to lose it. we don't want to damage it. we definitely want to use it as cautiously as possible. frankly, there's not a huge rush

here. i mean, we want to find the wreckage. we want to do it as methodically as possible and expeditiously, but at this point, we're just recovering wreckage. we're not rescuing people. so we should do this cautiously. >> a lot of experts have suggested there's some thick silt at the ocean bottom over there on the floor that could really complicate this search. what are you hearing about that? >> i really don't know what the bottom's like, but it could very well be silted over and the box could be partially buried, but the fact we're hearing the signals tells me at least something's protruding and working properly and hopefully visible to the submersibles. >> colleen keller, always helping us. thank you very, very much. upcoming, we'll have more on the mystery of flight 370. that's coming up. also an alleged military buildup near the ukrainian border. cnn goes in search of what firm could be an invasion. stay with us. ♪

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we'll have more on the mystery of flight 370 coming up. first, president obama says good-bye to his embattled health secretary and announces his pick to replace her. cnn's athena jones is joining us from the white house with more. athena? >> reporter: wolf, the administration expects this transition to take place next month. the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov's is one of the white house's lowest points. with secretary sebelius leaving, they're hoping they can turn the page on the difficult phase in the implementation of a controversial law. >> kathleen has been here through the long fight to pass the affordable care act. she helped guide its implementation, even when it got rough. >> reporter: president obama bidding farewell to health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius. >> you're now under oath. >> reporter: the face of the administration's rocky rollout

of healthcare.gov. >> hold me accountable for the debacle. i'm responsible. >> reporter: a frequent target of republican critics and late night comedy shows like "saturday night live" which mocked the website's problem. >> how it's been crashing and freezing and shutting down and stalling and not working and breaking and sucking. >> reporter: the glitch plague site bedeviled the administration for months raising doubts about how many people would sign up for insurance by the march 31st deadline. >> she's got bumps, i've got bumps. bruises. >> reporter: just thursday, sebelius told a congressional committee, some 7.5 million people had signed up for coverage. a number the president touted. >> and there were problems, but under kathleen's leadership, her team at hhs turned the corner, got it fixed, got the job done, and the final score speaks for itself. >> reporter: the former kansas

governor spoke about what the hhs post meant to her. >> now, this is the most meaningful work i've ever been a part of. in fact, it's been the cause of my life. >> reporter: the president named budget director sylvia matthews burwell to replace sebelius, highlighting her skills as a manager and calling on the senate to confirm her swiftly. confirmed 96-0 for her current position last year and needs just 51 votes. arizona republican john mccain has already tweeted his support. still, the confirmation hearing will be one more chance for opponents to bash obamacare. and republicans are committed to making obamacare a central part of the midterm elections in the fall. it will be the third election in a row where obamacare is playing a major role. this change at the helm of hhs is not going to change that. one more thing, wolf, during those farewell remarks from secretary sebelius, she said that a page of her speech was missing. it was a glitch that seemed like a metaphor. wolf? >> athena jones at the white

house. thank you. nato secretary general is urging russia to deescalate the situation along the ukrainian border where the united states now estimates up to 40,000 russian troops have massed. it's raising serious fears of a move by moscow potentially to annex parts of eastern ukraine just as the west accuses it of doing with crimea. but russia denies any military buildup at all in the region. cnn's phil black goes there to investigate. >> reporter: we've returned to this remote spot in southwestern russia. the first time we were here, we found a training site, military training site with not a lot of training going on. we've come back because nato released a satellite image which it says proves this location is part of russia's military buildup near the ukrainian border. the photo claims to show tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. other images are labeled motorized infantry. nato says they were captured by a private satellite on march 27th. two weeks later, we can only

trucks coming and going. he tells me he saw many armored vehicles, including tanks arrive here last month. they have carried out exercises and since left. nato also released images which they say showed another side further east outside the town of novochurkesk. here more motorized infantry. again, the pictures are two weeks old. we found this military encampment. it is difficult to make out the size and numbers of the forces back there. we don't want to get too much closer and risk upsetting the local people manning the perimeter. but we can make out at least one armored personnel carrier through the tree line. it's the kaminocvsky training

ground. it's the only place russia has admitted withdrawing troops from since the crisis has begun. they even allowed media to capture the event. that was on march 31st, four days after the nato image was snapped from space. russia's minister announced a battalion of motorized infantry had finished drills here and was returning to its permanent base. russia has always insisted the extra forces in this region are only here to conduct exercises, then they'll go home. nato says the series of fuzzy satellite photos back up its claim there are 40,000 plus russian troops ready to roll across the ukrainian border. here on the ground at russia's western frontier, it is impossible to verify either side's claim. the only certainties are the vastness of the countryside, the poor roads connecting remote communities, and the overwhelming belief among the people here that war with ukraine is unthinkable. phil black, cnn, in the rostov region of southwestern russia.

>> says the united states is violating international law by refusing to issue a visa to tehran's new appointed ambassador to the united nations. the white house says hamid abu will not be given permission to enter the united states because of his ties to the 1979 takeover of the embassy in tehran in which 52 americans were held hostage for 444 days. just ahead, the newest information coming into "the situation room" about the flight 370 search. but first, a look at people who are saving lives and impacting your world. >> actress kat graham is used to being surrounded by fantasy for her role in "vampire diaries." but for her there is no denying the reality of war. i come from refugees on both sides of my family. my grandmother was in the holocaust. >> reporter: graham recently traveled to one of the largest refugee camps in jordan, meeting syrian families who were

displaced by combat hit home. >> seeing so many people that look like me. i could have easily been one of them. the biggest surprise to me is that i was expecting to see these people that were completely broken, people that had lost everything and were hopeless. but instead i saw these people that were resilient. >> reporter: like a young boy named ibrahim. his family was forced to flee syria in such a hurry, he could only grab cards and marbles. >> so after we were done playing with the marbles, ibrahim gave me one. and he only had like eight. and i keep that marble. and i bring it with me everywhere i go. so this is the marble. this little marble. but i feel like it holds the whole world in it for me. there's a saying around here,

you stand behind what you say. around here you don't make excuses. you make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up, and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it when you know where to look. frequent heartburn? the choice is yours. chalky. not chalky. temporary. 24 hour. lots of tablets. one pill.

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[ apple crunches ] fixodent. and forget it. we're following all the new developments in the mystery of flight 370. australia's prime minister says he is very confident, four signals picked up in the indian ocean are indeed coming from the missing jet's black boxes. a fifth possible ping was detected yesterday, but the search for it says it's unlikely that it came from the flight data recorders. remember, you can always follow us on twitter. go ahead, tweet me @wolfblitzer. you can certainly tweet the show @cnnsitroom. watch us live or you can always dvr the show so you won't miss a

moment. that's it for me. thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." "erin burnett outfront" starts in 60 seconds.

next breaking news. an american official tells "outfront" he is confident the pings they have been hearing are from 370's missing black box. plus, new information into the investigation. who investigators are zeroing in on tonight, and more mixed messages on the officials in charge of the search and criminal probe. what is the truth? let's go "outfront." good evening, everyone. i'm erin burnett. and "outfront" on this friday night, we begin with the breaking news. an american naval commander william marks tells me he is confident the pings detected in the indian ocean comes from