out is that these infectious disease outbreaks keep happening as humans keep going further and further into animals' territories. as someone said to me, it's sought so much as ebola entered our world as we entered its world. you can keep up to date on the reporting and follow us along on twitter @dr.sanjaygupta. we're live from ginlny. but right now stay in touch with cnn, the most trusted name in news. you are in the cnn newsroom. i'm in today for don lemon. the two words that sum up the search for flight 370 this weekend optimism but also patience. australia's prime minister is the world leader closest to this mission. he said commanders feel good about the newest clues they're hearing from the ocean floor but warns it could be a long time before we see any concrete results. one group of people whose

patience has already run out long ago is the families of those on board the airliner. a group of families met again with airline and malaysian officials, the mother of a missing passenger is not happy. she says they keep telling her the same thing. nothing useful. it's still an hour and a half until sunrise in perth, western australia, that's when search planes will take off once again on this the 37th day since flight 370 took off from malaysia and vanished. we'll go straight to perth and cnn's michael holmes. he's there. what can we expect when the sun comes up? we're getting a sense and i think our viewers are probably getting a sense as well that we're settling into a long, slow period in this search now. >> reporter: yeah. you're absolutely right, jim. yeah, those planes will be taking off in the next couple of hours. the first ones are normally the chinese planes. they're the ones that take off from perth airport and australian and new zealand planes will take off. of course, the ships are still out there. they're out there 24/7 at the

moment being resupplied by a u.s. naval ship so they can stay out there and continue the search. you mentioned australia's prime minister, tony abbott, yeah, repeating on saturday that he had a high degree of confidence, his words, that those acoustic sounds that they heard in the ocean are from at least one of the two black boxes from the missing plane. did as you said predict also something that we've been saying for ages that even if those boxes are located, it just begins a massive, massive task of trying to get to them. he also mentioned those families as well and said that if they came to australia, they would be very welcomed. have a listen. >> we would welcome whenever they wish families of the victims to come to australia, and they will find themselves in the arms of a welcoming friend. >> reporter: of course, that's the australian prime minister there. i've been talking to some

contacts of mine in the west australian government here, perth, and they were telling me, too, that they are already making plans for those families to come here at some point. when we don't know. most likely when some sort of confirmation of wreckage or those black boxes is made, when the confirmation is made. they say that they're going to have a memorial service here. they're going to provide for those families. give them ose open arms. there's even talk that there might be a permanent memorial placed here in western australia at some point in the future, jim? >> michael, one question, now that there is concern that the pinger may have run out of batteries and they won't be able to hear the pings anymore, do they, then, switch to using the sonar where they are looking literally at the bottom of the ocean to try to find signs of wreckage? >> reporter: yeah, that's exactly what will happen. they've been waiting until the very last minute. until they absolutely are sure that they won't get another ping, because, of course, the more pings they get, the more

they can triangulate where they are coming from from the earlier pings and narrow down that search area as much as possible. the reason for that is the submersible, the blue fin, when it does go down and it has that side scan sonar and looks at the ocean floor, that thing is really slow. it moves literally at walking pace, so they want to make the search area as narrow as possible. when they have decided those batteries are gone now and that we won't get any more pings, that's when they'll put that down and they'll start what is a very slow, very tedious process of looking at the ocean bottom. then if they find something they've got to get other submersibles in that can do some sort of recovery work. they have different vehicles. so, tony abbott's right when he says this is a massive, massive operation that is very much far from over, jim. >> yeah, no question, listening for those pings really just the first chapter and then you got to look for the wreckage and think about recovering the wreckage, thank you very much to michael holmes in perth,

australia. i want to bring in our expert panel, miles o'brien and aviation consultant and a commercial pilot ken christianson and a former ntsb chairman, and sonar expert arnold carr. i want to start with you, anthony, the pingers' batteries are supposed to last 30 days, normally there's extra time built in, we may be reaching that point now. do you think at this point really the last ping was heard i believe on tuesday, how much longer should search teams, is it worthwhile for search teams to keep on listening for those pings? >> i would continue to do so. the batteries don't die immediately. they die in a gradual sense. so, maybe they can triangulate a little further. it's really important to tighten up that area and make it as small as possible because as was previously just said, when you use the sonar, the side-scan

sonar, which sweeps the bottom very effectively, it's slow, it's tedious. >> yeah. >> usually use the sonar first and we get the pings second. as you know. but we're fortunate to have the pings at this point. >> as michael said, it goes at walking pace, madge walking an area the size of new mexico or arizona. i want to bring in miles in here if we can. let's assume they have as many clues as they're going to get as far as the pings are concerned. i guess you have four points separated by a dozen miles or so. we talk a lot about triangulation. can you explain to our viewers how that process works and how much this information can really allow them to find i guess the crossing point where these various signals cross so that you can zero in as to where the black box is? >> my understanding the purest sense of the word is not triangulation, they are omnidirectional pings. you don't have a beacon you are homing in on. >> it goes in all directions.

>> they go in all directions, what you are doing is tightening up the box, it's just kind of a technical difference, but it's tightening up the box. so as they go about that, that obviously eliminates the need for the autonomous underwater vehicle to map and look for the wreckage itself. when they get into that mode and decide no more pings, we're talking about a long period of time to go through that process. it's six or seven times longer to cover any specific square foot of ocean bottom with the -- the uav as opposed to the device listens for the pingers. they want to use that potential of hearing things up as much as they can. >> ken, i wonder if i can bring you in to describe it. it's onliny directional and it doesn't give you an exact point, but i imagine you particular leigh strength of the signal to guess which one is further away and can guess as to closer, zero in more on the area. but i also know that the signals are crumbed in effect by temperature in the water, current, depth, all this kind of

stuff, so you also have to interpret -- you also have to correct for that as well. this is complicated business. >> it's complicated but the people who are doing it have the background. all the points you just made are very correct. terrain just like a radar would bounce off a mountain, sonar acoustics will bounce off an underground mountain ranges under the water. and they allocate for the signal latency and the strength and they try to keep doing those routes over and over again and then they can get more of a pinpoint like miles was saying, reduce that area where they -- if they do have to put an underwater sonar in there, that's what they'll do. >> it's really comply kated. mary, i wonder if i can bring you in. mary, you've done a number of investigations for the ntsb. for the sake of our viewers, can you give just sort of an estimate what they should be prepared for, for how long this search goes now, right? you got some pings, right? maybe your last pings. then you got to go into a really

slow sonar scanning and a slow recovery, assuming you find wreckage. what kind of time period are we talking about here? >> well, i'll give uf some examples based on previous accidents in the indian ocean and in the java sea over there, adam air went in the java sea and that was in january. they found the wreckage about three weeks later. but they didn't get the black boxes until august. conversely, south african airways went into the indian ocean, the black boxes were under 16,000 feet of water. they got one of them. they only found one, but they got it on the second day. so, the bottom line on those examples is it could be a very, very long time or they could get very fortunate. they could be -- literally use some algorithms on the pings to locate a spot and be right on top of it. but unfortunately there's a little bit of luck involved with a lot of algorithms and we won't know until they get down there

looking how long it will take. it could take a long time. >> credit where credit is due, it's already been an incredible detective story where they found out where this plane went around. thanks very much to the panel. there is no sign of the black box but malaysian police already say they'll need help opening it and decoding it if it is recovered. we'll be live from kuala lumpur right after this. [ male announcer ] nearly 7 million clients.

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any hope of unraveling the mystery and the fate of its 239 passengers and crew is in two boxes, the flight and data recorders. >> 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. >> 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 datas, the voice data and the flight data. we have to get experts to do it for us.

>> reporter: 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. but depending on the circumstances of the crash, memory chips 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 the 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, because 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. >> i want to bring in joe johns, who is live in kuala lumpur, malaysia. joe, as we know, we've reported on this a lot, malaysia is taking a lot of heat for its handling of the investigation across the board. who would they trust with the black box data? you have a real international coalition of countries joining the investigation there. >> reporter: jim, the truth is, from what i can tell, the malaysians have not expressed a preference among those countries i mentioned, the united states, the uk, and australia. we also know this has been a very collaborative effort throughout, with many nations involved in the search. the malaysians have also been very careful to try to include malaysia which is a country they want to maintain good relationships with, and as you

know, jim, more than half of the passengers on the plane were from china. >> all right, well, it's going to be the next step, let's just hope they find the black boxes if they get to that step. the malaysian government keeps contradicting some of its own information. ten days ago the police inspector general said all 227 passengers had been cleared in the investigation, but now malaysian investigators appear pe backtracking, and said that everyone on board remains under suspicion. i want to bring the expert panel in, mary, if i can start with you first, is there any reason why the passengers should again be under suspicion or are they trying to cover their bases here, because they still don't know what happened to this plane? >> i think they're just responding to the national -- or the international criticism that they cleared 237 people in a week. and i think skeptics kind of

worldwide said, well, that's just not possible. so, they now say, well, they're not cleared and they're under suspicion or suspects. i really think it was just a matter of covering their own, you know, poorly worded initial announcement. i don't think it really signals that they have additional suspects. >> miles, as you look, you've been following the ins and outs of this investigation from the beginning, and we talked about, it's a dual investigation so you don't want to beat up malaysian investigators too much. as you've watched this, have you seen them getting better at this? more transparent, more thorough? >> not so much. what i see is a lot of inconsistencies, a lot of backtracking, a lot of flip-flopping. at the time they cleared -- magically cleared 237 people, there was a lot of focus among the investigative team on the flight crew in particular the captain. it seemed as if they were rushing to impugn him. and, you know, it's -- that's -- you know, the pilot, the flight

crew is the proverbial butler in these cases, you know, it's very simple to blame the flight crew and, you know, and then off you go and we can be done with this investigation. well, you know, to imagine that 237 people could be completely cleared in that period of time, there's no way that could be possible. we know that. so, the real question is are they really investigating them or not? and we don't know because the investigation hack opaque from the beginning. >> there has to be an element they haven't turned anything up, right? they have to go back over. i wonder, ken, you've been watching this, too and miles mentions the focus on the pilot, there's a reason for that because they in the cockpit. but do you think the investigation was their to the cockpit? >> initially it wasn't. now they are backtracking. i agree with miles. now they are looking at them again. they didn't get anything substantive out of the flight simulator from his residence and that's very typical that some pilots would have that in their residence. also not like u.s. pilots but

pilots overseas will get some currency training on that instead of going to a larger simulator. that's a little bit different from how western pilots would fly. >> some of the other pife lots that we've used as analysts here have mentioned to me they have simulators on their home computers, they showed me how easy it was, you buy a dvd and pop it in and you have a simulated. although his was a little bit more complicated. arnold, if we can bring you in, i know we talked about the pings. i know there would be great interest and value in finding another ping, but as you reach day 37 how much longer is it worthwhile for that search to continue -- as much as you'd like that extra ping before you make a switch to a sonar search which as we made the point on the air is a much slower process? >> it appears that the signals are getting weaker, so i would expect maybe just a few days more from what i hear. i would like to comment a little bit on triangulation. if you remember the chinese working with some handheld

devices in shallow water, those are unidirectional. they can really get into a point where the black boxes and the pingers are. when you get into this deep water, you're really looking at omnidirectional, meaning devices that listen for the ping but can't discriminate exactly which direction. so, in this case, what you're doing is you're really looking at the intensity of the ping to try to really relate it down to distance. >> got you. just another step in what's already been a difficult investigation. thanks very much, arnold carr, miles o'brien, ken christianson and mary schiavo. and the escalating crisis facing russia right after this.

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we'll get right back to our continuing coverage of the hunt for flight 370 in just a few minutes, first, though, here's a few other stories that we're keeping a close eye on -- and we are now following a couple of breaking news stories. the first a huge earthquake has struck the solomon islands in the south pacific and a tsunami warning is now in effect in and

around there. the pacific nation just north of australia where the search for flight 370 is taking place is already suffering in the aftermath of last week's cyclone and deadly flooding. some 50,000 homes were destroyed in that storm, at least 20 people perished. today's earthquake is believed to be a magnitude 7.8. that is huge. we'll continue to follow it. and closer to home in europe we are following breaking news as well in crukraine. in the last hour the white house responding to rising tensions in ukraine. a national security council spokeswoman releasing a statement saying, quote, the white house calls on russian president putin to cease all efforts to undermine and destabilize ukraine. the statement went on to say we are very concerned about the concerted campaign we see under way in eastern ukraine today by pro-russian separatists. meanwhile in eastern ukraine, police and activists exchanged gunfire today. and just about 70 miles away

from there gunman stormed two buildings including one belonging to the police. three officers were hurt. we have our own nick payton walsh who is live in donesk, ukraine, where some of the violence is escalating now. you've been there for weeks following this really from the beginning, is there any doubt that this campaign of violence is being orchestrated by russia? is there any doubt to that? the white house clearly is assigning blame. but do you see any doubt of that connection? >> reporter: it's hard to work out how this could be as well coordinated and organized if there wasn't some sort of state actor behind it, but on the ground you don't see any direct links to russia. the militants on the ground have been very well equipped and organized, they've known where to go and what to do, very aggressive in the main town a lot of focus of militant activity today, the security service building there and its weapons and the police station there, too, as well. a lot of locals coming to their

help, erecting barricades and aggression to the journalists. and it seems as they want to call a referendum to join russia but as we heard from a witness who saw in a social media video intense gunfire later on in the evening. if there were clashes between police and pro-russian militants as the interior ministry said there were, it would be the first since the tensions began, jim. >> it shows how easily it could devolve into something more serious. i wonder, nick, the u.s. administration's policy as well as the west's policy is to try to deescalate and give russia an opportunity to deescalate. it very much appears to be an escalation. i see the swedish foreign minister sweeting calling it a massive deescalation of a destabilization process by russia. is there a sign that the economic sanctions, et cetera, are leading to the deescalation, that russia is considering that

off-ramp as western diplomats talked about? >> reporter: no, jim, there's been a marked worsening in the last 24 hours and russia seems to be pointing the finger at the west for stirring up trouble rather than looking at themselves in this way. the white house a potential repeat of the crimea where we had popular protests backed up by armed men. it wasn't clear who the armed men who swarmed all over crimea were over a month ago, many people deeply concerned about what comes next. we're seeing weapons in a lot of places now. great heightened tension and i think a vacuum anyways in response from central government in kiev. they've had a key meeting of officials in the last few hours or so and we've yet to see many police on the streets at all and certainly not the concerted response from the capital, jim? >> sobering developments from ukraine. we'll continue to watch them closely, thanks very much to our nick paton walsh who is right in the middle of it there. coming up next malaysia airlines flight 370 as

investigators listen for the elusive pings in the hunt it's definitely not the only thing making noise under the waves. rosa flores joins us next and she's listened for a ping signal with an underwater microphone and heard much, much more. yes! not just a start up. an upstart. gotta get going. gotta be good. good? good. growth is the goal. how do we do that? i talked to ups. they'll help us out. new technology. smart advice. we focus on the business and they take care of the logistics. ups? good going. we get good. that's great. great. great. great. great. great. great. great. great. (all) great! i love logistics.

in about one hour as the sun rises in perth, australia, search planes will take off once

again. crews will scan mile after mile of ocean on this the 37th day after flight 370 kept missing and we keep hearing words like optimism and confidence related to this search, but the pings that are thought to be from the plane's black boxes have not be detected since tuesday, that's five days leading to fears the batteries in the data recorders are becoming too weak to transmit. now, relatives of missing passengers met today with malaysian officials. one mother says she feels like the malaysian government has forgotten about all things connected to flight 370. right now the u.s. navy's ping locator is scouring a narrowed section of the indian ocean. over the past week four possible black box pings have allowed investigators to narrow the search area somewhat, but so far they've been unable to relocate those sounds. and one of the reasons is because the ocean is just such a noisy place. other sounds under the surface could be drowning out any signals coming from those data recorders. cnn's rosa flores took a pinger

out on the water to let us hear some of the obstacles they may be encountering. >> reporter: this is what a ping sounds like. >> very high frequency. >> reporter: the critical sound searchers are hoping to hear in the deep and rough waters of the indian ocean. >> it's deep and it's dark. it's salty. it's high pressure. it's hard to work. >> reporter: here in rhode island's narrangansett bay, researchers show us the challenges search crews face as they try to hear the ping from flight 370's data recorder. >> so, this is a hydro-phone. >> reporter: we drop an underwater microphone off the back of the boat as it moves farther away from a pinger that's already been submerged. and even less than 100 yards away, the ping starts to fade. distance isn't the only problem out in the indian ocean. there are other noises competing

with the sound of the pinger like sea life. one dolphin species sounds like a black box pinger. and this is the sound of rain underwater. let me get away from the loudest part of the boat so i can show you one of the biggest obstacles that searchers have in the open sea. just ship noise even here listen to how loud it is. they're at a minimum 15,000 ships on the world's motions on any given day. creating even more obstacles in a search that's already daunting. >> rosa flores joins me now. rosa, great piece because i think, you know, hard for any of us to get a sense.of just how weak the signals can be in the ocean. you were dealing in much shallower waters it's a real lesson about the challenge here, isn't it? >> it really is. and one of the things i find

fascinating i was asking the researchers how does the sound travel because we've been hearing that the ping has a two-mile radius and here's the easiest way to explain it. here's how they put it, low-pitched sounds travel very far in the ocean. high-pitched sounds don't travel as far. and this pinger, jim, is a high-pitched sound and so they say that's why it has this two-mile radius and then, of course, i had to follow up with this question. i said because one of the complicating things about the search is just how deep the indian ocean is. in parts of the indian ocean it's deeper than two miles. and the oceanographer said, you know, rosa, on the surface of the water you'd literally have to be on top of it to hear it. that's why, jim, it's so important for all of these -- for the toad pinger locator, for example, that dives deep to listen to these sounds carefully, it's because of that, because of the range and because of the depth of the indian ocean. >> wow. it's incredible.

and all those other things, too, temperature, currents, all those things that can be a factor. thanks very much to rosa flores in new york. deeper than where the titanic rests and where you would find squid. how the search crews are handling the departmeths of the ocean. i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how to answer that. i mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. i try not to worry, but you worry. what happens when your paychecks stop? because everyone has retirement questions. ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. to get the real answers you need. start building your confident retirement today. when folks in the lower 48 think athey think salmon and energy.a, but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. thousands of people here in alaska are working

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welcome back to cnn special coverage on the hunt for flight 370. the ping locator towed by the

australia ship "ocean shield" has detected four pings all within 17 miles of each other. australia's prime minister said he is, quote, very confident the pings are from the plane's black boxes. i want to bring in the panel as we talk through the developments. ken, i wonder if i can start with you. confidence is not something we've heard a lot in this search because we're dealing with so many educated guesses. do you think the prime minister's confidence is well placed? >> i think so. i think clearly from the first days, the search is narrowing. we still did not see the debris field, but now we're honing in on the signals. i for one still want to see a piece of wreckage, whether that's from sonar or somebody picking it up. then we have definitive proof that that, in fact, is the wreckage. but i do share his optimism. >> let's go to you, miles. miles, i wonder if i can ask you as we talk about the optimism and rosa flores in the previous block had a piece talking about how, you know, the pings go two

miles, so just the natural question is does that mean if they hear the pings they're only two miles away, or no? >> that would seem so logical. but the way it works, i'm told, i'm not an expert on this, but listening to and reading up on this, basically underwater acoustics are not like acoustics here in the air, so there's a tendency for thermoclimes and the temperature impacts to have an effect and the way it bounces off the seafloor and it can actually propagate farther than the two miles. >> right. arnold, you're the expert on all things underwater. i wonder if you can pipe in on that as well. how could the signal travel further in effect if it's beyond that range of two miles? >> well, the key thing is to get your hydrophone or your locator down deep so you are below some density layers that would reflect or mitigate the transmission. so, when it's down and sometimes hitting those densileers it can

travel further. i'm optimistic for several reasons. one is they have repeated signals they've detected. and when i say "repeated signal," it's not one pulse, it's pulses, plural. and the other thing is that they tightened up the area a bit. it still needs to be a smaller area to have effective side scan sonar and sonafication. >> one things searchers have to prepare for is you don't get another ping. let's say the batteries are dead. how big an area are they talking about, then? let's say those are all the pings you hear from the black box. where do they have to side scan or sonar scan? >> 17 miles are separating some of these pings and you start doing the math on the radius of that and that's more math than i'd like to do in public, but that is a much larger area than they'd like to have. the question is, that's an unusually long distance between

pings. and so a lot of people are looking at the outliers and wondering if those are necessarily right. there is one ping that they heard for more than two hours, and there's reason to believe that's the one you should begin with. that's sort of the datum and begin at that point and move from there. >> make it the center of your search area? is that how it works? >> that's a good solid hit. >> ken, even if you move in on that and say that's the center point because of the way things can travel, it doesn't mean you have to travel 17 miles squared in effect because i imagine the area still is going to be a pretty big chunk of the bottom of the ocean. >> like miles said, you can go to your origin and maybe you want to do an expanding square. >> yeah. >> and then you just keep going in a box and expand out. >> yep, yep. >> or you can do a parallel search like mowing a lawn, like that. and clearly now at this point we're not at a rescue phase, we're at a recovery phase. we have the pingers. we have a general location of

it. it's a large area, but that area can be mapped, and it will take time. it will probably take six weeks, eight weeks or more. but that can be mapped, and it's probably going to be mapped because the pingers are going to cease to be operating here in another week or two. >> and i imagine the pace, i think miles made this point, that it moves as slowly as walking pace. imagine walking a chunk of land the size of the area they are talking about. we are talking about a period of time here. >> exactly. >> thanks to ken and miles and arnold as well. we'll bring you back next hour. more people have been to space than have explored the depths of the indian ocean where the search is taking place, so how are search teams ever going to find the black boxes? next the amazing technology that is being used there. 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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our focus for the search for flight 370 will continue in a moment. we want to introduce you to this week's cnn hero. she is a philadelphia fire fighter who started a red cross for animals. >> i'm a fire fighter in philly for seven years. you get to a fire scene and the firefighters are will to put out the fire. the salvation and army and red cross assists them once the fire sought. there wasn't anyone there to help the other part. i would see how upset the people were about their animals. where is my pet? and then where is it going to go? these are the people's children. they just lost everything. had shouldn't then be forced to lose their pets as well. we have a dog displaced by a

pyre, chihuahua. i'm headed to the scene now. we respond 24/7. 365 day as year. we do for pets with what the red considers does for people. between went into basement and found the dog hiding behind something. once the fire is under control, we are able to look for the animal to bring them out. >> hi, baby. come here. >> the headquarters is my house. we helped close to a thousand animals. owner said she was pregnant. everything their animal needs we will handle for free for them. when we reunite the families it is a good thing. it is like -- the void has been filled. hey, chocolatee. welcome home. my hope is that it is a fresh start. they can move forward together. they are home. after going through such a sad thing, so good to have a happy

ending. >> do you know someone that deserve this kind of recognition? please tell us about us. cnnheroes.com. in the search for flight 370, the it is a section find the pinger and find the black box. the problem, they could be nearly three miles down. tom foreman breaks down what we do and do not know about the bottom of the southern indian ocean. ed. >> reporter: more people have been to space than in the deep ocean. the search area for plane is quite deep. anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 miles down. depending where you are in the big slope down here. that's deeper than the location of the titanic or where you would typically find nuclear subs or where giant squids may live. it is cold, just above freezing. completely dark. we don't know much about the ocean floor here. you might say why not just drop that robotic sonar imaging device and let it ride around and start mapping all of this? well, if you want the best

perfect form answer on something like this, you would like to get it as close to the right distance from the floor as possible. this is right at the range of its functioning level here. 2 1/2 miles down. they want to make sure that they have a better idea before they turn it loose. what that means is up on the surface, her going to spend more time on things trying to get a better map of the ocean floor in general. if they have that, the obstacles, they will know how to place the robot and get better results. >> tom foreman with the immense challenges for the search of that missing plane. without a shred of evidence the families of flight 370 passengers cannot let go. >> next, the parents who refuse to believe their only son is

ruely gone.

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the families of the 239 souls aboard flight 370 are holding on to their faith. mick roberts-- nic robertson sa with a mother and father whose only son was on that flight. >> reporter: they are in pain watching every newscast, waiting for word on their son. the news the day we arrived, more pings, increasing confidence from searchers. they may be closing in on flight 370. >> we can't believe it. we have to see him.

we can't believe it. >> reporter: without proof of wreckage it is too painful to comprehend. for weeks now they have been telling themselves he's alive. >> my inside, my heart is telling -- still they are alive. all of the passengers are live. >> reporter: her son was aboard flight 370. an i.t. specialist. heading to beijing to begin a new job. married with would young sons. to his parents, he is everything. he provides for us both of takes care of us, his father says. what do we do now? just the two of us in our 60s. they do all they can do. which is wait and hope. >> wait. wait. >> reporter: on television, it is government officials keeping

their hopes alive. >> i always said, especially for the families, miracles do happen. we are still hoping against hope. you need to hope and pray for survivors. >> reporter: on this day the faith helping them, calling her son for the first time in days, reaching his voice mail. a sign they believe he must be safe. >> so eye ronic. my son is somewhere. i got it. >> reporter: this was this morning. >> this morning. >> reporter: one day soon, though, the news of the other end of the phone may be a lot harder to bear. >> we hope. i have only one son.

he has to come back. >> reporter: nic robertson, cnn, kuala lumpur, malaysia. you are in the cnn newsroom. the people searching for malaysia airlines flight 370 have to make a very critical decision very soon. that's when to turn off the ears and start looking with their eyes. i'm talking about the pingers, emergency beacons believed to be at the bottom of the indian ocean. if the batteries are not dead already it will be soon. a high-tech imaging sonar is the next tool to start running when they decide on stop listening for the pings. four day since any sound was heard from the depth of the official in an those search areas. now australia's prime minister told reporters today his confidence still remains high. despite the many challenges tony abbott described the multinational mission as a massive, massive task.