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tv   CNN Special Report  CNN  April 16, 2014 7:00pm-8:01pm PDT

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take the next selfy to post to instagram, you'llen only be as cool as joe biden. he joined instagram and found an interesting partner for his first selfy there and his 20,000 followers anticipated the shot. i'm bill weir. this is cnn tonight. see you back here tomorrow night. this is cnn breaking news. >> this is a cnn special report. the mystery of flight 370. i'm don lemon. we begin with breaking news. we are waiting on analysis of the data from the bluefin-21 search. the sub's commission complete. as soon as we know what the data shows, we will bring it to you. we are also waiting for results of samples from an oil slick found the search zone. tests underway to the tell if it is from flight 370 and the
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families of plight flight's passengers have had enough.flig have had enough. >> you are lying to us again now. >> that is one angry man lashing out against officials. they have 26 questions and they want answers. i will talk to someone who knows how they feel. a man who lost his sister in the crash of air france flight 447. you have been tweeting your questions by the thousands and we are top aviation and security experts standing by to answer them. like this one, about reports of the co-pilot's cell phone being on in the cockpit. is it possible he was trying to lay bread crumbs by turning on his phone to make sure someone is aware of the location? i want to turn to cnn reporters in the search zone. michael holmes is in perth. michael, let's start with you. at this point, one of most
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interesting leads is a sample from the oil slick in the search area. what's the status on the testing, michael? >> we're going to say it has taken a while, hasn't it, since the slick was first spotted, but you have to look at the logistics of this. the slick was over 1,000 miles out to sea. what they had to do is move a navy vessel out to the slick. they then helicoptered from that area to that ship. the ship then went back to the coast until it was close enough to helicopter it back to land. quite a task. it is here. it's in perth. it's being examine and we expect that analysis anytime now. in the next couple of hours we hope to get a feedback whether that is linked to malaysian flight 370 or whether it is not. >> michael, bluefin back after completing a full mission. the data is current currently being analyzed but how encouraged are searchers that
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the sub managed to complete a full mission this time? >> they are. the third time was a time. the first two were cut short. those operating the bluefin-21 say don't read too much in to the first two aborted missions or cut short missions. they say what went wrong the first time was it was programmed to not go deeper than 4500 meters. when it hit that it automatically came up. it has been reprogrammed. that was a software issue and second time it was a little oil bleeding in. it wasn't a big deal. they brought that up. unfortunately the data from those two missions showed nothing of interest. as you said, we are awaiting data from the first full mission and we will see how it goes. they have covered 34 square miles, 90 odd square kilometers of their search. a tiny amount of what they need to search. as we have said before, to cover that area could take six weeks.
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it could take two months. >> michael holmes in perth, thank you very much. >> nic robertson we learned the co-pilot's cell phone was on around the time the plane disappeared. u.s. officials tell our panel there could have been other passenger's cell phones that hit the tower. what are you hearing on this front? >> we have asked those questions here, and we're not getting answers. we're not getting confirmation from malaysia officials about the reports we have and the confirmation from u.s. officials that the co-pilot's cell phone made a connection to the tower. officials here don't say anything. they don't deny it. they certainly won't come on record and back it up and they are not giving additional details. we know there is potential if one cell phone made connection to a cell phone tower there was potential for other phones belonging to the other 238 people on board to have made a connection but nothing from malaysian officials.
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that's very difficult for the families not to get answers. don? >> some of the families released a lot of questions they have for officials. we will get in to more detail later on. what kind of demands are they making of the authorities? >> yeah, they have got 26 questions. a lot of them focus on the emergency location transmitter. 12 focus on that. they want to know specifics, the frequency, were the devices tested prior to the flight? how many were on the plane? were the crew trained to use them? were they supposed to deploy, come in to effect when they made contact with water? if they sank in the water, were they supposed to float to the surface? they have a lot of questions. they also want to know about the flight logbook. they want to be given access to that. they want to know the serial number of the black boxes and what what type of data can be extracted from the black boxes and even want a phone number for
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the pilot. what we are told by malaysian officials is they will tell the family whatever they can. as we saw in beijing yesterday, this the teleconference between malaysian officials in kuala lumpur and families in beijing that didn't technically go very well with. after an hour in the families got frustrated. accusations of a cover up by malaysian government. the families are feeling very frustrated. the longer it goes the more questions they are coming up. these questions, we have to say, are very detailed but specific and really trying to focus on what's keeping their hopes alive. their family members may still be alive. they are trying to focus and drill down on any detail that may shed light on that still, don. >> nic robertson in kuala lumpur. thank you for your reporting. i want to bring in my team of experts. mary schavio, former inspector general of the department of
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transportation and now an attorney for victims of transportation accidents, paul ginsberg, forensic audio and black box recordings expert, tim tilmon a retired pilot. and jeffrey thomas, editor and chief of airline ratings.com. give, since we have you in perth. we expect the results of the oil sample sometime soon. what is the status on that? >> yes, don. we are. in fact, the oil came ashore and delivered down to perth yesterday. we understand it is about a 24-hour period for analysis. that analysis, we understand, started yesterday afternoon. we are hoping that by lunchtime today, possibly 12:00 today, 12:00 midnight where you folks are that we will get some sort of guidance as to whether this is oil from the plane or engine oil or hydraulic oil, or whether
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in fact it is something else that is been thrown overboard by a passing ship. there seems to be a high level of confidence this was not the usual marine oil. this was something different. there seems to be a little bit of a level of confidence that this might be, might be the first piece of debris, if you like, that we find from 370. >> i want to get your thoughts on this, geoffry. underwater recovery expert david muir said i think they have found think wreckage site and he's been on the show with us before. you have spoken with him. we all have. why are he and other officials so confident about this? >> david is probably one of the best and most respected wreck hunters in the world, along with people like mr. ballard. he found the hms wood, he found hms sydney off the australian
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coast. he's very experienced with the forensic clues that you will get. he's combining those inmarsat satellite pings, the hand shakes. the refined data refined seven times and they sent the ocean shield to that spot and get four strong pings. for him for a wreck hunter that is proof positive. and i think the prime minister, tony abbott, was about to say something similar last week when he stepped back and said we are very confident can. there is a high level of confidence they are on the final resting place of 370. >> hello to mary schavio. the pings are thought to be from the black box have likely gone dead. did we get enough information from those to warrant this kind of confidence? >> well, actually you would ordinarily want more for a greater extended period of time.
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but i think the confidence comes from the fact they had four hand shakes and a partial fifth from the satellites. that last one, as they sent the "ocean shield" and their assets right there and boom, first day they got the ping. i think that was a big confidence builder that let them know they are in the right place, that the hand shakes from the satellite directed them in the right direction. i think that's probably the confidence. they seem to be in the right place. their clues so far are panning out. that is my take on why they were confident about where they are. >> mr. ginsberg, there have been questions about the role the echo was playing in the search. the u.s. navy confirmed the echo is searching the depth of the ocean floor in the area of the second ping detected on saturday, april 5th for 13 minutes. that was considered the most promising ping because of its sound quality. what do you know, if anything, about that? >> i know they have been
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searching in this 17-mile radius area where we expect that amplitudes would be different because of different reflections and currents and so on and so forth. we have talked more about the sal lynnty and the temperature creating in effect sound walls off which to bounce the signals. hopefully, we have a shot because if the amplitude is strong, we should be close to it. >> you know, jim, we are still awaiting the information from the bluefin's first full mission after some setbacks. does it seem the bluefin is capable of doing the job now? >> i think there's no question of whether or not it is capable and now it is a reading of what it is doing and giving ourselves enough time to look ate properly and exercising patience. >>er arthur rosenberg, they are searching in an area that has a tremendous amount of ocean trash. could we see a similar die nam
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nick the aerial search that turn out to be just trash? do we need to be cautious even if there are results from the bluefin? >> i think you have to delineate between what's floating on top of the water and what's going on under the water. the thing with the bluefin, i think is this. i don't think that's enough of an asset to cover officially and effectively the area we have to cover. kind of reminds me if you were in a world series and fielding the field with half of your team. there are other assets they can use. like the side scanning sonar which are a hell of a lot cheaper than the bluefin and would certainly speed things up and make this wreckage location more efficient. >> someone has to pay for those assets. as you can see now, they are scaling back the aerial search. i'm sure partially it's because there's money involved in this. mary, am i wrong?
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to get those assets out there it is going to incur a lot of expense. >> it will incur a lot of expense and it will be bore by the countries. we saw it first in twa flight 800. several of the fbi, the ntsb, there weren't budgets for that huge of a scale of an effort. that was 45 to $50 million. so there was talk they were going to present the bill to twa and its insurers and the insurers said, no, thanks. it's not for us to pay. so there's a question of who pays for this and right now each nation is bearing their own expense, even though there is a very large policy. >> jeff, as you watch all of this, do you think the bluefin is up to the charge and do you agree with arthur rosenberg that we need more assets out there? >> it is encouraging that they managed to get on the third day all the way through its mission. that's a good sign. maybe it was just some teething
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pains to start. it is theoretically capable of operating at these depths. on paper this was talk that maybe it was a reconditioned model, maybe it was purchased off of a used car lot or something and not up to snuff. i think this is encouraging. soon hopefully we will hear the results. maybe we will get some data that seems to indicate the wreckage is there. we really have to -- it would be premature to jump on the bluefin and say it's not up to the task. we will have to see what comes out, hopefully in a few hours. >> stay with us, everyone. will the bluefin be able to find it? we will take a closer look right after this.
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>> breaking news, we are awaiting analysis if from the bluefin-21. the data thereafter the successful mission. we will bring it to you as soon as it comes in. the success of the search is largely riding on that bluefin and it's sonar. one unmanned sub searching in the dark, miles below the ocean surface. stephanie elam went on the water to try to answer a question for us. stephanie, if the plane is on the bottom of the ocean and possibly buried in silt how challenging is that for the bluefin. >> i want to introduce you to a
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senior hydrographer. >> it is a good environment. it is very deep. you want to the get it away from the surface and the noise and such. the complexity is the little amount we know about it. you have to put it on the auv. it has to have control, communications and dive two and half miles down. that's what is complex. >> look at the data they were getting from a side scan sonar. >> this is an example of side-scan sonar data. the sensors put sound out to either side. it travels through the water, hits the floor and continues to go. based on that you can build an image of what is going on. we just passed over a pipeline. >> does that mean if there is something covered in silt. if it is down there, does it mean they won't be able to find it with sonar? >> if it is truly buried, no you won't be able to find it.
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but only thing that will bury it is the impact and that will leave a crater that you can see or some portion exposed. once it has hit the sea floor there is not likely to be further burial. >> it could be somewhat covered but there should be clues if they are in the right area. >> stephanie, thank you very much. joining me is tim weller program manager with phoenix international holdings. sylvia, you have led more than 100 expeditions, 700 hours underwater. what kind of results do you expect from the search of the sea floor? >> well, it is a challenging task for sure. with so much area to cover and limited capability. the bluefin is a capable system, but it just has a lot of area to cover. there aren't many systems out there that can do this job. >> tim, you know, your company
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purchased a bluefin-21. so you know quite a bit about this. what are the advantages and disadvantages of this technology? >>. >> well, one of the primary advantages is the system is not connected to the ship. if you are in really rough weather, the auv is close to the bottom, it's unaffected by the ship's motion, riding over the big waves. with a towed system, there's a direct connection to the tow fish. as the ship travels over big waves the motion would be transmitted back to the tow fish. in this search, the vehicle is disconnected. the quality of the data should be very good. >> good. i hear you agree with him sylvia? >> i am, yes. if you are looking from high above, you get less resolution than when you are close to the
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subject. again, there aren't many systems that can go as deep as required to get good resolution. the autonomous systems are fairly new technology. when they found the "titanic," autonomous underwater systems of this sort simply did not exist. there aren't many even now. that's part of the problem. if there were 20 of them out there perhaps it would be more realistic to get, find what they are looking for in a shorter period of time. >> interesting. what about the question we had stephanie elam look in to. can the bluefin detect plane wreckage if it were buried in silt at the bottom of the ocean? >> having done many searches for airplane wreckage, helicopters an such, typically you don't find the wreckages covered with silt simply because they are so far away from the rough weather. like if it crashes in to a
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shallow area, there's a lot of high current. than you would see, possibly some silt covering debris. when you have a wreck that's that deep, you are not going to see any silt and the sonar would be an effective tool for finding it. >> the navy tells cnn the bluefin can be reprogrammed to go as deep as 5,000 meters. is that pushing the limit, tim? what are the risks of pushing the depth limit? >> well, they test these pressure how'sings, the vehicles to a specific depth rating. when you go past that depth rating you are going in to a safety factor. that is really there to protect the technology. if they go too deep, the one atmosphere housing would implode and you lose the tool you are trying to use to search the debris.
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if at all possible, you don't go past that depth rating. you want to keep the equipment safe to continue the search. >> so it is lost forever then. it defeats the purpose. sylvia, what about a manned underwater vehicle? china has the "sea dragon." it can go to 7,000 meters underwater. most of the passengers, most were chinese. why isn't the "sea dragon" out there is the question? >> once the target is found, deploying manned systems an remotely-operated tethered vehicles to actually recover equipment makes sense. but to deploy the "sea dragon" or any of the other deep submersibles that exist -- and there aren't many in the world that can go as much as two and a half, three miles, very small fleet of deep manned and deep robotic systems. but they are most useful once you have found what you are looking for.
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they really have a very limited area and they move more slowly than the bluefin. bluefin seems relatively slow compared to an aircraft or ship on the surface, but much faster than sending a manned system down where you really don't know what you are looking for. even if -- and they would have sonar, but, see the bluefin and there are several other pieces of equipment that are designed to do this survey and imaging with sound, but -- and there is a place -- i love the place -- with manned systems and robot but first you have to find the equipment. >> appreciate you joining us here on cnn. well over a month it is very likely the black box batteries are dead and we have heard the last ping. do searchers need a plan "b"? we will be back with a look at that next. honestly, i'm pouring everything i have into this place.
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i'm don lemon. the breaking news, the data from bluefin's first full mission is being analyzed right now along with samples from the area. we will bring that information to you as soon as we have it. tony abbott telling the "wall street journal" the best leads will be exhausted in about a week. where does the search go from here? cnn's jean casarez has more. >> the sea has gone silent. more than a week after the last ping was heard, black box
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batteries are likely dead. with no evidence in hand, searchers for flight 370 are considering their next moves. >> we may not have all of the clues, and we may have overlooked something. >> reporter: australian officials say they will scale back the air search soon. >> the chances of any floating material being recovered have greatly diminished. >> reporter: under sea recovery efforts may expand, if necessary, experts say, extending parts of the search area. >> i think that will involve retracing that initial arc of the suspected flight path, and that will require some broad-scale sonar tools. >> reporter: sonar even more powerful than the bluefin-21 that can dive deeper and create even wider images of the ocean's bottom. it's still the best tool searchers have at their disposal. >> until we actually locate some debris with sonar, there's no point in bringing in
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remote-operated vehicles or manned submersibles. so sonar is going to be the tool of choice for the foreseeable future. >> reporter: it could be weeks, months or even years before debris from flight 370 turns up. >> my experience is that something always is found. whether something is seen from a passing ship, something is spotted on a beach somewhere, along western australia, there's always a clue unearthed along the way. >> reporter: the only option not on the way says mccaul cull lm /* /- -- mccull lum is to stop searching all together. >> until we know what happened to flight 370 we won't know we can avoid this kind of tragedy in the future. >> that is jean casarez reporting. thank you, jean. i'm back with my panel of experts. to geoffry thomas in perth now. prime minister abbott told the "wall street journal" that authorities would need to regroup and rethink their entire
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approach if they exhaust their leads this week and the bluefin fails to locate mh-370 under water. what are they saying would happen next? >> i'm more guided by air chief marshall angus houston who cautioned us last week that this could be a long search. it will take us two months, approximately, to actually search the area of interest. so, i think three days in though underwater search, i think we should be guided by angus houston. a very measured, cautious man. he's done this before. we're only on mission number three for bluefin-21. i think we have a little way to go before we start to look at plan "b." >> he has been very calm and direct and doesn't overhype anything. paul, is the reality that sonar is pretty much the only useful
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tool at this stage in the investigation? >> well, i think so. it's also the safest. as some of you, the other panel has already said, why risk someone getting in to trouble before we know where we are going. mind you, they are looking for a nickel, somewhere with on the yankees stadium playing field in the dark. so we have to find that first. >> arthur, the investigators look in to the cell phone of the co-pilot being turned nonthe cockpit. this tweet says is it possible that the co-pilot was trying to lay bread crumbs to turn his phone on to make someone aware of the plane's location. >> the issue with bread crumbs is some of them lead to the cheese and others don't. in this case, i'm of the mind that the cell phone hand shake with the cell phone tower when they overflew pyongyang is very important. i analyze that in the context of
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the accident sequence. beginning at 1:07 with the acars reporting. at 1:18 you have the final communication, good night malai malaysia 370. and the captain we know was reported as communicating which means the co-pilot was flying. now we have a co-pilot's cell phone handshake with the cell phone tower, a cell phone that should have been off. when you look at it in that context, i think it leads you to at least consider that the co-pilot or someone with his cell phone was reaching out. there are a lot of unanswered questions. 238 other people on board. someone else's cell phone surely made the same contact. i think it is very significant. >> we were here until 1:00 a.m. on sunday in to monday morning. they said they were scaling
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back. there are 12 aircraft in this search. despite the fact they say they are scaling back the aerial search, it doesn't sound like they are, does it? >> they keep talking about it but nothing seems to be changing a great deal. i think they must have something in mind. maybe something we don't know about? jeff wise, as the search continues one possibility is that civilian contractors could take a larger role in the military effort. if that happens, would that change the search you think? >> well, i mean, as long as the resources continue to be committed the search will continue. it really boil s down to what information the authorities have, how confident they are this investment of resources and material will yield results. i think a lot of that will depend on what we find. as the prime minister said, i think the next week will be crucial. there's a fairly limited area on
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the seabed that corresponds to those pings. the tow pinger locater had a range of two miles so it should be pretty compact. i think what the prime minister said is fairly accurate. in the next week, we will know where the resources should be allocated. >> mary a question for you that is up your alley. how long will authorities continue with this active operation and will they stop at some point and have to make a decision on wl weighing the cost of a search like this. >> oh, absolutely. they will have to do that. i think they will stop the above the water search very soon. they are going to have to do that for a couple of reasons. one is practical. they have all of these ships and people and man power out there. they are going to get tired, in addition to getting expensive. they are going to have to direct their resources to the places they are really going to matter and then broach the subject with the airline and the airline's insurer how much of the rescue and recovery they are willing to
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pay for. there have been case cans where there have been suits filed over that. >> when we come back, my team of 0 experts will answer your questions. [ male announcer ] this is kevin. experts will answer your questions. ter choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap.
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i'm don lemon. we have breaking news. the bluefin-21 auv completed a full mission in the search area for flight 370. it has searched approximately 90
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square kilometers and the data from the latest mission is being analyzed. the oil sample collected by ocean shield has arrived in perth and is being analyzed, as well. we will bring you the results as soon as they become available. back now with my panel of experts to answer your questions. jeff wise, we have a question from susan. it says why not take one search plane and research the flight path. maybe they would spot path. you know you retrace your own steps when you lose something, just a thought. is that a common seance approach. would that be helpful to do that with the data we have? >> there is one missing piece of data that. is how fast was the plane flying. what we these northern and southern arcs. they represent the range of possible location cans where it ended up at 8:11 a.m. a that morning. so how it got to that range of final positions is the big
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unknown. the faster it went, the more southerly the route would have taken it. if you recall, when the surface search started weeks ago, it was way to the south. gradually they moved it further north testing out the possible different speeds the plane was flying. it's a great idea. unfortunately we don't know what the route was. >> mary schavio, a question from rose. is the australian search team getting advice from experts who helped with previous search rescues? mary, fill us in on the coordination and how it relates to previous searches. >> yes, actually they are. we know for a fact that ntsb, boeing, they have consulted the french authorities with the vea. the malaysians went to the u.k. and talked to people in the u.k. including iko. and that is pretty much the big four aviation nations. the only one they haven't talked to yet is transport canada
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those are the nations that have the big capabilities on accident investigation, reconstruction, you know, analyzing black box data, et cetera. they all seem to be involved. so there's coordination. >> arthur, i want to present this question to you. it says why doesn't the press press authorities to get access to the secret information. how do families view the role of the press here? >> i think the press in this case is doing an absolutely spectacular job, digging, trying to get out out all of the information. if this were in the united states for example, the ntsb would have already released a preliminary statement, press would be involved. we would have basic factual information about this airplane. if it was discoverable before the crash, you can get it after the crash. but our hands are kind of tied.
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given that we are dealing with malaysia an the concept of the free press in malaysia is very different from the united states. >> malaysia doesn't have a free and open press. that's why the family members are happy we are there to press authorities to get more answers. jim, here's a question that needs an answer. it's about the boeing 777, the triple seven. it is one of the most reliable airplanes ever built with computer-mediated controls. what if this technology or tech has failed? do you belief it can stem from a problem with the plane or something else entirely. >> obviously i don't know exactly what happened but i would be shocked to find there was anything wronging with that airplane. i mean, the boeing people know how to build a airplane. this one i think has served extremely well over the last decade. i can't imagine how all of a sudden something would be so catastrophic and devastating to
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the conduct of that flight that the airplane was at fault. i think that's last place i want to look. >> give geoffry thomas, why isn't china using their unmanned search vehicle rather than the u.s. should we expect more involvement from the chinese? >> we have a lot of involvement from the chinese, but the malaysians are running the search under the iko rules and they have asked australia to lead the search in the southern sector, which we're doing. of course we are doing it with the help of the chinese, with the help of the united states and the british. we are getting the best minds and expertise we possibly can. this is really an international effort and certainly the chinese here, the chinese ships here, there's about six of them and the
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their aircraft and if necessary we will bring down the chinese submerse fbl it is required but i think the best course of action is with bluefin-21 for the time being because that's a proven platform. it found air france 447. i really do believe they are taking the right course of action at this stage. >> geoffry thomas, thank you. everyone else stay with me. we'll be right back. defiance is in our bones. defiance never grows old. citracal maximum. calcium citrate plus d. highly soluble, easily absorbed.
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welcome back, everyone. breaking news here on cnn. some of the pof the family have released questions they want officials to answer. they have accused the officials of being being bloody liars. i will bring in my experts to talk about this. some of the families have a list of questions including requesting the logbook, air traffic control audio and personal contact information. why do you think the families want to explore the specifics? >> that's what families after accidents do. they want to know every detail. think pour over it and become experts. for example, if they just want to pull up a similar accident.
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say they want to pull up the asiana accident, the one in san francisco, they could go on the ntsb website and they would find this kind of detail released this the public docket. twhan see the rest of the world getting treated one way and theirs treated another. they feel this is a reason they haven't been given this information. every crash is like this. families want every detail and piece of information and they become powerful allies. if this is going to be change for safety a they are the ones that can do it. they are very helpful. >> arthur, you work with these cases. you are an attorney. many of these questions are highly technical ones about the emergency locater transmitter, the black boxes. do families just want to know as many details as they possibly can, as mary said, and how will this information help them? >> i think these families are trying to make sense of seeming
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insanity. like the elts for example. it is perplexing. there were no elt signals that we know of is it in the front of the plane, if the acceleration of the plane hit the water or the life preservers have elts and yet there's none. i think people are searching and grasping at any information they can get their hands on and my hat's off to them. i think what the malaysian authorities failed to do early on is establish credibility with the families and they continue to linger and part of the impetus for the information that these people are looking for. >> gieoff, they asked if area previously searched were searched thoroughly and don't need to be searched again. that's a good question. they are just making sure. >> absolutely. it has been such an emotional
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roller coaster for me, for a lot of us covering this story. imagine if you have a loved one whose fate you don't know the answer to. it's so perplexing. huge areas of the ocean now have been searched. it's not like land where something comes to rest, it will stay there. you could search and ann area and there's nothing there and then the current could bring something there, could rise from below. if you are looking for closure it's so frustrating, i'm sure. >> absolutely. jim, were you surprised by the technical nature of many of these questions the families have for authorities? >> not a bit. i have to tell you, i have great respect for the families and their decorum and the fact they have held up as well as they have. i have a great deal of confidence they are thinking through this entire affair. they have done tremendous
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research on their own. as mary said, they are going to become experts before this thing is over. >> paul, should these families expect to receive an answer, or some -- on these technical questions, the pieces of information, are they best kept secret at this stage in the investigation do you think? >> well with, as mary has said previously, usually the air to ground transmission recordings are not generally released during an investigation. they do come out from other third parties who monitor the frequencies and release them. things like the elt frequency. that's well known. it's universal. it's public information. i don't know what they are going to do with it, but certainly that's easy to answer. >> all right. thank you very much. standby, everyone when we come back one more question and it's a big one. what does this all reveal about the limits of our technology?
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we have time for an answer to one more question. paul, i'm going to start with you. it says how come nasa can see lakes you should surface of planets and moons remotely but we dpientd a plane here using right technology?
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what does the search reveal about the limits of our technology, paul? >> in fact, yes, there are limits. we have different amounts of resolution at different depths. we have changing situations where on most moons i believe they are dry and nothing is changing. we are obscured by a number of miles of water. >> yeah. >> it's different. >> mary, we have gotten to a point where we think we are invincible. we can solve and see everything. this is revealing that maybe not so much. >> well, maybe not so much, but i think that regular people, like the families can't understand why -- and they use the analogy their cell phone has more tracking technology than this plane possibly at the bottom of the ocean. i think it comes down to demand. we have all demanded that technology. now we have to demand that technology in our airplanes.
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>> you are right. jeff, have we reached the limits of our technology. >> the people that did this didn't want to be found. they eluded our technology. >> if someone did in fact want to do it. >> i'm don lemon. that's it for us tonight. ac 360 starts right now. good evening. it is 11 p.m. here on the east coast and 11 a.m. in australia where the flight for flight 370 is running in to problems. it completed a full mission. questions of why there is only one of them in the water only one of them in the water and new questions about the cell phone signals and the aircraft itself. is it even conceivable that the pilot's phone was the only one transmitting or are they holding something back? do they have a plan b? a crucial 24 hours ahead as we have all the angles on that. also tonight, survivors on

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