the united states senate. >> elizabeth warren, pleasure to spend time with you. >> good to see you. >> the book is called "a fighting chance" life story, a little policy. cnn's special report with don lemon starts right now. this is a cnn special report. i'm don lemon. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. we'll bing with breaking news in the search for flight 370. the bluefin has completed scanning 90% of the search zone and turned up nothing. is it time to ask, what is next move in the search for flight 370. plus, a mystery objects washes ashore on the coach of australia. experts scramble to see if it's linked to flight 370. we have their findings for you. and you've been tweeting us your flight 370 questions. we have top aviation and security experts standing guy answer them.

like this one -- with the bluefin not finding anything, could the search be called off? $21 million a month to search? i want to begin tonight with a live report on flight 370 from cnn's reporters in the region. michael holmes is in perth. miguel marquez is in augusta, australia. so michael and miguel, two big pieces of news out of australia tonight that together give us a pretty good idea of where this sort of stands. michael, i'm going to start with you on the fact that over 90% of the search area has been scandaled by the blue -- been scanned by the bluefiner and there's absolutely no sign of the plane. what are officials saying about this. >> reporter: you're right, don. mission 11 done, mission 12 is underway. search official telling us only 10% of that concentrated search area yet to be scanned. the news the same, nothing of significance pp the story is same with that final 10%. it moves on. it doesn't stop.

the australian defense minister said australia consulting with malaysia, china, also the united states, on what would be the next phase in this search. details likely to be announced next week. it will likely involve that wider arc we've been talking about just to the north of the current area, several hundred miles along what was the suspected flight path. also likely, more assets could be brought in. powerful side-scan sonar equipment. in this case, one that is towed behind a ship. it's called the "orion." it could get involved. the advantage is it sends back real-time data back to the mother ship. you don't have to wait for it to be lifted back on to the surface and the data downloaded like we do with the bluefin. also has the ability to go much deeper than the bluefin. so those things on the horizon. but once they complete and hit that 100% of this current search area, it doesn't stop.

it just moves on. don? >> miguel marquez, you know, the other piece of news has to do with a piece of debris that washed ashore. it was at one point called an object of interest. it turns out to be another dead end, correct? >> reporter: it is another dead end, but it certainly doesn't mean that people aren't paying attention. even folks we've been meeting in this various lovely beach community in southern australia or r talking about when they -- australia, are talking about when they walk along, they search for pieces of the plane. they have been for week. everybody is focused on this. police we talked to on the way here, also they were aware of it. it had been moved from here up north to brusselston. they said it moved on to perth.

pictures of it taken, sent to investigators around the world, in the u.s. and malaysia, and canbera. and probably to boeing itself in order to discount this thing. keep in mind the flights are still going up, as well, looking for stuff on the ocean surface. p3s, p 8s, an enormous effort. they've covered tens of thousands of square miles of ocean. they are not giving up. don? >> thank you. thank you, michael, as well. now to cnn's richard quest in kuala lumpur. there's a preliminary report on flight 370. and you have information on that. what do you have? >> reporter: don, malaysia has now sent the preliminary report send by the international civil aviation organization, icao, the u.n. body that looks after global aviation if you like. under the rules, they had 30 days to send this report. icao made it clear they wouldn't fuss if it was a bit late bearing in mind the circumstances. the report has been sent. the malaysians have not released the report to the media. perhaps somewhat unusually, most -- in most cases the report is published because it's not a controversial document. it's a statement of facts, what happens. and if there are any controversial or difficult

facts, they can be redacted. icao has confirmed to me that there is a safety recommendation in the report. a fairly obvious one. the malaysians basically saying that the world of aviation needs to look at real time tracking of commercial aircraft. well, bearing in mind that was part of air france 447's report and nothing seems to have happened, we've spent several weeks now looking for mh 370, to suggest in the future that all planes worldwide are tracked in real time, one might suggest, is a pretty noncontroversial suggestion. don? >> richard, thank you very much. and you might be surprised by that. we're going to dig deeper into real-time tracking later on in the show. now i want to go jeffrey thomas,

editor-in-chief of airlineratings.com, in perth. hello. what do you make of what richard reported? that the malaysians have completed their preliminary report but have not released it. they say they have information to hide, but what concern, you know, does this raise for you? >> look, unfortunately, don, it just adds fuel to the fire which is like a furnace of disbelief, particularly in china, as to what is going on. i mean, if they say there's nothing to hide, then release this preliminary report as virtually every other jurisdiction does with an accident. they say and they maintain nothing to hide. well, let's have a look at it. and as richard points out, if there's any particularly sensitive parts, they can be taken out of the report that's published on line. >> jeffrey, the prime minister, tony abbott, spoke with reporters about the state of the search. he said australia won't give up.

but realistically, where do they go from here? >> well, look, i don't believe australia will give up. and i don't believe the united states and the other countries involved will give up on this either. the next stage would have to be pinger one location, which is slightly to the north of where they're searching at the moment. i also believe that the deployment of the towed "orion" is probably now overdue, and that should be brought in as quickly as possible. again, from the united states. and maybe we have to go back to the calculations and revisit them. although i understand that's an ongoing process. they're looking at them over and over again. you know, have we forgotten something. and i'm continually told off the record that we're on the money. we're in the right spot. >> yeah. remember early on, he was so very confident. and as we have been reporting, there's less than 10% of the search area left where they detected the pings. at one point, the prime minister

and angus houston were very confident that these pings would lead us straight to the wreckage. what does that say about the data that we're working off of? do you think it's accurate? people have questioned whether we're out there searching in the right area. >> reporter: look, indeed, don. and this is not an exact science. we have to understand that. and we must remember with air france 447, it was 18 missions with the -- the side-scan sonar device that they used in that particular search. and it was found about six miles from where they thought it was. so there is a precedent for this not being an exact science. i think we have to give them a bit more time. >> yeah. there's a precedent for that. but you know, we live in this modern era now where people want answers very quickly, jeffrey. and we probably won't get them in this case soon, correct? >> reporter: indeed. we're in the era of google earth where we can find our back yard

in this flash and look at our pool and our yard. we can find our iphone in a couple of seconds. but this mystery is really challenging everything we know and everything we understand. and it's a vexing problem. >> challenging and unprecedented. stay with me. coming up, rethinking the search. is it time to change the strategy in the search for flight 370? later, why aren't we live streaming cockpit data in real time instead of relying on decades' old black box technology? who could be opposed to that? we'll have more coming up. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for, because i'm raising two girls on my own. i'll worry about the economy more than a few times before they're grown. but it's for them, so i've found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your future? we'll help you get there.

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welcome back. breaking news, the bluefin 21 has nearly completed its 12th mission, 90% of the search zone scanned. and yet another deadend when sheet metal with rivets washed ashore has been ruled out as debris from this plane. it raises the question, is it time to rethink the search vat gee? jean casaras has more now. australia will not rest until we have done everything we humanly can to get to the bottom of this mystery. >> reporter: it is a mystery no closer to being solved. the bluefin 21 autonomous underwater vehicle has searched the targeted area with no luck. experts are preparing for the next phase of the recovery effort. >> this requires deep sea ascents. this requires more probably bluefin 21s. this requires probably

submersibles that will be very, very expensive. again, there are so many people out there who are interested in coming on board. >> reporter: with additional countries coming forward to help coordination of this worldwide effort could be tricki. >> to bring in more people at this point will simply complicate and extend the process. it's a very bad mistake in my estimation. >> there needs to be a spearhead so to speak. a mission control, if you like, that organizes all these asset. otherwise, we may be seeing different entities covering the same ground and, therefore, being inefficient and wasting a lot of time and money. >> reporter: ocean explorer fabian cousteau says it's about time they increase assets and include submarines. >> there's a big difference between a robot or rov and auv versus having people down below searching with their own two eyes. there's only so much a sonar can

do. visually speaking. now that said, the -- the area they're searching may not be the right area. >> reporter: that's why searchers may need to revisit even the most fundamental information which could mean yet another look at the inmarsat data used to establish the search zone. >> it's a matter of looking at all the data. whether it is satellite, whether it is radar, and that is very important as we charter our next course. >> reporter: one area that could be eliminated, the search by air. is it still relevant? >> if that search finds the slightest thing, the slightest piece of the aircraft, it would give them closure on what's going on. >> it's an extraordinarily difficult decision to make. and on a daily basis at that, i wouldn't want to be the one having to orchestrate this extraordinary complex search. >> reporter: jean casarez, cnn. >> all right. thank you very much. time for my team of experts. jeff wise, author of "extreme

fear: the science of your mind and danger." former faa safety inspector and author of "why planes crash." lieutenant colonel michael kaye, retired military pilot with the british royal air force. jim tillman, retired american airlines pilot, aviation attorney arthur rosenburg, and of course jeffrey thomas, back with us from perth. david, you say in jean's piece that additional countries coming forward to help could complicate efforts. what's the alternative, though? >> well, the idea is that as time -- there's a time in investigation when you stop doing and start thinking. that's important, really important. and most of the my investigations, i spent at least 80% of our time planning and figuring it out and analyzing data. and only about 20% do you actually go out and do. now, those investigations didn't involve this type of search, obviously. but with this type of search, it's so important that it's a coordinated effort. there's a strategy, a plan for how it goes forward. just throwing more people at the problem won't fix it. i think it will help financially, it will help a lot.

people are going to pitch in on this project, bring in some more expertise. you need to select people with a team based on qualifications and what they bring to the team. not simply that it's more countries. >> jim tillman, you're concerned searchers are working off incorrect assumptions and looking in the wrong place. have you lost all confidence on the data that the search area is based on, the satellite data and ping data? >> i never had a great deal of confidence in anything when i can't get concrete information that i can go to the bank on. all the things i've heard so far have been based upon assumptions. and those were fine. we're talking about very brilliant, very experienced experts when we talk about that. except it's still an assumption. i'm hoping that we will go from assumption to reality. this is it, jim. this is what it looks like. this is what it tastes like. let's go from there. that's what i'm looking forward to. >> listen, panel, you guys have been here, jim has been saying the same thing since day one. he doesn't believe that we're

actually looking in the right place. so he's on the money. he has been saying that. you know, what happens, jeff, when the bluefin finishes the current search area? do you find a new place to look for or use different technology to research the same area? >> i'm really with jim and david on this one. you know, the australians assured us that they had reason to believe, very strong reasons to believe that these pings correlated with the aircraft and that we would very soon be in possession or know the whereabouts of the wreckage. that hasn't panned out. so then i think we really have to say, okay, this appears that this was a false positive. we don't know what generated this false positive or how it could have come about. seems that it was not the black box pinger. it was something else. therefore, why did australia make this assumption? why did they think this was wreckage? and really, i mean, we're all frustrated because we all want to understand. and we have so little data to go on -- >> do you think -- you don't think it was a black box pinger? you think it was false data?

>> one of those -- the pinger, the best ping they had, number two, they thought it was the best one. seems to clearly not correspond with the black box. they searched a broad area. the plane is not in there, the pinger is not in there. >> arthur, what's the head shake for? >> i don't agree with that. look, first of all, there were three separate analyses that led us to this area. the inmarsat data, the half ping, the correlation between the doppler shift and other signatures from other 777s flying through the area. that was good data that got us down here. separately, we have the pings that they found. we have radar data. yes, we made certain assumptions about the performance of the airplane. but it all coalesced in this area. this area is not a little area. it's a big area. i -- i say give it a little more time. >> okay.

>> before we jump to conclusions. >> they have less than 10% to go. and michael kaye, you know, almost every word out of your mouth is inmarsat data, inmarsat -- you believe in the inmarsat data but still believe they should be looking, am i wrong, in the northern arc? you're not sure they're searching in the right area? >> i think we've got enough evidence and data. in the absence of absolutely nothing. 47 days in, it's in the absence of no other data. we've got something from inmarsat. we've got something from pings. experts say that theapins could not be con -- pings could not be confused with any natural sources, so it leads to this area. air france 447 took two years, and we knew there was debris. there is nothing here that links us to the debris field. we've got to have the evidence to keep on searching. >> yes, i understand, but if you listen to angus houston, and we listen to him closely, we listen to tony abbott closely, you know, jeffrey, you can back me up on this. they said we are confident we're in the right area and we're going to find it soon. tony abbott said that. angus houston didn't go that far. you know -- >> can i finish the point -- >> no, i need to get jeffrey because we're going to lose him. we will learned that this piece

of sheet metal found on the coast of australia doesn't appear to be part of the plane. do you expect more cases like this, jeffrey thomas, as time goes by? >> look, as time goes by, i'm actually certain that on the coast of western australia people are going to start picking up bits and pieces as we go along. but getting back to what you're saying, don, and backing up here, i mean, everything leads us to where these pings are. and certainly 90% of the strongest ping, we haven't found something. there's wing pu -- ping one, ping three, and ping four. we haven't even touched those areas yet. there's a long way to go before we write this off as the wrong area. i think we need to give it a little more time. >> i wanted to make sure i got jeff flee there. michael kaye, what did you want to say about the northern arc? >> jeffrey is absolutely on the money. we've not checked this area to the full extent. if you look at the northern arc, that a vast amount of area. jeffrey's on the money. we've still got a long way to

go. let's absolutely do everything we can in the south and then let's have a look at what the options are. and sequential planning and analysis will be going on. angus houston won't just be fixated on this area. there will be people looking at alternatives. >> okay. good news, jeffrey thomas will stick around a little bit longer. we'll get to talk to him and get his perspective and analysis. next, another lead, another dead end. the families of flight 370 left in the dark. a live report from beijing. later, i'm going to talk to the man who helped fine "titanic." his thoughts and a possible next move in the search for flight 370 when we come right back.

welcome back. i'm don lemon. the families of flight 370 continue to wait for answers. they certainly aren't getting many from officials. i want to go to cnn's ivan watson in beijing. ivan, families in beijing today subject to another round of false hope when the object of interest that washed ashore in australia turned out to be another dead end. >> reporter: we asked one woman whose husband was a passenger aboard the plane what her reaction was. she said, you know, i didn't believe any of this. i don't believe anything they tell us anymore. so no her hopes were not lifted and then dashed by this news. perhaps more poignant is the

same woman has been sharing up until recently a photo of herself with her husband -- missing husband at a birthday party wearing little, you know, cute paper birthday hats with the message, honey, i can't wait to see you again. and that underscores the fact that she as well as many of the other relatives that i've spoken with really do fervently believe that the missing loved ones are still alive. they're still waiting for them at some point to show up. a psychologist that i've spoken it here who helped work with some of the families here in beijing and who has worked with families of a previous air disaster, he's very worried about -- he's described this as dangerous. this feeling of hope which can build up people's expectations he warns to very unrealistic levels and setting them up for some kind of terrible fall. of course, when you talk to these relatives, these next of kin, because they feel that they have not been given conclusive

evidence that this plane did in fact crash into the indian ocean, many of them still believed that their loved ones are alive and well and walking around somewhere. >> i want to quickly follow up with you, ivan, on what you've reported on the incredible tension between the families and malaysian officials. malaysia has a preliminary report, but it's largely being kept secret. will will the families be briefed on it? >> reporter: i think that they would practiclie kill to get -- practically kill to get their hands on it, to see some of it. the fact that the organization has said it's basically up to malaysia to decide whether or not to share that, this aviationial organization is not going to do that. but i mean, that's going to lead to more questions from committees that have organized that have been beating his drumbeat of criticism day after day saying, why won't the malaysian authorities share more information, share more details.

for example, they want to hear the audio recordings of the final exchanges between the pilot and ground control. the audio itself. and that's not coming out. that's one of their big bone of contention. >> all right. thank you, ivan watson. a technical glitch there. we apologize for that. basically we got the gift of what he's saying. joining me, oceanographer with the scripps institute of oceanography and worked on the search for "titanic" and has incredible insight into the difficulties of deep water search. thank you for joining us again, jules. welcome back to the show. earlier, there was a lot of discussion about a piece of metal with rivets that washed on shore. we've learned investigators don't think it is from the plane. would you expect any wreckage to be washing ashore by this time, a thousand mails or more from the search area? >> well, don, i think mother nature always has a surprise. you know, that's what we're kind of seeing happen in the last ten days. i heard the argument that there was a cyclone about a month ago, month and a half ago. if you look at the cyclones in the southern atmosphere, they're actually clockwise.

and in principle, that could have pushed some surface wreckage down. and then there's another current that might have pushed it back up. so i don't think that idea that the wreckage could have been there is entirely unreasonable. sadly, of course, it isn't. so it couldn't have been discounted from the start. >> let's talk about the bluefin 21, jules. it has now scanned more than 90% of the seabed search zone with no signs of the wreckage found. i mean, do you think the plane is likely to be found in the last 10% of the area? >> i think the chances are one out of ten. i mean, i've been following discussions on your show and other shows. and i think the pinger is there. i mean, we certainly know that there was a pinger there. and it certainly is disappointing not to find the wreckage around it. so i guess it's sort of a crap shoot at this point.

i really couldn't say. i'm hopeful that we would be able to find it. but i don't really know. >> so i have -- i want to ask, this a tweet from don c. it says, "how much of the search area was too deep for bluefin 21 to scan? when will a.u. release bathymetry-type maps?" i think that's a good question. the bluefin 21 isn't able to go as far down as wreckage could be. technical terms of a map there. but what do you make about the depths and what he says as it relates to the bluefin? >> yeah, so as you recall, on the first day the bluefin kind of depthed out, it wasn't able to go the full depth and probably triggered some way or some other circuit to bring it to the surface. and these depth ratings of these underwater vehicles, of course, are conservatively established because we always like to have a margin of error. as far as my understanding goes from the information i've heard, mostly on cnn, there wasn't a

problem with it not being able to map that area. i think there are other areas that are pretty close to that area which could in fact challenge the bluefin. but the information i heard was that it didn't have a problem mapping that six-mile radius circle that we've seen so much of. >> hey, jules, i want to talk about titanic. you were part of the team that discovered the wreckage of "titanic" back in '85. was side-scan sonar used in the search? what equipment ultimately found the wreckage? and i think there was an idea of where "titanic" was, obviously. so it was a little bit different. >> yeah, sure. i mean, the coe spins tales and exploration and discovery is never predictable fully. that's kind of what we're seeing over the last ten days. in the case of titanic, the

original plan was similar to what we're seeing now, except we hadn't invented these underwater autonomous vehicles like the bluefin. and the idea was the french had this wonderful deeply towed side scan that was developed mostly for geophysical exploration because bob ballard and his french colleagues were a bunch of geologists, and the idea was the french would map it out and cover a fairly large area. unfortunately for some reason, the story i heard as part of the team, was that they had early in their search seen something, but they thought the side scan wasn't quite functioning correctly. so they didn't really figure out where it was. so now 30 days later, ballard goes out and essentially a tow video sled and has to look for "tan tannic" without having contact. the idea is the sonar finds the contacts, and we go back and check it out optically.

luckily or cleverly as you might imagine, within three days, they ran over a huge debris field. you remember, titanic, of course, was huge. so there was a lot of stuff on the sea floor. and ultimately, on the third day, i believe, they ran over a 20-foot boiler. and they had a book and sort of a famous scene where they looked it up. so the sonar was involved in the search for "titanic." but the actual discovery, i think, was purely optical. it's a wonderful story. and -- and very, very luckily for ballard, he found it. >> you said purely optical? >> yes, sir. >> so then, do you think any sort of optical equipment would be better for the search for flight 370? >> well, not really because we all imagined that the sonar would find those contacts. and if you think about the amount of area that you can see with sound, which is much more the ocean's much more transparent to sound. and can you see with light. i mean, with an optical system, you're only seeing sort of half

a basketball court or a quarter of a basketball court. but with the sonar, it maps two beams, one to each side. and you're really seeing a couple of football fans. >> so that's better than a manned submarine for sure, right, as well? >> well, of course. yes. it's better because in the manned submersible you would be using your eyes. and the mapping rates would be slower. and you'd have to come up in three hours. so yes. >> jules, i always want to have you on for an entire show. thank you very much. thanks -- will you come back? >> always a pleasure. just ask. >> thank you. appreciate it. coming up, what if we didn't need the black box to find out what happened to flight 370? what if we didn't need it? believe it or not, the technology does exist. so why aren't we using it? all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked.

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and savings -- all the things humans need to make our world a little less imperfect. call... and ask about all the ways you could save. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? i want you to listen to this. an estimated $234 million could be spent in the search for flight 370's black boxes. but what if we didn't need the black box to find out what happened? brian todd has more. >> reporter: the black boxes from flight 370 are as elusive as its wreckage. inside, the cockpit voice and flight data recorders that could unlock this mystery. now, new momentum for the idea of having to avoid uncovering black boxes. cnn has learned malaysian authorities have recommended to international regulators that commercial aircraft should be

tracked in real-time. is it time for that? are these obsolete? >> i feel there's few people in the world after the malaysian air crash who wouldn't say yes. i mean, clearly this is old technology. >> reporter: now, the ntsb is reviewing new technology for airliner to live stream flight data back to the ground as they fly. one challenge the ntsb sees -- too many planes transmitting too much information. >> you only can have so much bandwidth, so much ability to receive data, transmit data, so you're looking for what is the most important information. >> reporter: two canadian companies have already developed real-time streaming that bounces off satellites. the hardware looks like this as it's installed in the plane. as the jet is flying, the ground operations can see air speed, altitude, and location in real time. but it doesn't transmit all the time. >> it's only activated when a specific set of circumstances occur that are predefined.

>> reporter: predefined by the airline. circumstances like the plane deviating from its flight path. a sudden pitch or roll. these systems don't send back the cockpit voice recordings. >> we have a cultural problem with the airlines and the airline unions for the pilots. they do not want big brother in the cockpit. >> reporter: the faa doesn't require american carriers to outfit their jets with live streaming. and the canadian companies tell us only a few u.s.-based airlines carry them. they won't say which ones. why aren't more major airlines using live streaming? >> it's always cost. the airlines don't want to put anything else in the aircraft that they can't make use of. and they don't want to carry anything that adds weight and, hence, costs more fuel. >> reporter: at about $100,000 per plane, it's not cheap. analysts say if malaysia airlines had had live streaming on that plane, we would at least have some answers now. experts say there? is another possibility. a deployable recorder, a box that would automatically eject from a plane when it's in distress and land separately,

either on the ground or in the water. those already exist in some military planes. brian todd, cnn, at reagan national airport. >> thank you very much. i want to bring in now my panel of experts. jeff wise, i don't know if you saw this by clive irving. he wrote a scathing article that says, "why are we so dependent on a system that allows all the crucial data about the whereabouts and condition of an airliner to disappear along with an airplane?" he said, "people are angry, they can't understand how that is a fedex package can be tracked to the far corners of the earth, but an airliner apparently can't." why do we use technology -- why don't we use the best technology available? is this about money? >> it certainly is about money. in the case of air france 447, they had a system transmitting via satellite every minute. it was automatically reporting to the maintenance center in france. malaysia airlines just subscribed to a cheaper system that didn't report as often. it was only about another 15

minutes. it was -- the reports being transmitted. so if you spend more money, you get to have more frequent acars transmissions. here's the problem -- these systems can be turned off. that's what happened in the case of mh 370. the acars system was turned off. and so part of this would be, you know, boosting up the amount of information that's broadcast. another part would be making sure it's not turned off if you want to avoid this kind of situation again. >> so david, richard quest reporting that the streaming flight information is a recommendation in the malaysia preliminary report as far as the air france investigation. do you think the streaming black box technology will finally be implemented after this when people are seeing just how ridiculous it is? how long might that take if so? >> you know, thankfully there is enough coverage now where it might force regulation. the ntsb has been pushing this for a long time. they're not the regulatory authority.

the faa is. and in the international world, the icao is. icao has done a lot of testing on satellite transmissions, on the sat-com system, how hay communicate through satellites. there's no reason it shouldn't be implemented at this point. as jeff pointed out real well, if this stuff is turned off, if the fedex box tracking system was turned off, you couldn't track that package. and this is what happened here. it was turned off. so it was either turned off or failed by some catastrophic failure. so we have to realize, we do have this now. >> jim, we just saw brian's piece. he report that these systems would cost about $100,000 a plane. they estimate that they may spend about a quarter of a billion dollars finding this plane. not to mention the anguish of the families. so wouldn't it be worth the cost? >> after the fact we can all become very, very expert money managers. but during the time when airlines are struggling to try to keep their bottom line intact and struggling to try to compete one with the other and all the kind of things that they have to

deal with, $100,000 doesn't sound like a lot to some folks, but you talk with the bean counters at any airline, and they say $100,000 per airplane, get out of here, get serious. so i got to tell you, money is a major issue. >> but -- yes. but if you look at the amount of money that they're going to be sued, for which they'll be sued, i mean, jeffrey, why are airlines willing to spend money on wi-fi, they're willing to spend it on live tv, other creature comforts. but not on potentially life-saving technology. it just seems counterintuitive. >> look, indeed, don. of course, one of the reasons is it's not mandated. now, one of the things that icao has done as a result of air france 447 is it has mandated that the black box beacons would last 90 days, not 30 days. so if it was 90 days now, we'd still be looking for pings out there. and -- and probably getting more pings. so that's one thing that has

been done. but the airline industry, as has been said, is under so much financial pressure. it needs -- it needs to be mandated by icao for the whole industry to move forward. >> arthur, one of the arguments against using live streaming data is too many planes transmitting too much information. do you buy that? >> i do not. and there's a very simple solution for it. instead of streaming all the information that's contained in a flight data recorder, you limit the stream to basic information like air speed, like altitude, like -- like ground speed, like position. and then if an airplane goes off an assigned route or predetermined route, it does something aberrant. this will instantaneously stream position information about the airplane. it's a relatively simple, straightforward system from what i understand. and -- and your prior piece, this company in canada actually has a system that's ready to go. all we need is the faa to

mandate that it is a requirement. >> michael kaye, you know this, a former military pilot. you've heard in brian's piece also about these self-ejecting black boxes which are found in some military plane already. is that an option that they -- that should be considered for commercial jets, do you think? >> i don't think it -- it is an option clearly that can be considered. i actually think in all this conversation, we're going from what we've got now to the gold-plated option which is this live streaming through satcom. they're all interim technologies that have been rolled out three the fleet at the moment. one is the automatically survalent broadcast, adsb. the problem is, there's a single point of failure here. and jeff and david alluded to it earlier with the acars, it's actually the trans responder. the technologies at the moment rely on the transponder to either transmit or receive depending on adsb, what we've got now, or what we've got in the future. i think there's a relatively easy fix. and that relatively easy inexpensive fix is make sure you've got a transponder that can't be turned off.

with all these wonderful technologies, most have an on and off switch. i think that is a single point that we should be looking at at the moment that should provide an interim fix. >> everyone's in agreement. mikey, do you think it was turned off or a fall eur -- or failure or we don't know? quickly. >> the bottom line, we don't know. it could have been broken or it could have been turned off. that's part of the problem. >> coming up, experts answer questions next. in pursuit of all things awesome, amazing,

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welcome back. it's time for our experts to answer questions. jim, i really like there question, okay. this is from ronald marks. he says, "as a former aircraft mechanic, i have questions that i have not seen or covered on the news regarding flight 370. could a ground crew load some equipment with the ability it shut down all communications?" great question. >> yes, they could. and that kind of technology is pretty elementary. it's not a big deal for that to happen. and i've said from the beginning, if this was a hijacking, they had to have help. they couldn't do it by themselves. >> hello, panel, discuss. i mean, they -- they could have -- i know it's our tweet round, but that's interesting to me, david, that they can do that. >> yeah.

well, and we talked about that even in flight, that it's accessible, the compartment where the uhf, vhf, transponder, and systems are co-located. they're all right there. not only are they accessible from underneath and outside the aircraft before the flight, but after the flight and during the flight. from the cabin, you can get to them, as well. >> that needs to be worked on. thank you. this is from mike -- this of e-mailed from reed, "flight 370, has there been any real effort to disqualify a terror plot in which an aircraft is taken and then used later in an attack? all the best technological efforts have found nothing in the indian ocean. actually, no crash evidence at all, hmm." >> look, one of the main elements of warfare that we've used for hundreds of years is the element of surprise. and if this indeed was a tactic, the element of surprise is completely gone because everyone's air defenses are now at a heightened state because there could be something along those lines. so i don't -- it's not a card on the table as far as i'm

concerned. there are very real potential theories that we should be looking at. and this, i'm afraid, doesn't qualify at the moment. >> arthur rosenberg, we have a question from christine. "how can the families file suit if they don't know what happened? it could have been pilot error or a hijacking." >> the short answer is, under the montreal convention, they can file a lawsuit right now against malaysia airlines. there's really no credible evidence yet, we don't have physical evidence of a product defect. i don't think a credible lawsuit can be filed against boeing or any component manufacturer as of this date. >> okay. jeffrey thomas, this is from sackler insider. it says, "with the bluefin not finding anything, could the search be called off? $21 million a month to search." >> not a chance. i don't believe we'll call this search off. and i believe that we'll prosecute it until we actually find the airplane. i don't think money is any object in our search for closure

on this tragedy. >> all right. jeff, here in the u.s., jeff wise, a tweet says, "is it possible that the jet is down there and the bluefin 21 missed it?" absolutely, right? >> yeah, i mean, we don't really know what the terrain is like. we've heard from experts that if there's peaks and jagged protrusions that it could create a shadow behind which you can't see. so the short answer is perhaps. we just don't really know about what's down there. >> we'll be back with more from my experts.

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final question -- what rights do the family members have, that's what the families are asking. arthur rosenberg? >> bottom line, you say icao and the united nations have to enter the fray and get the malaysians to come clean. >> david? >> we need to get congress to put an ambassador back in to the icao so we can push this from the united states side to get the rights exercised that they do have. >> jim tillman? >> we need to have some method of making sure the families know how much effort is being used on their behalf. and i think it's phenomenal. >> michael kaye? >> simple, don -- transparency. >> that's it. and jeffrey thomas? >> we need the release of that factual report straight away through icao. >> jeff wise? >> first of all, the families need to be told what their right are.

the malaysians haven't even told them yet. >> yeah. thank you, guys. appreciate all of you again this evening. i'm don lemon. thank you very much for watching. that's it for us tonight. "ac 360" start right now. good evening, there's breaking news tonight. growing doubt about what has seemed to be breaking news on what doubt there was, a piece of metal that washed up on a western australia beach, just one of several new developments in the investigation that we'll address tonight. also tonight is the search for the missing. the ferry crew member who did not abandon ship, this is her, she stayed and saved dozens of young lives, sacrificing her own, we'll tell you her remarkable feats. and later on "ac360," we'll tell you what is truly outrageous, what this investigation reveals about a hospital that kept patients, veterans, waiting months for care. 40 people died waiting. one doctor says the hospital covered up their delays with lies.