>> like you must have known, somebody must have told you the right stand to go there. >> no. if there's a line of mexicans there, i'm there. >> the guy has an iron stomach. you can catch parts unknown sunday on cnn, it is a great show. good evening, i'm michael smerconish. the long-awaited preliminary report from the malaysia government on the disappearance of flight 370 is now public. it not only raises a lot of new questions the report is a window among air traffic controllers. it shows that precious time was lost after this final verbal communication between the control tower and the cockpit. >> malaysian 370, ho chi minh, good night. >> good night, 370. >> that is malaysian air traffic control telling 370 to check in with vietnamese air traffic control.

but that never happened. the report shows that as controllers realized communication was lost there was a four-hour gap until an official search for flight 370 was launched. let's take a look at the timeline. and we'll highlight some of the newest information. the plane departed from kuala lumpur at 12:41 a.m. we already knew that the plane's on-board system, acars sent its last communication. at 1:19 a.m., the last verbal communication from the cockpit is made as we just heard. at 1:24, the last communication was heard. 19 seconds later, flight 370 disappeared. and thailand spots an unknown aircraft apparently flying from the opposite direction from flight 370, scheduled flight path. 1:30 a.m., they radio that they never established contact. this is key, it is not until 5:30 a.m. that malaysian

authorities activate a search. finally, the last satellite handshake from the jet was picked up from a ground station. they fail to tell them what role the military played, if any. also it was released by e-mail. not by a news conference so -- so the reporters could not question the officials. miles, what did you learn today? >> well, i learned that the malaysians are still stingy with releasing facts, first and foremost. and i learned that there really was a lack of response and lack of integration between the

military facilities really left me with a sense of sadness. because if there had been a fighter jet scrambled and if this were a deliberate act, maybe things would have changed. >> i am somebody who enjoys flying, maybe this happens with regularity, i don't mean planes that go missing but something that is not accounted for and no one immediately recognizes that. >> well, the handoff, there is a gap, somebody says good-bye, you change the frequency and say hello to the next guy. and sometimes that can be just a matter of a few seconds. sometimes there is a busy frequency and you can't get on. and sometimes there is radio problems or whatever. and so sometimes there can be long gaps where you're not talking to anybody. and this is routine. but typically in those cases you're still being interrogated by radar.

in the case, the transponder went off what was a three-dimensional piece of information for an air traffic controller, becomes just a blip. and alarm bells should have rung quickly. >> richard, you of course brought out that this report was forthcoming, what did you want to see that it didn't contain? >> what i wanted to see was more description and more understanding, the role of the military and the relationship between the military and the civil aviation authorities. we know the military saw the plane on the night. but now we have this four-hour gap, and we don't know why the two sides did not speak to each other. i can tell you because today i made inquiries back in malaysia. and unlike in the united states, the military and the civil authorities do not have that ongoing dialogue. many countries don't, by the way. it is a post-9/11 thing in the

u.s. many countries don't have that. that is what i really wanted to understand. i think you summed it up perfectly. what we have here is not the mistakes errors, we have missed cues, the discoveries that are not taken. and this, i'm afraid, is quite typical of much global control. >> miles that scant information that was released, does it report with a model or neither? >> well, i would lean towards the nefarious scenario, because -- what you just talked about. that moment of handoff. the fact that everything happened in that moment where somebody who knows a little bit about aviation would be aware that there would be this gap. this opportunity where each controller thinks the other is talking to the aircraft.

that is an interesting coincidence, if in fact a mechanical event happened at that very moment. now, i still can't -- you still can't rule out a fire scenario that would knock out a certain series of electrical gear that would cause the plane to have difficulties and be unable to communicate. but it gets harder and harder to build that case. so i think -- and i think richard agrees with me that you have to lean towards some sort of deliberate act here. >> does that make sense here if we were looking at the flight path would we have circled this precise spot that this is where the bad stuff should go down? >> yes, it would, because if you look at the flight plan for the rest of the flight once it has crossed the south china sea it goes up towards vietnamese. it doesn't go over cambodia. and then pretty much before you can say american airlines flight 370 you are up into chinese air

space before you head into beijing. so there were not many opportunities. as we presented it does lean nefarious, but where i might venture a disagreement is i don't think it tells us one way or the other what we learned today. what we got was a data dump. a vast amount of information. some of it is relevant, some of it is not. but i think fundamentally malaysia has more questions to answer, as indeed do other countries as a result of this. >> miles, a final question for you if i might. as you look at the report is there any reason where you see if it could not have been released five days ago, ten days ago, 25 days ago? >> it could have been released five days after the plane was lost really. this is -- it is one thing for we in the media to say we want our information. i just think in the families, the families have -- they have

no trust or faith whatsoever in the malaysian authorities. and this is a big reason for it. this kind of rudimentary back information and this kind of information would have been out there fairly quickly. this kind of information should have been released when it was available to the families. i mean, they deserve better than what they have got. >> miles brian, thank you so much. richard please stay with me. the report makes a key safety recommendation. the tracking of jetliners in realtime. the malaysian authorities asked the civil aviation to examine the benefits of doing so. exactly a month ago on this program i brought up the same issue, i talked about it with jay monroe, the ceo of global star, the satellite company that offers a tracking device that he says could have told us exactly where the plane is. so here is the question that i asked. is the market going to sort this out? we are all so frustrated. i have to tell you on my radio program for the last three weeks

everybody calls with an example of saying if i can track my iphone why the heck can't they find this plane? i said the other day i flew home on jetblue across the country a couple of days ago watching cnn. if i can watch cnn in realtime why can't we find the plane? you think we have a solution, what is it? >> well, the technology does exist, in fact there is a system that the faa is mandating which has a component called adsb. adsb allows you to track aircraft from a signal that comes from the belly of each airplane to ground infrastructure. the challenge with adsb is that a, it is not rolled out everywhere. and b, it doesn't work in areas that can't see ground infrastructure. >> we're joined by cnn's safety analyst david souci. he is the author, and i have a copy in my hand of "why planes crash." thank you for joining us. is the net worth is that we'll get realtime information?

>> i would sure hope so but we said the same thing after flight 447. we had the information and knew where it went, there was information on the extent of the pingers, this is history that has gone on a long time. not only in the united states but on icao to enforce it, to which our ambassador saying this is something the united states is demanding. we have to have standards for people that fly on your airlines in your country. and they're not doing that. there is many examples of that. >> it surprises americans, here we are having this conversation where the supreme court is looking at whether a warrant is necessary before we look at your smartphone because they recognize there is so much data that is being exchanged via that device in your pocket. >> just about everybody i speak to the airline ceos, and regulators, everybody says it is

coming. it is realtime tracking. icao has a meeting to start to look at some of the lessons of this. this is a body frankly that is slow. it is deliberate. and some would say sclerotic. because you have to keep everybody on board. it is part of the united nations. i mean, need i say more? getting agreement on something like that ain't going to be easy. >> gentlemen, we talked about the cargo. david, i'll start with you. the batteries, the lithium batteries. >> very significant in my opinion, others may not share that. >> what are they, by the way? >> well, in your phone, you have a lithium battery, i have one here, very small. used in everything from this to the dreamliner, to the new cars that are all electric using lithium batteries. they're very light and powerful. but they're volatile. they can have problems and when

they do it is explosive problems. very hard to control. >> so in what quantity did we learn today? >> well, we thought it was originally 25 oh pounds, that is what they said. there is 250 pounds loaded in the back of the aircraft which is where it is safe. we found out later it is 450. now. we have this report. almost 5,000 pounds. that is more than two vehicles, two cars. that is how heavy that is. that is a lot of lithium batteries. >> do you agree with the significance of this potentially? >> no, not really. >> why not? >> because i think if it had had been the lithium there is a risk. i don't deny that. but if it had been the lithium that caused a problem there would have been plenty of opportunity for may day. there would have been plenty of opportunity for a variety of responses -- >> perhaps. >> and how do you get the plane from there down to the south indian ocean? >> this is not the point i'm making, richard. the point i'm making in the united states that wouldn't have

happened. the batteries wouldn't have been there. i'm not saying it is the single cause, in every investigation it is not one single cause. but listen, taking it to icao, we learned it in 2010. four years later it is not even mentioned it needs to be a standard in the international environment. not even talked about. >> could a domestic flight in the united states have had that quantity? >> well, they could have had that quantity, but not on a passenger plane. >> i'm not saying there is not a risk. i'm saying i don't think it is a factor in this incident. >> it may not be. but we have to look beyond the factors and give the families something to deal with. give everybody, we're all involved in safety and aviation. there are other things to be learned. until we know. and i agree with you. i can't put together why those lithium batteries would have caused them exclusively by themselves. but what i can do is look beyond these and look at other things.

we get ultrafocused to try to figure it out. >> why are we 50-plus days into this and only recognizing that was what was in the cargo hold? >> they have known about it. >> there is a transparency issue. >> you can have transparency and you can have just facts for facts sake. providing the ntsb, the bea, all the relevant authorities in the room know the facts. you are not obliged to just dump everything out there. because they have to be selective. specifically, because there is so much they could be releasing that they have to be choosey about it. >> gentlemen, thank you so much. david souci and richard quest, you know we appreciate you so much. a beijing hotel has been their home for 50 days. but now the families of the missing on flight 370 are being kicked out. i'll talk to sarah bajc, one of the partners of one of the passengers.

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it is already friday morning in beijing and today the hotel is closing its support center there. and that is our unfinished story today. so how do the families feel about the preliminary released report by malaysia? are they satisfied? or do they still have unanswered questions. let's bring in sarah bajc, whose partner was on board flight 370. she was there on thursday when families were briefed by officials. as a matter of fact, sarah, i would love it if you painted the pictures in terms of how the report was received by family members. >> well, the report that was given at the hotel was only a briefing on the fact that they will be closing the support centers and sending the families home. the families did not receive any kind of overview of the preliminary report that was released by dca. so let's separate those topics.

i had actually been at the lido hotel earlier about 6:00 to do an interview, and we were shut down by the police. so the police came and made the camera crew go away. so i went inside with my camera. and it was a very tense place, more than 500 families gathered. probably about 100 police officers in full battle fatigue. and you know, the whole report was done in english. so the average person in the room really had no clue what they were even hearing until a translator started after the fact. and that is when i left because it started getting very tense. >> and i know that the tense nature of it that you're describing is attributable in large part to the fact that the families have now been told that this facility will no longer be their home for the duration of this process. and i wonder if it is an emotional concern that they have or a practical concern. in other words, emotionally does this say to the families that

there is really nothing else that we see in the near future. and subsequently we believe you should return home. or is there a practical consideration in terms of the information flow? >> it is both. partly, this is a support network that everybody has developed, right? it has become a big giant family. but also, the average chinese person, when they go home they will have no other means of communication. so malaysian airlines is sending everybody home. but they haven't actually created any kind of interim step for them. but you know, i think there is something very important to raise here is that the timing of this was almost too perfect to distract from the release of the icao report. because that report raises far more questions than it answered. it is riddled with discrepancies. it contradicts itself with the maps given and the document of the report as well as the list of the actions taken.

there are actually contradictions between what they have put in those three documents. >> i know from a prior conversation that we have had that you participated in the drafting of 26 questions that you were looking to be answered. how many of the 26, if any, were resolved with the issuance of this report? >> well, they did issue the cargo manifest, so that was one of the things we had been asking for. but they still have not released any data. this report does not address any of the civilian radar data from three different air traffic control facilities that would have all fed into dca. so what this report does is highlights that there were three catastrophic points of failure. the first is that malaysian operations was communicating incorrect information. they reported to ho chi minh that the plane was registered in coordinates in cambodian air space. it never was. so that was fabricated piece of

information. i would like to know who that malaysian operation center employee was who did that. because it was either gross incompetent actions or intentional misleading. so they failed to surface that information and dca completely failed to identify the object going through its air space. the military failed to respond to an unidentified object going towards its own military base. and then on top of it the rest of the response cycle was completely broken because the cooperating airport of ho chi minh was being fed incorrect information. >> i know that you continue to post facebook messages to your partner. if the status quo doesn't change for how long does that continue to be your approach, your outlook? >> well, i continue to write messages to philip several times a day. we had constant communication

when he was present, and we continue to have constant communication, at least one-sided. i haven't posted most of them because frankly most of them are not fit for public consumption. but i'll continue to do that. it is a great outlet. >> sarah bajc, god speed, thank you for joining us. how will the owners vote? it may seem clear to the rest of us, but if the board of governors forces sterling to sell it could face consequences later. and how will it affect not just the sports but other leagues?

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major news tonight. an nba owners committee moved this afternoon and moved to force donald sterling to sell his basketball team. the league released this statement. this afternoon the advisory committee met via conference call to discuss the ownership of the l.a. clippers. the committee agreed to move quickly and will reconvene next week. there could be potential repercussions. are the owners setting a dangerous precedent for themselves and what if the owner refuses to sell and files suit against the nba? we're joined by the former counsel for bill clinton, a sports business analyst and former nba player cedric maxwell. lanny, are you as surprised as i that there has not been an apology from sterling? >> well, it is surprising to me,

unless his goal in life is to lose credibility with friends and doesn't care about his reputation. and there are people who get to a point in life that really don't care. it looks like that is really the case. if he did care a long time ago he would have apologized and put the team up for sale himself and indicated that he doesn't deserve to own the team given what he clearly feels about african-americans, which is racism. >> cedric, i think i saw out of the corner of my eye as i was doing the intro and perhaps setting a precedent, i think i saw you nod. speak to that issue if you would. >> well, i think one of the things you really look at, you are setting the precedent. a couple of years ago kobe bryant said something that was homophobic about an official. what happens if somebody finds a

tape with kobe bryant saying something like that again? where do we go? this is a slippery slope. mark cuban said i'm not sure where you go. who is the next guy up? there are a lot of ramifications if you look at what happened. >> rick, i looked at the by-laws in a circumstance like this, it says at such price and on such terms as the commissioners shall deem reasonable and appropriate. that would put a great deal of power in the hands of the nba commissioner. because i wonder, how do you facilitate the sale? is it a disadvantage to sterling the longer this goes off the clock? because the franchise will be de-valued? >> absolutely, on any content we don't hold a bake sale for donald sterling. by the way, he bought the

clippers, based on distressed sales the l.a. dodgers for $2.1 billion. and all the oprah winfreys who want to buy this, here is mine, i'm in the race. the bottom line the reduction of brand value continues, sponsors flee, players flee, doc rivers doesn't coach. the longer the thing gets hurt. he may litigate but it is to his own personal financial detriment and certainly to his owners, as well. >> hey, lanny, i want to address something to you. on that list of clients was one daniel schneider, owner of the redskins, i know you provided him with advice. harry reid on the floor of the senate has now attempted to drag daniel schneider into this conversation. i think that is precisely what cedric was talking about. is that appropriate?

>> well, first of all with respect to senator reid, there is not a racist bone in dan schneider's body, and he never indicated any prejudice to any group. there are many native americans that are proud to say hail to the redskins and sing that song at the stadium just as i have been. but it is an 81-year-old name and to compare the debate on that name with respect to those offended by it, to the man that is a racist and overtly has been a racist, why catch up to a man who has discriminated against people on the basis of race in the marketplace. there is no comparison, senator reid is really i think unfairly and inaccurately making that analogy.

>> i want to bring in arne filco who has been involved in discussions about the sterling situation. what about this idea of precedent? has silver started one, in your view? >> well, i think the commissioner has taken great steps here. he showed great leadership. he has taken the position on tuesday that was absolutely correct. he was responding to a terrible situation of bigotry and hatred. and i thought the league's action so far had been outstanding. one step further today with the advisory and finance committee, eventually this will make its way to the board of governors. i'm really proud of how all the basketball family has to come together for the good whether it be the players, the union, the league, the retired players. this is one family and we've all been together on the right side. >> rick, the issue of where we go from here and the forced sale

of the team, the lawyer in me recognizes that to the extent that franchise is diminished by this process, sterling can turn around and try to lay that off on the nba and say you know it was a $500 million franchise that now is worth a rock bottom $200 million or whatever the data may say. >> and the lawyer in me says he probably caused a lot of that himself. when the nba looks back historically and when history judges this maybe four months from now they may get a billion dollar assets sale. the bucks just sold for 50, every time they line up to buy the price goes up. the players as we just heard are unanimously behind this. an unprecedented show of solidarity and a significant decision by a commissioner who has only been on board for two months although been in the shadow of david stern for a while. the league is looking like a league of diversity not a league

of racism. so i would say four months from now history is kind to this process. and as long as donald sterling keeps his lawyers to the transaction side of this business not the litigation side of this business. >> cedric, do you think the current nba players are wise to this point, the point you're making saying hey this guy needed to go. but be careful, this could come back to bite some of us in the fanny? >> absolutely, i think if you look at the players they have an understanding. but do they have an understanding at the end of the day everybody is on board for scrutiny. players, owners, everybody. so now you're looking at how are you going to judge all of this? if you're an official of a basketball game are we talking about language right now? you have enough right now judging the nba game. now you have officials looking at language which is said in football, basketball. so the slippery slope is there. how are you going to control this thing to me? i am not sure.

but all the players right now have lined up. all the older players have lined up and they are following what the new commissioner has laid out and i love it. >> thank you so much. we are just learning that there is some new information about the search for flight 370. we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with that. honestly, i'm pouring everything i have into this place. that's why i got a new windows 2 in 1. it has exactly what i need for half of what i thought i'd pay. and i don't need to be online for it to work. it runs office, so i can do schedules and budgets and even menu changes. but it's fun, too -- with touch, and tons of great apps for stuff like music, 'cause a good playlist is good for business. i need the boss's signature for this.

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at the top of the program we said that malaysian officials e-mailed out the preliminary report on the investigation into flight 370, rather than allowing questions from reporters. but we've just learned that malaysia's acting transportation minister will hold a media briefing in kuala lumpur at midnight eastern time. and we're back with cnn's richard quest. was this anticipated? >> no, it was not. because the briefing was supposed to have been at the time the report came out 5:30 in the afternoon. and they cancelled that briefing. they issued this -- so we were expecting a briefing at some point. when it was cancelled this morning we did wonder why snow was it to give everyone in the media the opportunity to digest this report?

>> i wouldn't go that far, angus houston, in perth, is also there. my guess is there are high-level meetings taking place in kuala lumpur to discuss the future direction of the search. because although australia has the job of actually doing it, malaysia is still the state of registry. the state of operator and therefore is still in control. >> and of course you have that limited activity in the bay of bengal. although i know there is not a consensus, but perhaps -- you sum it up for me. are people buying into that? >> no, but they're going to have to go and look into it. so they're going to have a look. that is the price you pay for basically having no information. you dare not ignore something like that. >> if richard quest were at that media availability at midnight tonight, our time, what is it

you would most want to ask having read that report? >> oh, easy, mr. -- minister, do you think it is acceptable that four hours went by before the search operation -- for whatever reason, is it acceptable to the traveling public? >> do you anticipate that there will be australian participation in the briefing? is that what you hear you say by making reference? >> i don't know, is the short answer, i do not know if houston will be there. i do not know the purposes but i do have to say when they have the briefings they're quite open. it is not sort of like a mafioso thing, you turn up. it is well organized and coordinated. you don't necessarily get the answer you want to hear but it is all well done. >> you wonder what response, if any, they will offer to the family members. i asked sarah bajc, the family members are devastated at having to leave the hotel. i am sympathetic to them, but

the comforts of home is now the place to be in their view. and we have the advance payments being made under article 28 under the convention. so the process has to move forward. and i'm afraid to say that one of the harshness of it, you can't keep people in hotels indefinitely. >> and we didn't hear anything on that score today. >> that is not what this report is about. it is factual, designed for aviation. it is important to understand everything to do with annex 13, everything about it is not to do with criminal or law enforcement. it is to do with aviation safety. so you have two distinct tracks. criminal, law enforcement, and aviation safety.

i can honestly say i'm only qualified to talk on one of them. >> well, i may not be qualified to talk on either. but i will simply say this, to the extent there is nothing forthcoming on the law enforcement side of the equation i think it just grows concern and speculation that there is just nothing productive taking place there. >> we haven't got any facts, everybody keeps thinking there must be some unknown fact. there is not. i've been there. you have the inmarsat handshakes and pings under the water and air traffic control. and that is -- >> but how reliable would the pings have been if they were in triangulated area. >> they're going to go a bit wider still. so you're still in the ball park, just not at the diamond. >> richard quest, thank you so much. and don lemon will be live here at midnight on cnn with that press conference from kuala lumpur.

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i had to do something. i saw my doctor. we are moments away from a press conference by the malaysian government updating s on the search for malaysian flight 370. this is their first press conference since releasing the initial report thursday. airport image revealed that 17 minutes for the government to know the plane was lost and 4 hours to launch a search. standing buy-in kuala lumpur as we wait for the press conference. is important because the government announced they are suspending the daily briefings for their relatives waiting on round world for updates on this. give us a sense of how relations

are watching all of this some old. >> there watching all this unfold as they have now for eight weeks. with a lot of skepticism about what is going to be told. we have seen time and time again false leads that have turned up nothing. we have this search entering a new phase, the estimated $60 million expense to search the underwater area in the southern indian ocean and what we will see most likely is the surge came from australia, and is used in, and then also in addition to the max, one of the top french aviation officials. we will continue after worse. >> standing by, takes them a few minutes to get in place. a few more moments i have with you before they begin speaking. you mentioned the cost of this. also a team of scientists that down the plane closer to india

and bangladesh. how have the malaysian officials actually, they are speaking out. let's listen in. >> getting more experts to make sure we remain focused on what we're doing. i believe that we will find mh-3700. >> thank you very much. first of all thank you very much and for your generous hospitality. i am here to take your questions, to enable the trilateral ministers' meeting on monday. that is a very important meeting because it will formalize the way ahead to ensure the search continues with urgency and does not stop at any stage. we have been discussing some of

the challenges involved with deepwater search and, of course, as the prime minister mentioned in his announcement last monday, the search will take probably something in the order of eight months, maybe 8-12 months with bad weather or other issues. we are totally committed as free nations to find mh-370 and i am confident in the search that we will find the aircraft. thank you. >> bob my experience with the malaysian authorities --

>> you are watching the first live press out of kuala lumpur since the release of the initial report by the malaysian government. we apologize for the bad quality of what you are hearing. we just heard from the acting transportation minister who reiterated his confidence the plane will be found. he is speaking once again now, let's listen to what he is saying. >> the arrangements we hope to navigate. >> [ inaudible question ] do you think is appropriate --

>> obviously we are having a technical issues with the press. anything mentioned so far stands out to you from what you could hear? >> you heard agnus houston talk about formalizing the process, the hand over to ensure the search will continue. that is what i would imagine these meetings are about. this is angus houston's first official visit to kuala lumpur that we know of since mh-370 does appear. it was never publicized to be had been here before. to see him standing there, i actually did not see the video but we believe he is also there and he is a key figure, someone the families have been asking to be involved in this investigation. to have somebody who spearheaded the search for air france 447 now here overseeing this massive underwater search. it will give these families at least confidence there are people who have been down this

road before and know how to go about a massive undertaking to find the plane at the bottom of the ocean. more than 4.5 kilometers deep in some places. they have all of these officials who are here now together putting their minds together talking about how to move forward. >> we are continuing to listen and to the press conference is our viewers can see. the search for any debris, the aircraft and ships looking for that, that was already suspended. what now is the status of the search operation that the officials seem to still be confident will successful -- be successful. >> in spite of the best efforts of 26 countries and so many flights and so many miles covered over the ocean visually, not a single piece of debris was never spot are retrieved. it eventually became apparent to angus houston and others that

the visual search was not going to turn up any tangible piece of flight 370. of they're talking about is the underwater search. we have seen the bluefin 21, the submersible that was provided by the united states, operated by the navy as well as private contractors. scanning and mapping the ocean floor. they thought they detected the pings from a possible black box. so far that surge has turned up nothing. what they're going to do now -- >> sorry to interrupt, we're going to listen to the acting transportation minister. >> [ inaudible question ] boggs. >> the sorters questions i will deal with this afternoon. to be fair to my guests.

we need to concentrate on the relationship moving forward. those particular issues relating to my statement yesterday, i will deal with it later. >> [ inaudible question ] hob. t >> they have decided it should be mandatory and it is not mandatory, i know some airlines provide this on their own.

from my position, any airline does not wait for a safety authority based. >> maybe one ordimac more questions. >> [ inaudible question ] >> the minister is going to handle the preliminary report. let me just say at the moment we should be focused totally on the search. need to continue the search. we owe it to the families, and

to the public around the world that we continue this search so we can get to the bottom of what happened to mh-370. la . >> [ inaudible question ] >> first, it is not a small area. second night, we have been detecting and thirdly, these are the attempts we had. just based on moore or two pinners. other areas we are discussing. that has been consistent. get the expert advice, get the

cooperation, get our international partners on board deciding where we move forward. angus houston is here with me and as we move on into this new phase, this is the way we have been doing it in the past and i think we will continue to do that. not withstanding what other speculation comes out. it does not mean that what we have done in the last months or weeks before this has been wrong. because it is a long challenge and a journey -- >> an official familiar with the search all sounding confident as they enter a new phase of the search which could take eight months. you're watching cnn. chris, coming up next and we

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welcome to our cnn special report, the trials of amanda knox. and the case that's held the world's attention for close to seven years just took another shocking left turn. the italian court that reconvicted knox of murder explained its reasons and they are almost as bizarre as the case itself. they include be a entirely new theory of what happened that night and why. evidence that was never heard of before. even additional perpetrators. now in a moment, you will hear what amanda knox herself has it say about all of this. but first, let's remind everyone how we got here and what i