also have to keep in mind, is that if it is this debris, it's only going to be some pieces that we're going to find. it's going to, as you said, it's going to take time to find it. but of course we'll want to know where the rest of it is. as you mentioned earlier, the air france accident, that was the initial. that was the one clue that confirmed for us -- [ inaudible ]

>> satellites from the direction of the national transportation safety board trained their sites on an area south and west of perth, australia, in the indian ocean. when they did, they found what has been variously described as a debris field. a large piece of something, which the australian prime minister told his parliament, may be a part of this boeing 777. 24-meter side piece. so about 78 feet. is that across? they don't know. they know it's about 78 feet across in some way. and another piece of significant size, and a number of smaller pieces, all floating in the same general area. these images detected not only by commercial satellite, but

it's our understanding, government satellites as well. now they have a ship in the area, south and west of perth. other ships are on the way. three more. i meant airplanes are on the way, three more. then the maritime interests on their way as well. is it possible they found part of this jet in the australian prime minister says it is. are they certain in any way? they are not. but the national transportation safety board told those involved, we believe this is the place to look. remember, they at one point had a search area six times the size of the united states. 12 hours ago, that search area was down to the united states. by the time we were on the air in primetime on the east coast on wednesday night, it appeared that this search area had gone down to some hundred thousand square miles. which compared to the rest is a much smaller area. but now they have been able to hone it in on one particular area. will they be able to find it in the next hours or next days?

we cannot be of any certainty at this point. let's get to michael kay, former adviser to the united kingdom's defense ministry and a frequent guest on our programs on fox news channel. michael, if nothing else, this is the most, makes sense sort of advisory that we've received today. >> yeah, good evening. good to chat. i think i want to follow on kathryn's point which i think is critical. you've already mentioned the search area, some 1,500 miles off the southwestern tip of australia and i think we're still a long way from gaining confirmation. you pensioned the p 3 orion which is a turboprop submarine, and maritime surveillance aircraft. there are four of those going out to the search area, but they travel about 250 knots, about four miles a minute. the problem you have with that, there's a very long sea transit before you even get to combing

that area. so actually, the time on scene, or the endurance on scene is going to be a lot less than it would be if it was closer to land. now, what we can see so far, i do have the luxury of having a map in front of me. what we can see so far would be the search area is consistent with what would be the limits of the endurance of the boeing 777 from what we know so far, in terms of its last position, about mid point on the south china sea. so there are some consistencies on that front. but the thing that's still perplexing me, if you draw a line from that last known position, just off the malaysian coast and the mid point of the south china sea and you draw it down to the potential search area, that takes you across singapore and very close to jakarta. we know -- i certainly know from my experience, singapore has one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world.

and jakarta is incredibly busy. so what's perplexing, this aircraft will have traveled across indonesian airspace which would mean intense scrutiny on primary radar and the indonesians have done nothing about it. they haven't sent any defense fighters up to have a look at it. we know how sensitive radar can be. on the afghan-pakistan border, two ships were picked up within about ten minutes -- [ inaudible ] that's the only thing that's perplexing me at the moment. [ inaudible ] >> looking at the map just a moment ago, it's hard to imagine that that military and that defense system could miss such a thing. we're not talking about a small object. this is a boeing 777. >> i couldn't agree more. a boeing 777 has a rather large

radar cross section in that it's an actual wide body jet. so when you put this thing something like 400 to 500 miles an hour and around 30,000 feet. if that isn't a flight plan to cross indonesian airspace, or not part of any traffic, that is what brings curiosity to radar controllers' screens, when they see something that is unusual. this wouldn't have been part of any normal routine traffic going through any of the air corridors. it certainly wouldn't have a flight plan attached to it. i completely agree, this is something that we need to ask more questions of the indonesian government and indonesian military in going back through their radar traces and just see if there was anything unusual that would indicate that this debris might be the debris of 370 off the tip of australia.

>> it's hard to imagine why in the world -- it's hard to come up with a scenario in your mind, for why someone would make this drastic turn and fly for hours on end. for instance, was even anyone alive on the jet as it was flying? from everything we've heard, it's possible no one was. >> i think these are all perfectly reasonable questions and they're just impossible to answer at the moment. >> you alluded to air france 447 earlier in the conversation. i think what's very different about air france 447, was that the acars was still on and the transponder was still on. that drew the eyes on to any search and rescue authority straight away to the general location. soon as they got there, they identified wreckage. now the problem was, the ocean where the air france 447 crashed, was incredibly deep. that's what took so long to recover the black boxes. this, as you've alluded to, is a

very different scenario. in a place which is on the edge of its endurance, which is seven hours in the wrong direction, to the place that it should have been traveling in the first place. and there are just no answers for that aircraft being in that location. if it was hijacked, or if it was sabotage. i have to say, given the evidence that we have at the moment, if it does transpire to be mh 370, we have to start trying to think of what the motive might be. because we knew what the motive was on 9/11. i don't mean to seem heartless, but that was, in terms of a terrorist attack, that was genius. it has all the elements of a perfect attack. one of the principles of war, which is surprise. and it went beyond the realms of creative thinking. if you said to someone on september 10th, that september 11th going to happen, everyone would have thought you were mad.

that was the genius behind that attack. the motive behind this, still perplexing to try and understand because it's not achieving anything. what political leverage would any hijacker have by flying into into that location and just waiting for the aircraft ran out of fuel? it's something that i can't put my head around at the moment. >> michael, stay with us. we have breaking information and new details coming in now. let's get to catherine herridge live in washington. >> to pick up on a point that the last guest made, which is that earlier this evening, we did some reporting that the indonesians had through bureaucracy, for lack of a better term, because we don't know what the source is, the aircraft sent to that country to travel and do surveillance in the indian ocean, they cited they didn't have approval from the transportation ministry, so

it seemed a case of good intentions blocked by government bureaucracy. but a quick search of the web shows there were some local or domestic media reports that alleged in the last few days, that the indonesians had withheld radar data on flight 370 and its travel southward. this was dismissed by the indonesians, but it's a point worth making. we've had one other nation, thailand, as you know, that provided radar data on the flight, but did so just within the last 48 hours. so much after the fact. and indicated they only provided the data now because simply no one had asked for it, which seems a little disingenuous. but this point about the indonesians is a strong and valid point. >> it is. thanks. jonathan gillham is on the line with us now, former federal air marshall himself, former navy seal. what do you make of this? >> i think this kind of goes

right along with the way i've been trying to play this the whole time, in that, from an investigative point of view, you have to let the evidence lead you, not the theories. because you get wrapped up in the theories, and it will take you away from where the evidence is. and the ntsb has done a really good job of even though, a lot of experts, including myself said, i've been moving towards the possibility of it being terrorism, you still have to focus on what the evidence says. and part of the evidence was saying that the plane, there was an arc showing that the plane was a thousand to 1,500 miles in one or the other direction. and they didn't give up on the other direction, despite what some of the leads were saying. that hard work has now paid off. i think that's very telling in the way that we do investigation. >> well, we still don't know exactly what's there.

though the australians, they know something is there. they know something of reasonable size, as was said at one point, 78 feet in size, with smaller objects around it. from there, you're going to have to figure out where these black boxes are. i would assume given the tidal surges and the rest, maybe sonar would pick it up, if you knew a general vicinity, or no? >> i would assume so. here's the problem and i'm still learning about this because i'm not a pilot. those black boxes may or may not actually have the signals, normally they do, it works out fine. but that's the problem with a lot of these things. there's always a chance that it won't activate and then you're going to be looking for something and you're going to have to do it through sight or sonar looking down. but you won't actually hear a ping from this.

and the scale of this operation is so tremendous that now that we're more heavily involved, you're going to start to see things much more systematically looked at by the different investigators and different agencies that are out there. >> jonathan, do you have a sense for whether there would be something of this size, with a grouping of debris around it, in this random area, 1,500 miles or so, south and west of perth, as a matter of course? is this a highly unusual thing? we hear stories of debris thrown off ships, garbage tossed to the sea, accidents happen, does it sound like that to you, or does it sound like something much more significant? >> i think the size of this is significant. but having been in the navy and as a seal, i didn't spend a lot of time on a ship. but i will tell you, there are massive amounts of debris in the

waters. these ships do dump their garbage, which could be as much as you would see on the sidewalk, or quadruple that here in new york, those people who live in new york know that's a lie, just floating around in the ocean. so i think it's a great lead, and from an investigative point of view, it's a big enough lead to follow. and i think that it's going to be very, very telling here in the next couple days. >> i think you're right. jonathan gillham on the line, thanks. let's get to an aviation consultant. ken, it feels like this is the most concrete bit of information we've received today? >> yeah, looks like it. certainly looks like a potential debris field. i do want to say, though, it was about 300 knots -- >> that's the aircraft headed out for the australians. go on.

>> that's correct. the p 3 orion. but they also have surveillance equipment on there. and they're long duration, about 13 hours. they have about 1,700 miles to go. so i don't expect them to be on station for approximately five hours. >> you don't expect -- well, we know they have one ship there, one orion on site. it arrived about 1:30 according to the aviation officials, local time, which would have been about now, two hours and 45 minutes ago. it's these other planes, which are going to be a significant assistant, which aren't going to be there for a number of hours and then to get anything on the water is going to take much longer. so it's not like people who are sitting up late at night on the east coast or in the late evening on the west coast are going to see pictures of this jet floating around in the water. we're not there. >> yeah, that's correct.

i think the thing to be c cogniza cognizant, the orion is about a 13-hour duration. five hours out there, three hours on station, and then five hours on return. each can spend two and a half hours on station, and then will have to come back to refuel. and another aircraft will relieve them to continue the search. >> aviation consultant ken christiansen. it sounds it if they'll need something to float on which aircraft can take off and land to be able to do this effectively over long periods of time. you can't have ten hours of round trip flight time and three hours of search time. that's not productive. >> that's correct, but right now, what they're going to do, of course they'll look initially to see if there's any signs of life. so technically still could be a search operation. when they determine, which they will be able to determine from the p-3's, they'll go to 250

feet, to see if there are any survivors. if there are no survivors, they'll confirm that and go to a recovery phase. ships will come in and they'll do that with helicopters and smaller boats. >> we've certainly heard stories of people surviving longer than 12 days. if this is in fact, this boeing 777, if it is in fact, how did it end up in the water? did it run out of fuel? was it intentionally crashed? was the plane hijacked? has it been anywhere else? why did it go there in the first pl why were the transsponders turned ouff? we have a list of questions i could go through for many hours. what we don't know are the terms under which this plane landed wherever it was, being it land or water or whatever. >> what's important on this, if you look at the takeoff from

malaysia to beijing, and do that same distance on the map from malaysia to the objective area, that's just about the maximum duration that that plane was capable of flying with the fuel load it had on board. so probably fuel starvation of the aircraft and then it ditched in the water. >> what you wonder is why it made these turns in the first place. we can go back to the investigation of the pilots themselves. investigators on wednesday, during the day, and tuesday as well, searched the content of this flight simulator, which this pilot of the plane, who has 18,000 hours of work in a boeing 777, who's been doing this for decades, has a flight simulator at his home. they searched the flight simulator, found nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. nothing that would lead him to believe -- there he is on the left-hand side of the screen --

a on a suicide mission, b, a terrorist plot, nothing that would be inconsistent with him being an airline pilot. then they realized that he had, that somebody had erased some volume of information from the hard drive. and we know that techys had gone in and were trying to find out what was on it. now, a malaysian newspaper reported on wednesday, united states time, that they had found the runways of five different -- from five different locations in the indian ocean, runways that were large enough to at least land this jet. not necessarily to take off because you need a lot more space to take off. so low on fuel, five different runways, where it could have landed. now we haven't been able to confirm than they're still analyzing that. but from that they thought they might be able to get some indication. but as far as something concrete

about, well, these people were suicidal or they had a beef with someone, we don't have any of that, ken. >> yeah, what's good about that, we're going to assume -- i've said from the start, the past couple days i've been on. from the press investigation standpoint, you always follow the debris field and you go from there. landing in the water, they didn't impact rock or anything. assuming this is the debris field, the good things that will come out of this particular debris field is the cockpit voice recorder, and the flight data recorder. and the underwater locator beacon is attached to them. so we still have another 20, maybe another 18 days of that underwater locator beacon ticking, and that will be located. because it's going to be in that vicinity. that will be readily located and retrieved. and then you'll get that cockpit voice recorder, because they are -- that will be recorded and

all the flight data. so the attitude, altitude, air speed, all of that will go in and they can reconstruct that and depict that in a simulator in realtime. >> first, you have to find it. the air france crash, where they found the debris in two days, it took two years to find the jets, therefore the black boxes, as we call them. that's a long and tedious process. it's important to remember how deep this is in this area. it's said to be some 3,000 meters deep here. that's a very tall order. >> yes. and like the air france crash, i'm very familiar with that. it took a while before they were able to get assistance. and then navy ships did assist in that, in recovering that. so they knew the location, and they knew the location of the underwater beacon. they just had to get the

equipment to retrieve that. so in the ocean, it's going to be fine. even if after the under water locator beacon runs out, they'll pinpoint the location and retrieve it at a later date. i have confidence that the navy can return with that and reconstruct the crash investigation. >> they've been careful to remind us this is a very large search area, though they've narrowed it. it may take them some time. that said, these satellite images, when you plot something on a satellite, you get a lat-long on there, and you're going to be able to come within a reasonable distance of where they spotted it at least at the time. it's not as if they'll be hundreds of miles off. the satellite technology and the gps with it is good. >> yes. the satellite imagery. they're going to mark the time that they -- that the image came on the satellite. then the navy will track the

drift. so they'll take the current position and then they'll pack it up, the number of days and hours, right down to the hour, that that most probably impacted. it will start the concentration of the search in that area and then go outward. so if they do identify that debris area to be the malaysian aircraft, then in short order, they will find where that flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder is. >> of course, the first order of business is going to make sure that there are no survivors, or to search for survivors in this area. you mentioned they'd go down to about 500 feet. is that what you said, ken? >> yes. and these planes that the military use for sub hunting, so they'll go down that low when they do search patterns. that's what they train for. that's what they're exceptionally good at. so in short order, i think we're going to get some additional information pending there's not inclement weather there and they

still have a few more hours of daylight. the other airplanes will get on scene probably just before it will start getting dark. >> all right. ken, stay with us. let's get to marianne, our correspondent in new york. marianne, we've come a long way to this spot. but for the moment, we don't know where we are. i think for families, though, it's another moment of hope. >> you know, we have been hearing a little bit of chatter. we heard that the family of one of the passengers, the american, who is from texas, posted a brief statement earlier just asking everyone to pray, especially since we just don't know definitively yet. but we want to talk about the debris again, and the fact that, the question is, does it fit? well, it's about 79 feet, we're being told. so the boeing 777, it's about 242 feet long. could it fit? yes, it appears it could fit. we talked about the p-3's and

what they can do. they're a submarine detection plane. they're used to going down deep depths, all the way under the ocean. so if you're trying to look for things like a black box, those planes are going to be able to do it. they'll get close to the debris and tell us more about what it is. >> thanks very much. i want to get to michael kay, formerly with the raf and adviser to the uk defense minist ministry. it's possible this is another false lead. but it's as definitive a statement as we've received. the australian prime minister talking to his parliament, suggesting that they believe that it's possible that large pieces of this jet may have been found. now the aviation authorities there, it sounds like we're on to something of importance. >> um, well, as you say, shep, i think it's the best we have at the moment. and as we spoke about earlier,

would seem consistent with the outer ranges of the boeing 777's endurance -- >> but it is the outer ranges, isn't it? >> it is absolutely that. we know that the last known point in the transponder was about the mid point of the south china sea, so a couple hundred miles off the malaysian coast and a couple hundred miles from eachi reaching the vietnamese coast. so if you draw a line from that center point to the area we're talking about, 1,500 miles, 3,200 kilometers off the southwestern tip of australia, it would definitely be consistent with the endurance range that the boeing 777 has. but, you know, if we go back and look at some previous accidents, we talked about air france 447, but if you look at the lockerbie disaster, the pan am flight that was blown up by terrorists, traveling from frankfurt to

detroit in 1988. it was blown up over lockerbie. i do appreciate it was a bomb that took apart the aircraft, but the wreckage was splaed over hundreds of miles. there was wreckage over most of scotland. it would just seem odd to me, that if the aircraft had gone into the search area, and there was debris around, there would be much more evidence of debris. there would be seat cushions, there would be the personal possessions of the people that were on board. i know it's sort of quite a ghastly thing to talk about, but to me, it would be more obvious, or i would be looking at more obvious signs of debris within that area. >> you know, once they get down to the water to begin searching, they'll have a better idea of what they have. it sounds to me, michael, that the reason they lack specificity from these satellite images is because of the weather.

>> yeah, i mean, satellite images are weather dependent. and i also think from the information that we have, that the satellite, the australian satellite that discovered this debris, doesn't produce higher resolution images, which is why some of the u.s. satellites have been retargeted over that area. what i'm led to believe in the reports that i'm reading, we should be able to gain hopefully clarity from one of the p-3, one of the four p-3's that are on task, or from the imagery. i've flown over the ocean a lot. i've been on two boards of inquiry. the orion pilot has a hugely long trek out to the search area. then they'll be flying 200 feet. they're going to have the speed of about 250 knots.

if the cloud base is low in that area, that will hinder and scupper the search and rescue -- not the search and rescue, but the identification of debris effort if you like. >> we've been talking about this plane disappearance for 12 days. >> we have. >> and your tone has remained steady and it is this early morning here on the east coast. you don't sound convinced at all. >> well, you know, shep, as i said to you before, i've got 3,500 flying hours. i've been a casualty pilot, search and rescue pilot. i've been trained in all the tactics. i had to understand radar because when i was operating around the world in hostile environment, that's what i used to avoid detection from enemy radar. so i have a good sense of a lot of the subjects we're talking about. i've always been on two boards

of inquiry. what we have to do on the board of inquiry, we have to consider or rule out, any logical explanation. so the first place that we go to it the board of inquiry, is we look at -- [ inaudible [ crowd noise/inaudible ] -- that they have spotted what

has been described to us as two items of significant size, and then further described as some 24 meters in size, or about 78 feet across. two large pieces, 1,500 miles to the south and west of perth, australia. this is the general vicinity of the area. the original search area, as defined by the national transportation safety board, are those strange box-like things on the left-hand side of your screen, just above the fox news channel logo there, that's the area where they were searching. now we know they have found, not only these two large significant sized pieces, but also what's been described, though not using these words, as a debris field around it. the images were found on satellite after the national transportation safety board instructed those in the area that they believe the place to look was there. so the australians led the way in focusing air resources, maritime, resources and

satellites on that particular area. and then they found these items of interest. first the australian prime minister went to his parliament and said, we have what we believe to be some large pieces. we think it's possible it may be the boeing 777 missing for 12 days. then the authorities came out and gave you a news conference. we'll give you parts of that for those of you who may have missed it. now they have resources on the way and some on site. for more than three hours, they've had a government aircraft above the scene. they're sending three others, which are expected to be there within an hour to three hours, depending on which jet you're talking about and then water resources, ships and the rest, are on the way as well. the hope is, they'll be able to find this, fly low to see if there are survivors. first of all, if it is indeed

wreckage from the jet, to see if there are any survivors, on rafts or whatever from that jet. we don't know how it went down, or where it went down, or why it went there in the first place. so they have to search for survivors. then at some point, if they determine ps pieces of the jet, they'll begin to search for the black boxes and the large debris field, which we can assume is on the bottom of the indian ocean, if in fact they determine this is the wreckage of that jet. and then getting down there is going to be very difficult because it is extremely deep. the weather has not been good over the past few hours since they've begun this search by satellite. and the road ahead may be a very long one. there's nothing at this moment to suggest that within a matter of hours, or even days, we'll be seeing them pull up pieces of this plane or have something more definitive about what exactly has happened here. as i report to you live, it's 33 minutes past 1:00 in the morning

on a thursday in new york city. we have nothing that we can report with any degree of certainty. we have the australian prime minister making his statements. we have the satellite images, which we have not yet seen. we have been led to believe we will have these images. the australian government working to provide these to the media around the world. so we can see what they have seen. he said they are non-specific, but these items are of a significant size. i want to get to a former commercial pilot, former boeing 777 instructor on the line with us. this is right on the edge of what is our understanding to be the range for this jet, with the amount of fuel that we know it had. getting to this location, by air would have been very difficult. >> shepherd, i'm not sure if you and i discussed this particular scenario when i last spoke with you. obviously the first thing that i would caution everybody is to get everybody's hopes us and

this one turns out to be incorrect. but this is promising. it's more promising than most other theories and findings. if this is true, that these are pieces of the aircraft, then perhaps my gut feeling may have been right. because all along, again, i'm not sure if we talked about it, so if that's the case, then it is -- >> what you discussed, there was some sort of fire or smoke in the cockpit, and go on with the story for those who haven't heard it. >> okay, my gut feeling is th that -- southbound 90 degrees to the course and get out of the airway that we're flying on, because you don't want to run into other airplanes on that airway.

so perhaps, if this was a fire, a crew did exactly what their books told them to do, by descending and getting off the airway and that kind of coincides with that westerly heading that would have taken them to the indian ocean. now, if they were succumbed by smoke and fire, the airplane perhaps flew by itself for a while. so either exhausted its fuel supply, or crashed because the controls were perhaps melting. >> sure. now, it would make no sense to anybody like me, who doesn't have experience with this sort of thing, that the pilots would have programmed in these waypoints such that it's jog of a flight pattern would be of the construct which we've seen. however, it's my understanding and i think i've heard it from you, that pilots might put in a

number of waypoints just as a just in case, and that would explain why it is that they made those erratic movements. >> that's correct. they could have done that. or simply use a heading mode, which is the fastest and the simplest way to turn the aircraft from the navigation route that they -- the original route. we're told to -- if we need to do that in a hurry, you basically just push one button, heading select, and turn to heading to whatever you want it to be. in this case, would have been heading 270, which is westerly heading. and this also explains perhaps why there was no communication, or the acars dropping off, because when the aircraft is on fire, these components actually drop off by the protection

circuits, and perhaps pilots actually turning them off. because when you have an electric fire, any kind of fire, you start turning off components. and perhaps the radios were not working where they could have made any contact. again, as i've mentioned on several interviews, that on board fire is probably the worst-case scenario, because the fire propigates so rapidly in an aircraft, that sometimes there's absolutely no time. >> yeah. >> there was a ups 747 freighter crash a few years ago that was carrying lithium ion batteries. and they crashed in dubai. that was very, very much in my mind, every time i saw this, and again, i had heard some news that this aircraft may have been carrying a shipment of lithium

ion batteries in the cargo compartment. >> ross, thank you very much. we have a number of new bits of information coming in regarding the spotting of what appears to australian authorities to be a debris field, some 1,500 miles to the south and west of perth, australia, off the western coast of australia. is it -- do they believe it's possible this is wreckage of this jet? they do. they have satellite images. but they now have one ship on scene -- one aircraft on scene. three more aircraft on the way. a ship on the way as well. they're hoping to begin a search.catherine herridge is in washington and do we have her on the line with us now? instead i want to go to david piper. remember, that it was the thai radar systems that were able to spot a change in direction for this jet. and now our david piper is live

for us in bangkok. david, this is significant at very least. >> yes, that's right. we haven't had any firm leads like this for a long, long time. a lot of rumors, a lot of searching, but nothing like this. and the malaysian authorities, they're saying, they can confirm there has been a new lead. but they're being very, very cautious at this time. saying they want to have it verified. the australians are trying to verify it at this time. they have a plane flying over. we understand bad visibility. more planes are going and also ships. we understand they're also asking for help already. we know that there's nine chinese ships west of sumatra, the indonesian island. i believe perhaps some of them will be steaming towards australia now. back to you. >> david, is it your sense -- we've spoke to a number of different pilots and former officials from the faa and the ntsb, but from all that we knew of this jet, the fuel that it contained, the weight that it was carrying, to be able to

reach this area, would have been on the extremes of this jet's range. >> yes, on the extreme. but also the australians have been releasing a lot of information over the last few day, showing where they've been searching and they've been very straight about what they've been up to. they understand that they were searching at the edge of that likely southern arc. so if they hadn't had found that, then i don't think they would have been taking it so seriously and having the australian prime minister standing up in parliament to say that there is a possibility debris has been found. >> john young, the australian maritime safety authority came forward to tell us that the sheer size of the search area posed such a huge challenge. he said it covered more than 372,000 square miles of the southern indian ocean. it would take a least a few weeks to search the area effectively. but instead, they were able to

find this debris area of something, using satellites. now, david, i keep talking about this being the extremes of the range of this jet because one of the working theories is that the jet was flying basically a ghost ship, that those on board, potentially no longer had the ability to fly this jet, that it was flying on auto pilot and it would do so until it ran out of fuel. so it makes sense, that if that was the case, it makes sense it would have -- >> also the satellite data coming out, the plane may have gone along the southern or northern arc. it also suggested it flew for several hours, right at the extremity perhaps when the fuel ran out. so it does add up at this moment, but you have to be extremely cautious at this time because it's only a few indistinct pictures from a commercial satellite.

they've got a plane and once the ship gets there, if they can get a fix on the debris, the story may come out very quickly now. >> david piper, quarter to 1:00 in the afternoon in bangkok, thaila thailand. where the thai radar images were important letting us know about the initial turn it took. >> i want to get back to kathleen, a pilot and contributor who will be joining us shortly to give us her perspective on this matter. i can tell you, we believe within the next 30 minutes or so, the second of these australian aircraft will have made it to scene. there's a united states vessel on site or in the general vicinity as well. but they've been very clear to tell us they can't pinpoint exactly where this debris field is. as we've mentioned repeatedly, the weather is bad, the seas are choppy. the flow of water is such that it's going to be difficult to find them once they do get the

jets -- the planes in there. and then priority one is a search for any survivors. [ inaudible ] to see if it's possible that 11, 12 days later, somebody might have been able to survive this. it's a long shot, but it's priority one. again, let's get to kathleen banks, who is a pilot, an aviation expert and a fox news contributor. kathleen, your thoughts on what we have heard from the aussies and what it may mean in the big picture? >> well, i'd like to say i'm cautiously optimistic, but really what i'm hoping is that this is not a premature revelation. because the families involv involved -- -- relatively indistinct imagery. maybe they're not playing their whole hand.

what i hope they have, like a wing, descriptive of a tail section or something that shows malaysian airlines markings. otherwise i'm nervous that it's premature. one of the good things you mentioned, it's about 78 feet, the largest piece, which is a third the length or width of a triple seven, give or take a couple feet. so that would be encouraging. that that could be related to a debris field for this airplane. >> for viewers who haven't been following, this jet is, give or take, a couple hundred feet long and with the wing span, a couple hundred feet across. is that correct? >> that's correct. this would be about a third. if they found a chunk that's about 78 feet. i know we're all holding out hope that perhaps the passengers had been taken somewhere in like a hijack-hostage situation, but in any event, if this does turn

out to be a debris field from the flight, at least there will be closure. we're still a long way from that. we don't know if the p-3's will get photographs they'll be able to share with us, or if they'll wait until the ships are on site. i know some of the people we've talked to tonight are optimistic, if it does turn out to be the malaysian airplane, that they'll find the black boxes, but i would caution that those are two completely separate things. but if this does turn out to be debris, then a lot of this mystery will have been solved. >> it will. one thing we do not know, is how, if it is in fact the jet, we don't know that, but if it is, how it got there, why it got there, if it's been anywhere else along the way, and how it's possible nobody spotted it. all of the bits of the mystery are with us and will be for a while. that said, if they are able to

get pieces of this jet, they'll be able to know relatively quickly whether there had been a fire inside that cabin that would have facilitated this series of thoughts about how this may have gone down. you're going to know very quickly once you retrieve parts of this if there was a fire. >> it depends on the pieces they find. if you recall in the air france crash in 2009, one of the first big pieces they found was the tail section. and of course the triple 7 is a hugely composite structure airplane, as opposed to the old days where they were built mostly out of aluminum. so that lends itself that one of these pieces could be floating. something else that's encouraging is that there's apparently a scattered debris field of smaller pieces which could be things like seats and other small objects in the airplane that could float. but, you know, again, i think we have to exercise a little restraint. one thing this whole mystery has had and this investigation, is

many, many false starts. and i just think we need to wait a few more hours or days until we get the photographic evidence of something that shows specifically that this is the triple 7 in question. >> agreed with you on all fronts. kathleen banks with us, a pilot, aviation expert and fox news contributor, my thanks. we are on live in the middle of the night on the east coast for some specific reasons. i want to give you the reason that we see this as very significant. the australian prime minister speaking to his parliament was certainly a tell-tale sign. then this very organized and precise language from the aviation authorities there lead us to believe that they at least think they have something. they have diverted resources in large numbers to this area. from air and sea. the united states is participating as well. and all eyes are on this area, some 1,550 miles to the south

and west of perth, australia. catherine herridge has been on the forefront of this investigation and is live with us from washington. drips and drabs, but it's coming in. >> well, it is. if i could just lay out some of the dots and connect them for folks. because what led us to this moment is really a second review or analysis of the existing signals intelligence. so this was the communications link that pinged, if you will, for about eight hours, or reset for eight hours. that led to the two corridors, one north, and one south. then also the civilian radar data and the military radar data. one of our contacts here in washington told us there was a second intense review of this existing data by the faa, as well as the ntsb, and it now seems clear from a news conference this evening that there was a significant input from the u.s. threatening community as well. this led to a refining of the

area and it was not just the radar data or signals data. but they also factored in things such as the weather, the fuel, and how long a triple 7 could glide without any power. they took all of these things, factored them in, and they came out with this new refocused search area southwest of perth. a map of this area was released late yesterday by the pentagon. and significantly not only a targeted search area, but also a secondary drift area, and it designated the drift area as about a week after the crash. we also understood, and this was confirmed at the news conference, that there was a refocusing of all u.s. military assets that were involved in the search on that southwestern corridor. so that really has borne fruit it would seem and brought us to

the point today where these two objects have now been publicly identified by the australians as possibly related to the missing flight 370. in the news conference just decoded for people, the australians pulled data from what's called the a.g.o., their geospatial and imagery intelligence organization. this is a military intelligence organization and their job is to be the best technical eyes in the sky. they picked up these images and now they're refocusing civilian satellites to help refine and refocus what they think they're seeing. another key data point, as your previous guest just emphasized, a piece of debris, that at least on its face, would be consistent with the size of a triple 7, about 80 feet. not sure if it's in length or width, but something about 80 feet. and ntsb investigators have told

fox since the flight disappeared, especially with that false alarm with the chinese satellite images, that the type of debris that would survive an impact into the ocean, would be the large sections of the aircraft. so the wing span, which is about 210 feet, and then that tail section which would be the horizontal stabilizer, as well as the vertical fin. and finally, i would just say that as you rightly point out, the weather may be one of the biggest unknowables in this situation. it seems to have made it harder to discern what exactly has shown up in that section of the ocean by the satellites, and it will certainly complicate the recovery which is in an area that's quite a jog off the coast of australia. so you have the challenge of reaching that site, navigating the weather, trying to recover what may be there, because it's

a moving target. because it was identified on a satellite does not mean that's the exact location that it is. but it's a promising lead. those were the words of the australians this evening. but they stayed careful to play down expectations as well. >> indeed they did. catherine herridge live with us with a great synopsis of what brought us to this point. thanks so much. >> you're welcome. >> for our viewers who were not with us, all of this is what led the australian prime minister tony abbott to speak in the morning hours, we're late afternoon now in canberra in australia, the capital there, approaching sundown in the next hour or so. but in the morning hours, he went before parliament and said, and i quote, new and credible information has come to light in relation to the search in the south indian ocean.

the australian maritime safety satellite as received imagery, of two objects, possibly related to the search. he went on to say i can inform the house that a royal australian air force orion, an aircraft has been diverted to attempt to locate these objects. later we learned that aircraft has been on scene there for the better part of i'd say an hour and a half. maybe two and a half hours actually now. he went on to say that this orion ap 3, which is a four engine turboprop patrol aircraft that carries out submarine hunting for its normal work. maritime surveillance and other missions for the australian military is now there and a version of the aircraft is also used by the united states navy. this appeared on satellites that they went back to scour, as kathryn mentioned after the ntsb here in the united states said that it had reason to believe that's where they should be

looking. lieutenant colonel dan hampton is on the line with us. it's as good a bit of information from as credible a source as we've received since march 8th when this jet disappeared. >> yeah, that's true, shepherd. and as i said from the very beginning, if i was going to try to lose an airplane, or disappear an airplane, that's where it would be. i think we were all hoping there would be a happier ending. and i need to point out again, that this is all preliminary. >> of course it is. but you've said from the beginning colonel hampton, that this would be the place to ditch it, if that's what you wanted to do, this would be the spot to do it. what i can't figure out, is why someone would want to do that. >> yeah, and assuming that's what this is, then that's obviously the next phase of all this, is motive. the first thing obviously was to find the thing. i hope this is, only because it

would give the families some peace. then to figure out why. and there's a couple reasons why. it could be as simple as the pilot just blew a gasket for whatever reason. we may never know. it also could be -- and this was pointed out earlier too. it could be a counterintelligence situation where somebody somewhere in the world is interested to see, what our capabilities are. that's one reason why our own intelligence agencies have been so cautious because they realize they're being watched too. >> colonel hampton, you mentioned there's the possibility this could just be a rogue captain. there's also -- or pilot. there's also the possibility this could have been some sort of event on board this jet about which we have no knowledge. they could have incapacitated people and left them with a preprogrammed flight path that to us at this moment, at least,

wouldn't make any sense. >> yeah, that's true. i always -- i didn't believe the straight mechanical catastrophe scenario just because there would have been wreckage. but if there had been something in the cockpit that incapacitated the pilots, then it could have flown on auto pilot until it reached the end of its range and fell into the sea. there's a couple reasons why i don't think that's incredibly likely, but we'll know when we can find the wreckage. and this has been drifting now for 12 days, so it's not anywhere close to where the wreckage has shown up. >> you're right about that. lieutenant colonel dan hampton, former fighter pilot, retired from the united states military. sir, thank you very much. >> no problem. see you friday then, i guess. >> for viewers who may just be joining us here in the late-night hours, a news conference held seems like an hour or so ago, where they were discussing in australia in perth, regarding off the coast

of perth, 1,500 miles, exactly what it is they think they've seen and why it is they think it's significant. here is the air commodore john mckrary of the royal australian air force. >> the australian maritime safety authority is coordinating the southern corridor search for the missing malaysian airlines aircraft with assistance from the australian defense force, the royal new zealand air force, and the united states navy. rescues coordination has received satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search for the missing aircraft mh 370. we've received an expert assessment of that satellite imagery this morning, 20th of march. the images captured by satellite, they may not be related to the aircraft.

>> john young speaking with us on what it is that the australians have found. so, where are we? well, quite frankly, we're not sure. but we can tell you that the australian authorities believe they have found two items of significance. one of them, about 24 meters in size, or 78 feet across, or up and down. they're frankly not sure. another object of significant size, plus a number of smaller objects. so they didn't tell us exactly how many. they described to us what we would call a debris field around it. it's all floating about 2,500 kilometers or 1,550 miles to the south and west of perth, off the western coast of australia in a very deep section of the southern indian ocean. getting down to whatever is on the bottom of the sea will be a difficult and time-consuming matter. finding what it is they've seen by satellite will be equally

difficult. they have planes in the air and ships on the way and the search is under way. that search will continue until they have decided what it is that they have found. until then, we will wait and we will maintain a close touch on every single breaking development. i'm shepherd smith in new york. our coverage continues as news warrants for now. thank you. [ crowd noise/inaudible ] -- that they have