good thursday morning. continuing breaking news coverage on "first look." satellite imagery captures two large options floating in a remote part of the indian ocean. could bit debris from missing malaysian airlines flight 370? >> quite simply, it is credible enough to divert the search to this area on the basis that it might provide a promising lead. military search planes are racing to the area to check it out. good morning, i'm chris jansing. we're following breaking news about the missing malaysian airlines jet. could it be a breakthrough

heading into day 13? australian's prime minister says debris possibly belonging to the debris might have been found. john young spoke to reporters this morning. >> we have four aircraft out there this afternoon. the weather is not playing the game with us. we may get a sighting. we may not. we may get it tomorrow. we may not. but we will continue to do this until we locate those objects or we're convinced we cannot find them. >> is there anything suggests that it's at least part of an aircraft? are there windows, markings, any bits and pieces that suggest it's from an aircraft? >> the imagery is not that precise. >> like the size of a basketball or seat cushion? >> much larger than that. the largest image that i've seen is assessed as being 24 meters. there's another one smaller than that and a number of other

images in the general area, of the biggest one. >> is it a common occurrence or is it something -- perhaps aircraft crews, would they see large pieces of debris like this floating at a consequence of storms or is this quite unusually large? >> our experience is that there is debris out there. it can be containers from ships, for example, falling overboard and other objects of that type. on this particular occasion, the size and the fact that there are a number located in the same area really makes it worth looking at. but i don't want to speculate about what they are until we get there and we see them. >> again, you heard an abundance of caution there, but they believe they had enough credible evidence with these satellite images to send all these assets to that area, that remote area off the coast of perth,

australia. let's get right to nbc's kerry sanders live at our washington bureau. greg fife is a former senior investigator with the ntsb. he's on the phone. let me start with you, kerry. one of the things we heard is they were sending air assets. as we've been reporting throughout these early morning hours, one of the key assets, a p 8 has already gone and is on its way back to perth, australia. you confirmed that they were able to find nothing. >> exactly. that's the real headline. the australian authorities believe there was some sort of suspect debris in the area. the p8 with the most advanced technology on earth, to look down and cover 10,000 square miles, they did not find anything that confirmed debris, much less debris that is suggestive of something from the missing boeing 777.

so that aircraft was on station which is the military term for in the area for almost four hours, and now it's making its way back to perth with no sort of suggestion that there is really any debris in the area that the australians said to take a look. there are p3 aircraft, propeller planes. they travel slower. one from the new zealand military, one from the australian military. they're headed to that area. i don't have a timetable on that aircraft yet, but they will continue to look. they have similar technology, not quite as advanced as the p8, but they do have technology that can look down if they spot something. they'll continue to search the area. it's a very discouraging sign that the australians initially thought there was satellite imagery that could be debris from a plane, possibly flight 370, and after extensive searching by the u.s. military,

no confirmation, in fact, no signs of anything. >> this is what we've seen all along over the last 13 days when we had these sightings. it was determined by tests that what they spotted was fuel, but not jet fuel. we had chinese satellite images that turned out to be nothing. we see the debris. we know the biggest piece is about 80 feet. what could have happened to it? >> it's hard to tell. as you heard, they were talking about the image resolution. that's the problem. they get the satellite imaging just like the chinese satellite. it was the image quality. now they've got a weather problem out there. it's hard to confirm right now. especially if they've been probably submerged slightly

under water, to really get the fidelity of the image so that you can see if it's got markings or window holes or whatever, to call it an airplane. >> kerry, i know you have something you wanted to ask greg about. >> i was curious. if it turns out that the p 3s can find this debris and they have done some pretty extensive mathematics with the currents and everything from the ntsb to sort of suggest where this is flowing from, floating on the surface and moving. pictures were taken on the 16th. we're now four days later. can they actually go back and work within the finite period of time -- i think we'll have about 19, 18 days left, to work towards the general area where the transponder would be, that beep that would be coming off the black boxes in what might be 2 1/2 miles of water, to find that data which may answer all the questions of what happened?

>> if they can narrow that search area down to something that's reasonable and not even 300,000 square miles, then they can actually get sea assets out there that can run tide scan sonar to map the ocean bottom in that area and they can drag a sonar or audible listening device, listening for the pings as they run those lines and map the ocean floor looking for the wreckage like they did with air france. >> greg, how long would it take to get those sea assets on location? we know that there is a commercial ship that was diverted, a merchant ship that could be arriving in that area any minute now. obviously they don't have the kind of equipment on it. they're really looking to get eyes on whatever they might see there. in terms of the kind of assets you're talking about, how quickly could they mobilize

something? >> i think it's going to be day z because right now all of the sea assets are primarily north. so it's going to take quite a while. plus sea state is going to dictate a lot of that along with the general weather because of it being really -- you're talking nine-foot seas right now. that makes it real difficult to go fast. they're going to -- it could be a very long process as far as number of days before they get there. >> i think, greg, the question might be, based on what you're also suggesting about having the ability for sonar and basically listening devices, it may require, if i'm listening to you correctly, that a naval submarine be in the area. the movement of u.s. navy submarines is a classified piece of information.

there may be one an hour away, it may be ten days away. >> exactly. if they find an area that looks like it could be a debris field. either we use one of our military assets, the submarine in the area, we've seen rovs down before looking for wreckage if we have an idea whether it is, that can be done. again, that's all ship-based. it's a matter of getting those ships to the area in a timely manner. right now, it will probably, i would expect to be a wook or two weeks before you get all the assets from the north down there on station. that's quite a long ways. again, dictated by weather and sea state. >> and a lot can happen in that time in between. kerry, we should mention again, in terms of finding the black boxes, the clock is ticking because they have about 30 days of battery life. >> we're looking at about 19 days now because we're already

into this. so that's not an exact number. it's not at a certain time it day dies. a battery lasts so long, my understanding is and greg can explain it better, it's sending out about one signal every second. it's very low frequency. and from what i understand, the actual ability of that frequency to travel in the water is limited to two or three miles? >> it all depends on temperature. it all depends on how that box is sitting on the bottom of the motion. because if the box is turned so that the top of the box is upside down, it could be buries in the mud and attenuate the signal, you won't hear it at all. if it's clustered in a bunch of wreckage, it will attear it at all. >> so clock is really ticking.

>> absolutely, absosolutely. >> it is defined for -- we're in deep ocean here, but it is designed to operate under these circumstances. >> yes, it is. it doesn't matter how deep the water is. >> kerry you can jump in as well, but for people joining us, i think it's important to establish how we got to where we are. it isn't as though they just randomly happened to see this piece of debris. this was an ntsb operation. i think it was about 48 hours ago, greg, where they really were able to hone in by looking at the information they had, looking at some of the pings off the aircraft and looking, also, at how much fuel was on board and when that fuel would be exhausted to come to this much smaller search area than they had had just the day before. >> you characterized it

perfectly. the fact is that in the early stages we assume that, okay, somebody intentionally crashed it in the water it could have been anywhere. that's all logical based on the information that we got from day one, day three, day five. but then you have to take into consideration how far would the airplane go -- we know how much fuel was on board. we know basically what the last ground speed which was about 450 knots. we know the last altitude was 30,000 feet. they just performed a bunch of calculations and said, okay, under these conditions, with winds aloft, airplane steady state, tracking outbound, how far before fuel exhaustion? they took it right to the limit and that's why they then narrowed that search box because that was the finite limit for how far that airplane could travel based on what we knew.

it would be logical to assume that, oh, we have an object there, in close proximity to the new search box based on fuel exhaustion. anything they find out there now, it seems really logical to put a lot of assets on it, whether sea state or airborne to try to identify. unlike the chinese satellite photo that five days or so into it, all of a sudden this large mysterious object pops up in a place that had been searched ad nauseam to begin with. i can't believe ever bod i have would have missed an object that large just because we had already been there, the search operation had already been there. that's what made that suspect. now we haven't been there, but based on the assumption that this is where the airplane ran out of gas, let's go take a look. >> greg, i'm curious, if i could

ask you, the past couple days when we've been talking about the possibility of where this aircraft may have gone down. you believe it may have gone down to the south in the indian ocean. the national transportation safety board calculation suggested it went to the south. what was influencing yours and other experts' belief that the south was the most likely spot? >> kerry, when i first got that first piece of information about the radar track, where it ended during the handoff, we all assumed, okay, something catastrophic because it fell off radar right there. once we got that second piece of information from the military radar with the hook turn and then a track outbound, i was -- i'm an investigator, so you've got to think what a logical, prudent pilot would do, and then

you have to think about what an illogical pilot would do if he's trying not to be tracked. it was obviously they turned the transponders off because they didn't want to be tracked. it's obvious he turned them off so he couldn't be tracked. geographically, where is the quietest area that i can fly and it was that southerly track. okay, if i'm going to fly and disappear, that's the perfect place to disappear. that's why i've always said that airplane was down south and i always thought it was about 1500 miles west of australian because that is the heart of the indian ocean where there is just absolutely nothing. if i'm trying to disappear, i'm going to disappear in that area. >> so the confusing thing to me then is -- and i know you can't answer this -- why would the pilot have just gone down in the indian ocean? it appears to me when i look at the map that they could have

made their way to australia and landed in australia. >> if they wanted to be found, if they had some other intent to use the airplane for something else. i've always had this investigator intuition that this person, whoever commandeered the airplane was doing it for selfish purposes. when you look at what's happened and the fact that we're in day 13 now, this person never had to write a manifesto, they never had to write a note, never had to make a radio call. they've made a statement because the news media is still talking about it 24/7, 13 days out. we continue like this because this person was calculated and said i'm going to lose this airplane where they'll never be find it. i'll be talked about in infamy. i was trying to think of the

worst or most extreme idea of a pilot. >> greg feith, kerry sanders. thanks to both of you. just live we'll go to london on the latest on the search for the missing jet. you're watching "first look" on msnbc. the conversation about his car loan didn't start here. it began way, way back. before he had children. before he got married. it started in his very first apartment. see that overdue bill? it arrived after he moved out. and he never got it. but he's not worried. checking his credit report and score at experian.com

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welcome back. we're following breaking news overnight out of australia. an intensifying search after a possible break in the case of the missing malaysian jet. four military search planes sent to a remote part of the indian ocean to try to determine whether two large objects bobbing in the water are possible debris from that missing flight. matt taylor is cnbc's aviation reporter. what are you seeing? >> the latest we're hearing is that the four aircraft now appear to be in that particular location off the southwest coast of australia, deep in the indian

ocean, about 1,500 miles off the australian coast, about 2,500 kilometers away. we also know a merchant vessel that australia asked to go to that area as well has now arrived in that vicinity and would also be scouring those waters for any search of those two objects which may or may not be deborrow from malaysia air lights flight mh370. the australian government this morning releasing these two snapshots of the images they found. they say, of course, they are indistinct, but they believe these images are credible enough for them to redeploy a number of assets to australian aircraft, a u.s. aircraft and also one from new zealand to try to find these objects and possibly the remains of that flight. >> matt taylor from cnbc, thank you. we're also awaiting a news conference from malaysia

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since we heard that there could be parts of the missing flight in the indian ocean. the conference is held at 5:30 eastern time in kuala lumpur. this will be the first time to get an update on what's going on in this intensifying search. we'll have it for you coming

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we're just minutes away from the start of a press conference by malaysian officials on the missing plane. joining me on the phone is nbc news producer ziad jeber. i know you've been following the families on the phone. what's the latest? we're obviously having trouble with that transmission. i can tell you that what we know is there's been a makeshift medical center set up because family members hearing word

there may have been wreckage found in the ocean, very distraught at this possibility. we'll continue to follow that for you. we have our eyes on the press conference. that's going to do it from here. i'm chris jansing. "way too early" is going to start right now. rescue coordination center australia has received satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search for the missing air crane, flight mh370. rcc australia received an expert assessment of that satellite imagery this morning, 20th of march. continues to hold grave concerns for the passengers and crew on board. and i must emphasize that these objects may be very difficult to locate and they may not be related to the search. >> it's those new satellite images making a point in the south indian ocean ground zero in the search for missing

malaysian flight 370, u.s.s. poseidon just finished its first search with no confirmation of debris. in light of the credible lead, extra medical staff has been added to the hotel crisis centers in beijing and kuala lumpur where the families have been waiting for answers about their loved ones. this is "way too early." good morning. i'm thomas roberts. it's march 30th. welcome to wait wait. today is the first day of spring. some of you may believe me. others may not. we'll talk more about our weather coming up but we need to start with breaking news as australian authorities announce they've spotted two large objects in the area about 1500 miles off the coast of perth, austra