without a trace. let's play hardball. good evening, i'm chris matthews in san francisco. let me start tonight with this -- is it possible for a jetliner, a 777, to take off from an international airport and never be seen or heard from again? can a major airline head off into the skies and disappear from the face of the earth? as of tonight, friday, march 21, 2014, the answer is a profound and indeed stunning yes. we don't know what happened to malaysian airline flight 370

with its 239 passengers and crew. we don't know if someone deliberately took this plane to its fate or whether a mechanical failure led to the horror or whether there was some combination of foul play and unforeseen horror. we don't know. today over the turbulent ocean southwest of australia planes looked and looked and found nothing. whether those objects seen by satellite last sunday were part of the airplane no one knows. there's been no way to tell. tonight we go back to where reality and man's limited knowledge insists we go -- back to square one. and the big question of whodunit or what done it or just the big fat question mark itself. robert hager is an nbc news contributor and former nbc news aviation correspondent and captain john cox is an msnbc aviation analyst and was a commercial pilot for 25 years. bob, i guess i'm asking the most fundamental question this is friday evening which is going back to who did this or what did this? have we solved any of this

giant mystery of a disappearing airplane? >> sure haven't. right now it's all a guessing game and it will be a guessing game unless they find something in the investigation or the background of these pilots -- and apparently they haven't so far, but unless they do -- or unless miraculously they find that some of this wreckage is from the plane and managed somehow to trace back where the main wreckage may be and fish up the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. unless either of those things happens, it may remain a guessing game forever. >> and we don't know what was spotted 1,500 miles off perth has anything to do with this, do we at this point? >> we sure don't, no, not at all. i think the most interesting development of this day is this transcript that this london "telegraph" says they got ahold of and they published it, can't vouch for the authenticity of it, but they believe it's accurate, of everything that was said between pilots and the controllers. we've had just the last phrase "all right, good night."

that was the last thing we heard from the plane. but they say they got the transcript of ten minutes of conversation before the plane took off and then 40 minutes in flight and then up to -- and it goes up to the very point where they say "all right, good night." and people who've looked at it say it shows nothing but normal activity. just routine transmissions. what that would tell you if it's a real that nothing untoward came down in the cabin up to that point. nobody barged in or the co-pilot didn't go after the pilot, etc. >> let me go back to captain cox. then you have the conundrum here of absolutely no communication at that signoff point -- to your comment from the first officer, nothing! no conversation, no indication of anything went wrong. either you had a catastrophic event that prevented any more communication, any more transmission or somebody was pulling plugs, somebody was switching things off. and this is what doesn't -- if everything was calm and professional to the very point of signoff and from that point forward there was no

communication whatsoever, how do you explain it? >> i think you've got to look first and see what evidence we have and what we don't have. if you look at the device that shows the airplane on radar known as a transponder, we know that after the signoff from the malaysian controllers and before they would have contacted the vietnamese controllers, this device stopped. we don't know if it's electrical, we don't know if it was a component failure, we don't know if somebody switched it off. what we do know is with another uplink data link system known as acars that the data stopped but the device continued to talk to the network, the satellites. and that takes somebody with a deep level of knowledge to be able to stop the data. it says that the components still worked, it says that there was still electrical power. so respectfully, i think that we do know more than we did. we're out of square one. we do have evidence. it's not as strong as we'd like. it's not compelling or conclusive but we do have evidence.

it says that something went on in that airplane. they did not or could not communicate via voice but it was electrically powered. it says it went to given points in space known as waypoints. that says the likelihood was that they used the flight management computer. somebody had to know how to program that. now, that's about as hard evidence as we have. >> what does that hard evidence tell us, to me, to everybody watching right now? what does it say could have happened? >> you know, there's so many speculations. i've been an accident investigator for 30 years and it says to me keep your mind open, every possibility remains on the table. there's some evidence that says somebody with knowledge interfaced with computers on the airplane. to go beyond that, we probably don't have the evidence to do it. >> but it does suggest something other than a catastrophic event occurred that prevented the further communication. >> yes.

>> some man-made decision was involved? >> it indicates right now, the evidence indicates that a knowledgeable individual had interaction with a computer and beyond that there was no communication. there was electrical power on the airplane, we know that. we know that there was electrical power on the airplane and available for several hours meaning greater than six. so put all of that together, it reduces the likelihood of a mechanical cataclysmic event on the airplane or an on board fire or some of the other speculations that have been raised on the internet and elsewhere. it doesn't eliminate it, but it reduces the likelihood. >> captain cox, that's what the prime minister of malaysia said. let's watch what he said last week, exactly what happened that way. characterizing to what happened to the missing plane. let's hear it in his words. >> these movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane. in view of this latest development, the malaysian

authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board. >> bob hager, now we go to the possibility of human involvement here, whether whatever reason it was done, there was some kind of human decision making going on on that plane, it wasn't mechanical failure. and the question is if you look at -- they're talking about the first officer having a habit of letting people into the cockpit. unofficially. maybe he was flirting with the passenger, whatever was going on. you have this discussion about who's on the plane. now wed that two people on the plane illegally that had bad passports but they were cast aside as just people trying to get to iran cheaply. that happens all the time in aircraft travel. but what do we have? are we going to have, like, now since we're not going to find the plane it looks like we're going to spend a lot of time looking through the manifest? >> manifest, yeah. because on that point they said they were carrying lithium batteries which happens all the

time but they have to be packaged just right and there was an accident that killed two crew members when lithium batteries got -- >> i mean the passenger manifest. >> passenger manifest, you've got to go back and look at all those things again because as we fail to bring something really hard forward you've now got to go back and revisit things that were dismissed earlier. they said they looked at those people that got on with false passports and they cleared them more or less. chinese said they cleared their people that were on the plane. still, since we come up with no answers now you've got to go back and revisit all those things because you might find something. you have to grasp at something because we have precious little here. >> it's great having you experts on. robert hager and captain john cox. we're dam close back to square one anyway. coming up, anguish and incompetence with the search for

flight 370 heading into the third week now. who's looking out for those families and who's holding the malaysian government accountable? plus, has any potential 2016 candidate for president had a busier week than hillary clinton? she may be a year away from announcing her candidacy but if you look at what she's been up to, you might conclude she's running or you might be worried she might not be. and while the obama administration looks to punish vladimir putin, his own people love what he's doing. moving to restore russian greatness. finally let me finish with the signs out there again this week that secretary clinton is indeed planning a presidential campaign. this is hardball, the place for politics. [ bubbles ] [ giggling ] again! again! [ giggles ] again! [ mom ] when we're having this much fun, why quit? and new bounty has no quit in it either. it's 2x more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand, and then stays strong, so you can use less. watch how one sheet of new bounty keeps working, while their two sheets just quit. [ bubbles, baby giggling ] again! [ mom ] why use more, when you can use less. new bounty. the no-quit picker-upper. cozy or cool?

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welcome back to "hardball." for the family members of flight 370 it's been 14 days of pure anguish. we've seen the images out of malaysia families breaking down

distraught by a government that has mishandled phases of this investigation. it's a emotional roller coaster made worse by an agonizing waiting game and an excruciating drip, drip, drip of information and speculation. here's how one of the missing passengers' girlfriends described her emotional state during an interview with nbc's the "today" show. this was after she was told that australian satellites spotted possible signs of debris. >> a friend called me with the information and i don't think i've stopped shaking since. you know we just finally settled into a normal routine of waiting, unhappy waiting, but at least we were going back to normal sleeping cycles and getting in and i've continued to teach at work and now this throws it all up in the air again. >> then there's malaysian politics, regional and racial tensions in that region which complicate matters even more.

all we're left with these questions -- what happens if we never find flight 370? what happens to the families? what happens to malaysia's struggling government? who's held responsible and who holds them accountable? in a part of a world with a volatile geopolitical, political, ethnic set of tensions these questions are difficult to ask but at some point they have to be answered. jim keith was the u.s. ambassador to malaysia and daniel rose an aviation expert and attorney. he's represented families in several high-profile aviation disasters. let me go to former ambassador keith. this performance by the malaysian government has been uneven, raggedy at times. do you have a sense of what it is they're most nervous about? all countries would be nervous in a situation like this. what are their fears? >> chris, i think it's clear that they're not practiced and not able to manage this in the spotlight of international scrutiny. they haven't had the experience necessary to pull this off. i don't think there's a

conspiracy here. they're not holding back information on the basis of a calculated move. they're just not handling it well from the -- ones heart goes out to the victims and you have to feel for their pain and some of that inflicted unnecessarily by the malaysian government but i don't think it's maliciously so. it's that something something of a wakeup call for the malaysian government that hasn't used the time it's had to increase the transparency and accountability of the government. did you fly malaysian airlines when you were over there on post? did you rely on them? >> on a regular basis and their safety record isn't bad. you have to go back to a couple of "new york times" the last 30 or 40 years i believe. so it's a professionally run airline, and the government itself runs a country that's come a long way. but this wake up call is for them to focus on the distance they have yet to go as opposed to being pleased about how far

they've come since 1957. >> mr. rose, this has been a frustrating day in the world. everyone was watching off the southwest coast from dawn last night and that part of the world to see if we could find any of those two pieces of rubble which we hoped were rubble but now we'll never find out if they were apparently because we can't find them. how long can the world support this expensive rescue effort. this attempt to salvage some information? >> it's a good question. i mean, the first concern obviously, as everyone's pointed out, is the families. this is a heart wrenching process for them and i really can't imagine an investigation or the handling of the families being done in a more disorganized and unprofessional way. and, again, it's -- i agree, it's not intentional but at some point you just have to say, you know, we need some help here and we need to do this the right way and that includes the

investigation. there's no telling how long it will go on if it proceeds at this pace of getting drips and drabs of information that turn out to be inaccurate. >> we have 239 people who are probably gone now and i think most people assume that now. the question is if this was done because of a malicious action by terrorists or people who had a grudge or whatever their political purposes or mental inability -- instability that lead to this or whatever it was, let me just ask you a simple question. if this was done by human beings, as the prime minister of malaysia said last sunday, my question is, does that relieve the government and its ownership of the airline of accountability here? they can blame it on someone who did something in the airplane? >> no, no. i mean, if there's a lesson we've all learned, the entire world has learned after 9/11 is that everybody's got responsibility for stopping what we all know is out there.

and particularly the airlines. so, you know, not that i necessarily think that a deliberate act is what happened here but if -- if the facts lead in that direction you have to look at the airline. they've got responsibilities in terms of security, in terms of screening, in terms of competency of pilots. and the law recognizes that. it holds the airline to the highest level of care for its passengers. if you're sitting in 15c and you buy a ticket to go from point "a" to point "b" you expect the airline to do everything that they're supposed to do to make sure you get there safely and that didn't happen here, i think we can all agree on that. >> so a passenger's mother, father, or husband could sue the you are aline for the -- for loss of life? >> that's true. that's true. the law recognizes that. there are some quirks in terms of whether you're an american citizen or you live the u.s. you have different rights and different ability to bring a

lawsuit in the u.s. but there certainly are rights in other countries and malaysia and china for some of the other passengers as well against the airline. >> let me go to ambassador keith. >> are you familiar with anwar ibrahim and the opposition and how that works over there and the pilots' loyalties with the opposition and having gone the trial within seven hours of taking off that day? how does that fit? i'm not saying we're looking for a necessary connection but what does it mean politically to the leader shape the pilot of this plane that's been lost was in the opposition? >> i wouldn't over interpret that. i think the key lesson it seems to me associated with the politics of this is that this is a maturing political society. that is they haven't had the chance, the give-and-take and the battle of political parties and civil society to hone the skills necessary to do a better job of communicating in the midst of this crisis. so it's more along the lines of

the fact that they haven't developed those skills because they haven't allowed that sort of opposition to play a role in society. only recently have they really had a contested election. so it's more that broader point that the government needs to move in the direction of more transparency and accountability and to allow civil society to develop freely, freedom of assembly and speech more so than exists now. it exists to a degree but it's -- good for the government, of course, good for the people if they can allow that to happen. i wouldn't take it beyond that. i don't think there's a direct connection. certainly opposition would be the first to say that -- and anwar himself would be the first to say this is a tragedy and they wouldn't have wanted to have anything to do with causing it. >> thank you for coming on. and we'll be right back after this. @ñ

time for the sideshow. the new sanctions have frozen the assets of several politicians and businessmen in putin's inner circle? who are the folks bearing those penalties? last night jimmy fallon profiled some of them in his segment "tonight show superlatives." >> first we have this russian politician sergei axionov. he was voted most likely to own a pair of strangling gloves. [ laughter ] next we have ukrainian politician victor medvedchuck. he was voted most likely to eat charcoal chips as a snack. they make teeth stronger. next up is the former president of ukraine, viktor yanukovych. he was voted most likely to be disappointed in his son weird al. finally we have russian

politician andre clishist, he was voted russian rob ford. there you go, guys. >> the russian government responded with sanctions of their own, issuing travel restrictions against several u.s. senators that bar them from visiting russia. most of them view those penalties as a badge of honor. senator dan coates of indiana took to twitter to point out how innocuous they are. he posted a top ten list of things he won't be able to do since putin banned him from russia. number ten, "i won't be able to complete my granddaughter's russian doll collection. number seven. i won't be able to ski on the slushy slopes of sochi. number four. i'll have to cancel my tennis match with maria sharapova. number one, our summer vacation in siberia is a no go." next up, it's rare even in today's politics that a candidate identifies himself as "a right wing christian nut." but we've found one.

a guy named mike mcfadden running for the republican senate nomination in minnesota just claimed in a fund-raising letter that i was talking about him in a recent "morning joe" appearance when i referenced the dangers of such candidates to moderate republican voters. well, mr. mcfadden's self-described right wing christian nut, is that really how you want voters to think of you? finally, president obama defended his decision to appear on "between two ferns" with zach galifianakis last week, pushing back against the charge that lincoln would haven't done it. here's what he told espn on the radio program just yesterday. >> first of all, if you read back on lincoln, he loved telling the occasional bawdy joke. and being out among regular folks and one of the hardest

things about being president is being in this bubble that is artificial and unless you make a conscious effort you start sounding like some washington stiff. that's "hardball" for now. coming up next, "your business" with jj ramberg.

if you want to know what's going on in the digital world, this is the place to be. we are in austin, texas, at the south by southwest interactive festival. we'll meet the entrepreneurs who are changing the way small business is being done. and we'll tell you why every small business owner needs to be thinking about their mobile strategy. we have that and so much more coming here from austin, coming up next on "your business." small businesses are