opportunity. we share this information out of a commitment to openness and respect for the families, two principles which have guided this investigation. malaysian airlines have already spoken to the families of the passengers and crew to inform them of this development. for them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking. i know this news must be harder still. i urge the media to respect their privacy and allow them the space they need at this very difficult time.

>> all right, we were waiting to see if anybody else would make a comment there. that was the malaysian prime minister saying that new analysis he describes as never before used concluded that flight 370 flew along the southern corridor and its last position was in the indian ocean, west of perth, australia. that is, indeed, the area they've been zeroing in on this search there. he also said according to this data, he does believe this flight is, indeed, lost there. this has got to be devastating for the families, as they've been waiting for two weeks now for information on their loved ones, holding on to hope that some way, some how they could still be alive. we've all waited, we've all wondered, and we've all watched as these search planes have zeroed in on objects, both from

satellite, and we're hearing new information today that, indeed, both australian search planes and chinese search planes have both spotted with their eyes objects in the water. so this is the latest that we have on that. and right now, i want to go to unos yune, who is in the room, in fact, with the families. unos, this has got to be some of the worst news, although many, obviously, have been prepared for this, as we've been waiting for so long and the probability of them being alive dwindles day by day, but to hear this today from the malaysian prime minister as a search is still under way, no doubt, has to be absolutely devastating for families. >> reporter: it's been absolutely devastating for families. it's actually getting very chaotic here in the hotel. there was one man who burst through the room, through the doors, and had to be dragged away as he was crying and

sobbing. it's just completely now become chaotic, when before the journalists were -- the journalists were being kept away from the families, now they are all streaming out of the room. i'm not sure if you can hear them. you can hear the devastation. hold on. the security is trying to keep the journalists away right now from the families and the families are all moving into a different location, but they are, obviously, in a complete state of disbelief after finally getting this news that their families are now lost forever. >> i have chills just listening to that. i think our viewers, as well, it's something that we've all hoped wouldn't be the case,

holding on to some type of hope, yet today we're hearing this news, and for the families, the reaction, obviously, is normal, it's devastating, but you're saying they are being kept away from the media. is that for security purposes, their own protection, their own privacy? because we've seen before families being dragged out of press conferences, is this a p.r. situation or out of respect for the families? >> reporter: i think it's respect for the families. there's so many journalists right here. excuse me. all the journalists are being pushed away because they want to keep them away from the families in order protect them at this very difficult time for them, but at the same time, many of the families have just been, like i said, sobbing uncontrollably and bursting through. i think they are probably, again, a dramatic moment when one of the first people who came through the doors of this

conference room, who's generally been not a chaotic place, burst through the room and just actually toppled over down the escalator and had to be dragged away. >> do you have any idea, eunice, where these families are going to be taken? do they have counselors there on site, how are they going to be cared for after this news has been provided by the malaysian prime minister? >> reporter: they did have counselors on site. i wasn't told whether or not the counselors were inside the room at the time. they have had counselors in the room, but i'm not exactly sure whether or not they were in the room at this time. i would believe they might be. they have been putting counselors in the room. now i see some emergency workers, there are some emergency workers here trying to help the family members who are

now just hear iing the final wo on their families, they are completely lost and won't see them again. >> absolutely. eunice, i want you to stand by. i want to bring in john cox, an expert, an analyst. john, this is so hard for us to digest. we have been prepared for it, but to actually hear those words, especially as a search is under way right now and there is possibly new hope in finding maybe at least where this plane could have gone down. what do you make of today's search and what's been found so far? >> well, i think that we are proceeding down a path exactly as we should be. we're taking evidence, we're bringing it in, we're evaluating it, and then we're moving and making decisions based on that changing evidence. the announcement today by the prime minister further limits the search area, which increases the likelihood of finding the

debris field, and that's the next step in this process. we need to find the debris field. we need to positively identify it, then we need to determine the size and dimensions of the debris field, feed that into very good, high-quality computer simulations for wave, wind, and current information, and see if that can lead us to a small area on the ocean floor to find the main body of the wreckage. >> let me ask you this, the malaysian prime minister said that based on analysis never been used before, they've concluded that this plane has gone down in the southern indian ocean. do you have any idea what kind of analysis and technology that he's talking about? >> no, but of equal or even greater significance was the reference to the british aaib, air accident investigation branch. this is a top-quality, world-class investigative agency, and if they have agreed

with mr-sat that the process that they used, even though never been done before, if they believe this to be true, that is a very high level of credibility, and i was very interested to hear the prime minister refer to aaib, because it really underpinned the quality and the strength of the information. >> he also said that according to this data, the flight ended in the southern indian ocean, which is pretty much where this search has been centered around, and today we're getting new information that an australian plane has spotted an orange rectangular object and grayer/green circular object. the chinese plane has also seen suspicious objects in the water. does this all pretty much add up to the theory this plane may have gone down in that area? >> i think it's too early to draw a conclusion like that. i believe we may find, and i've been listening for and expect to hear, we're going to find small

items, small debris, and a significant amount of it. that is what i expect. it's going to be seat-back cushions, items out of the overhead, those kinds of things tend to float virtually indefinitely, and when we see that, that is going to be something we can tie directly to the airplane and begin the surface search, which will give us the ability to search the ocean floor for the main body of the wreckage. >> okay, captain john cox, i'm going to ask you to stand by for us. we're going to go now to nbc's tom costello in washington. what's the latest you're hearing right now at this hour? >> this is, of course, what everybody feared, based on all of the evidence that suggested this plane took a southerly route, so now we are back down focusing more concretely, of course, on this search zone, 1,500 miles or so off the coast of perth, australia. pardon me if i'm repeating anything you said, i was on the

"today" show for a moment. they spotted debris in the search zone here and they are not sure that debris is from flight 370, but they are moving naval assets in to look. earlier today, chinese reported seeing debris just outside of the search zone. a p-8 american plane went in to look at that to get eyes on it, unable to confirm anything. they didn't even see anything, so now a chinese ice breaker that's in the region is en route to that location to check out that report. meanwhile, a naval ship from australia, the "success," is en route to check out the australian report. we have had in the course of a couple of days the satellite images. let's look at the satellite images we have had over a couple of days. i need to do this, then this. this is the image from a couple of days ago, about four, five days ago now, and it was 72 feet. 72 feet. that's a big, big piece. that's their estimate, based on

analysis off of the satellites. then we had this piece, this is more than a week old, this coming from the australians, and they believe this piece out on the ocean was about 79 feet. so then the question becomes, what part of an airplane could be that large, 72, 79 feet, and, in fact, is that the same piece that was picked up by the chinese and the australians? let's go over here to the interactive map. pardon my back. here's a 777, malaysian airlines 777, and it has a wingspan of about 200 feet. when you look at it from tip-to-tip, 200 feet right across the bottom like that and nose to tail, about a 205-feet length. the question is, could this be a piece that comes from one of the wings or maybe a combination of the wing and the fuselage, we don't know. and we also don't know whether the malaysians are now aware of other photographic evidence that has something that is more concrete, that identifies specifically a piece of the

plane. could it be a piece of the wing, could it be a piece of the tail, we don't know. remember, that in the case of the air france crash back in 2009, they found that vertical stabilizer, the tail, they found that within five days. they knew immediately, of course, therefore, the plane did crash in the atlantic ocean, then it was a matter of trying to find the actual wreckage. we don't know specifically what the concrete evidence is right now suggesting that, in fact, flight 370 has crashed, but clearly, the malaysians believe all the evidence, photographic evidence, satellite evidence, and the debris that has been spotted, though not picked up, would suggest this plane did, in fact, go down in the south indian ocean. back to you. >> i think it's key, though, tom, they've spotted this. the search planes spotted this debris in the water, because by spotting the debris, doesn't it give them the ability to put down some kind of a buoy or marker so they can zero in and find this area a lot easier?

>> that's right. the australian air force has been dropping these buoy markers and they transmit data on ocean currents back to the command center in australia so they can keep an eye on what's happening to the ocean currents in this area. that's really been the big challenge. we talked to experts who say this is really a very difficult ocean to try to gauge and calculate currents because you have constantly shifting eddies in here and miniature tides, if you will, or currents, within the ocean. it's just a constantly moving scenery, and, in fact, somebody in "the new york times" today described this as a ping-pong ball action, where it's constantly moving back and forth and it's very difficult to calculate the current. so, yes, they are dropping those markers to hopefully get a better sense of what is happening to any debris they do spot and where is it moving to. we're now more than two weeks since this plane went down, so if now the malaysians are convinced it did go down in the

south indian ocean, now we're trying to figure out where and how far has that debris shifted. that original search zone they were looking at was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 102,000 square miles. they then brought it down to a smaller zone, much smaller zone, 20,000 square miles. but guess what that's the equivalent of, west virginia, the smaller zone is the equivalent of west virginia. so imagine now trying to find a piece that is roughly the size of a tennis court, or that long, in the area the size of west virginia and doing it all by air. that's a huge challenge with white caps and rolling waves, a very big challenge in the south indian ocean. >> no doubt, a bit of a moving target. tom costello, thank you, that was good information. i do want to reset for our audience, the big headline this morning, they told the families that flight 370 has been lost. i want to play some sound from just moments ago, this as the

malaysian prime minister made that announcement. >> it is, therefore, with deep sadness and regret that i must inform you that according to this new data, flight mh 370 ended in the southern indian ocean. >> such difficult news for the families, they've been waiting, hoping beyond hope somehow their loved ones would be alive, but we're hearing today from the malaysian prime minister he does, indeed, believe and the air investigation branch, a british group, this new, never-been-used before information that this analysis concluding this flight indeed went down in the indian ocean. i want to take you now to keir

simmons live in kuala lumpur. this is not the information they wanted to hear. >> reporter: absolutely. it really isn't, bettly. we just witnessed some really heartbreaking scenes behind me here. earlier, while the prime minister was speaking, a small group of the families were here to watch his statement on the national television. they just sat stoney faced, quietly listening to what he had to say. remember, that what they were listening to is the prime minister, one of the families, their son was onboard, 29-year-old son, a son with a child and a wife, so they had to listen to that. betty, we're told the families were informed by e-mail and text message ahead of the announcement by the prime minister. we did see some members of the families in the hotel here

walking around with their phones, looking, as you would expect, their text messages said to have been sent to the chinese families said, we deeply regret we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt mh 370 has been lost and none of those onboard have survived. the families receiving that news, i would guess the malaysian authorities had been trying to let families know in advance before they made an announcement publicly any news they had. pretty brutal way to find out, you have to say, then to sit here and watch it announced on national malaysian television, really difficult. and they really were stoic. they were quiet, as i say, stoney faced. didn't show much emotion, sat here with some of their children, but so, so difficult for these families as today they were entering the third week of the search for flight 370 to

hear this news today. betty? >> keir, so hard to believe how this thing transpired. they got via text message their loved ones are, indeed, no longer alive, and to hear it again on television from the prime minister, now you say those near you were stone faced. we spoke to eunice yoon earlier and we could hear wailing in the background, people just devastated by this. are you seeing a different scene where you are? >> reporter: well, particularly the family we have been talking to throughout this process who are here have been really strong, if strong is to show not too much emotion, they certainly have been that. they have been saying to us, look, when it comes to our son, we are resigned to hearing the worst news, but the worst possible thing would be for us to not know anything, so they were talking in those terms

before this. plainly, betty, when somebody loses a loved one, they deal with it in many different ways. they didn't want to talk to us, you can understand that, and they have gone to just be with each other for awhile at least. they'll deal with it in different ways, but up until now, they've been bracing themselves for the worst news and in a way, perhaps that was realistic. the statement, though, for some families may well leave questions, too, and they've had so many questions over this last couple of weeks. questions for them about why this statement is, why the malaysian authorities feel it's right to make this statement now, what evidence they have, and we wait to hear that kind of detail, but anyway, as it is, a really difficult thing for them to hear. it's 10:00 at night here in the evening, so they were kind of getting ready for the end of the day, thinking there had been no news, and the announcement that the prime minister was going to make this statement only came

about an hour, for us anyway, before it was actually made, before the press conference happened. so it all happened pretty quickly, and again, how unbelievably difficult it must be for those relatives. >> oh, absolutely. as you mentioned, people do deal with grief in very different ways, no matter how prepared you are for it, it still hits you like a ton of bricks. keir, i want you to stand by, i want to bring in john van gurley. captain, i think keir simmons said something that was very important, and he talked about how the families may be questioning why would the malaysian prime minister make this announcement now, we're just getting new information on possible objects, but the plane wreckage has not been found, so why be so definitive now? >> well, good morning. it's hard with the breaking news situation we have right now to understand the details of the analysis that he referred to,

but as we've watched the story from my company, metron, that's been the most compelling information, to vector the search down. so they have very high confidence now on the southern corridor, and it's been backed up by the british investigation authorities, that, i think, is probably what drove toward the announcement today to start helping the families put a finality on this situation. >> let me get you reaction to the objects found today, they were spotted by both an australian plane and chinese plane, objects in the water, some orange, some gray, some circular. do these sound like possible parts of a plane? >> it could be, and that's what everybody has to caution. these are long evolutions, these searches, that require meticulous and deliberate attention. there will be false leads, but the fact we continue to see reports that show objects, both large and small, being seen from

satellite and from aircraft all in the same region that was originally identified, would lead credence we are close to finding the debris field. the real key will be getting a ship in to identify one of these objects, put eyes on, recover it, and say it can be positively traced back to the aircraft. >> it can be pretty difficult, though, because we've talked about bad weather in the area, lots of currents, some nine feet high, some of these swells, but then we're also hearing what may be like a cyclone or weather event that's headed in the area, as well, which is going to make things even more difficult. >> correct. and the australians really have a challenge ahead of them with the area they are at and all the ships from partner companies that are aiding, very remote, very rough weather. two things, i think, that are going for them, the tropical cyclone you're referring to, tropical cyclone jillian is going to stay north of area and

dissipa dissipate, the other thing that i think is going to go for them is the fact the australians have been deploying marker buoys since they started the search on the 17th of march. that will help trace the ocean currents to back track the debris to the possible impact point, but that's going to be very, very difficult and our experience with air france 447, we found debris within five days and when we backtracked those to a likely spot, it gave us a very low confidence, broad area where the impact zone might have been. >> talk about five days with air france. we're looking at two weeks now, so if you do the math, how incredibly difficult is this? >> i will use the general term, very. it's going to be very difficult. again, the fact that the australians have been deploying marker buoys in the region to track the currents, i know they

have experts looking at it, but at two weeks, we're really at the limit of the state of the operational science with ocean models, so it's going to be difficult to get anything in a confined zone, but i know the experts are going to do anything they can to lead to the finding the wreckage, both on the surface, and most importantly, on the ocean bottom, so we can recover the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. >> that's key, thank you for your insight today. we appreciate it. i want to take you now to ian williams in australia. he's been covering the search for many, many days now. ian, what is your reaction and what are you hearing from officials there? >> reporter: betty, i suspect that many of those families simply won't believe or will refuse to believe this news until they come up with a part, any part of that airplane, until they find something here in the

ocean. it is intriguing the timing of this announcement by prime minister razak. he's clearly basing it, it appears, on radar and other analysis, rather than on anything that's been found in the ocean here. if he does have more information, then it's curious he didn't share that with relatives, because that, perhaps, would be a way of reducing the pain, if he had said we now believe we do have some debris, some parts of the aircraft, and it is curious timing that he's chosen to make this announcement without yet having found any parts of the airplane. however compelling the other evidence is, that will make it much, much more difficult, i think, for the families. the search here will be intensified. we may hear more tomorrow about the areas identified by the australians today by the chinese. it could be the prime minister

has more insight. it could also be that he just thinks this search may drag on, that we don't get an immediate answer, that it could be some time before we get debris and that's why he's chosen this moment, to bring closure to the relatives, but it's hard to say because it was such a short statement, no questions, and that's particularly tough for the relatives, betty. >> no doubt, it is very curious, because he just pretty much attributed new analysis that's never before used and saying that they pretty much believe this plane has gone down, but as you mention at this point, we have not found wreckage yet, so to make such a definitive statement is hard for a family to digest when they are searching for closure at this moment. i know in speaking with you and looking at the background, it's nighttime there. is anything happening with this search overnight? >> reporter: well, we assume

there are conversations going on. there is analysis of photographs that were almost certainly taken by the chinese, by the australians. they are not sharing any of that information with us at this time, although it will inevitably go into the planning for tomorrow's search and it will be a record number of aircraft out there, there will be ten-plus now that the chinese are on location, now that the japanese are here. there's also a small number of chinese ships in the area. this has become pretty political. there's a lot of impatience on the parking lot of beijing on the malaysian handling on this and that also may have put pressure on the malaysian government, who may have felt they needed to say something definitive at this point. there's also criticism by relatives and that's not going to be helped by what we heard today, but that search will be

stepped up quite considerably tomorrow with all those extra assets in the area. as tom pointed out, the size of the area is progressively being shrunk, but nevertheless, it is vast, the conditions are very, very difficult. and there is a lot of trash out there. at this point, no evidence that even the encouraging sightings we saw today have anything to do with flight 370, betty. >> you bring up a very good point, that's how the malaysian government has been handling this. at first getting a lot of pushback from the families because the families wanted information and the information wasn't flowing fast enough and we hear today right before this press conference they send a text message to the families essentially saying your loved ones are gone forever. this is the message to the families, the actually text message, saying we deeply regret we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt mh370 has been

lost and that none on board have survived as you will hear in the next hour. there's going to be a lot of talk about the prime minister's statement and how short they were and how little information was provided, wouldn't you say, ian? >> it's not a great way of putting across such a devastating piece of news. i'm trying to explain to a family that there is some rather abstract new technical model that shows that their relatives went down in the indian ocean is not something -- is not a great way of breaking news like this to relatives, especially in the absence of any physical evidence of the plane being found out there in the southern ocean. and especially at a time when they had appeared to be getting closer, that they were seeing more debris fields, so i imagine that in the social media and elsewhere in china, the malaysians are going to be savaged over the next few hours.

>> ian williams joining us from perth. thank you, ian. i want to take you now to nbc's tom costello in washington, d.c. what are you hearing with the latest information on the objects and search taking place? >> it's now, you know, dark and approaching midnight in that zone, so those objects that were spotted in this area by the chinese and australians, they are now sending naval assets in, but they won't get a good look until daylight hours, another seven to eight hours or so. ultimately what are they looking for? they are going to be looking for a black box. since the 1960s, they have been painted orange, that is a law and they are going to be looking for the pinger or hoping to hear the pinger. this is the pinger right here. it gives off a constant, literally, a ping, it can be picked up by sonar. the challenge, however, it is not easy to hear unless you're right on top of it and specialically in the indian

ocean or any ocean, for that matter, if this is lying underneath the wreckage of a plane or this is buried in the mud and you're talking two to three miles down, it's very difficult, if not impossible, for a sonar or hydrophone to pick up that pinger. we've talked about the fact there's only about another two weeks or so, maybe a little more, of battery life left in the pinger. the ocean conditions down here, and these are very, very difficult waters. we've talked to several experts who say it's like a constant moving and taking and moving back and forth with the water. it's very difficult to get a good sense of where things might have tracked. here's another statistic that kind of shocked me when i heard it, every year, at least a dozen or so cargo ships sink in the world and most of them, or a good number of them, sink in the indian ocean because it is so

unpredictable, and on top of that, at least a thousand, or 10,000 cargo containers fall off ships every year. now imagine all of that stuff floating around, how much is in the indian ocean, we don't know, but this is a very, very turbulent, violent stretch of whatever that circumvents the southern half of the earth and that's a very tumultuous area with churning, high eddies, high waves, and high winds. sometimes, i went back and double checked this, because i thought it was astonishing, they have actually had waves in this region reported of 100 feet. imagine a wave 100 feet. that's the kind of weather they are moving into, by the way, in six weeks, winter moves into that area and it gets even worse. i almost was wondering as i was listening to the prime minister speak, he may have access to some information that we are not yet privy to, but i also

wondered whether he felt it was time to end the suffering of those families and try to put some, begin to put some closure on this open-ended mystery about where did this plane go. >> as you know, for a lot of families, until they see the wreckage and proof, it's going to be hard. okay, tom, thank you so much for that. i want to bring in bob haeger now. bob, you've been listening to all of this. what do you make of this information, not only by the prime minister, but the objects found today? >> first, the prime minister, this is data from that satellite that's getting the hits from the airplane, that physically puts the plane in the indian ocean. >> we've known that for awhile. >> we have, but it was speculation before. i think they are much more positive about it now, based on new calculations, but this is coming from great britain, from the owner of this satellite,

which got the information from the plane, which is not communicating from anyone, but got interrogation from the plane's acars system, so they can pin point it's in the south indian ocean and know there's no chance it went to land anywhere. >> what would make it go south, what would make it make that turn? >> yeah, and that is just nobody can guess, really. but i do think that enough passed digging into the pilot and copilot, it's slow work and will need to go on with that, but i wonder if everyone was too quick to dismiss the idea of some other catastrophe happening in the plane, mechanical problem, or could be smoke, could be decompression, something like that. and also, you could say they are

dealing with enough time to communicate on the radio or one of the scenarios for dealing with smoke in the cockpit, for instance, is to shut down all the circuit breakers, so that would explain the loss of communication, loss of the radar, everything else from the plane, and turn them back on one by one to isolate the problem. >> maybe they didn't get a chance to turn them back on, is what you're saying? >> they could have, but what i'm really trying to do is explain why everything went off all of a sudden, but to say you still have a live crew trying to turn this plane back to kuala lumpur or another airport. i think if this much time has gone by and we're not pointing directly at the crew yet with information, that you've got to go back and revisit all these things. really, the information that it went down in the indian ocean is helpful to closure for the

families and the investigation. you need to find these pieces and then calculate back, where did this plane first hit the water and then find the cockpit down at the bottom there, hope to find the cockpit voice recorder. >> first, you have to find the pieces and make sure from that plane. >> then trace it back based on the currents and that's a difficult and time consuming job, then you take the boat out there and troll with listening devices that would hope to pick up the pinger and if you get a pinging noise, and by the way, we're calculating a couple weeks left, that's a specification for the pinger, but i bet it will run longer. >> we're still in a time frame. >> i'm guessing a month, less than a month now, and then in history there have been cockpit voice recorders they've located them without the pinging noise,

but it took years. >> okay, stand by, please, because we are continuing with the story. i want to tell you about this, because we just learned information that is coming in from new analysis of satellite data from a british company, so take a listen to what we've learned. >> using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort, they have been able to shed more light on mh370's path. >> i want to bring in congressman adam schiff. you talked about the possibility of hooking up the black box to a cloud system so information could be accessed immediately. tell us about that, is that happening or still in the experimental phase? >> the technology exists, the only question is, how long will it take to implement. as tom costello was pointing

out, even though we're close to where we hope the debris field is, the clock is ticking. if we can't find it, we may never know what happened to this aircraft, and that would not only be damaging, i think, to the families who want closure, but also if there was a mechanical problem in the plane, we want to know that information to take steps with other planes of that model. there are real consequences with it, the technology exists, and we want to move quickly in that dwrex. critical data or critical data when a plane deviates from an intended path, we have the technology to do it, the question is, do we have the will to make the changes. >> you're a lawmaker, are you going to be pushing for something like that? >> i certainly will. i think what may be going on here today is having some

experience with this in the intelligence field, we have two potential flight paths that the plane might have taken that would be consistent with the initial data that mr-sat got, but drilling down on that data helps exclude the northern route, which seemed impossible anyway, but the fact that we now know generally where that plane was headed and may have found the debris field still doesn't get us necessarily to the boxes. as i mentioned, if we don't, we may never know what happened, so i'll certainly be pushing and i think many of my colleagues will be to have the ffa, ntsb testify, tell us what's practical to do. is it best to go with a streaming data from those black boxes or better to have a deployable black box that could float in the event an aircraft hits water. there's many possibilities and the question is, what could be

done most quickly. >> i want to bring in bob hager again. bob, what do you have? >> i'd love to ask, i've heard this talk about doing the cockpit voice recorder, that information in real time, but it's costly, i think. and uses up a lot of satellite capacity if you take all the planes flying in the world, but what do you understand of that, congressman? >> well, it certainly would be a challenge technologically if we were to stream all of the data of all of the aircraft, but you could limit that to streaming certain data, vital day data, you could also make changes to the systems with a back-up battery so they can't be completely turned off by pilots, but nonetheless, it's safe in terms of if you had an elect call problem, you could still

maintain safety. and so there are a number of technological options that would be cost effective. these questions will probably be answered within the next decade anyway, as we move to the next generation of aircraft systems, but given we've had two flights in the last five years where we've taken years to find those black boxes, i would hate to put the families through that kind of additional turmoil of not knowing what happened for a long period of time and potentially indefinitely. >> absolutely, especially if there's technology that could help and prevent something like this. congressman adam schiff, thank you so much for joining us today, we appreciate it. coming up, we'll have more on this breaking news story, so definitely stick around for that. you're watching msnbc. >> you can hear the devastation. hold on.

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how did edward jones get so big? let me just put this away. ♪ could you teach our kids that trick? [ male announcer ] by not acting that way. it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. welcome back, everybody. we are following breaking news of this missing malaysian airlines jet. we're hearing today from the malaysia prime minister speaking to the families he does believe this plane went down in the south indian ocean and the souls are lost. devastating news for the families. we heard some of them wailing and really in disbelief, as anyone could imagine, grief affects people in many ways, a lot of them holding on to hope somehow their families were alive. keir simmons is in kuala lumpur, we understand you have new

information from the families, what can you tell us? >> reporter: well, kind of, yeah, we just watched some families watch the prime minister on the television behind me here. they sat quietly, they listened. they didn't actually want to talk afterwards, as you can imagine, betty, but our producer was with them as they got the news and he describes a really moving scene. omar suntamet, whose son was on the plane, sat quietly, stoney faced, really, listening while his wife, who is his son's step mother, gently stroked his arm, then at the end, we kind of knew, but at the end we were reminded, in fact, he doesn't speak english and the prime minister made the announcement in english, so then one of his relatives leaned over and quietly explained to him what had just been said, and at that point he got up and left. really heart breaking, really, really awful for these families

and difficult, too, really because they were, we understand, at least some of them told by text message or e-mail. we're still trying to establish how many of them got the message that way. i guess the malaysians were trying to let families know early before they made the public announcement, but pretty devastating way to hear and watch it on national television, the television networks cut into programming, as you can expect, to hear from the prime minister. so really, really tough for the families. this particular family's 29-year-old son was on the flight, and now to hear this from their prime minister, something they had braced themselves for. we've been talking to them over the last couple weeks and they've resigned themselves for this, braced themselves, but how do you prepare for this? really, really difficult. betty? >> keir, thank you very much for

that. it is devastating news for the families and i want to go back now to retired airline captain john cox and bob hager joins me on set. as much as we want to find this plane, i think sometimes we get lost in the fact that these are families and there are loved ones on board that plane, and i guess, mr. cox, being a pilot, a former pilot, and watching this play out, how devastating is it, especially when you don't have proof, you don't have a wreckage at this point. all you have is still a search that is fully under way to try to digest the fact you've been told your loved one is gone. >> well, i think, certainly, for the victims' families, it is traumatic, it is traumatic in every sense of the word, for the crew members, for the passengers, for their families, for aviation in general. this is a very traumatic event,

and most importance, it is unprecedented. we have never seen an airliner go 17 days and not know where it was, and i think that has made it even more difficult, but it's one where the investigators have got to focus and keep the assets in place. we need to find that wreckage. i'm confident that we will, and that is what we can do as investigation, the investigative process, to help these families more than anything else, is to do the job, find out what happened to malaysia flight 370, and provide those answers and make sure it doesn't happen again. >> absolutely, and the key is finding this wreckage. bob, i want to bring you back in now, because the u.s., in fact, has sent a specialized device that can locate black boxes, the pinging, and how detailed is that technology, if you will? i mean, are we getting really close to possibly finding this, especially if the u.s. comes into this?

>> not yet, no. it's a long, arduous process. the pieces of wreckage, assuming now that they are from this plane, and that was today's news conference based on satellite information that was plane was indeed on the southern arc and headed in the south indian ocean, based on that, they tell the families the plane was lost, but you have to get the pieces of wreckage on the surface, and you calculate back how the currents have flowed in, what are we, two weeks out now, a little more, in that time and hope to find, calculate, at least, the place where the plane hit the water initially, and there the heaviest parts of the plane would probably go to the bottom fairly quickly when it hit the water, unlike the light parts that would float off for hundreds of miles even. now if you locate where the heavy parts went down, like the cross section of the plane, very, very tough, where the wing

crosses the fuselage, that's heavy, that goes to the bottom. the tail is heavy and goes to the bottom. the tail is where the black boxes are, so if you got an idea where to search, then this boat that's on, the listening device on its way out there, tow that from the boat, it's like an underwater microphone. >> but how far out does it have to be from the actual black boxes that's pinging? >> five to six miles, but can be sometimes up to ten miles. >> that's all you have? >> tight little circle, yeah, compared to this huge search area they have now. so you have to make a really good calculation of where to spend this asset, to put the boat and listening device out there. i think there will be a couple boats, not just the one we're sending out there, they'll put a lot of devices down there. then even if you locate through the pingers, do hear the pinging noise, then you can zero in, that's a beacon from the flight

data recorder, the black boxes, you have to have a sub go down, unmanned sub with a camera, and see exactly where it is in the wreckage. >> there's a lot of work to do if, indeed, we find the wreckage. i want to reset this for you, for people who may have missed it. i want to play a portion of the news conference from earlier this hour from the malaysian prime minister. take a listen. >> it is, therefore, with deep sadness and regret that i must inform you that according to this new data, flight mh370 ended in the southern indian ocean. we will be holding a press conference tomorrow with further

details. in the meantime, we wanted to inform you of this new development at the earliest opportunity. >> again, that's just devastating news coming from the malaysian prime minister, especially to the families who are sitting there holding on to hope that somehow their loved ones are still alive. all right. let me get to the statement, as well, i want to read you portions of it, saying "the ongoing multinational search operation will continue, as we seek answers to the questions which remain alongside the search for mh370. there is an intensive investigation. we would like to ensure you that malaysia airlines will continue to give you our full support throughout the difficult weeks and months ahead." and, john, i want to bring you back in here. i think some people, as they listen to this and they really look at how this played out, they are going to question why a

text message was sent to families, instead of someone coming and speaking with them. i don't know what the rules are, how the counselors deal with it. you may have more insight into that, but that doesn't seem like normal protocol, or does it to you? >> i don't know. i don't know exactly the decision process that was utilized for that. that's one you would probably have to ask malaysian airlines and the malaysian government, but it is a little unusual. >> here in the u.s., would you see a situation like that play out in that type of way? >> i think the national transportation safety board and the care team members from the airline would probably be some of the people who would advise that, but no one in history has ever faced 17 days of the families waiting to hear something like this, so this whole thing is unprecedented, and i think we're finding people, government agencies and the individuals, struggling to do something that has never been

done before and try to do it effectively and in some cases they've really struggled with it. >> john cox, thanks so much for joining us today. we want to take you now back to bob hager and get your final word on this. you've been following this story for many, many days now. >> well, besides knowing where the plane went down, knowing, sadly, everyone was lost, for the future, it would be, sure would helpful to know exactly what happened on this flight. and right now we're just about a little bit of a way down that path toward finding out. it's not certain we'll ever find out, but hopefully, we will. the important thing here is to try to learn lessons from what went on and see what you can do in the future to try to prevent whatever happened here. >> absolutely, maybe technology can help out, as well, in the future, so we're not scouring the bottom of the ocean with our eyes and satellite images and what not. we talked about that this hour.

bob hager, thank you for your time today, and that does wrap up this hour of "jansing and co.," "news nation" with tamron hall is up next. tamron will have the latest on reaction and this breaking news out of malaysia, the prime minister announcing they do believe flight 370 went down in the indian ocean. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. . ♪ time to take care of business with century link's global broadband network and cloud infrastructure. we constantly evolve to meet your needs every day of the week.

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to manage your money.r guy around 2 percent that's not much, you think except it's 2 percent every year. go to e*trade and find out how much our advice and guidance costs. spoiler alert. it's low. it's guidance on your terms not ours. e*trade. less for us, more for you. hi, i'm richard lui and this is "news nation," tamron hall will be here in just a moment. we're following breaking news. one hour ago, authorities in malaysia prepared families for the worst possible outcome as they now believe flight 370 did go down in the indian ocean with no chance for survivors. >> using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of the sort, they have been able to shed more light on mh370's flight path.

it is, therefore, with deep sadness and regret that i must inform you that according to this new data, flight mh370 ended in the southern indian ocean. >> that was malaysia's prime minister, najib razak delivering that heart breaking news, getting new data surveillance. his announcement comes as several ships are now heading to an area where australian search crews spotted two objects that could potentially be debris from the missing plane. you can see where they are using flares to mark the spots there in the water. one is described as an