back with me bill nye, jim tillman and fran townsend. question here i may put this to bill nye first. from sherry rosenbalm who's tweeted me. one expert said if pieces that big came from the airplane they would be too heavy to float. no mention of that since. pretty good point. 70 foot by 70 foot. >> we're all speculating. what if they're rafts? what if they're gas-filled wings that broke off and float because the kerosene, the jet fuel is less dense than water? but i want to ask jim a question. would you agree that when stuff goes wrong on planes there's two things that make things go wrong on planes. maintenance and then a series of small things that just get out of hand. one thing leads to another. and then it gets away from you. >> i've never heard of an aviation accident where one thing made the difference. as a matter of fact, it's almost always a series of events. and if you change any one of those items along that chain of events no accident. so yes, you're right. it would have to be some kind of a series of things that happened

fran townsend, let me start with you. it seemed like yesterday everyone was trying to push back on the idea this could have been an act of terror. but today the cia seemed to put it back into play and said, look, we just don't seem to know what has happened here so we can't rule anything out. what is your understanding of where this investigation is going? >> look, piers, i think the more facts we get the kind of crazier and less clear, murky that it seems to get. now we think the plane not only changed direction, that the transponder may have been turned off and that it actually crossed over the country of malaysia on its way back in the wrong direction. now, there are conflicting reports. but you can understand when the director of cia is asked have you absolutely ruled out that this could be terrorism, why he would say no. there are stolen passports, tickets paid for with cash at the same travel agent. i mean, all of this leads them to want to look at things like are there -- and they need time to do it -- are there re

. >> joining me national security analyst fran townsend, member of the skai and dhs external advisory boards. general marks, when you look at what these russian troops have done, seizing two airports, surrounding this television station, it seems like coup planning 101 these are the first steps people always do in any part of the world when they're seizing a area, correct? >> it's not a coup, it's an invitation, anderson. i think we can state clearly, albeit the administration has not come out and stated this with this degree of certainty, that the russians have invaded the ukraine. remember that crimea is a part of the ukraine. there isn't any additional sovereignty that crimea enjoys beyond what the ukraine has right now. so this type of activity by russia clearly is an effort on their part to ensure that their influence isn't waning. clearly the united states cannot by itself take a leadership role. but there are activities that we can take and we can encourage with our partners in nato, primarily through the partnership for peace, and that kiev can call for, which is through part

jim golio as well, fran townsend. let us know what you think. follow me @anderson cooper @ac360. >>> usually on day six of the search the grid is smaller, there's general sense of where to look. this thing just expanded exponentially. got a whole lot larger. up next we'll dig deeper into the electronics behind today's news. there's all different systems that a plane uses to communicate. primary radar, secondary radar, adsb system, acars system. we're going to look at all of that, all the different ways a 777 can communicate with the outside world and how jim sciutto demonstrated those can be silenced. later what it takes to locate wreckage at sea. why other searches succeed and why this one could be the most challenging one yet. ameriprise asked people a simple question: can you keep your lifestyle in retirement? i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how to answer that. i mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. i try not to worry, but you worry. what happens when your paychecks stop? because everyone ha

cnn analyst fran townsend, advice tore president bush, tells cnn that is unlikely. >> if you look at the northern route, would have had to go close to the pakistan/indian border, probably one of the best defense it's in world. and over the united arab emirates which also has incredible air defenses. i'm not sure where that takes you. i couldn't imagine it navigated that far and skirted all those air defenses and the theory is you landed where. to load up with some sort of weapon. but in fairness to israel, it's a tiny country, it's not as though -- you know what i mean, they take this air defense system very seriously because they don't have a lot of time to react. until you know where the plane is, do you know it's in the indian ocean, until you've accounted for it, it's understandable that they'd go to a heightened state of alert. >> also this morning, how they continue to ask how no one on the ground witnessed anything when this jet disappeared. simon austin is in new york talk to someone who told us they think they saw something flying over the gulf of thailand. saima joins us, t

david gallo who co-led the search for flight 447, fran townsend is here, former homeland security adviser and 777 captain, les, joining us as well. les, you've been flying for nearly 30 years. as you look at this, given what we know, the transponder was off, as we said, that went off at two minutes after the last communication at 1:19. 1:21 the transponder goes off. we know the 1:37 a.m. acars system that was supposed to send a message did not send a message so that acars system, last one was from 1:07. you talk about this compartment below the cockpit where the system is located and we've got this tour of it here. can you talk to us about what you think was most likely to have happened here given the complexity of this whole system? >> well, that's a good point, it is a complex system. as pilots trained on this airplane, we don't know -- we know what the system does for us but to know every detail down there, i mean i'm considered an expert. i don't know every detail. i don't know every box. i would really have to study some more engineering and schematics to really know what everything

deeper with mark weiss, security con sut stant, also a former 777 pilot along with peter goelz and fran townsend, and cia external advisory board. jim sciutto is with us as well. mark, based on the pictures that we have seen, what you are hearing, does this look, does this feel like this could be wreckage from the plane? >> it certainly does based on what we found in the air france search off the coast a few years ago. everyone is hoping that this is a real, confirmed lead. >> peter, do you agree with that? >> i do. their best people have identified this geographic area. let's hope that the satellite has picked it up. >> fran, let me play for you what the australian prime minister tony abbott said in making this announcement. >> new and credible information has come to light in relation to the search. the maritime safety authority has received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search. the task of locating these objects will being extremely difficult and it may turn out that they are not related to the search for flight mh-370. >> but fran, you know the aus

. >>> let's bring in fran townsend. she's a member of the cia's external advisory board.rom the director of the cia saying he's not ruling out terrorism at all, not at all. he said i know you're pretty well plugged in, but what's your sense on what's going on? we obviously don't know, but what are you hearing? >> wolf, there's no question that the cia is working with its ally intelligence services around the world, the cia here in the united states has got tremendous relationships throughout that region and you be sure that they're talking to those folks to find out what are they hearing. they'll also be working with their technical intelligence counterparts. so the nsa. you'll work with -- especially in this case where you see satellite imagery, wolf, they'll be working with the national geospatial folks who analyze classified satellite imagery. the chindz have turned this over. it's not clear that the chinese would have revealed even their best satellite images. there are techniques by which you can let's call it fuzz the mop, right? so it's not exactly clear the streng

fran townsend, you're on the advisory board of the cia.ks, it's increasingly looking like this was not some sort of mechanical failure, this was looking like it was man made. >> i think that's right, wolf. but we have to make a distinction even among a man-made event, that doesn't necessarily mean terror. it may mean that somebody took control of the cockpit, but that could be a pilot. we saw in egypt air 990 where the pilot intentionally downs the plane. we're not saying that happens here bs we don't know. it does look like if this plane was in fact in the air for a number of hours after the responder went -- was turned off, you got to presume some control of the aircraft by somebody capable of continuing to fly it. >> how do they determine that? what are they doing? take us a little bit behind the scenes. you were the homeland security adviser to president bush. you've had extensive background in the justice department in these kind of investigations. what are they looking for if they are working under the assumption that a person took t

david gallo who co-led the search for flight 447, fran townsend is here, former homeland security adviser and 777 captain, les, joining us as well. les, you've been flying for nearly 30 years. as you look at this, given what we know, the transponder was off, as we said, that went off at two minutes after the last communication at 1:19. 1:21 the transponder goes off. we know the 1:37 a.m. acars system that was supposed to send a message did not send a message so that last one was1:07. you talk about this compartment below the cockpit where the system is located and we've got this tour of it here. can you talk to us about what you think was most likely to have happened here given the complexity of this whole system? >> well, that's a good point, it is a complex system. as pilots trained on this airplane, we don't know -- we know what the system does for us but to know every detail down there, i mean i'm considered an expert. i don't know every detail. i don't know every box. i would really have to study some more engineering and schematics to really know what everything does down there. >>

let's explore this further with fran townsend, former homeland security adviser to president george wbush, general spider marks, military analyst here at cnn, u.s. army former commanding general, and mary schiavo, cnn aviation analyst we've been watching throughout the week, former inspector general of the department of transportation and helped so many families after 9/11 on those flights. let's get into michael oren's idea that maybe that we should all be on heightened alert about this being out there. fran, what are your thoughts on that? >> well, if you look at northern route you would have had to skirt very close to the pakistan-india border. probably the best air defenses in the world. you also would have been very close if not over the united arab emirates which has incredible air defenses. i'm not sure where that takes you. i can't imagine that it could have actually navigated that far, skirted all those air defenses, and the theory is you landed where? in iran? to load up with some sort of weapon? >> i'm guessing israel has their eye on iran in some way. i don't know. but the

david gallo who co-led the search for flight 447, fran townsend is here, former homeland security adviser and 777 captain, les, joining us as well. les, you've been flying for nearly 30 years. as you look at this, given what we know, the transponder was off, as we said, that went off at two minutes after the last communication at 1:19. 1:21 the transponder goes off. we know the 1:37 a.m. acars system that was supposed to send a message did not send a message so that acars system, last one was from 1:07. you talk about this compartment below the cockpit where the system is located and we've got this tour of it here. can you talk to us about what you think was most likely to have happened here given the complexity of this whole system? >> well, that's a good point, it is a complex system. as pilots trained on this airplane, we don't know -- we know what the system does for us but to know every detail down there, i mean i'm considered an expert. i don't know every detail. i don't know every box. i would really have to study some more engineering and schematics to really know what everything

fran townsend, i know you're well plugged in. what's your instinct tell you right now?t's the latest you're hearing? >> wolf, between the zigzagging formation, the change in altitude, i think the end of today's sort of takeaway on the story is, i think most investigators have come to the conclusion that this was not a catastrophic mechanical failure. they're now focused on who was in the cockpit, how many people and what was going on there when the transponders each get turned off, 15 minutes apart, when the plane is making these turns, when it's changing altitude. could it have been a struggle? yes. but that's just a theory. you don't know if it's one individual or several individuals involved. we certainly don't know what the motivation was. >> let me bring richard quest into this conversation as well. the report that lithium batteries were in the cargo hold, we know other crashes have been linked to lithium batteries. what do you make of this development? >> i think it's a very interesting other piece of the jigsaw to put on the table because a fire using lithium bat

. >> richard quest and fran townsend. thanks to both of you. fran, i'll start with you.l with the passports. could be a little bit of a red herring, something that sounds very relevant to people like me who aren't as included in but to someone like you, you weren't and the thing that causes me concern is the fact that these two tickets tore both of the bogus passports come out of the same travel agent. kuala lumpur, people forget going back to 9/11, kuala lumpur was a hub. so if 2000 -- they planned, they met there for the "u.s.s. cole" attack. al ham dekuala lumpur ash and this will be very relevant and they're going to look at that travel agencys are they're going to look at the airport and at the passports. there's a lot of leads to be run down. could be a red herring, we don't knee. but having them both come out of the same travel office, that will be important. they'll look at that. now we go to the forensics so far. the official word it was an oil slick that u.s. -- for example, the piece of debris though thought has now turned out to be part of a cable. it very di

and during the bush administration, it would have been the homeland security council, headed by fran townsendre how exactly the obama administration, i believe that's under the usauspices of e nsc, which is now the nss. so it would be monitored by the nss. >> but they basically are waiting for intelligence to find out, was this a malfunction or something we should be concerned about? >> i think it's still such an evolving situation, i don't think anyone really knows anything at all. >> one would hope they're using all that electronic intercept technology to find out everything they mobile can. one of the significant things about this crash -- and we're assuming the plane has crashed, this incident, is you're not -- there's not a lot of debris -- no debris has been found on the surface of the sea. normally when a plane comes down, you find debris. even the air france flight that went down not atlantic a couple of years ago, there was a whole bunch of floating debris. why are we not finding floating debris and what does that tell us. >> and you talk about this from the view of the assumptions m