jack barker here in atlanta. we are hearing from the defense minister saying the search is now more difficult. and the nature of the surgery has changed. in your view based on the information that we are getting and that in court, among what things need to be ruled out of this investigation in order to, i guess make some real traction and ground here? >> well, the three things could have occurred. the plane crashed in the ocean, it crashed on the land or landed somewhere on land. and the idea is to try to rule out as many of those -- one or two of those. the aircraft is obviously down because it has run out of fuel, so it is down somewhere. and the question is -- where? whoever did this, they were smart enough to turn off the transponder to lose the knowledge of where the plane is. >> further compounding the bank, now they want to look more critical at land. how critical is this? if this airplane has been taken to become a weapon as discuss d discussed -- the time to take a plane as a weapon, it is all about how

jack barker is a former faa spokes man and aviation consultant joining me in atlanta. phil savage is a former pilot and accident investigator. and mary shiavo is a cnn analyst. listening to all that information, what is included and what has been excluded or dismissed at this point, mr. barker, let many ask you first, what does it tell you that these pilots didn't request to work together, that there was no extra fuel as we heard andrew reporting there, no extra fuel on this plane, and pakistan is now saying it doesn't appear as though that plane showed up on our radar, which would have been part of that northward arc if indeed the satellite imagery is right, that the plane may have gone north or south, but at least pakistan is saying, not in our air space. what do you do with this information? >> there's a lot of information out there and you have to start ruling things out. the first sign of what the problem was was when the transponder was turned on. somebody, the co-pilot or someone else who knows aviation knows that that transponder identifies the aircraft, a rada