you, jim sciutto. want to begin with the breaking news here in the news of the missing flight mh 370. barbara starr is saying that the focus of those in the cockpit are being responsible for the deliberate missing jet. and now an official is telling us that the focus is now in the southern indian ocean. look at this, and this is as abc news is reporting that the abrupt left turn off of the original flight plan was preprogrammed and raising a lot of questions tonight about whether that was a rogue pilot or hijacker in the cockpit. i want to get stht

i'm jim sciutto in for don lemon. a commercial airliner is still missing more than 24 hours after losing all contact with the ground. a search is under way for the boeing 777 with 239 passengers and crew on board, operated by malaysia airlines. it took off yesterday from kuala lumpur going to beijing but didn't make it. no wreckage has turned up, but one clue is giving researchers a bad feeling about this flight. several miles of oil slicks have been spotted on the gulf of thailand on the general flight path that jet was on before it disappeared. and something unusual has officials concerned. two people whose names were on the passenger manifest were not on the plane at all. they say their passports were stolen months or years ago. that means two people were on the plane with passports not issued to them. while we wait for word from the airline, we want to talk about this stolen passport concern. for that we have tom fuentes, a former assistant director at the fbi. also mary skyler, with specific experience on these k

let's go to jim sciutto. investigation, where it stands right now. >> no question, speaking to intelligence officials and other u.s. officials involved in this investigation this would normally be the time you would be narrowing down your targets but in fact the opposite is happening, they're expanding their targets of inquiry first of all on the possible people involved in this. first, you know, no cussing on the two people in the cockpit but now ten people in the flight crew, 227 passengers and even more than that, folks who have access to that plane on the ground, cleaning crews, baggage handlers, you name it. but let's look at the search area that is expanding as well. people have become familiar with this arc, where that last satellite contact here. they don't know where but somewhere in that arc. let's look at the indian ocean. imagine a map of the continental united states fitting here. that's the kind of area you're talking about, very deep ocean, very remote. a difficult place to search. you have u.s

jim sciutto is reporting. let's get back to the alleged russia's black sea fleet commander has more ukrainian effortses in crimea to swear allegiance to pro-russian authorities or face an attack. that report is being called rubbish. so what is the reality? joining me by phone is christopher miller. you heard this threat being issued by this russian commander. is that right? >> i did, yes. that's correct. there was a group of about a dozen or so of us journalists and with other journalists and we were at the bay in sevastopol when the ukrainian ship was docked there with several dozen ukrainian soldiers, armed soldiers on board. they ran around frantically as a russian ship did circles in the bay in front of the ship. from that ship there was a loud speaker blaring an ultimatum essentially saying, lay down your arms, come to our side, join us. this went on for the better part of an hour, hour and a half in which this message was blurted out about every five to ten minutes. >> christopher, tell us precisely what

cnn's jim sciutto and richard quest are both here. the plane's program was changed at least 12 minutes before. what does that tell you? >> at least 12 minutes before. what it tells me is that when that reprogramming happened, either by director into the flight management computer and it was executed, probably the ground was informed about the change over the acars system. how do we know this, don? because of the 12 minutes. remember, this is a timeline business. at 1:19 there was the last "all right, good night." go back 12 minutes and we're at 1:07 or earlier and that's when we got the last acars messages. so that, i'm guessing, is how they knew about this reprogramming. if the report is correct. but i want to emphasize. >> all right. >> we need official confirmation about the reprogramming. >> all right. more developing news. i want to get to jim sciutto now. officials reviewed the cockpit conversations today. what did they find? >> well, this is part of the baffling case that this whole story has been from the beginning because on

let's bring in jim sciutto. jim, what are we hearing out of thailand today? >> this is radar data, as you say. you'll remember that earlier this flight path, this left turn off the original paddle up to beijing was first picked up by malaysian radar at three points along this path. we now learn that thai radar, covering an area like this, also picked up a blip from the plane going in this direction. first it picked it up when it was still malaysian air flight 370 and then it picked up another blip which they believe it to be the plane carrying it out here. combined with the information that evan and rene were talking about, corroborating evidence that it carried out in this direction, investigators very confident that's what happened. the trouble is, where did it go from there? you have the two arcs that you just showed where the last bit of satellite data came which opens up the search area which is too big for this and the size of 3 million square miles, the size of the united states. that's a problem. they have the plane coming this way. the trouble is, wh

i'm jim sciutto in new york. of something floating in the southern indian ocean is the only thing resembling a clue in the disappearance of an airliner with hundreds of people on board. it is not a perfect picture, but chinese officials say that the satellite took it several days ago and the white thing there might be wreckage from the 777 that disappeared a couple of weeks ago. and now, crews will be start the day scanning where the object was spotted and they can of course only search in the daylight. and so today is 15 days since flight 370 took off with 239 people on board for kuala lumpur. and we have cnn aviation correspondent richard quest in the new york studio, and also aviation analyst miles o'brien. miles, if i could start with you, and this is something that we have asked of all of the aviation expert, because there have been doubts expressed in the past about pieces this large being possible of a plane to hit the water, and when you look at the satellite foephotos, to you does it look like a boeing 7

i'm jim sciutto in washington. the ukrainian crisis is getting volatile with more forces going into crimea. a new warning was issued by secretary of state kerry to his counter part sergey lavrov. he said that there may be little space for diplomacy. and he insisted that russia is not militarily involved in the standoff. in crimea, masked men seized control of an offices at the capital. and today, leaders called president obama today about the crisis. erin mcpike has more details on the president's calls. >> reporter: while the president is vacationing with his family in florida, he is traveling with dep si adviser tony lincoln, and to that end, he placed calls to a number of foreign leaders this morning. he spoke with british prime minister david cameron, and france president francois holland hollande, and the pressure was just as much about ramping up assistance to crimea as it with was to impose questions on russia. they essentially say that the russian troops would constitute that to the region the united states

i want to go back to jim sciutto.tting more a sense of what's going on. >> it is far from an exact science just as a matter of caution. we have on the wall the dimensions of a 777 200, wingspan 200 feet long, the length about 200 feet long as well. when you talk of these potential pieces as seen many the satellite images, 43 by 59, 43 by 62, that could be any part of the plane or in fact these are busy water, it could be something else. and because the speed of the plane may have hit the water, hard to identify. it may not look like a piece of a plane from the air. that's the difficulty now. we're told by barbara starr who spoke with a senior pentagon official that the u.s., which of course has its own accurate and capable satellites now going to look back at its own satellite data in that same area to see if it can find any information to corroborate what these chinese government officials are saying. >> these are heavily traveled arias and ships just dump a lot of junk in those areas as well so let's have a little c

much more of "the situation room" straight ahead with jim sciutto in washington. out. the crisis in ukraine, of course this mysterious disappearance of this airline jet. >> no question. we're watching it very closely. thank you very much to fred. i know you'll be back tomorrow. >> yes, indeed. ♪ >> you are in the cnn "newsroom." i'm jim sciutto in today for don lemon. some oil slicks floating on the water, that's the only clue searchers have right now ooze they frantically try to find any trace of a commercial airliner that simply disappeared. here's the best guess as to where the malaysian airlines boeing 777 was during its last contact with air traffic controllers. it never arrived at the scheduled destination in china and the crew never radioed any trouble during the flight. malaysia flight 370 to beijing was almost fully booked, 239 people on board. that is passengers and crew. more than half of them chinese. at least three americans, one of them an infant. and something rather odd is worrying officials at this early stage in the investigation. two people whose

jim sciutto, thank you very much. great reporting on this story. we'll come back a little later and jim will if he gets more details. everybody else, stick around. stick with me. we're going to have much more on our breaking news and on what president obama said about the search. i also want to talk about the families and what it will take to get some answers for them and keep tweeting us your questions tonight. what you wear to bed is your business. so, if you're sleeping in your contact lenses, ask about the air optix® contacts so breathable they're approved for up to 30 nights of continuous wear. ask your doctor about safety information as serious eye problems may occur. visit airoptix.com for a free one-month trial. >>> welcome back to cnn special report, "the mystery of flight 370." our breaking news tonight, malaysia has given india coordinates for a new area to search in an effort to find flight 370. and so many of you are asking about the families of the missing passengers. margo wrote this, can someone represent the families of flight 370,

i'm jim sciutto in washington. police miss the chance to stop a pregnant woman are from trying to drown her own children by driving a van into the ocean. we are learned that ebony wilkerson was stopped two hours before that fateful drive on a florida beach. they suspected she was mentally ill, but they said they could not legally hold her. and our nick valencia has more on this incredible story. >> reporter: jim, she made the first court appearance where the judge set the bond at $1.2 million, and that is $100,000 for each count of child abuse, and $100,000 for each count of attempted murder. >> reporter: the sheriff's office says that new details in the investigation say it is not an accident. >> she told them to close their eyes, because they were going to a better place. >> reporter: and then she drove her children into the atlantic ocean. the dramatic drive on daytona beach was caught on tape as the kids inside were crying for help. >> we thought they were having a joke, and saying, help. >> but then two onlooke

jim sciutto is sitting in for jake tapper. "the lead" starts now. >> after 22 days, we finally found the breakthrough that we were waiting for. i'm jim sciutto and this is "the lead." the world lead. could this be a piece of the missing plane? after turning up nothing for a week, the search moves 700 miles northeast. and just like that, possible debris spotted. cnn was on one of the search planes when it made what could be a big discovery. >>> and persisting questions about the pilot's state of mind when flight 370 veered off course. what kind of psychological screening do they have to go through and how does it compare to the tests that american pilots take? >>> also in world news, mr. putin, move your troops away from the ukrainian border. meanwhile, putin is gloating on television over taking over crimea. think he got the message? welcome to "the lead." i'm jim sciutto filling in again for jake tapper. the search for flight 370 in what could be a more promising phase as we approach three weeks since flight 370 disappeared.

i'm jim sciutto in for jake tapper.prime minister of malaysia announced that flight 370 is likely in the southern indian ocean and that all on board likely have perished, which pushes the focus underwater now. signs of possible debris have ramped up over the past few days but that does not necessarily ease the search for the wreckage under water. the u.s. navy has requested that a locator system be moved into the area to help find the recorders. it's a listening device put into the water to help find the pings of the recorder. it's not very useful until you have a debris field. it can't be picked up by human ears but listen to what it sounds like. now, this is a very difficult search with so many obstacles. ian is a professor of ocean nothing gra fee at florida state. you've given us maps to look at to show where the possible wreckage could be if the debris spotted on march 16th could be confirmed as part of the plane. explain this map that we're looking at with the plotted points with the red and black ones. what do we

jim sciutto is joining us from washington. another day, no answers, more confusion from these differing account where the plane might have just last been spotted. is there any sense of why things are so inconsistent? this public response has just been ridiculous, it's been all over the place. >> reporter: it has been going in several different directions. the malaysians have been accident on number one, exhausting every single lead. you can bet they will be exhausting the leads they got from china. the chinese ambassador was in the press conference yesterday and today. they're going to be looking at everything the chinese have. they're going to be exhausting all possibilities. yes, this does give them the sense you get the impression they're going in several different directions at once. we are searching hundreds of miles off the planned flight path of flight 370. so it's obvious why we're getting that impression. that is what is out there. >> jim clancy, the release of these photos, it really just adds confusion over where th

let's bring in with our national security correspondent jim sciutto. jim? >> wolf, officials are attempting to de-escalate the crisis and avoiding any moves that may further inflame the situation. does russia expand its military intervention or does it pull back? on the ground in ukraine, there's a volatile mix of armed forces and emotions, which we saw flair up today. today in crimea, russian and ukrainian forces in a dramatic and dangerous standoff. weapons drawn and here a threat to open fire. >> i said stop! i'm serious. i'll shoot at your legs. >> reporter: and as secretary of state john kerry arrived in the ukrainian capital of kiev, a war of words. russian president vladimir putin and secretary kerry trading die metric clee opposed views of the crisis. back and forth. >> translator: the acting president, of course, is not legitimate. >> the elected representatives of the people of ukraine, they overwhelmingly approve the new government. >> reporter: and back and forth. >> translator: citizens of ukraine, both russian and ukrainian, what worries them?

we have full coverage beginning with our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto here tw latest. jim? >> i think you could say today we saul the full yin and yang of the u.s. policy response to the crisis in crimea. on the other side, secretary of defense chuck hagel demonstrating the u.s. commitment to its nato allies with the deployment of some aircraft and the cancellation-of nato contacts with russia. on the diplomatic side, we saw the opening of a diplomatic path to solving the crisis, the so-called off ramp u.s. officials have mentioned before, still undefined, kerry said, but a start. >> reporter: u.s. and russian diplomats face to face for the first time since the start of the crisis in crimea. secretary of state john kerry said they are now negotiating a diplomatic path to ending it. >> we are committed to working with russia. together with our friends and allies in an effort to provide a way for this entire situation to find the road to deescalation. >> reporter: russian and ukrainian officials, however, did not meet. >> why didn't you meet lavrov today? >> reporter: b

you, jim sciutto. i want to begin with the breaking news here in the news of the missing flight mh 370. barbara starr is saying that the focus of those in the cockpit are being responsible for the deliberate missing jet. and now an official is telling us that the focus is now in the southern indian ocean. look at this, and this is as abc news is reporting that the abrupt left turn off of the original flight plan was preprogrammed and raising a lot of questions tonight about whether that was a rogue pilot or hijacker in the cockpit. i want to get straight to cnn barbara starr who is working her sources snonstop on othis story, and a lot of significant detail the thes. and first, those in the cockpit being deliberately responsible, and what can you tell us now? >> well, don, the thing that that we have to say is that these are working theories and hypothesis, and actions and not enough data to come to the absolute conclusions. i have talked to a number of u.s. officials who tell me that in particular one

i'm jim sciutto. one of the most nagging questions in the flight for 370 and the 239 people on board which has entered its 20th day. if the plane plunged into the ocean as malaysian officials believe, why haven't searchers turned up a single speck from it, not a wing, not a rudder, nothing? but that could change today. now, malaysians have what they've calling their most credible lead right now. soon planes and ships will be back on the southern indian ocean hoping to get a pair of eyes on objects that could, emphasis on could, be a debris field. crews are only able to cover a fraction of the massive search area each day, and the batteries that power the location pingers on the black board recorders are running out, assuming they're still functioning at all. but new satellite images could help narrow down that area significantly. >> reporter: despite a massive effort by air and by sea, the biggest lead in the hunt for flight 370 is coming from satellites miles above the earth. these new images taken b

jim sciutto, thank you for that.want to get elise labott up, on the road, traveling with the secretary of state, currently in paris and has been reporting for us all throughout the night. because it is night where you are, and it has been a very busy day. we're only halfway through our day, elise. but as the secretary gets ready to host this meeting, with sergey lavrov, set the stage. and let us know what the mood is there. what that pullout meeting actually yields, if anything, and if the ukrainians actually want to stick around for any of this. >> reporter: ashleigh, this is actually the third meeting that secretary kerry has had with foreign minister lavrov. as you say, they met earlier today with a group of foreign ministers from u.k., france, britain, germany. all trying to get minister lavrov to sit down with the ukrainian foreign minister. secretary kerry muddled again with foreign minister lavrov and now meeting for a third time as we speak, all in an effort to get russia to sit down with the ukrainian foreig

i'm jim sciutto in new york. the new focus for the search crews and international agencies searching for the missing boeing 777 is what was happening on that flight deck before the jet vanished from every scope watching if from the ground? here's one working scenario. the plane may have flown this pattern northwest over kentucky na and possibly into central asia and possibly kazakhstan. that's where some groups have some issues with china and the west and analysts say they could see the value in taking over an airplane. again, it's one of the many working theories, but one that becomes more plausible now in light of the possible flight path. the flight 370 made extreme changes in altitude. it climbed to 45,000 feet and dropped to 23,000. but is that even possible? martin savage demonstrates what that would look like from inside a cockpit simulator. >> the great thing about having this whole system here where we can practice, simulate is the fact that we can take all these new scenarios and literately see if they

let's begin with our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. jim? >> wolf, within hours search planes will be back on site in the possible debris site as daybreaks in the southern indian ocean. they are using the most powerful technology in the world to peer down at the surface and determine exclusively if this is debris from flight 370. we learned that president obama is getting regular updates on the search, including news of the new satellite images, which australian officials are calling it their best lead so far in the hunt for flight 370. from miles up in space, a possible breakthrough in the search for malaysia flight 370. australia says these satellite images of two objects floating in the southern indian ocean 1500 miles off the australian coast could be part of the missing jet. one object is 18 feet across. the other is 79 feet. and surrounded by smaller pieces of debris. they were located 14 miles apart and just southeast of the main search area as now defined by u.s. and australian analysis. >> it is credible enough to divert the researc

i'm jim sciutto in for don lemon. commercial airliner is still missing more than 24 hours after losing all contact with the ground. a search is under way for the boeing 777 with 239 passengers and crew on board, operated by malaysia airlines. it took off yesterday from kuala lumpur going to beijing but didn't make it. no wreckage has turned up, but one clue is giving researchers a

let's bring in jim sciutto. he's working this part of the story. jim? >> wolf, speaking to u.s. officials involved in this investigation, it's my understanding that these pings are now an important clue connecting to other clues that they have that leads them to the direction of the indian ocean. the radar signature that we've been reporting for the last couple of days that showed the plane go north, take this turn and then head out towards the indian ocean, they added to that the sense of the range that barbara mentioned as well. the amount of fuel it had in its tanks could take it this far. what that creates, then, is a search area that is bigger and it creates a very big search area and much shallower areas, space and lots of ships going around, much deeper waters, much wider that's going to be a challenge going forward. do you remember when we talked about the air france crash in 2009, it took place in the middle of the atlantic ocean, it took them two years to find that plane looking under the water, a very deep water with submersibles but they knew in general where that pl

i'm jim sciutto in new york. there's been a lot of talk about acars communication system on airplanes. aircraft communication addressing and reporting system. it's a computer on board a flight that collects information about what a plane and pilot are doing at any time and it sends it to the ground. acars sent the last transmission at 1:07 a.m. it was expected to send another transmission at 1:37 a.m. but that never happened. malaysian officials said they don't know exactly when the acars systems went off in that 30-minute window. we did learn when it sent last communication there was nothing to indicate in the last communication pilots preprogrammed the turn to the west of that's one of today's key new developments. i want to bring back panel, mary schiavo, ntsb, kit darby, retired airline pilot, head of a consulting firm. tom fuentes, former assistant director of the fbi. clive, i wonder if i could bring you in first. if we could talk about the system and failing of the step, how it contributed to the mystery o

i'm jim sciutto. i'll turn you over to wolf blitzer. tion room." >> jim, thank you very much. >>> happening now, the mystery of flight 370. the satellite images one after another are coming in. first from thailand and then japan and they show hundreds of floating objects. new electronic clues. how signals from the airliner received via satellite, including a partial signal, could help investigators learn what went wrong and narrow the entire search area. >>> and could the batteries powering those pingers on the all important black boxes already be dead? if they were stored improperly, the search and the investigation could become a whole

i i'm jim sciutto in new york. there are new developments in the search for malaysian airlines flight 370, and we will come back to the coverage in a moment. we want the bring you first an important update in ukraine. russian tanks went right up to the military bases and rolled right through the door. armored soldiers and vehicles went right on to the base and took control and raised the russian flag over the headquarters. it is just one day after russia annexed the peninsula, and one way to take over from the interim government in ukraine. >> reporter: the russian military is taking over the ukrainian air bases today. there was an armored personnel carrier who battoned down the base, and he vowed to stand his post, and it is basically and fortunately a nonlethal assault by the russian military that forced the ukrainian officers there to give a humiliating surrender to the russian military, and this is a scene that has played out again and again at one base after another in the crimean peninsula, which is causing s

you see them there, the ones in green along ukraine's western poured der. . >> jim sciutto live and michael holmes, we do have some breaking news right now from capitol hill. as jim was saying, what is being most used right now, words and statements. diplomacy in this crisis. there are about to be some words and statements coming from the u.s. congress. >> our deirdra walsh just spoke with ed royce, chairman of the foreign committee in the house. he said tomorrow that committee will hold a vote on a non-binding resolution with some sanctions for russia. the key thing to underscore is, it is a resolution, nonbinding. so it wouldn't actually put these sanctions into place but it would give congress a start, a first step in making clear what it wants to do. it looks like it will be in a bipartisan way with regard to punishing russia and sending a signal to russia. royce told our deirdre walsh and said it will be leverage. the olli garks that are close to putin have a tremendous amount of money. this is something that will happen if all goes as planned, tomorrow in the foreign affairs committee

i'm jim sciutto in new york. we're entering the 17th day since malaysian airlines flight 370 vanish and we're learning new details today. malaysian authorities say france also has a satellite image showing possible debris in that same area of the southern indian ocean. that's the third satellite image to show objects in that search area but search crews flying from the air still haven't been able to find whatever those objects might be. still the australian prime minister expressed some hope this weekend. here's what he had to say. >> obviously, we have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope, no more than hope, no more than hope, that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft. >> in another development malaysian officials said today the last data transmission from the plane did not show a route change, contradicting earlier indication someone may have preprogrammed a route change in that cob pim before the last communication before the cockpit.

i'm jim sciutto. send you over to wolf blitzer who is in "the situation room." >> jim, thanks very much. happening now, the mystery of flight 370. aircraft are getting ready to take off and ships are getting back into the area after violent weather in the search area. time is running out to find the so-called black boxes. the u.s. sent down a pinger locator to help find the flight and data recorders. you're going to see how it works. >>> and grieving and the furious. hundreds of the friends and passengers are demanding firm evidence that their loved ones are lost forever. so why is china now starting its own

i'm jim sciutto in today for don lemon. if there's one reason to be slightly hopeful as this airl e airliner search goes on, it's that there's no evidence as of yet that the plane crashed. small comfort, but better than no comfort for families in every country those 239 passengers and crew called home. a new working theory this evening though presuming the boeing 777 was forced into silence is that it may have been taken in this direction toward western china or the countries of central asia. the plane carried enough fuel, we know, to get there. it is part of the world where some extremist groups have real political and ethic struggles. andrew stevens, if i can start, how jarring, how interesting, how different is this announcement from the malaysian government that they believe the plane was deliberately taken in this direction? >> reporter: it's a hugely significant direction and a significant development too. what we know at this stage is the malaysian prime minister has finally given some concrete evidence just to say t

jim sciutto, thanks. let's dig deeper with the former fbi assistant tom fuentes and an attorney investigator formerly did this work for the work for the government. tom, what does this say to you, that there was an iranian who helped purchase these tickets with cash? >> wolf, i'm not exactly certain that they've been able to verify that it's an ir anian. the travel agency gave the name as the person who bought the tickets. he's using false identity. how do we know that his identity is correct when he goes in there. he paid cash. it's not as if he used a credit card or something that could be traced. so the fact that the travel agent who may be involved with organized crime and in dealing with fraudulent tickets all the time for other people that he gentleman, we don't know if that information is trustworthy. we know that it's a lead and has been provided to the royal thai police. they've furnished it back to the other agencies but as far as i'm concerned, it still needs to be confirmed who this gentleman

chief national security correspondent jim sciutto and barbara starr broke the news about those data pings. richard quest is also here. jim, let's start with you. the shift west to searching the indian ocean, it's not just one clue, correct? but a compilation of multiple clues. >> reporter: that's my understanding. it is these pings, that's one. new information on the pings. the idea they were not sending data about the engines but they were at least giving a location of that plane. and what analysts did, they looked at all the other planes in that area which had transponders on as planes would normally. this one does not. and they determined that this plane had no corresponding transponder and therefore concluded this must be the missing plane that had turned its transponder off. you talk about other clues. it's my understanding they've pieced together several clues which makes them turn their direction to the west, to the indian ocean. the other one being the key information really that radar track that they've had from the malaysian air force for some days now that showed the plane goin

jim sciutto is joining us from washington. so jim clancy, another day, no answers more confusion from these differing accounts from malaysian authorities of where the plane might have last been spotted. is there any sense of why things are so inconsistent even at the highest levels? i mean, this public effort by the malaysian government, the public response has just been ridiculous. it's been all over the place. >> reporter: it has been seemingly going in several different directions. the malaysians have been intent on number one exhausting every single lead. you can bet they'll be exhausting the lead they got from china. the chinese ambassador was in the press conference yesterday. or today. they are going to be looking at everything the chinese have, exhausting all possibilities. and yes, this does give them the sense -- you get impression maybe going in several different directions at once. after all, we are searching hundreds of miles to the west of the crash site. hundreds of miles off the planned flight path of flight 370

our chief national security correspondent, jim sciutto, once again, with us.t do we know about this? there seems to be some serious back and forth, what the u.s. knew and didn't know. >> no question. you remember last week administration officials were telling cnn it was not their assessment that the russians were going to go in numbers. ask then lo and behold we see russian troops on the ground there, and this has sparked an angry reaction from lawmakers, calling for an inquiry. today you saw senator john mccain taking it to defense secretary chuck hagel. here's what he had to say. >> the fact is, mr. secretary, it was not predicted by our intelligence, and it's already been well-known, which is another massive failure, because of our misreading, total misreading of the intentions of vladimir putin. >> early last week, we were well aware of the threats. when i was in nato, again, there was a meeting specifically about the threat with the nato ukraine commission. so this wasn't sudden or new that we didn't know what was going on. >> another thing you'll hear f

i'm jim sciutto filling in today.ince malaysia flight 370 and the 239s souls on board disappeared without a trace. but in recent days, a series of satellite images have been found showing large pieces of debris in the southern ocean. most recently, today, malaysia announced french satellite images showed, quote, potential objects unquote, in the same vicinity of the southern corridor of that search area. neither france norma lay shah have released those yet. joining me miles o'brien. miles, i want to get to those new satellite images but another interesting development today, that's malaysian authorities saying, indeed, there is no evidence that turn to the west after the plane lost contact was, in fact, preprogrammed into the flight computer. that's a key detail. that information was used to but tress the theory that this turn and, in fact, the disappearance might have been intentional somehow on the part of the pilots. i wonder if you can walk our viewers through how important this word is from malaysian authorities

jim sciutto -- jim, thanks for joining us.ecretary kerry said it over and over today, the united states wants to see russia deescalate the crisis and to work out his problems directly with the ukrainian government. does the u.s. actually believe putin might take them up on that? >> actually the president said today he noted that there are reports that putin may be taking a pause to think about what he's done there. i don't know if that's a hopeful read of the situation. but clearly you're hearing consistently now from u.s. officials and this really started on the weekend from the nato secretary general as well, the offering up of an off-ramp in effect for russia with a couple of elements. one, the discussion of a more inclusive government in ukraine that is more representative of the ethnic russians in the eastern part of the country there as an offer to the russians, because clearly the russians feel this government -- not only do they claim it's not legitimate, they claim that it's not representative. also this offer of a mo

i want to get straight to the chief national security correspondent for us here at cnn, jim sciutto. jim, what are your sources telling you tonight? i think we've got to emphasize, the white house hasn't said much about this and nobody expected the president of the united states to come out and make a statement about the ukraine. >> well, the white house hasn't said much but they were certainly worried about it and i've been hearing from a number of different parts of the government as their anxiety grew over the last 24 and 48 hours that something like this would happen. we've all seen the public statements from u.s. officials, from secretary kerry, secretary hagel warning russia not to do exactly what appears to have happened now in the ukraine and that is, send russian troops in. u.s. officials believe these are russia troops. over time, they are getting a better handle and the extent of the troops. this is a scenario that some had warned me about. the idea of tran it would be something more sought tell, special ops and black ops to get more cover and you see the russians getting l

i'm jim sciutto. wolf blitzer is in "the situation room.">>> jim, thanks much. new reports suggesting the captain, quote, deliberately diverted the plane. fbi investigators are working around the clock to retrieve data from the piles and the co-piles' hard drives. right now defense secretary chuck hagel says terrorism or political violence cannot be ruled out. >>> and search planes are getting ready to take off once again. they're focussing in on finding what authorities call the most credible lead. so far, 122 objects spotted by a satellite in the indian ocean search zone. i'm wolf blitzer. you ear in "the situation room." extraordinary new information in the disappearance of malaysia airlines flight 370. we're following two breaking developments. "usa today," newspaper, quotes a senior malaysian investigator as saying police now believe the captain deliberately redirected the aircraft but sources tell cnn there's no firm conclusion on that. and it may be the best lead yet in the hunt for the airliner. aircraft will take off shortly and everyone on board will b

i'm jim sciutto.evelopments in the search for malaysia airlines flight 370 and also on this story. confrontation in crimea, russian tanks crashed the gates and take over a ukrainian military base. we'll be live from kiev. >>> first, in two hours as the sunrises on the indian ocean, fresh leads may reinvigorate attempts for flight 370. search crew cans will head out with several new clues in mind. i want to show you this image, a potential piece of the jumbo jet. a chinese satellite spotted this object floating in the search area on tuesday. the object appears to be very large, 74 feet by 43 feet. the new object was spotted roughly 75 miles from possible debris that appeared earlier on an australian satellite image. and a visual spotter on an australian plane reported seeing several small objects including a wooden palette floating in the same area, just a possible clue. families of the missing 239 people on board are fraz led, exhausted, frustrated and demanding more from malaysian authorities. >> we

jim sciutto, lay it out for us. where was the debris spotted and where is the search focusing? >> remember that refined area, 1500 miles southwest of australia. this debris found just to the southeast of that, not too far, between 100 miles between here and there, here are the images and that move would make sense. it's currently moving in this direction. this is the bigger piece, about 79 feet. this one about 16, 17 feet. these are 14 miles apart and what is interesting about the big one, it's got a lot of pieces, small debris which could indicate, they say, could indicate a debris field. so right now you've got a whole host of resources nying to this area. you've got a p-8 aircraft. this is a new surveillance aircraft flying. there are p-7 orion, another subcraft air hunter. they have parascopes from submarines and they are trying to spot this debris. it's a long flight. it's a four-hour flight here. they only get a couple hours on site and then another four-hour flight back and when they did this yesterday the weather was pretty bad and they couldn't see anything. once light

also our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. thanks very much. fighter jets are arriving, we're told, in some of these nato countries, in the baltics, estonia, latvia, lithuania. what does that mean practically speaking other than some sort of political statement? >> i think what that means is allies that will be nervous about russia's moves it's one way to reassure them and given that they're part of nato very common. >> they're concerned, poland also, they're concerned that russia might go beyond ukraine into their countries and even though they're nato allies and if you attack a nato ally, you're attacking the united states of america? >> a violation of article 5 of the nato alliance. but has russia ever done this before? yes, they have. have they can victim of that? yes, they have. so i think they're worried. do i think they need to be worried right this minute about that? no. but i think it's good to reassure our nato allies and to show russia there are things we can do to bolster their morale and defenses. >> jim, this is a part of hand hol

jim sciutto is here as well. what do you make of this phone call, tom, because there has been frustration in what some see as the lack of transparency or cooperation or forthright, whatever you want to call it, from the malaysians and the other countries, including the u.s. is concerned. >> it's true, wolf. the malaysians did not put out as much information as they could have under the philosophy that they didn't want to put out anything that was wrong. they were being conservative, want to wait until corroboration is there to see if it's a true fact that we're going to put out. received heavy criticism from the global media and from their own people and the victims' families at the two airports in beijing and cue all la kuala lumpur. so they've gone to each extreme. if they don't put it out, they are not forthcoming and if they put it out, they are inaccurate. that's a struggle they've faced since the beginning. >> this new information that they preprogrammed the flight path once the flight took off presumably f

first, let's go to our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. jim? >> well, wolf, we may now know why the search for that malaysian airliner has come up empty so far. that's because officials say they may have, for this last week, been searching in the wrong area. they stress, however, that none of the search up to this point has been a waste of time. they are more confident now that they're more likely to be looking in the right place. day 21 of the search for flight 370 began with an entirely new search area. nearly 700 miles north of the zone searchers have been scouring for more than a week. >> the new information is based on continuing analysis of radar data about the aircraft's movement between the south china sea and the strait of malacca before radar contact was lost. >> reporter: officials explain the sharp move northward shows further analysis that the plane may is not have flown as far south as previously thought. >> this is new results which indicated that mh-370 flew at a higher speed than previously thought, which in turn means it used

jim sciutto, the terrorism option is still very much on the table. they haven't ruled that out. >> no. i'll tell you, right before this broadcast, i checked in with intelligence officials and i asked them if the view of this changed their view consistently the last several days has been, we have nothing so far to indicate that this was a terrorist event and that view, right before this broadcast, has changed. you have the director in public comments saying, however, they have not ruled out terrorism is a possibility because there's so many unanswered questions here. and what they are doing every day as the leads come in, they are sniffing them out. they are checking them out. we were talking about these stolen passports. they looked into those. you'll remember that the malaysian authorities shared the biometric data from the two gentlemen who were eiranians moe likely trying to go to that court rather than terrorism. that's the mode they are in. they are open-minded, in effect. they can't close things out because no one has determined at this point w

i'm jim sciutto in new york. more definite has come out of the search for that malaysian airlines jet, but we have for you is a new focus on a few possibles based on the best information we have right now. and much of that information is new. let's go to it right away. first, a new timeline of events. american, british and malaysian experts working separately all now agree that somebody on that plane switched off the critical communication system while it was still over land. that's a vital piece of information because a very calm and normal-sounding handoff message was sent from the plane after that point, after the tracking system was turned off. extremely mysterious. back to the ground for a minute. police went through the homes today of the pilot and co-pilot. they are looking hard at the passenger manifest and very hard at the flight crew. little else to go on, officials are trying to learn all they can about the people on that plane. back in the air, if that plane kept flying, it had enough fuel to reach an

agencies which are being slammed in some quarters for being caught off guard, joining me now is jim sciutto, bob bair. so jim, you're learning new information about when vladimir putin decided to move into crimea. what do you know? >> reporter: speaking to intelligence officials as well as other officials who read these reports last week, these intelligence assessments of what was going to happen and what was likely to happen, there are indications that there was not a vastly premeditated decision by vladimir putin to take action on the ground, that it was a relatively last-minute decision. that's one reason why it was difficult to predict. officials also say that he's an unpredictable character, he's done these sort of things before, last minute decisions, and that was a variable in there that made it difficult for them to say he was definitely going to act, when was he going to act, and indeed he did and caught many off guard. >> bob, over the last several days or so, there have been several members of congress who have been very critical of the cia asking why didn't the cia or the united

let's bring in jim sciutto and barbara starr. why do u.s. officials feel like the plane may have made it to the indian ocean? >> a senior u.s. official tells me that they now have information from the malaysians that the engines on this plane sent data to satellites, maintenance data about the engines, very routine business to do that, sent to satellites, several pings, if you were, picked up by the satellites. the malaysian ares getting some help from the united states. the possibility is that the plane flew four or five hours to the west out over the indian ocean. none of this is 100%, as you are pointing out. a lot of confusion, a lot of mystery about where this plane is. this is significant because it makes all eyes turn to the west, hundreds of square miles of the indian ocean now potentially to be looked at and the u.s. will have to decide how much it wants to participate in that new search. there are navy ships in the area. some officials that i'm talking to said the navy ships will move out over the indian ocean and some officials sa