plus sea state is going to dictate a lot of that along with the general weather because of it being really -- you're talking nine-foot seas right now. that makes it real difficult to go fast. they're going to -- it could be a very long process as far as number of days before they get there. >> i think, greg, the question might be, based on what you're also suggesting about having the ability for sonar and basically listening devices, it may require, if i'm listening to you correctly, that a naval submarine be in the area. the movement of u.s. navy submarines is a classified piece of information. there may be one an hour away, it may be ten days away. >> exactly. if they find an area that looks like it could be a debris field. either we use one of our military assets, the submarine in the area, we've seen rovs down before looking for wreckage if we have an idea whether it is, that can be done. again, that's all ship-based. it's a matter of getting those ships to the area in a timely manner. right now, it will probably, i would expect to be a wook or two weeks before you get all the assets f

and the consensus that i got from the guys is in inclement weather conditions and high sea states you have to be over the object to get eyes on to it. even with the technology you have to be right over the top. and if you weren't and it was hidden by a wave you fly right by it. that to me emphasized the difficulty of the task ahead. >> remember when we started doing this and i said what are the possibilities that it's conceivable that we may never know what happened and you said no, no, no. it is conceivable that we may find out what happen bud t we m not know in these waters. people are asking wouldn't something with floating on the surface, maybe it's not and maybe it's miles upon miles in unexplored areas. >> that's what they need to ascertain. what they see on satellite they have to physically see it. you don't know from a satellite image how far under the water that is. it could be an object floating on the surface. it could be ten feet under the water. the water is very dense. you have to have eyes on the water. >> what we tried to explain the other night with anderson cooper. w

but we're not talking about a sea state where you can't search. will be some clouds, some lower clouds. those lower clouds won't allow the planes to fly as high. but as we heard today from kyung lah, they were right down at the surface of the water any way trying to find what this stuff looked like, what it was. when they find something they have to get down low. that's how they do it. some big storms still in the mix. these are the roaring 40s. we talk about them. but these are the screaming 60s. good thing we're not looking down there base winds are 60 to 70 miles per hour day after day because now we're getting into the fall season. even those water's warm big storms are developing. just like big storms develop in our spring or winter or fall, they're getting them down here as well, anderson. >> chad, appreciate that update. thanks. brianna keilar has a 360 bulletin. >>> according to the white house russian president vladimir putin called president obama today and the two agreed their diplomats should meet soon to discuss a possible solution to

have the sea state there with nine foot seas perhaps crash on something. to it sink down and lose its exact location so they'll put those markers there. and they'll use them to start calculating back. where it may have floated from. i'm getting an e-mail from -- no. that's not it. i thought i was getting an e-mail from the folks on the ship. they have not, they have not seen anything on the p-8 that suggests there is debris on the water. >> they continue to search and we'll continue to update you. we'll have a lot more including waiting for a news conference and we believe a cargo ship that could get on the scene within the next couple hours. you've tried to forget your hepatitis c. it's slow moving, you tell yourself. i have time. after all there may be no symptoms for years. no wonder you try to push it to the back of your mind and forget it. but here's something you shouldn't forget. hepatitis c is a serious disease. if left untreated, it could lead to liver damage and potentially even liver cancer. if you are one of the millions of people with hepatiti

. >> when the sea states are high, when the weather's coming in, when the visibility is low, the mark 1 eyebaeyeball is almost m important than the technology on board. the technology that is used to hunt for submarines, the p-3 orions have this magnetic anomaly detector. what that does is detects big lumps of metal just under the surface of the ocean, submarines that actually disturb the earth's force field. it's an incredible piece of kit but i would argue it's rendered ineffective against something like this. >> it's not a big piece of metal, also it could be a shipping container which is metal, a number of different things. stand by, guys. one pilot wonders why crews aren't searching on land considering the lack of pings from locaters. we're going to discuss that. this is a cnn special live report. here's a word you should keep in mind "unbiased". some brokerage firms are but way too many aren't. why? because selling their funds makes them more money. which makes you wonder. isn't that a conflict? search "proprietary mutual funds". yikes!! then go to e*trade. we've got over 8,000

we are talking i don't know what the sea state is. six to ten foot seas you might see it catch a glimpse of something. it might be wind whipped waves and not a piece of debris. it is a very difficult place to search from the surface. if you could coordinate that would help. moving to a location where an aircraft saw something is a precise science and takes a lot of coordination. very difficult. >> very difficult. thanks very much. good discussion. >>> just ahead more anguish from flight 370 families. why one passenger's wife is convinced the malaysian government is lying. >>> and first hand impressions of flight 370's copilot. anything to raise alarm? richard quest standing by to tell us what he knows. dear sun, meet your biggest competitor: philips slimstyle led bulb. beautiful quality light with a slim design, at a slim price. save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.ould yep, everybody knows that. well, did you know the ancient pyramids were actually a mistake? uh-oh. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or

something as simple as the sea state, which is how large the waves are, how fast the wind is blowing, that will make it harder to see objects on the surface. we don't know what the visibility is. but there are reports that they gave, were that the conditions were not very good. that makes it a lot more difficult. >> the poor visibility, moderate conditions. >> yes, they haven't said anything about sea state. three to fight foot waves, they will have white caps on the wave. the other thing is, something that large, it almost sounds like it could be too big to be from the aircraft. but a couple of the debris fi d fields from air france were that size, which were strung together, literally from the wiring of some of the aircraft and some of the other materials were holding them together. so in reality it may be quite a few smaller objects which from orbit might be a blob. >> i believe someone told me days ago, from air france they didn't find any object bigger than a desk. that shows you the power of the impact of the plane back then. philip in terms of what you heard out of australian a

it's also perhaps because of its proximity to land, it appears that the sea state there is a little better. so all those things are good. and we should be reasonably optimistic. but we have been down several dark alleys before. >> chad, let's talk about that sea scape. do we know much about the currents in this region? i know it's a deep area, but there was some question were they looking for an entry point or debris? any sense of how long debris would be floating around in this area? >> this is the most opportune place that this search could happen, if in fact they do find something. there is a black hole of very little motion in this area. we were talking about a half a mile to a mile per hour in the areas down south, in the roaring 40s. these are up into the 35 degree latitude and things don't go very fast or very far. >> are those currents, those neon color things? >> absolutely. live currents spinning in each direction. these streamlines will show us what little pleases of debris, what little plankton would be doing here in the ocean. all part of that gyre that we talked about last we

and they can be launched, work independently regardless of the sea state. the biggest problem with them, though, is the recovery, that if you get a too vile sea state it's very difficult to recover. >> right. and in terms of democrats and -- let's say we goat a debris field or someplace we have a pretty good idea that the attack sonar equipment might be able to pick something up. how able is that piece of equipment to pick up precisely a black box or a part of a wing, especially when, as i understand it, you know, at the bottom of this ocean is a lot of, you know, mountains and rolling -- you know, there's a lot at the bottom of this ocean. so how specific can that sonar get? >> you really need to tow the sonar down near the bottom up off the bottom. and a rugged bottom like you mentioned makes it so much more difficult. the auvs, the independent vehicles that they would launch, can run for maybe a half a day or a little bit more, and when properly programmed really cover the bottom. what you're doing here would be like take the white mountains. you know, l

>> well, the buoys are designed to understand the sea state, the winds, the drift patterns, so, yes, they can give a very good indication as to where the debris may be moving. it's not an exact science. but it does provide real-time conditions and drift patterns and rates of drift to the searchers at this time. >> absolutely. and that search, as far as we know, according to the defense minister there, as we heard ian say, this is not looking for a need until a haystack. this is trying still to find that haystack. give us an indication of how vast this search can be and how difficult it truly is, weather aside. >> well, it's about the size of colorado in the united states. and we've just added to the search area because the inmarsat satellites suggest that the actual location of the plane going down is probably to the north-northwest of the current search area. so some of the debris that has been spotted, particularly the orange and green debris, the green debris may be reflective of the interior of the cargo hold. the orange debris may be reflective of some of the emergency equipment

with the sea state of 15-30 foot waves. the lookouts on the ship have trouble seeing objects and the radars won't pick them up, because it's so jumbled. for the searchers, they have to rule out the area grid by grid to insure that they haven't missed anything. it is very painstaking process. >> i think that's the best word to use. painstaking. we also know there are also limitations. these search planes may have, some of them may have a capacity of 10-hour flying time. four hours to get out there, only a couple of hours to search and they have to head back to land. >> we know for the first time now, malaysian airlines ceo has said on board, there was a small cargo of lithium ion batteries. how concerning is this about the possibility that they have -- could have exploded, caught fire, caused this plane to come down. >> the faa in the united states did a report into lithium batteries some years ago. he came up with more than 100 incidents where lithium batteries had either overheated, smoked, molten coming out of it and they

that, i means right now the sea state is very rough. if there was any debris, if the airplane did land in the water, break up, if there was any debris, it could be hundreds, if not thousands of miles dispersed in multiple directions. even if you found a seat cushion, you probably wouldn't be able to track it back to where it originated, really. >> it sounded more and more like this was calculated. hearing everything that you're saying. the new developments. authorities are now searching the pilots' homes trying to figure out anything that might trace it back to the plane missing. how important is it to figure out what the motive might have been behind this? >> i think the -- it's absolutely imperative because when you look at an accident investigation, as a technician, as an accident investigator, you're looking at the airplane to see if there's any level of flight safety issue that could compromise the fleet. these airplanes are still flying out there, they're still carrying millions of people. you've got to know really if there is any

is to find the debris that will then, if you can do some calculations with the currents and the sea state which is 25 knot winds and nine foot seas. from the time that picture was taken on the 16th to now, it may be several hundred miles that the debris has blown to its new location and moved in the currents. the real goal is ultimately to make mayor way back to where the black boxes are. the there black boxes, the flight data record erd and voice recorder may answer the question of what happened here. you have them possibly submerged in depths of 2 1/2 miles, a little pinger going off once every second, very low frequency. but in the greatest conditions it could travel maybe 14,000 feet. if it's in 2 1/2 miles, you've got to be almost right on top of it and add to the fact that the temperature of the water affects the ability of that signal to travel. it's really cold water at 2 1/2 miles down. we're in the southern end of the indian ocean heading towards antarcti antarctica. >> we're also at the half life of the battery in the black box? >> that's right. it's said to be about 30 days it

sea state 7, you know, there are 20, 30-meter waves. it is very, very dangerous, even for big ships. >> reporter: so, these big penamays are big container ships. gives you an idea what they're dealing with down there. it is big enough as it is, give the sheer remoteness of this location. and you've got storms brewing up like this really out of nothing and very, very quickly. even once they find, if they find -- it's still a very big if at the moment -- if they find debris actually linking flight 370 to that area, they've then got to find the main body of the wreckage, they have then got to find the flight recorders in water that could be up to 3 miles deep in conditions which can blow up like that. so, that is the size of the task that face these rescuers, that face these searchers, not only finding them in the first place, but then actually identifying the key data recording equipment needed to piece together what actually happened on that flight. >> all right, andrew stevens. thanks so of, andrew. >> and for many members, family membe

and it is already difficult out, there and the normal sea state is 20 to 30-foot swells out there, and this is going to make it more difficult, and rain and low cloud, and tough. >> reporter: will they be able to fly? is. >> well, good question. the first aircraft have gone t out, and they will get out there to assess the situation. after that assessment, they may postpone launching more aircraft today. >> jeffrey thomas, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. and they are going to fly right now, but it is going to be tougher as the waeather moves i. >> thank you, kyung lah, at the epicenter of the search area with the assets going up to take a look at the satellite images. and now to help us we have tom fuentes, and jim tillman, and cnn analyst and retired pilot himself, and our own cnn aviation analyst miles o'brien. mile miles, i want to start with you, just for the viewers to i suppose put the expectations into context here. this is the third satellite photo that we have had and treated as a clue, and the first one was really a disastrous mistake, and a chinese satell

of course it will also depend a great deal on the sea state. i am understanding there are white caps on the water and that will make it more difficult for them to visually identify this piece of debris or pieces of debris they are looking for. >> meanwhile the world is reacting to the images. a grieving family member is fed up and frustrated with the pace of the search efforts now the father is calling for calm in light of these special developments. >> we cannot expect much because it has not been confirmed. we do not yet know for sure whether this is indeed 370 or something else. we are waiting for further notice from the australian government. so let's go in depth to discuss the latest on the situation in ukraine and the missing plane. we bring in correspondent randall pinkston. and phil ittner in kiev. we are now understanding that there has been a travel ban put in the place for travel back and forth from russia. tell us what you know about that. >> this has just come out of the russian foreign ministry. their reaction to the increase in t

>> we refer to the sea states, going from a 0 to a 9 and it's sitting at a 7. upwards of 13 foot waves, that's the average. in some areas, you can see 20 feet. we have tool here at cnn where we can measure objects across any part of the planet, i laid it taugout from the northern fr to the southern fringe, that's how expansive in front is as you begin to push in. lo low clouds have already taken over this area. we're talking about 55 to 60 mile-an-hour winds in the search joan. and fast forward to tonight, tomorrow at this time. notice the wind is breezy. we're talking 10 to 15 miles per hour. this is tomorrow. but notice what happens tomorrow night as we head into thursday morning. the winds pick um to exactly where we started at least on the eastern side of the search zone and the winds look to pick back up again on thursday morning as the search resumes perhaps as early as tomorrow morning. today look at the clouds, showers in place, take you through wednesday afternoon, clouds begin to part, at least in the southern fringe of the search zone and one again o

not only are the surface sea states difficult. there are underwater volcanos, huge crevasses.s a difficult environment. we're not looking at weeks and months searching for this aircraft, if it happens to be down there. we're look at year,s, i believe, unless they're very, very fortunate. >> that sin credible. to that point, an incredibly intensive process. we're relying on humans and advanced teg nothichnology. chasing down these leads would take time? >> yes. the key thing would be if you pick up the pinger sound. if you don't, we have another couple of weeks. sometimes it run longer than specs say it will. if you don't get the pinger, you're into the long haul and as tony mentioned, we have the air france crash where day did find, without the pingers, the black boxes. it took two years. you're into that kind of time frame or more. you may never find them if you don't find them with the pingers. >> anthony, what are some of the reason we wouldn't be able to detect the pings? what would be the conditions that make it difficult to detect? >> that's underwater. that, you know, t

so couple that with mother nature and the fall is upon us and the sea state is a difficult thing. you know, we're starting to stack up the odds here. aren't we? >> yeah. we certainly are. les, the type of debris they find obviously depends on the impact. >> true. i mean, the higher speed the impact, the more fragments there will be. slower speed, as in air france, the more bigger pieces you're going to find. >> yeah. it's so interesting that, you know, for three weeks we've been talking about the unknown. there are just so many different possibilities here. different possibilities. there's a lot of manpower going into this. a lot of money as well. most people are not concerned about the money. obviously the families aren't concerned about it. this is more than money. what if the airline -- what is the airline obligated to do when it comes to medical and psychological help for the relatives, mark? >> well, don, i think that certainly from all the reports i've seen and heard, the airline is providing grief counseling, psychological-type counseling. counselors to support them. malays

that's the way we think the sea state is the this region is. upwards of 13 feet, four meters, even as high as 19 to 20 feet in some areas because of the nature of this passive cold front measuring some 5,000 kilometers or 3000 miles across. this cold front would expand the entire length of the united states, the continental u.s. and it's cruising right towards the central region of the search area at this hour. because it's really unobstructed, very little landmasses across will this region we know the seas on the ocean level began white caps taking place, white foam breaking away and being blown away usually in the direction of the wind there and causing whiteout conditions. this was the scene about 24 hours ago as the efforts, the orion aircraft, a low altitude aircraft flying at around 300 feet was beginning to return towards perth. the cloud cover and kreiling is dropping down. we know today the ceiling is getting down to 200 feet so very, very low situation as far as visibility is concerned and you take a look. the wind 60 miles per hour,

the sea state there is about nine foot swells, 25 knot winds blowing and so unless that ship happens to run right into it, it could be 100 yards off their starboard side and they wouldn't even see it. >> given the fact that imagery was taken a few days ago, so we'll see when those carriers and everything else comes in to find out more. kerry sanders, thank you so much. >>> now to john young who is with the australian maritime safety authority. he spoke to reporters this morning. >> we have four aircraft out there this afternoon. the weather is not playing the game with us. we may get a sighting, we may not. we may get it tomorrow, we may not. but we will continue to do this until we locate those objects or we are convinced we cannot find them. >> is there anything that suggests this is at least part of an aircraft, windows you can see, markings or any bits and pieces that suggest it is actually from an aircraft. >> the imagery is not that precise. >> like the size of a basketball or a seat cushion or much larger than that. >> much larger than that. the largest image i've seen assesse

>> the audio signal is dependent on a number of conditions, sea state conditions.ture will affect the distance that the ping will radiate out. of course, where the location of that box is. is it surrounded by wreckage? is the signal being attenuated like you mentioned? it could be yupeds down and buried in the mud and therefore you have to be almost on top of it if you want to get any kind of signal and that acoustic signal is really dictated by sea state. that could either be -- you could be within two miles of it or you'd have to be within 20 feet of it to hear that ping. >> steve rattner has a question and then i want to bring in retired nbc news aviation correspondent bob hager who is standing by. >> happy to have comments and a little point. remember in air france 447 they found the wreckage very quickly but took them two years to recover the black boxes. in other words, the pings had long since stopped happening and that plane was also, i think at 11,000 feet. a little bit shallower but the same depth this plane has had. i think if they find the wreckage, we

and janice was talking about the inhospitable sea state and the big waves, there is a more chance ofgetting eyes on with your eyes than techesiologist. when the rain and clouds come down and visibility. it is a nightmare. this is a p8. >> i am just getting word. doug was on a momenting on, and we thought it was going to run another mission today. they have maintained the plane 24 hours and they are just working on it. tell"ddt me about this one. >> this is the anti- submarine aircraft. this was procured by the australians. and this is a half billion dollar jet. and full of technology. and it is twice as fast as this. we can get there quicker but not huge amounts of loiter time. >> and the posidien will fly and reach that center moves in quickly. and you know, we are hearing so much about the hardware out there and all of this. is this a time frame that we are talking about? some of the planes do need more down time than 24 hours. >> especially when you have one. this is up in maybe nine hours but not just the aircraft but the crew. >> does anybody else have it. >> and as far as i am

it will be affected bywater depth, water temperature and sea state. it's still a tough task. and i think the mark of that was air france in the south atlantic where those recorders took two years to find and recover. huge task. expensive as well. >> thank you very much for that explanation. >>> the u.s. secretary of state john kerry is in london for talks with sergei lavrov. the last chance face-to-face dialogue before that haste live organized referendum on sunday. on his way to the encounter he was asked what hopes there were for something to be accomplished. >> we're working together in order to protect the integrity of ukraine. >> are you confident you can make progress? >> we're going to see where we are. >> that meeting due to begin around now at the u.s. ambassador's residence here in london. >>> other news at this hour, completely unconnected to what's happened to the malaysian aircraft, the nose gear collapsed on the run way at philadelphia international airport. 149 passengers were evacuated from the plane. the landing gear failed, forcing the pilot to abort takeoff

we know from the past day or so, the sea state is about 25 mile an hour winds plus seas of about 9 feel. it's not particularly calm there. when you're using a visual look at the area, those nine foot seas can make things very difficult. but the electronics provided in the area, they can see much better and much clearer. it appears that perhaps the very first vessel that will arrive is a merchant ship. if they can get in the area, we may actually get a pretty clear idea of what's going on. >> absolutely. and they say, you know, as you mentioned, as was talked about and as we heard straight from john young saying that this is the most credible piece of information they have so far. it was credible enough to divert to that area. they have aircraft in the area, they have a royal australian navy warship headed there. there are a lot of different folks looking for this possible wrecka wreckage, if you want to call it that. we're not sure what it is at the moment. but, query, fkwe kerry, for som 75 feet long, that's a pretty large chunk of something, right? >> it is. but, remember, container s

the range will be affected by how the wreckage is distributed, water depth, water temperature, sea state. so it is still a tough task. and i think the mark of that was the air france accident in the south atlantic where those recorders took two years to find and recover. a huge task. very expensive as well. >> farmer raf surveillance pilot. >>> other news at had hour, a seven-story building has collapsed in the western indian city of mumbai. fears of several people being trapped under the rubble. they had deemed the building unsafe for living and given several eviction notices for the businesses. >>> 149 were evacuated from the plane. the landing gear failed, forcing the pilot to abort takeoff. >>> six people killed in changsha. police shot dead one suspect. or there reports it was triggered by a dispute at the market. stay with us here on "bbc world news" with me nik gowing. still to come, a special report from the desert region of pakistan where a severe drought claimed the lives of 100 children. irresistible flavors, like strawberry cheesecake, with a delightfully thick creamy texture

in the sea state that you pointed out with 32 foot waves, what you have there are essentially little 32 foot rolling hills that radar won't penetrate. so if you have something in the trough of a wave and what you're looking at suddenly popped up on the top of a wave and disappears again and you're sweeping your radar or looking out the window it can make it very difficult even though you're looking at the right area at the right time, you're still looking through a soda straw and a wave moves it and it's gone. >> how much confidence do you feel in this particular search area because the experts like you would get together, they would do math. they would figure out the currents. they would know where to look, we assume, but that's when you know, generally, where the plane descended. >> obviously. once we establish whether or not these debris on top of the water are part of the aircraft, then we know where to start. but, you know, we've talked bay needle in a haystack, right now we're looking at a needle in nebraska. we may find a needle in a hay field but once we find the haystack if

>> tony, it really does, and i haven't heard all of the details about the sea state in that region in the recently. and that's enormous. they have taken the surface vessels out of that area as well because of the storm conditions that exist in exactly that search area, so it makes it so much more difficult. and i would say so much less likely that they're going to findinfind significant debris. >> you know what's interesting to me, we did hear from the defense minister, talking about how difficult that area is, and now there's a weather system that has effectively ended the search for today. tell me why you think it's going to be difficult to find debris that can positively be identified as belonging to a flight, this particular malaysia airline flight? >> well, it almost looks like a mix master turning out there. the churning in the water is so severe, it's breaking up a lot of the natural debris that could come from shipping or shore, and making it smaller and smallerpies, so the searchers, when they can return to the area on surface vessels, it seems much less likely to me that the

now with the sea state that presents an additional challenge to these operators in that the umbilicale a fairly stable sea state so that's going to play into it as well and probably cause some delays. >> commercial satellites, i understand, are also being marshalled into that region. if you were doing the investigation, how much would that play a role? >> it takes a while to position these satellites. it takes even long tore get the imagery from them. >> is that why it took four days? it's not unusual for us to be looking at satellite images on the 20th that were done on the 16th? >> that's correct. they need to be positioned appropriately and then the imagery needs to be downloaded. they need to search volumes of documents or data in order to get that imagery. so it is going to take a while, yes. >> the other thing is if that is part of the airplane, matthew, why is it exactly 180 degrees in the opposite direction of where the plane took off for? >> i'm not going to develop any theories on that. >> but that's the big question. >> it is. it's a great question and that's going to be an

. >> you see how the sea state would be crucial. is there any way to land on that? >> if you had to, you had to. you would have to compensate and adjust. it wouldn't be easy. >> would you try to keep the plane at stall, in other words slow? >> at minimum speed as possible. yeah. >> the key would be set the tail down first and rest of the body to drop afterwards. you want to keep the wings level. if you don't, if you tip, you cart wheel. a cart wheel would be devastating and destructive. the problem is without fuel without the engines running, you get only one shot to do it. we have no way to know if that was attempted. we're demonstrating this airplane could have tried even if it was out of fuel. let's take it up then. that's a look at how a water landing might have happened. carol? >> not likely though, right? again stormy weather a big factor today. it was too dangerous for search and recovery operations. with me now, the senior captain at the institution of oceanography, chris. welcome sir. >> good morning. >> um, would it help t

the sea state was about 10 to 12-foot waves and wind at 25 knots.ould have a hard time believing that a jet would produce an oil slick after two weeks. >> they are going to need certain vehicles to assist with the search. let's go through them. let's show this man craft that the chinese have that you think could be very helpful. tell us what it is. >> this is one of the deepest diving research submersibles in the world. the chinese took it to a depth of over 7,000 meters in 2012. so they clearly have been working hard to up great their capability for deep water ocean. i would not be at all surprised to see the chinese take an active role in trying to find this aircraft. >> 7,000 meters. and people go in that? >> that's right. it's a battery-powered submarine. it has a limited time on the bottom so it would have to be used for a targeted search. but they have the capabilities of reaching all of the depths. >> and then there is this one, that found the air wreckage of flight 447. how do these vehicles work? >> these are launched on a program so the op

you know we've got a sea state seven down there. had to deploy south to avoid for those of who would understand, horrendous weather conditions this, is a major operation i say the prime minister has, today, announced that these will be waived for families of the passengers and crew we'll be pleased to welcome them hire to give them closure in what is an extreme tragedy for them. i come back to the fact that this is an amazing example of int international and we're pleased to host chinese and japanese and koreans new zealanders and americans into western australia. thank you. >> is there being offed to the family to the area >> i think logistical operations will need to be taken carefully. it's a major operation. this is, as i say probably one of the most-remote parts of our planet we want to get that right. we want to assist families and friends to have some slow closure. but let's talk about that when we know how many are coming. >> is it clearly now a case of not looking for survivors but debris and looking for black boxes? >> to

what does sea state look like when have you big swells and winds of 30 on top of that. >> depends whichway the wind is going compared to which way swells are going. if you have wind in the teeth of the swell, those waves can stand up and make life on top of the ship pretty difficult. >> we talked about this the other day. we have waves, blow off and looking for a white plane and thousands of white caps. you literally see nothing. >> i can tell you having done aerial survey work, when you're looking on days with a lot of white caps, your eyes play all sorts of tricks on you. that's why it's important they rely on automated techniques and radar. remote sensing is so important. >> thank you. jim, good information here. >> no question. walking us through how difficult it is to searchen one of the most remote corners of the world. that is all for me today. i'm jim sciutto. thanks for watching. randi kaye in for the next hour of "cnn newsroom" and that's right after this short break. so you can get out of your element. so you can explore a new frontier and a different discipline. get two time

it could create a higher sea state which could reduce visibility. a higher sea stake could cause false returns and reduce the range visibly. it will affect the search, but we should be able to work around it. >> how effective do you think you guys are on the searches. are crews returning frustrated or do they feel they are covering the ground they've been directed to cover. >> the crews are not frustrated. they do know they are covering areas that they are patrolling well. we often are tasked with related missions and our crews are good and well trained at spotting things in the water. >> do you get the impression that you guys are focussing in on an area seeing so many heard reports of a photo showing possible debris in the water. >> well, there's a coordinated search plan between the malaysian government, malaysian air force and the australians that are coordinating it all between the participating nations. we have units flying out of malaysia and australia. we are covering different zones, and there's a well-laid out plan for covering the areas.

that's also due to the sea state as well. a previous mission, there was around 70 contacts. as you can tell from such a dense area, although it's frustrating, there's a lot of -- it does generate a lot of excitement each time something is seen to go around and have a look again. with the crews that we have there at the moment, this is the second screw. we swapped those guys out last week as the first crew was reaching its maximum hours that it could actually fly legally in a month. so again, that fresh set of people that go over there that reinj reinvigorates the enthusiasm and the crew is highly focused. >> commander, what happens if they don't locate the black boxes, the data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, the pingers, the batteries run out and they are no longer pinging. where does that put this search? >> at the end of the day, what we're doing at the moment is still trying to find any system of debris. although there is clearly an imperative to try to locate any items to try and hone the search area down to the bla

janice already spoke to the conditions, you spoke to the conditions, the sea states are pretty horrific in terms of identifying somebody. so these aircraft are going to have to be on top of any objects they can see before they get a visual id on something. it is extremely difficult. >> the pentagon announced they are sending a toad ping locate er, u.s. navy, they're sending their autonomous vehicle, do you know much about that? >> that is not my area of expertise, i spoke to a few sources, so what i do know is it is very slow, accurate, but takes a lot of time. >> and literally combs the bottom using sonar, so tell me which is best to use in this case? >> you know, i think they all bring their own unique capabilities. we talked about this constraint. this has an endurance of 13 hours, five hours to get out to the site, five hours back, you only have minimum loiter time. this travels at high altitude, it can get out there. but still, you have relatively limited time on station. and look, sean, when the cloud base is down at 200 feet, the rain is falling, the visibility within 200 kilomet

sea state is 1 to 2. there's only a few white caps and very good visibility.weather is going to improve today. so there should be every chance to make that rendezvous and pick up these objects. >> new zealand is flying, what, p-3, the orion service planes. is that right? >> yes. it's a p-2 k-2. k for kiwi and two for the second upgrade that we've had on the aircraft. >> based on what the experts are telling you, how encouraged are you that what you spotted may in fact be wreckage? obviously you don't know for sure but what is your assessment? >> we don't know for sure but we're not the only aircraft in the area that's come across debris. in fact, five of ten aircraft have located objects in that general area and so there's a high probability that it will identify or otherwise the missing malaysian aircraft. >> commander of the joint forces new england defense force, thanks very much. we'll stay in close touch with you. hopefully in the next few hours we'll learn whether or not any of those pieces of debris are in fact from the airliner. let's get some reaction

>> it is going to be very difficult, megyn, and the sea state you pointed out with 32-foot waves, what you have there are essentially little 32-foot rolling hills that radar won't penetrate. so if you have something in the trough of a wave and it is what your looking at. it suddenly pops on top of the wave and disappear s again and you're sweeping out the radar, it can make it very difficult. even though you're looking out the radar at the right time you're still looking through a soda straw, and the wave takes it and it is gone. >> the experts like you would get together and do maps. they would figure out the currents and know where to look, we assume. but that is when you know generally where the plane descended. >> obviously, once we establish whether or not these debris on top of the water are part of the aircraft, then we know where to start. but you know, we have talked about a needle in the hay stack. right now we're looking at a needle in nebraska. we may find a needle in a hay field but once we find the hay stack then i'm quite confident if we do it in the next few weeks, when

as i said, the weather wasn't very good for the search and the swell and sea state was really high in well. >> reporter: now, we've just learned japanese have released new satellite images in recent hours that show ten more objects that japanese authorities say appear to have come from the plane, the strongest statement yet from any government about the debris seen by all these satellites so far. gretchen. >> a lot of breaking developments. thank you so much, jennifer. time to check in with shep smith reporting live from the fox news desk. hi, shep. >> hey, gretchen. we'll have more including the focus on the captain. we'll talk to a commercial pilot and flight instructor that say almost all plane crashes have a so-called human factor. we'll talk to an oceanographer whose company was part of the vast air search about which we speak so often. we'll tell about that jet. why the reports of satellite debris are to him intriguing. that's all ahead on shepard smith at the top of the hour. >> thanks, shep. >>> new developments unfolding for the newlywed. remember this woman, she admitted to

the sea state right now is 9 feet, it can be rougher there, and very often things get washed overboard. it's not as if a cargo ship can retreat it. once it goes over, it becomes the garbage that floats out there. to give you an idea of what they have found already, if we go into the bay of bengal -- and let me take you on the map here real quickly so you can get an idea where they had been searching previously. if you look at the map earlier, they were well up here in the bay of bengal. the p-3 and the p-8 working in that area, they targeted more than 400 suspicious items floating in the water, things that they thought might be debris, and all of that turned out to be garbage. so it points out two things. one, their ability to find things floating on the sursfas, and two, an ability to define what they're seeing on the surface, and either count it as debris or more importantly just count it off as garbage. so as they are looking now to the south, they have a high degree of confidence that they'll find something that's there, and they'll go to the next level of determining what it might

a little less aggressive when it comes to sea state and also winds and current. it is a shorter flight from perth which means planes can stay over the search area longer, two to three hours more. let's go to phil mercer in perth. >> reporter: it's almost three weeks since flight mh-370 has vanished. there's been a significant shift. the search area has shifted more than 1,000 kilometers to the north based on new information provided by malaysian investigators. following an analysis of radar data, they believe the jet was flying faster than thought and was burning off fuel more quickly. >> this continuing analysis indicates the plane was traveling faster than was previously indicated resulting in increased fuel usage and reducing the possible distance it traveled south into the indian ocean. >> reporter: the view from space continues to find unidentified objects in the southern indian ocean. a thai satellite has detected a field of debris that could be linked to the missing airliner. >> we found the floating objects of various sizes from two meters up to 15 or 16

that way we can reverse engineer the winds and currents and sea states and try to get a position on them. >> you've been dedicating yourself to this since you were tasked with this, and a lot of people in your command have as well from a lot of different countries, as well. is this frustrating for you? have you heard from people under your command who are -- who have been working around the clock on this to now feel like wait a minute, the area we were working in, we're now going 600 miles away from that, or is that just the nature of the job? >> it's not at all frustrating, because we train for this every day. these planes, the p-8, it is built for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and anti-submarine warfare. so its mission every day is to go out and search and patrol. so to the pilots and to the air crew, this is what they train for. they know they have different missions. some days it may be ifr, some days you're looking for aircraft debris. so they understand it. and we're -- we have a continuous 24-hour presence, not just in this area, but north of japan, all the way to so

that try to pick up the ping and once they start deploying submersibles and side scan sonar, the sea state can affect them terribly as well as the topography of the bottom of the ocean here, where you have deep crevices, volcanoes, valleys, and very high mountains. so it's about as difficult an environment as you can imagine. >> bob, for several days in the course of this investigation there would be an announcement, a leak, something, a picture from this satellite or that satellite, and it would be reported as a development of a certain kind. that development would then be reversed or the analysis of that development would be reversed within 12 or 24 hours. what has changed today that made this so conclusive that the malaysian government could make this announcement? >> you know, it sounds like such a dramatic announcement. all it is is a mathematical calculation based on the same satellite information we knew about but they just plugged that in, massaged it a little bit. we haven't got anything fresh to deal with. and actually, i was a little surprised that the malaysian government went

won't know until they can get an airplane down there and take high resolution pictures or get a sea state ship on site to look at it closer. >> a lot to chew on here. more information than we've had in days but also a lot of big questions. captain john cox and greg feith, pleasure, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> as we reported before, the norwegian merchant ship was asked directly by australian authorities to help the search because they were nearby at the time. they were the first vessel to reach this area. we spoke exclusively with the ship's spokesman earlier today to get more details on what exactly their role is. >> 8,000 cars on board and not made for such rescue but it has radar and capacity and something that trained for and there are -- transportation equipment, they are in direct dialogue with the australian authorities who guide them what to look for and what areas to look in basically. they are observers. >> another big part of the story today, bad weather and really low visibility are hampering the search efforts causing them to be scaled back. they are called off for th