. >>> as we've done from the start, i want to bring in abc aviation analyst stephen ganyard back with us here tonight. steve, first, wait to take viewers back at home to the image, the pilot with the flight simulator behind him. we heard from bob that simulator has been taken from the home. what can we learn from it? >> i think, david, what they'll do, they will go back and look for some criminal forensics. was there premeditation? did he go in and pre-type in some of these routes and practice some of these routes that we saw on the actual flight itself? so, that's what they'll do. they'll look for something that will say, he's been practicing or thinking about this. >> and of course that preprogrammed left turn, the reason why there's such increasing focus on those pilots tonight. but you and i were talking earlier, steve, you say their voice inside that cockpit after that move, also very telling. >> yes. very interesting, david. the first thing they did was to type in a new waypoint, a new turn, direction off to the west, by 90 degrees to take them off their preprogrammed route. rig

let's take it straight to our aviation consultant stephen ganyard. stephen, hopes dashed again. >> hopes dashed again, george, but it's still -- we have to hold out that this may be something. obviously the prime minister made a statement and called the malaysian prime minister. he wouldn't have done that if he didn't think this was an opportunity here. if there's something here, the most important thing will be to recover part of the airplane. we can go back and do what we did before black boxes and just good old-fashioned crash forensics. if we can find a piece of metal out there, we can look for burn marks. we can look at how the airplane broke. there's lots of things we can tell if we can just get some of the wreckage and hopefully that will lead us to the black boxes which unravels the whole mystery. >> steve, hold on right there. i want to go right back to david kerley because he now has some brand. new satellite images coming back in. these are three or four days ago. >> same images and let's just be very clear. these images that the australian

. >> colonel stephen ganyard is here with us. walk us how this could happen. there is a range of potential causes. what is in that range? >> there is, dan. any mishap usually has some key elements that are common to all mishaps. they'll be looking at things like weather, did weather play a factor as it did in the air france mishap off brazil that david was just talking about. was their pilot error? was there some kind of a catastrophic failure or was there some kind of combination of all of those? in this case, also because it's so unusual for an airplane to just disappear like this, it's almost inexplicable so they'll probably broaden their range of investigation to look at terrorism. >> you know, you use the word rare. most crashes happen on takeoff or landing. so for a plane to disappear in midair give us a sense how rare is that? >> this is so rare it is absolutely baffling and it's baffling that we don't have any better answers this long after the mishap actually occurred so lots of questions to be answered of the there's very, very little direct evidence

let's dig into all this with stephen ganyard in washington. stephen, we heard david say leading theory, some kind of deliberate act of sabotage although it's one of many but take us inside the cockpit and explain why this points to a kind of sabotage. how difficult it was for these two communication systems to be turned off. >> yeah, they're very different communication systems, george, not only where they are in the cockpit, the things they do but would have required two deliberate actions. the first one would have involved reaching up over the pilot's shoulder and pulling a circuit breaker so the circuit breakers are tiny things and writing next to them is very small so would have to know where they were looking, what they were doing and it would have had to be deliberate. 14 minutes later authorities are telling us that they turned off the transponder switch which would have been on a son sole very close the pilot's knees or up by their hands. so these are two different acts, 14 minutes apart. done by somebody who new how to fly that airpla

. >> now to abc's news aviation expert stephen ganyard for his take on these developments. >> don't get radar returns off of nothing so it sounds to me that we've, indeed, found the wreckage. know this of's been looking in a certain area. i think with what happened is the u.s. intelligence community has been brought to bear and been able to use some of the satellite data of that part of the ocean based on some of the forensics david was talking about with the pinging down south and so they've been focusing intently on this area earlier in the day. we saw that the australians focused their search area in a focused way. it's all being run through a rescue coordination center, again, as david says, the australians are pretty professional working hand in hand with the u.s. the u.s. and navy and australian air force are very used to working together. i'm sure there's all sorts of coordination going on. my guess what will happen now you'll have the p3 and p8 with satellite communications and go over if they see wreckage they'll take pictures and send that back via satellite. i think we will g

. >>> and now, i want to turn to retired conditional, stephen ganyard, our aviation expert. and david kerley on the story from the beginning. i'll start with you, david. how certain are investigators that the families should give up hope? >> they are convinced that the aircraft is in the southern indian ocean. and what we learned today from the satellite companies put the data points together. the fuel, the glide pattern from boeing. they checked the data. are we right? is this where the plane is? yes, this is where this aircraft is. >> but the fact they did it today, just says to me, they know even more. there's something they're not telling us. >> obviously, the national security assets. not only the u.s.'s, but others have been used in this. and i'm sure they're not telling us everything about how they know where the aircraft is. >> okay. i want to turn to you, steve. what about the debris field? we're seeing more and more sightings of debris. what does it say to you? >> diane, we have to remember that looking at debris fields in the ocean is very difficult. when an airpl

. >>> i want to bring in our aviation analyst stephen ganyard tonight. steve, this intense search for the debris, this is very different from the search for the black boxes. we were reminded of this in the air france crash? >> exactly, david. remember that it was debris found five days after the crash of air france but it was two years before we actually got to the black boxes. >> but you were reminding us that in the air france crash, the pinging in the black box, it wasn't working? >> that's right. there was some sense that the pingers had failed. they never heard them. they were right on top of the wreckage within days but it led them on this wild goose chase of an expanding search zone because they couldn't hear the pingers. >> and there's no guarantee the pinging is working in this case, either. in the meantime, it was last night here, viewers were asking about drones, why we weren't using them flying over the indian ocean. but as you heard david wright just report there, they are preparing to use a so-called underwater drone. how does this work, st

i want to bring in abc's aviation expert, retired colonel stephen ganyard, back with us tonight. steve, you have reminded us, every step of the way, about the race against time. without the boxes pinging, this could be very difficult to find at the bottom of the indian ocean. >> that's right, david. the black boxes are going to be the key. we'll never know what we need to know to figure out this mystery until we get to them. it's so deep in that part of the world. it's up to 12 empire state buildings deep. you have currents. you have winds. you have all these things, the elements, working against the rescuers. but the real race is against time at this point. >> steve, you talk about the currents. the satellite photos we've been studying today, they were actually taken four days ago. if that was, in fact, debris, how far could it have traveled by now? >> the currents will affect the debris. and the winds will affect the debris. in that part of the world, the winds are howling and the currents are very strong. so, maybe, 3 miles per hour, 4 miles per hour, 5 miles per hour. multipl

joining me is colonel stephen ganyard, a contributor to abc news. and is a pilot. i am pleased to have him on this program. welcome. let me get with this question. where are we when we have this conversation at about 7:00 p.m. new york time? >> i am glad you put in the hour in there because it is amazing. the story is changing by the hour. i'll change my personal opinion about the possibilities. this new york times story that came out was interesting because it said there were radical altitude changes as it proceeded through the strait of malacca. it would lead to one additional scenario. there are others the same it is just skin paint, a reflection of the radar energy with no transponder data associated that it is not reliable. and it was probably straight and level and these are anomalies. if the aircraft was straight and level and no out to two changes, i would favor a different scenario. what we do know is given the evidence that involved today is the airplane was under the control of somebody whether pilots or somebody in the cabin. it flew 90 degrees from the

joining me from washington is colonel stephen t. ganyard, previously deputy assistant secretary in the bureau of political military affairs and is a pilot. i am pleased to have him on this program. welcome. >> thank you, sir. >> charlie: where are we as we tape this conversation at about 7:00 p.m. new york time? >> i'm glad you put the hour in there, charlie, because it's amazing. the story is changing by the hour. i think i've changed my personal opinion two or three times about what the possibilities are. this "new york times" story that came out tonight was very interesting because it says there were radical altitude changes in this aircraft as it proceeded up the strait of malacca. if this is true, this would lead to one potential scenario. there are others who are saying this radar data, because it's just what we call a reflection of the radar energy with no transponder data associated with it, that this is not reliable and was probably straight and level and these are anomalies. so if the aircraft was straight and level and there were

. >> i want to drill down on that with stephen ganyard, as well. the other possibility, the pilot and the co-pilot didn't do this themselves. there's a chance that someone got into the cockpit and forced them to do this at gunpoint. let's talk about that a little bit. had that happened, wouldn't the pilot been able to switch the transponder to the hijack distress signal? >> if someone's looking over his shoulder and knew enough to say i want to go in this direction or want to go to this waypoint. there's so much here, this had to be a trained pilot. somebody had to know what they were doing. all these things occurred at the handoff between malaysian and vietnamese air traffic controllers. they knew this dead zone in there. they knew they had some time to do all of the premeditated actions. >> my question there, though, if there was a hijacker on the plane, wouldn't we have some kind of other indication of distress on that aircraft? >> you would. but we just don't. everything points to one of those two crew members in the cockpit as a premeditated a

going to be running out of batterieba >> that search has become refined, we want to bring in stephen ganyard in washington. stephen, you've been -- you made it clear this morning even before that press conference that the first arguably most important part of this search is now complete and that is providing the families of those lost 239 souls with a sense of closure, again, as we look to identify where this plane did go down and how it did, in fact, crash. but, this moment now, having provided that moment to those families of the 239 people on board, what next then is -- what's the next step in this search, david? >> josh, the one thing that i heard from the prime minister that gives me hope -- and we need to track this down -- there may be some new data from the company that runs the satellite consolation that original gave us these two arcs, there may be some new data that gives us more precise information. we now have close you are for the families, as you say. the debris search is not as important anymore. what we need to do now is get to the black boxes. remember that the airplane was

okay, stephen ganyard, thanks very much. >> it already is, george. >>> the tense standoff over the ukraine crisis. russian president putin firing back after president obama announced a new round of u.s. sanctions against russia on thursday. abc's jon karl is here in the studio with us and has the latest on this. this is really escalating. >> yeah. i'll tell you something, robin. after the president announced the new sanctions, the russian tock market took a dive and although vladimir putin responded with sanctions of his own, this morning he seems to be saying enough is enough. this time president obama is going right at president putin aiming sanctions at his chief of staff, his billionaire friends and a bank so tied to putin's associates it could be called putin's piggy bank. >> these are all choices that the russian government has made, choices that have been rejected by the international community as well as the government of ukraine. >> reporter: the move comes amid reports russia has amassed some 20,000 troops on its border with ukraine, a move president obama warned could be a sign

. >>> for more, aviation consultant stephen ganyard joins us from washington. no emergency transmission before the plane disappeared. what does that tell you? >> robin, i can't begin to guess what happened. it was probably something that was either very catastrophic that happened immediately. and there was no chance of making a transmission. or there was a problem in the cockpit that the crew was so absorbed with that before it ended up in a catastrophe that they were not able or didn't have time to make any communications. >> steve, let me ask you this. in a time when technology is so advanced, why is it that the black box information is only available on the plane and not transmitted, say, back to air traffic control? >> that is a really good question, and that question is being asked more and more after the air france disaster. in the past, it's been a question of not enough money or not enough satellite coverage. i think you're exactly right. in this day and age, we should not lose an airplane like this and have it go missing for days on end. >> it's been a

we'll get more on this mystery now from abc news aviation consultant colonel stephen ganyard. he joins us this morning in washington. picking up on what bob was saying, the search area has been expanded because it could have been on autopilot and gone for thousands of miles. >> robin, that's possible. that's possible. at this point, i don't buy it. and the reason is you would have to have the crew incapacitated and you would have to have all the electrical systems on the aircraft fail. if it was going to continue to fly, the radar beacon sending out information to air traffic control facilities would still be giving position indications. and so somewhere, that airplane would have shown up or stayed on radar if they'd continued to fly. so it's a theory that -- it's possible. we don't know at this point. but i just don't buy it. >> right, and right now they're just theories, as you said. all is just theories but what the police are looking into, the background, specifically the psychological background of the pilot and co-pilot. >> yeah, well, we have to look at that. you know,

more from our aviation consultant stephen ganyard.teve, let's start out with this new e-mail coming in overnight. very specific and lots of detail here. it would be consistent with the original flight path of the plane. the vietnamese are investigating but there's reason to be skeptical of reports like this. >> there are, george. i mean at this point we have nothing else to go on so worth asking the vietnamese to send an aircraft out to the location where this gentleman thinks he saw something. but in this e-mail, he said, look, i saw this airline at 35,000 feet. it was burning and stayed in one piece. that's seven miles away. you can't even see an airliner in the day that far away. i've investigated mishaps where airplanes have disappeared without a trace. people overtime think they see things and they offer things, 90% in a mishap investigation, the individual reports things coming from people who think they saw something prove absolutely unhelpful. it's going to depend on what we get out of the black boxes. >> malaysians doing back

we bring in abc news aviation consultant colonel stephen ganyard. he's in washington with us this morning. and, steve, anything that's been released or revealed that will help investigators with all these theories as to what actually happened? >> not really, robin. i think the key yesterday was that we finally affirmed what we believed for probably a week to ten days now. and we came out and said, we know it's on the southern track. and if it was on the southern track, we know it only had so much gas. and there was no way it was going to make land. so i think this was more for the families and to move the search along with what we knew was actually the truth. and so, as david said, this is now a recovery operation. it's not a rescue operation. >> and we hear what the australian investigators said we're not searching for a needle in the haystack we're still trying to determine where the haystack is. any new revelations as to where they're looking? >> it's still brutal. if we put it in the context we have been talking about the last couple of weeks, w

let's analyze this all with our aviation consultant, stephen ganyard.ottom line six days in, no progress. >> no progress, george. we know absolutely nothing since 49 minutes after the aircraft took off. everything else is a guess, it's supposition. they're false leads. >> our reporter raising the question, what if it didn't crash? how serious do you take that possibility? this plane could have flown for hours and actually landed somewhere safely. >> it's possible. at this point anything is possible. we have to continue to look at anything. so we know that it was going to go to beijing. we know it had at least seven hours of fuel on board. took a string on a map and went to beijing and drew that arc out there, that's where that airplane could be. seven hours, it could be in somalia, in yemen, it could be in india. >> and it would be able to land undetected? >> it's possible. remember that part of the world is very remote. there's not radars in every place. we know the radar transponder which threw out all this data was turned off or perhaps electrical fa

. >> okay, stephen ganyard, thanks very much. >>> okay, george, now the other big story.he escalating crisis in ukraine. after crimea voted to break away and join russia. a defiant president putin is ignoring sanctions from the united states and europe. jonathan karl is at the white house with the very latest on these tense standoffs. good morning, jon. >> reporter: good morning, robin. russia is openly mocking the sanctions imposed by president obama. and this morning, vladimir putin is charging ahead towards a full-blown russian takeover of crim crimea. this morning, an heroic welcome for president vladimir putin. in defiance of the united states and the u.n., this morning russian president vladimir putin approved a plan to make crimea part of russia. the move comes just after president obama hit russia with a first round of sanctions and threatened more to come. >> we're making it clear that there are consequences for their actions. if russia continues to interfere in ukraine, we stand ready to impose further sanctions. >> reporter: the sanctions freeze the assets of 1

more from our aviation consultant stephen ganyard. the new e-mail coming in overnight. very specific and would be consistent with the flight path. the vietnamese are investigating but there's reason to be skeptical of reports like recall of 1.6 million cars from model years 200 to 2007 including the cobalt, solstice and ion. mar are barra says she's conducting an internal review. >> i think mary was p wants to make up for the mistakes of the past but she's got a lot to make up for. >> reporter: for "good morning america," rebecca jarvis, abc news, new york. >> thanks, rebecca for that. >>> now good news for millions who suffer from migraines. the fda has approved the first medical device that can prevent migraine attacks. dr. jen ashton with more on that. 36 million americans suffer from migraines. >> i'm one of them, george. if you think about migraines as a very complex disorder that involves blood vessels and nerves, here's the device called cefaly. this targets a nerve in the brain ha did the major player in causing migraines and stimulate commandment big time rippi