abc's aviation consultant steve ganyard joins from us tokyo. to david, what happens now?ow do they go about trying to determine for certain if this is connected to the plane? >> they're going to be taking some pictures if they get over this wreckage that has been spotted from the satellite, take some pictures. the pictures will give us a much better sense of whether or not this is actually wreckage. one of our experts warns that 78 feet is a pretty big piece for a plane, depending on how it hit the water, as steve ganyard would tell you, if it hits straight into the water it would pulverize. to get a big piece that would skip along the water and break up, too early to tell. these pictures should give us a much better indication. the australians have asked a merchant ship to get into this area and see what they can actually see up close. >> steve, i was going to ask you about that. if this does turn out to be connected to the plane, what do we know more now about, what does it tell us about what happened? >> it tells us that the airplane's finally down and we're on our way

. >>> let's bring in once again, abc's aviation military expert, steve ganyard. steve, tell me about these twists and turns. >> conflicting stories tonight. we're seeing heading changes, where the aircraft changes its nose position and moves around the sky. this would confirm, as david said in his story, that we are seeing an airplane that's being controlled by pilots or somebody in that aircraft. >> let me ask you about this report of land or sea, namely they're using, according to the ap, heat-seeking devices in order to examine the islands tonight? >> they aren't exactly heat-seeking. what are they are, they're looking at differential. it will allow them to see the contrast between a piece of metal on floating on top of the ocean and the ocean itself. >> give me just your gut sense, where we're heading in this story, what we're going to find? >> it's been an amazing day, it really has, personally my opinion has changed almost by the hour, it's going to depend on what that radar data shows. if this radar data shows big changes in altitude up and down, it's proba

. >>> we want to bring in abc's aviation expert, steve ganyard. steve, with the shifting information, is anything leading to the possibility of an accident? and maybe the pilots lost consciousness? >> i think we're at the point where we're going to have to entertain lots of different theories. if they have any sort of validity and anything that would lead us to that. we can't exclude anything. we're getting to the point of the investigation, where there's very little science coming in. i think we've gotten as much as we're going to get from the satellites. there will be forensics on the ground. we're at the point where we can't rule out anything until we get that wreckage. until we get those black boxes. >> everything entertained. and what about this location the australians have now targeted, in specifics? where is it? how easy or hard is it, now, to get there and search? >> they've pushed the search off to way, way off the coast of perth, almost two-thirds on the way to antarctica. so, you look at the map, those are really treacherous, deep seas.

. >>> now, we're going to turn to steve ganyard, abc news aviation consultant. steve, with this dramatic reduction in the search area, and i'm going to put the map up once again, is this search more doable? >> it is more doable, diane. it's a good news/bad news story. we've narrowed that search area to come down quite a bit. but the problem is, it's still such an unbelievable large part of the ocean that we have to search. as the australians said today, it will take weeks still just to look at this smaller search area. >> and can those search planes see deeply into the ocean? and how deep is the ocean right there? >> no, unfortunately, the planes can't see under the ocean. so, if we're going to find something, it's going to have to be on top of the surface, still floating. something they can see, perhaps some of the radar can see some reflection. but it has to be on top of the water. they can't see down the bottom of that ocean. as we've talked about all week, this is 10,000 to 15,000 feet. and there's some trenches out there, to 20,000 feet in the search area th

. >>> 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, steve? >

joining us now from washington, colonel steve ganyard. he is president of the advisory firm avisant international also a marine corps pilot, served in the state department political military affairs and from the cbs washington bureau bob orr, homeland security correspondent for cbs news. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> charlie: the first question, what is the key piece of evidence that led the prime minister to make the announcement he made? >> i think what inmarsat, which is the company that has the satellite constellation that was getting the pings, did additional forensics, they got boeing to help out and did a peer review study of are we sure it went on this southern route. as you remember, we talked about a northern and southern rock, throute,and they said we are aby sure it's on the southern air c anarcandarcand where the pings t went nowhere but the water. it was done to say for the relatives there's nobody who would survive. >> charlie: what's next, bob? what's next is we have to find recognizable, identifiable piece of debris.

. >>> let's bring in abc news aviation consultant, retired colonel steve ganyard. steve, good morning to you. we have 25 countries involved in this search. given the huge swath of the planet they're looking at here, what are the odds they'll find anything? >> quite low. and every day we go on, the odds get lower because this is a vast area we have to look at. david pointed out today, they were finally starting to focus on the southern cone. but that's a wide-open indian ocean with depths of 15,000 feet. we have about 20 days left before that pinger runs out. it will be really tough to find it. >> are there any places, any islands, where they could have landed the plane? >> short answer is no. they were so far out, so far west of australia, perhaps 1,000 miles out to the west of australia. and they were at the very limit of their gas. there wasn't enough gas to get anywhere. >> i find that -- i'm sure a lot of people will agree, hard to compute. if you're smart enough and qualified enough to evade radar and fly for that length of time and that length -- that span of

and now, i want to turn to one of those leading experts, a pilot, abc news consultant, colonel steve ganyard. steve, you're looking at these pictures. can they be made clearer? what can you see? >> diane, they are tantalizing. i don't know if they're clues yet. i wish we could blow them up. they're a little too fuzzy at this point to think we're going to get any clarity. we have to get ships out there and make sure these aren't parts of the airplane. >> but david raises the possibility they could be too big. >> they're longer than the actual wingspan of a 777 or the fuselage. maybe they are too big. but at this point, we know so little that we have to investigate every potential clue. and they certainly are tantalizing. >> you have been reminding us, even if it is debris from that plane, it could be a long time before we know what really happened. >> exactly. if you remember the air france crash. we found debris after five days. but two years underneath that debris before we found the black boxes that held the secrets. and remember, we will not find out what happened in this mishap until we

. >>> and now, i want to bring in abc's aviation expert, steve ganyard. steve, this is an incredible breakthrough tonight. incredible news. >> incredible turn of events just from what we knew yesterday. yesterday, we knew nothing past that 49-minute mark. today, we're pretty sure that what happened was two switches were pulled in that cockpit. >> and you say were pulled. that suggests deliberate. >> deliberate. >> what kind of deliberate acts? >> well, maybe it was a hijacking. maybe it was pilot suicide. maybe there was some elaborate plan to take this airplane somewhere and do something with it. but all of the things we were thinking about yesterday, with catastrophic kinds of things, we're probably leaning more towards something the pilots or one of the pilots did, that involves something catastrophic. what the deliberate act might be, still to be determined. >> and again, it went on for four hours. >> four hours. that's the other big news of the day. we thought this airplane should have crashed at the 49-minute mark. we now know it flew for four to fiv

let's bring in abc news aviation consultant colonel steve ganyard in washington. steve, good morning. i just can't get over the comments from the malaysian government official overnight about how they're continuing to search for survivors. he also said, miracles do happen. is this a responsible message to be sending given that they've already said that the plane is gone? >> dan, i don't think it is. i think it's an unfortunate comment. i think it's somebody who is thinking with their heart and not with their head, and it's just not fair to these families to continue to say that there's reason to hold out hope. we really know nothing more than we did in just days after the mishap. in essence, we're at day one on this search, but this is where people -- their emotions get the better of them. really the only thing they can do now is continue to search, put the emotions at bay and continue to use the scientific methods that they have and do their best to find something that will give us some answers about this mishap. >> steve ganyard, we appreciate your analysis once

and colonel steve ganyard. he's an abc contributor, a former marine pilot and an accident investigator during your time in the military. start with you, pierre. you heard about the passports, but what is happening in terms of the investigation as far as the u.s. is involved? >> they're deeply concerned about those passports. trying to get as much as information as the chairman said. the surveillance video is key. use facial recognition technology to look at the faces and see if they can find any hits in the terrorism or criminal database. the other thing is the flight manifest is key. they're looking at the pilot. they're looking at the crew members and all the passengers. look for any hint of something that would be untoward to suggest terrorism or something else. right now they have no direct evidence of terrorism, but they say they cannot afford to wait. they have to look at everything possible to try to get a fix on this. >> steve, you as a mishap investigator looked at all of this. the idea that the pilot

and that makes it harder to find out where the rough wreckage is on the bottom of the ocean. >> steve ganyard with us again tonight. our thanks to steve. >>> we're now 13 days into this. so many questions remain. we want to know what you would like answered. you can tweet me right now. use #askworldnews. we'll answer your questions. we'll try, tomorrow night, right here on "world news." >>> we do move on this evening and to the other developing story at this hour. the simmering tensions with russia. today, president obama went after russian president vladimir putin with new sanctions, aimed at his inner circle. tonight, putin striking back, taking aim at americans, names you'll recognize. and they're reacting at this hour. abc's chief white house correspondent, jonathan karl, now. >> reporter: as russia tightened its grip on crimea today, issuing russian passports to those who live there, president obama warned, vladimir putin may be preparing to go further. >> the world is watching with grave concern, as russia has positioned its military in a way that could lead to further incursions into s

let's dig into this with david kerley and abc's consultant, steve ganyard. steve, let me begin with you. this flight simulator information could be significant. and we learned from malaysian authorities that the files were deleted on february 3rd. if they are found, what could they tell us? >> george, it's like most -- it is like most big pieces of evidence in this mystery, we don't know. if there is a reason for him to have erased it, there's certainly forensics that can be done. most police departments -- most intelligence agencies can go back and look at what was erased on that hard drive. we should find out in due course. >> and, david, as you pointed out, some confusion on the part of the malaysian authorities now and whether or not this plane was preprogrammed to turn, was preprogrammed. go through our best reporting on that right now. >> we know that u.s. officials were briefed that it was programmed ahead of time to make that turn. but there are a lot of experts that are pushing back including pilots of the 777 saying just because you program it doesn

. >> and steve ganyard joins us. steve we just heard from david wright. the clock is ticking. and the batteries could run out by next week. this is make or break time. >> it sure is. if you remember in the past couple weeks down here in the lower search areas, we have been chasing ghosts on satellite images. but in the past couple days, an international body of aviation experts looked at the data and said we think the best place to look is up here in the new search area. it's some 700 miles to the northeast of the old search area. the good news is these waters aren't as rough, the currents aren't nearly as difficult and some of the water is shallower. it's the size of the country of poland. and really we're back to square one on the search area. >> and if the black boxes go silent, we may never know what happened. >> exactly. and as david wright just said, coming off of a ship having to transit out here. it will take three or four dice get out there. and when they do their operations, they will work only as fast as a person can walk. think about that. searching poland at a wal

and let's bring in colonel steve ganyard from washington. good morning to you. we have satellite images from the australians, the chinese and the french. does it make you confident they are pieces of the plane? >> a little. a little. still just images. we don't know what they are of. we have to get ships out there to pick up what it is. they could be palettes, just junk drifting around the ocean. it's tantalizing, everybody's hoping, but i don't see much to move forward on just today. >> what's interesting, you describe this as two investigations. one for the debris, and the other for the plane and the crucial black box. >> i think we need to think of this as two separate searches. one, we have the debris that has been drifting for two weeks now and we hope to pick something up there. but remember the airplane hit the water some three to 700 miles back to the west. there needs to be a surface search where we can look on what might still be floating out to the east. but the real search needs to be underwater six to 700 miles away from where we're looking for the

let's bring in abc's david curley and abc news contributor colonel steve ganyard, an aviation accident investigator. both have been on the story from the start. thanks for joining us. start with you, steve. you look at the vast search area and it reminds me how small the search area was for air france. they had debris within five days, and then it took two years. but this area is so huge. >> it is. the good news is, if you remember earlier in the week, we were looking at 2 million square miles. so the so-called good news is we're down to a search area the size of the state of texas. you reference the air france mishap because of the similarities. in that mishap, probably looking at something the size of connecticut. still a daunting, daunting search area. >> and if we find the debris, if that is actually debris from the airplane, it doesn't mean we're going do find the airplane. >> that's right. i think we ought to think of this as two separate search areas. we're looking for things on top of the water that still may be floating. but where the airplane went into the water is some 350 t

and aviation consultant, steve ganyard. peter king, let's begin with you. this is a frustration for the fbi. >> it really is. the fact that the fbi was not asked in. the pilot and the co-pilot should have been the focus from the start. that would be ordinary law enforcement and investigatory procedures. the fbi could have been called to help that. interpol, could have been called in. but my understanding is that malaysia is not cooperating at all. very reluctant to lay what they have on the table. >> but you've been briefed on this. the focus is on the pilots? basically, everyone else on the plane has been looked at? no terrorist connections according to u.s. officials. >> there's been no terrorist connections whatsoever. there's been no terrorist chatter. nothing out there that indicating its it's terrorist. now has been picked up by the terrorist community. i have questions about the two iranians on the plane. but that could be a side issue. nothing has come up. >> what's your biggest question about the iranians? >> the fact they were there and written of

let's go to our aviation consultant steve ganyard. eve, first off, what do you make of these eyewitness reports from this small village? and the idea that the pilots might have been doing these kinds of evasive maneuvers known as terrain masking. >> george, it's highly unlikely for two reasons. these fishermen were listening to them saying they're between malaysia and vietnam so would have been on the original part of that path. terrain masking in a 777 is unheard of. you don't want to be flying low to the ground at night. you don't have night vision goggles or radar but most importantly eyewitnesses' remarks from a mishap are rarely helpful. people are not trained to know what they see. they want to see things, so we usually discount what we hear from eyewitnesses. >> what we are seeing is the focus on that search zone off the coast of australia, even extending all the way down close to antarctica. and the australians now taking charge of this search. >> yeah, this is extraordinary because the australians are telling us look 1500 mile

. >> and steve ganyard was really talking early on about how the malaysian government, the other countries wanted to take a bigger role. and now that we're seeing that, we're getting some results. >> we're seeing those resources now marshaled and brought to bear. >>> other developments in ukraine. breaking news from the showdown there, overnight pro-russian forces released a ukrainian navy commander they had taken prisoner but that is doing little to ease tensions there. ukraine is evacuating troops from the crimea region which is now firmly in russia's hands. clocks are even being turned, in fact, to moscow time. and in a new interview, president obama has ruled out u.s. military intervention saying that nobody wants to trigger war with russia. >>> and some surprising testimony here in new york from osama bin laden's son-in-law. he took the stand at his terrorism trial and admitted that he was called to bin laden's cave after the attacks of september 11th, 2001 but sulaiman abu ghaith denied being al qaeda's spokesperson and said he warned his father-in-law that the u.s. would hunt him do

steve ganyard joins us now. first off, we know it was the co-pilot who spoke the last words.t does that tell us? >> george the time line has been muddied about when these actions have been taken in the cockpit. but all the facts we've been talking about, all the premeditated actions. the change in course. the acars, turning off the transponders, all these premeditated actions still stand. it's interesting that the copilot did this. we're trying to to figure out who is the more likely suspect here if it is the crew members. and for the co-pilot to say something, they'll go back and look at the voices and look for stress in his voice to see did somebody have a gun at his head? was he being told to do something? but again, lots of little clues but we're still not there yet. >> you add to that the malaysian airlines officials are saying the two pilots did not request to fly together. >> right. so you can't say they were conspirators. finding a link between them has been fruitless so far. >> meantime they are looking into that flight simulator. what could that conceivably tell us?

i think with this airplane, and this flight, it probably was not a factor. >> stephen ganyard with us tonight. steve, we always appreciate your insight. >>> and tonight, outside the homes of those pilots, still quite a presence. authorities questioning their family members, anyone who knew them. but noticeably absent from the investigation, american authorities. the fbi offering to help, so, why aren't they? for that part of the story, we turn to abc's senior justice correspondent pierre thomas, right there in our washington bureau tonight. and pierre, the fbi not allowed in yet? >> reporter: no, david. they're still not there. i spoke to a senior law enforcement official this evening and he tells me the fbi still has not been invited in, despite their offer to help. they really want to assist because they bring sophisticated forensic capabilities. one of the biggest things they can do is vacuum-clean computers, even information that has been deleted. and they are among the best in digging into complicated cases like this one. >> and pierre, as you know, last night here, we asked stephen ganyard, co

more from our aviation consultant stephen ganyard. stevelet'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-track

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, we're still looking at areas the size of alaska. it's