Transcripts For CNNW The Situation Room 20140317

Mechanical failure be ruled out . Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. The mystery of what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight 370 grows even more baffling 11 days after the airliner disappeared, the search now extending over a vast area of hundreds and thousands of square miles, covering a dozen countries and deep seemingly never ending ocean. The massive search involves ships, planes, and satellites. Increasingly on the ground. We have the kind of coverage only cnn can deliver. Our correspondence and analysts are standing by but lets begin with jim sciutto for the very latest. Jim . Wolf, i think you can call it a frustrating 24 hours. You have this revelation that authorities thought the data streaming system was turned off before that good night, the final good night from the cockpit and now they say there is doubt about that. You have investigators extending it to the search area. And the investigation is at a stalemate. 11 days after flight 370 vanished, the confusing and sometimes conflicting information from malaysian authorities continues. This weekend, investigators said the jets data streaming system or acars was switched off before the last communication from pilots. Now they say they are not so sure. The last acars transmission was 1 07. Authorities gave a calm good night to air Traffic Controllers and led authorities to determine the planes disappearance was likely deliberate. Can you tell us what you are doing . Reporter that is still the leading theory and police are scouring the pilots homes. They are looking for clues. But their person of interests is expanding to the two people inside the cockpit to the 227 passengers traveling on board and now to the many staff who accessed the plane before takeoff from baggage handlers to technicians. That would not only include identifying the passengers and the crew that had touched that aircraft but also individuals associated with family members or friends or professional workers that might have some information relative to the mindset of the individual. Reporter as the investigation expands, so does the search area. It now encompasses a large section of the indian ocean and more than a dozen countries on land. Back home for americans, a burning question remains, does flight 370s disappearance expose vulnerabilities in american air travel . Hopefully weve seen improved Airline Security around the world and a better way of tracking aircraft. Well be looking at some of those systems like the black box and trying to determine whether we need beat better safeguards so pilots cant turn off the communication so perhaps the black boxes can transit signals rather than having to find them under an ocean. There is the idea of increasing the security in the screening of passengers, their passports, not just here in the u. S. But around the world. A number of times this weekend i spoke to Aviation Security analysts and said, does this expose vulnerabilities for americans traveling at home, this idea that a plane can be comandeered 13 years after 9 11. Under to error on the side of prudence, if you will, just to make sure there are not these kinds of problems. I want to expand this conversation. Joining us now is mark weiss, a security expert and steven wallace, former faa director of accident investigation and cnn Law Enforcement analyst, tom fuentes. This latest revision of what the malaysians are saying about when the system was turned off before or after the formal goodbye, good night from the copilot, what does that mean to you . It means that there is still confusion about what happened and when it happened and when it was turned off. We dont expect that this late in the game of this event. The malaysian authorities are relying on what the technical analysts, the experts on radio satellites, Communication Systems and aircraft, they are relying on their analysis and what they believe happened and the experts are either disagreeing or changing their review of the facts and conclusions about the facts. So thats the difficulty in this. These are technical questions. When did that get shut off . What does that mean . How could they have shut it off . We dont have answers that are solid yet that may not change tomorrow. Even though the malaysian government, steven, saying this was a manmade diversion, if you have, it was not a mechanical failure, there are a lot of experts out there who are still not ruling out catastrophic mechanical failures. You know, rule one at the beginning of an accident investigation, everything is on the table. Everything is still on the table and the last pit of evidence that you and tom were just discussing, this is typical of this entire investigation. Things come out in sort of dribs and drabs. They are not immediately shared with the best experts and then they are changed. You know, certainly the fact that this aircraft turned approximately at the same time that both of the acars system and transponder were apparently turned off, you know, that shifts the very much a criminal and civil investigation. At a 35,000 foot level when the plane is usually just smooth sailing and at a time when they were in no mans air space between malaysia and vietnamese. If they were going to try to sneak away at that time, that would be the time to do it. Again, we clearly have a criminal and civil investigation going on now. I think the issue about the pilots behavior and admitting people into the cockpit, something that would not happen with a u. S. Carrier slides a little more in the other direction. This 53yearold captain, the pilot, the lead pilot, had a simulator in his house. The authorities are going through the hard drives and potentially this is pretty significant, right . Im not quite sure how much significance that is going to zsh w z. Why do you say that . I dont know how i know a lot of people who are experienced pilots. Some of them have the simulators that you can buy at a a microsoft store. So im not sure that that is the major area of focus. I dont think you can discount it. I think you have to see what comes out of that. What airports he has flown out of. Different attitudes, if he flew at 42, 43,000 feet. But its not unusual to have a simulator. Jim, the fear that most people have is that the plane landed someplace and will be refueled and used, effectively, potentially as some sort of missile down the road. Taking that scenario . S officials is it way out there . Too farfetched . I hear two things. Theyve established no clear link. They havent found the evidence yet. And when they talk about the capability of carrying out an attack like this, capturing a plane and using it somewhere else, one group that came into suspicion is this weger group, kazakhstan these are muslims . They are muslims. They have carried out attacks recently in cheen china. But that group wouldnt have had the capability, even if they had the ambition. Al qaeda, much greater capability. As of yet, no established link. Stand by, guys. There are a lot more theories out there. A vast area searching in two separate directions. Why authorities think onetrack is unreal liistic and the other much more likely. And were going to speak with a Navy Commander who is in the region and were going to find out what is going on. No matter how busy your morning you can always do Something Better for yourself. And better is so easy with benefiber. Fiber thats tastefree, gritfree and dissolves completely. So you can feel free to add it to anything. 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Soon, the worlds most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy. Multiply that across over a thousand locations, and theyll provide the same benefit to the environment as over 60,000 trees. Thats a trend we can all get behind. I reckon a storms a bruin. Reckon so. Reckon you gotta hotel . I reckon, no. Reckon priceline express deals can get you a great deal. Wherever you. Mosey. You reckon . We reckon. Vamonos priceline express deals. S a. Theres a new development in the hunt for malaysian Airlines Flight. Major marks is standing by to join us live. Lets go to the search itself. Investigators are focused on either a northern track stretching from northern thailand to the border of kazakhstan or southern arc that spans from indonesia to the vast indian ocean. Lets go to our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. Which do you think is more likely . Wolf, officially they are looking at both, no question about that. Lets look at the northern track first. Every u. S. Official i have spoken to raises questions about the logic of the northern track. Technically possible but realistically, this is an area where the u. S. Military and Intelligence Community has a good deal of satellite and radar coverage because they watch for Ballistic Missile launches. They have gone through everything one more time, looked at all of their data and the u. S. Has not spotted any indication of a crash. What about the countries in the region . They all have radars and different capabilities and different types of radars. There are radar gaps on the ground but its it likely that te plane could have flown into a radar gap, crossed a border and possibly crossed other borders undetected and nobody would have noticed . The u. S. Firmly believes we are told that if a court knew it had crashed in their territory, they would have said something about it. So theres a good deal of just practical skepticism about the northern track, wolf. So how much search is being done in the southern part of the indian ocean . Exactly as you said, this is about to change. They have searched the northern area. Very tough. The australians are going to take that over for the u. S. The uss kidd is going to move on to its regular duties but a u. S. Navy p8 is going to stay behind and base out of perth, australia. And the reason is, that aircraft will be able to cover that open water much more quickly, much more efficiently than the ship and if it spots a debris field, get to it more quickly. In fact, earlier today the p8 and kidd responded to a scene earlier because they thought something was there. Barbara starr, thank you so much. 26 nations are involved in looking for the missing airliner. But the navy is about to change its role in that effort. Joining us on the phone is commander marks aboard the uss blue ridge. Commander, weve been checking in with you on a daily basis. What should we make of the decision to scale back in the indian ocean . This is going to be a lot more beneficial to the operation. We looked at the situation and in consultation with the government of malaysia weve said, well, where are our assets best used and the kidd has covered as much of the andaman sea to the south and west of berma. Were not going to find anything else out there. When you have a destroyer doing 10, 15 knots at a time, thats really not the most effective platform for the entirety of the indian ocean. We got together and said, lets move a p8 down to australia, well leave our p3 in kuala lumpur. That way we get 1,000 nautical searching at a time. So this is much more effective. There a lot of islands in the indian ocean. Have you looked at any of those Little Islands . Well, thats partially why we made this move to better cover the area. Really no one has looked to the south very much. Like i said, the andaman sea is completely covered and searched by now. Well still have our p3 flying west and northwest. Moving the p8 down to australia in the perth area is really going to give us that coverage that we need. It will fly 1,000, 1200 nautical miles out and still have four hours on station search time and be able to fly back. That area is really where we need our focus. I have a question from jim sciutto for you. Commander marks, the p8 is a new air frame down there with remarkable surveillance capabilities. Can you describe how that works in searching a size as large as the indian ocean . Sure. The p8 is the very latest in our technology. Its a significant upgrade over the p8 and its the most advanced type of the plane in the world right now. Its 20 faster and can fly at 500 knots compared to 420 for the p3. It gives you more search time. And in terms of the radar coverage and software technology, simply a huge leap into the next generation. I have flown on a p8 recently. Its better communication, software, overall a world class airplane that will help out. As you know, commander, the flight data recorder, the voice recorder has a life span they emit some pings for 30 days. So maybe 20 days left or so. What are you doing, what can you do to see if you can hear any of those pings given the depth of the indian ocean, for example, nearly 13,000 feet. The black box still remains a mystery and where will it be if anyone even finds it. The indian ocean is an extremely deep body of water. So if it is submerged, who knows about that. If it is on the surface, a lot of aircraft, not just the u. S. , but many can pick up that beacon signal. Its a matter of getting close enough. The real challenge is the huge expanse of water. I keep saying, if you superimposed a map of the u. S. On here , it would be like tryig to find anyone between new york and california. So thats the challenge here. We have amazing, dedicated air crew. Its just a matter of how much area we can search. Are you and the men of the women in the United States navy, commander, working under the assumption that this was not some kind of catastrophic, mechanical failure, that this was a deliberate act for whatever reason . You know, thats a great question. Its kind of like a mystery in a movie and seeing it go by. The bottom line is, it doesnt matter. We train for this all year round. Well do 800 exercises every year with 36 countries in the region just so when this happens we can immediately step in, we have the relationship already, we can communicate and we can execute the plan. It doesnt matter what happens. Commander William Marks of the United States navy seventh fleet, commander, well check back with you tomorrow. Thanks very much for all of your help. Youre welcome. Thank you. Coming up, a new timeline raising new questions about the airliners disappearance. Well have a minutebyminute reconstruction of the planes mysterious flight and well map the search area for you showing how massive it is and why searchers have no other choice. Stay with us. Youre in the situation room. So our business can be on at ts network for 175 a month . Yup. All 5 of you for 175. Our clients need a lot of attention. Theres unlimited talk and text. Were working deals all day. You get 10 gigabytes of data to share. What about expansion potential . Add a line, anytime, for 15 a month. Low dues, great terms. Lets close new at t mobile share value plans our best value plans ever for business. [ chainsaw whirring ] humans sometimes life trips us up. Sometimes we trip ourselves up. And although the mistakes may seem to just keep coming at you, so do the solutions. Like multipolicy discounts from Liberty Mutual insurance. Save up to 10 just for combining your auto and home insurance. Call Liberty Mutual insurance at. [ thump ] to speak with an Insurance Expert and ask about all the personalized savings available for when you get married, move into a new house, or add a car to your policy. Personalized coverage and savings. All the things humans need to make our world a little less imperfect. Call. And ask about all the ways you could save. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . 11 days after flight 370 disappeared with 239 people on board, searchers are looking in a vast and seemingly impossible area. The timeline is critical to narrow that search and find out what happened. Slowly information has been trickling out to enable experts to piece together a step by step account of the airliners disappearance. Suzanne malveaux has been looking into this part of the story. What are you finding out . Wolf, new details came out this morning revealed a clearer timeline for the first hour of the flight. This dramatically alters what we know about the missing planes his ste mysterious journey. 12 41, Malaysia Flight 370 takes off from malaysia to cue akuala lumpur. One of the planes sends a final transmission. The on board computer is called acars. It measures information about the pilots performance and sends information via satellite. Its due to transmit again at 1 37 a. M. But never does. 1 19 a. M. , someone inside the cockpit, believed to be the copilot, provides the last verbal communication with air Traffic Controllers. His last words all right, good night. Its a common goodbye to controllers after being handed off. At 12 1 a. M. , the transponderer which identifies the plane to civilian radar goes off, critical information like the flights plane number, height, speed, and heading are all cut off. This happens at the same time the plane is supposed to check in with air Traffic Control in vietnam. 1 30 a. M. , Authorities Say all civilian radars lose contact with the plane altogether. Then it appears to go through erratic altitude changes. Perhaps as high as 45,000 feet above the approved altitude. 2 15 a. M. , malaysian military radar last detects the plane off malaysias west coast, hundreds of miles off coast but it went unnoticed until the following day. 6 30 a. M. Night 370 is due to land in beijing. A commercial satellite orbiting more than 22,000 miles above earth makes electronic connections with the plane known as handshakes. At 8 11 a. M. , more than seven hours after takeoff, the last connection. Using the angle of the satellite, investigators are able to draw two big arcs where they believe the plane could travel. One of those paths spans from indonesia to the indian ocean. The second goes from northern air sha to northern thailand. By land and by sea involving 26 countries. Looking for the missing flight. And although weve got considerably more details, theres a major question that remains unanswered. This is a timeline thats been changing day by day, wolf, and sometimes hourbyhour. I suspect there will be more changes as we learn more. Suzanne, very good report. Thank you. Weve all seen maps showing curve lines stretching north and south of what is thought to be the last known location. Those lines dont necessarily show potential flight paths. Instead, they show how large that search area is. Lets go to cnns tom foreman who is in our virtual studio to clear up some of the confusion and uncertainty about the vast search area. Tom, go ahead. We bring in our map here and what we really know, we keep saying this, we know the plane took off about a week and a half ago, flew for less than an hour and disappeared up here. After that, everything is based upon these satellite readings and possibilities of what might have happened. Search areas have been built upon this sort of information. Its been extrapolated earlier and we have those areas, one heading north, one heading south of where it might be. How could it keep moving out there and not be noticed in any way . This route that were talking about down here, once you head into malaysia, theres nowhere to land if it had landed, people would know about it and theyd be talking about it. Maybe radar missed it. If you look at the northern possibility here, if it were going somewhere up around this arc, look at the countries involved, vietnam, cambodia, thailand, my nanmar. Somebodys radar may have picked it up but its a lot spottier, some of the area is not manned particularly well and some of the governments are not going to share a lot of information if it compromises the Bigger Picture of their own security. So thats another way it could have kept flying and not be noticed. The idea of it being hidden in plain sight, this theory is out there but thats one of the reasons that people are talking about it. The idea that what if this plane somehow slipped into the shadow of a different plane . What if it were able to essentially slide in behind another existing airline, one that did have its transponders on, that was being tracked and it hid out there and effectively in terms of radar created one dot on the radar field that looked a little bigger than unusual but didnt really stand out that much . And in that way they managed to slip through. Again, this is sort of an outlandish theory and pilots say it would be very hard to pull off but most of this would be hard to pull off and in the absence of any other evidence besides the point that it disappeared, wolf, these are the things that authorities are having to consider. Tom foreman, thank you. Could the Malaysian Airliner have disguised its path by hiding behind another plane . Lets bring in jim sciutto and steven wallace, Safety Consultant and former direct for of accident investigation and cnn Law Enforcement analyst, tom fuentes. Steven, what about that shadowing theory . Is that at all realistic . I think not. Its of course, with the transponder off, the other plane may not detect it but thats about as far out there as anything weve heard in the last ten days. I have to agree with steven. If the transponder is off, it would still get some blip. The other thing that happened is air Traffic Control would have asked that aircraft if they hear any emergency beacons going off. What if it was flying at 35,000 feet, the normal route, lets say singapore airlines, flying from the far east to middle east, going into an area, would those countries necessarily have paid attention to a huge 777 like this . It would have been off its track. So air Traffic Control would have alerted somebody and said, were missing an airplane. When the airplane goes off of its prescribed track, you have to tell somebody about that and if the airplane did go off, air Traffic Control in malaysia or vietnam or any other countries it would have potentially gone over, they would have been looking for it. They apparently flew over malaysia. A big chunk of populated malaysia and nobody scrambled jets or did anything. But the malaysians saw it on the radar. We had the radar. Maybe they didnt notice and focus on what it was. But you know, again, this entire investigation characterized by shifting and sketchy evidence and like this business that were hearing it went to different altitudes, 45,000 feet which is a couple thousand feet higher than its certified to nye at. Where did that come from . So tom, let me play a clip. This is from mike mccaul. He was on cnns new day. He said this intriguing comment. Somebody did change the Flight Program from its original flight pattern. Thats very significant. Thats not just an accident that happens. And there are a couple of Unanswered Questions about these iranians who got on the plane with stolen passports. The interpolice were not contacted with respect to that. All right. So all of a sudden the chairman of the House Homeland Security committee is wellbriefed by the intelligence committee, hes raising the possibility that these two young iranians who boarded that flight with these stolen passports s that credible . Because i thought that had already been discounted . Well, i think it would be something that would need to be looked at because you have this mysterious guy who allegedly gave both of those pass worth numbers to the travel agency when he booked the tickets for him. He books the tickets with stolen documents and gets them into their hands, the stolen passports and at that point if hes giving them free tickets might he have said, carry this package for me, put this in your checked luggage and carry it. It could be a box of stolen passports delivered to be somebody else, could be explosives, narcotics, you dont know. Thats still a mystery and a lot of investigation needs to be done in thailand with that travel agency with this man. They were at two different places with thailand, a beach resort town. The tickets were purchased in another town of thailand and paid in thailand currency. When i heard the chairman of the House Homeland Committee talking about these two iranians, i thought that was discounted. What are you hearing from your sources . They ran these names by the u. S. Terror database. They didnt find any matches with the two iranians and presumably theyve done this with the flight crew and others but we hear a lot of refocusing and attention focused on other characters. Because they dont have answers they are going back to see if there are some things that they have missed. They have to. They havent gotten to the bottom of this and they are doing that for a whole host of people who touched or had contact with that plane. To be continued. Guys, thanks very, very much. Up next, Police Search both pilots homes looking for precious clues about what the men were thinking and doing. Plus, the broader question about who makes sure the pilot of your next flight is fit to fly . Plus, were hearing from the families and the friends of the people on board. Remember, there were 239 people aboard Malaysian Airliner. Were going to see how they are coping with all of this uncertainty. [ woman 1 ] why do i cook . Because an empty pan is a blank canvas. [ woman 2 ] to share a moment. [ woman 3 ] to travel the World Without leaving home. [ male announcer ] whatever the reason. Whatever the dish. Make it delicious with swanson. [ male announcer ] whatever the reason. Whatever the dish. Phone your account is already paid in full. Oh, well in that case, back to vacation mode. Boots and pants and boots and pants and boots and pants and boots and pants and boots and pants. Voiceenabled bill pay. Just a tap away on the geico app. Huh, 15 minutes could save you 15 or more on Car Insurance. Yup, Everybody Knows that. Well, did you know that some owls arent that wise. Dont forget about im having brunch with meagan tomorrow. Who . Seriously, you met her like three times. Who . Geico. You really love, what would you do . [ woman ] id be a writer. [ man ] id be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] id be an architect. What if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you . When you think about it, isnt that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love . Malaysian officials now have materials from the homes of both pilots from flight 370. They are looking for clues as to what both men were thinking and doing in the hours leading up to the flight. Brian todd has been looking at how airlines keep tabs on their pilots mental state. They are likely looking for any clues on the pilots lives which might indicate a problem. We looked at the psychological and emotional screening that commercial pilots get and if there are any gaps in the system. They are a focus of the investigation. Their homes have been searched but so far there is nothing in the background of the pilots to suggest any wrongdoing. Still, everyone in the cockpit undergoes routine psychological tests. Going forward we will review all of this and see whether we can strengthen the various entry requirements. Reporter current pilots tell us the screening depends on the airline and governoring body. Les says his airline asks questions about his personality. Do you like your mother, do you hate your father, you know, things of that nature. You know, have you ever harmed a small animal. Reporter abend says some Airlines Interview the pilots friends. Many u. S. Based airlines go above and beyond what is requirement required by the government. They cant fly if theyve got bipolar disorder or similar problems. Some medications are bad. But some pilots say they dont always get asked about psychological issues and its often up to pilots to report those and to report any medications they are taking. If he or she doesnt self report, what happens . If you dont selfreport, its gone unnoticed. Typically what happens is if you have an issue, one of your crew members might recognize Something Like that. Reporter do the airlines check on pilots to see if anythings come up in their personal lives that might cause concern, financial problems, maybe a worrisome illness in the family . The short answer is if you miss a trip for a particular reason reporter ache said that if they started doing that, privacy issues would be raised. Does this mean that theres gap in the system. Pilots for the most part are very mentally stable, very determined, very professional. I dont think that youre going to need or have to have the criteria tightened up. Reporter mark weiss also points out that many commercial pilots come straight to those jobs from the military where theyve already gotten military psychological screening. Pilots normally would try to keep the most sensitive and personal information hidden from their bosses. They have an incentive to do that. If a pilot comes out and says, hey, i need treatment for depression or im getting treatment for depression, the faa can pull the certificates and there goes his career. One pilot said that he knew of another pilot who sought treatment for depression for eight or nine months and he never told the airline and so no one ever knew. Brian todd, thank you. Were following the latest news on the search for flight 370. We now have some video showing the pilots as you saw going through security in an hourlong special report that begins in just a few minutes. Well also have the latest clues into what happened after the pilots final message. Also, new suspicions about when the final transmission came. Is it just coincidence that it happened when ground stations may not have been watching . You have time to shop for Car Insurance today . Yeah. I heard about progressives name your price tool . I guess you can tell them how much you want to pay and it gives you a range of options to choose from. Huh . Im looking at it right now. Oh, yeah . Yeah. Whats the. Guest room situation . The name your price tool, making the world a little more progressive. Ido more with less with buless energy. Hp is helping ups do just that. Soon, the worlds most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy. Multiply that across over a thousand locations, and theyll provide the same benefit to the environment as over 60,000 trees. Thats a trend we can all get behind. Were monitoring all the latest developments in the search for the missing airliner, but were also watching developments in the biggest crisis with russia since the breakup of the soviet union. Today the United States and europe announced economic sanctions to punish several dozen people involved in russias attempt to take over ukraines province of crimea. Didnt stop the russian president Vladimir Putin from signing a decree recognizing crimeas independence from ukraine. Lets bring in jim acosta, hes got the very latest. Reporter wolf, this is a real low point in u. S. russian relations since the end of the cold war and it looks like it will get worse. Today president obama warned russia the sanctions announced by the u. S. And those from the European Union could be ramped up. The first round of sanctions this morning targeting aides to Vladimir Putin and top russian officials as well as former ukrainian president viktor yanukovych. As for that referendum over the weekend, officials are all but calling it a fraud pointing to premarked ballots that came into various polling stations during the voting. But president obama said theres still a way out of this crisis for putin. We can calibrate our response based on whether russia chooses to escalate or deescalate the wag situation. I believe theres a way to deescalate this situation. That includes russia pulling its forces in crimea back to their bases, supporting the deployment of additional monitoring in ukraine and engaging in dialogue with the ukrainian government. How did putin respond to all that . The kremlin said putin has signed the decree recognizing crimea as an independent republic. That could be the next step to annexation, Something White house officials said they wont recognize. As for how the u. S. Might respond, officials are not ruling out sanctions on putin himself, the oligarchs in russia and supplying ukraine with military aid. That was not knocked down at the briefing earlier today. How do we know if the russian president is taking any of this seriously . Reporter that appears to be the big question. Hes not taken the off ramp as officials like to call it. Hed rather take crimea. Senior Administration Officials putin may announce his own sanctions against u. S. Targets tomorrow. No word yet who those u. S. Targets or what they might be. The russian president is expected to give a speech to the Russian Parliament tomorrow, something well all be watching. Certainly will. Jim acosta at the white house. Dramatic developments unfolding there. Coming up our special onehour edition of the situation room. Were following flight 370 and a significant change coming in the search area. Plus the disturbing new questions about the missing planes pilots. 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And ask us all about our auto features, like guaranteed repairs, where if you get into an accident and use one of our certified repair shops, your repairs are guaranteed for life. So call. To talk with an Insurance Expert about everything that comes standard with our base auto policy. And if you switch, you could save up to 423. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . Happening now, breaking news on the mystery of the Malaysian Airline flight 370. Increased alert, israel taking action as concern about the missing plane grows. Were live in jerusalem with details of new terror fears. Caught on camera, two men believed to be the pilot and the copilot passing through airport security. What will searches of their homes reveal . Holding out hope. The partner of one of the three americans on the plane says shes convinced hes still alive. She talks to cnn about the excruciating wait for information. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. The search for the malaysian Airlines Flight 370 is now in its 11th day, and as new information trickles out the mystery of what happened to the 777 and the 239 people on board only getting deeper. More than two dozen countries are now taking part in efforts to try to locate the plane which disappeared on an overnight flight to beijing, but the task is monumental with the last possible known location believed to be somewhere between the southern indian ocean and central asia. Cnn is putting our unmatched resources op this story with our correspondents covering all angles. Lets get straight to jerusalem and nick robertson. The flight 370, the mystery prompting israel, i understand, to take action. What is israel doing right now . Reporter wolf, israel has put its air Traffic Controllers at bengurion international airport, its main air Traffic Control facility. Its put them on a higher state of alert, it has told them to implement the checks that they do more rigorously, and they should follow the detail and follow the letter, if you will, of an implementation of all the procedures that they would normally follow. Theyre saying that the procedures remain the same, but theyre going to check them and that theyre going to follow them much more closely, and the reason for this is they want to be able to identify aircraft while they are further away from israel so that the air Traffic Controllers know that there can be no incoming threat from a plane that is misidentified, semiidentified or perhaps doesnt have its identification beacon on, as is the case with mh370. Israel taking concrete steps. Lets be very clear about this. The air Traffic Controllers in so many countries around the world are in many ways a first line of defense against what could potentially be a civil airliner full of passengers coming towards that country with a potentially bad intent. Theyre in the front line of security for their countries, wolf. The statement coming from the Israeli Transportation Ministry very significant. Im going to bring jim sciutto into this as well. This is the statement from the spokesman for the israel Transportation Ministry in the security room where we identify every plane that enters the state of israel a notification went out to increase the alertness to a level which is higher than the usual. There are rules that are in place before a plane enters israeli air space. The procedures have not changed, but they are being applied more closely. There is more implementation of checks than are required to be done. Jim sciutto, this sounds like a precautionary measure by the israelis if in fact this missing Malaysian Airliner did land someplace, would be refueled, the israelis could fear this plane could head towards israel. No question. You and i have flown to israel a number of times. No country in the world that has more strict security than the israelis do on the ground and in the air. Ive been speaking to people on capitol hill, theyre considering steps to increase security here, not necessarily immediately because the concern about this plane coming this direction today, but to prevent commandeering a plane. You have countries looking at this now and how theyll respond. Back to jerusalem and Nic Robertson. As we see this, what the israelis are doing, is it just out of an abundance of caution or based on what youre hearing over there, do they really fear this plane potentially could be someplace and could be sort of a guided missile, if you will, down the road . Reporter wolf, it seems to be potentially part of what youre saying, that there is a potential that they cannot rule out because there isnt adequate information about mh370, but it is therefore an abundance of caution in this case, but a realization of the fact that there is potentially a threat that hadnt been considered before a civilian airliner full of passengers unidentified in the air, and thats of a concern that this could be a new threat in the future. Aviation experts have sat down over a number of days considered the implications of what were learning about this flight in malaysia, and have come to these can conclusions, what we understand as well is that there is a longer list of security steps and measures but for security reasons those are not being made public. Sop its being given a huge amount of consideration, a lot of weight here. Again, recognizing that whatever happens with mh370, whatevers discovered, there is now the potential for a threat that perhaps hadnt been adequately considered before, wolf. Nic robertson reporting on the latest news coming out of israel, stepping up its own security, fearful potentially that this airliner or others could be headed towards israel. Well stay on top of this. Nic, thanks very much. Lets go to jim sciutto. Lets take a look at the investigation, where it stands right now. No question, speaking to intelligence officials and other u. S. Officials involved in this investigation this would normally be the time you would be narrowing down your targets but in fact the opposite is happening, theyre expanding their targets of inquiry first of all on the possible people involved in this. First, you know, no cussing on the two people in the cockpit but now ten people in the flight crew, 227 passengers and even more than that, folks who have access to that plane on the ground, cleaning crews, baggage handlers, you name it. But lets look at the search area that is expanding as well. People have become familiar with this arc, where that last satellite contact here. They dont know where but somewhere in that arc. Lets look at the indian ocean. Imagine a map of the continental United States fitting here. Thats the kind of area youre talking about, very deep ocean, very remote. A difficult place to search. You have u. S. Assets going there now including airplanes precisely because they have greater range than the ships have previously. But this is where you have a whole other dynamic that comes to play, the geopolitics of this region. More than 14 countries on this path here from Southeast Asia all the way up to central asia, kazakhstan, tajikistan, tibet a, a dozen countries and rivalries among those as well. Why is that important . They dont want to expose their capabilities to each other, their radar capabiliabilitcapab. Z countries dont want to show they have too much capability or in fact reveal they have less coverage than their adversaries might have imagined. Thats the worry here. Yesterday you had the Chinese Government say to the malaysian government please release more detailed info. The malaysian government is sensitive to chinas influence here, theyre a little embarrassed this plane flew through three radar coverage zones without any jet being scrambled. That politics plays a part. Theres concern there wont be as much sharing in the investigation as there should be. Keep in mind, the u. S. Is involved in this power struggle in the region as well with china and a lot of the assets that were sending out there, that the u. S. Is sending out there have to some degree china in mind, including that p8, that poseidon aircraft that will be searching down in the southern part of the ocean here. Theres a reason why that capability is in asia now and thats in fact to look at china. Everybody is watching everybody else, what they have and dont have. And that u. S. Aircraft will be based in perth, australia. Looking for anything that could be debris or anything else. Thanks very much, jim sciutto will be back with us. If someone wanted to make a plane disappear, theyll do it when no one else is watching. Thats when flight 370 vanished during a brief void in contact with air Traffic Control. Rene marsh, what are you finding out . Well, let me go to rene in a moment, but barbara starr, youre getting new information right now on this search that the u. S. Is now apparently scaling back at least as far as ships are concerned. Well, they are taking the uss kidd out of there as we chatted about because they simply feel that the p8 aircraft out of australia will provide much more coverage and be able to get to any debris field much more quickly. And that was proven earlier today when they responded to a possible debris field but it turned out to be a false alarm, but they can get there more quickly. No way a u. S. Navy ship was going to stay there forever. The search in the southern indian ocean very wide open, hundreds of thousands of miles of open ocean and the aircraft will do much better efficiently getting to that part of the search. As for the northern track, wolf. I have to tell you that the u. S. Military, the u. S. Intelligence community has once again scoured all of their satellite data, all of their radar data because they have pretty good coverage up there. The u. S. Watches constantly for any kind of Missile Launch for china, pakistan, kazakhstan. They know whats going on up there. The u. S. Military, the u. S. Intelligence community has not seen any indication of any kind of crash landing of a 777. They simply dont see it. And they feel that they would. Could the plane have landed . Thats the next question. You asked about it being potentially taking off again as a guided missile in some sort of terrorist attack. Weve asked about that. And Officials Say you would have to assume then theres a large runway and a refueling capability and an ability to repair the plane. That calls into question whether thered be some kind of International Conspiracy here, not something the u. S. Thinks is very realistic. They got to err on the side of caution on every conceivable contingenc contingency. Barbara, stand by. I want our viewers to hear what the spokesman for the u. S. Navys seventh fleet told me just a little while ago. The kidd and its helicopters have covered as much of the andaman sea as we can. We feel weve searched that area just to the west and south of burma. Were not going to find anything out there, we think. When you have a destroyer out there doing 10, 15 knots at a time, thats really not the most effective platform for the entirety of the indian ocean. So we said we got together, we said lets move a p8 down to australia, well leave our p3 in kuala lumpur. This is actually much more effective. Commander William Marks of the u. S. Navys seventh fleet speaking with me just a little while ago. Once again, if someone wanted to make a plane disappear while no one was watching, there would be some ways of trying to do that. Lets bring in rene marsh. We have our 777 here. Jets like this, they are flying very long distances theyre passed from one air Traffic Control center to the next and sometimes it Takes Minutes before a plane makes radio contact with the next set of controllers. So could someone on board flight 370 have taken advantage of this gap in responsibility and disappear when no one was looking . 1 19 a. M. Malaysian Authorities Say the copilot signs off with Malaysian Air Traffic Control. All right, good night, he says. Its a common signoff as one plane is being handed off to the next controller. This time in vietnam. All i could tell was it was a routine operation from the time that they said goodbye to the last controller. Reporter heres how a similar handoff sounds in the United States. But whats different with malaysian flight 370 is the pilot never contacted the next controller in vietnam, which should have happened moments later. Instead, the planes transponder used to track it goes off at 1 21 and a Data Transmission at 1 37 doesnt happen. If you are trying to disappear, this would be a time where, again, the vietnamese controllers expecting you but doesnt know exactly when youre going to show up and that controller doesnt yet have responsibility for you. So youre in this kind of no mans land where nobody has clear responsibility for you. Could whoever was in control of the plane use this gap in responsibility to try and disappear . Perhaps, but some experts see the potential of a mechanical failure. They may have started to shut things down because of an electrical fire. An electrical fire is a nightmare. It requires a process that none of us ever want to go through. Youre shutting certain things down to isolate the problem. Malaysian authorities dont know when the planes acars system, which beams down information about the health of the plane, stopped working. The acars lost acars transmission at 1 07. We dont know when it was switched off after that. In a normal flight acars should have transmitted information about how the plane was flying, engine data, fuel burn and any maintenance discrepancies, pilots say its abnormal to voluntarily shut acars off. And we also learned today from malaysian authorities, they have not found any evidence from any Telephone Company that anyone on board was trying to call or text out, but they say theyre still checking into those phone records. There are millions of them. A lot of people are looking for those, too. Rene, stand by. I want to bring in peter bergen, our cnn aviation analyst and the former ntsb managing director, jim sciutto is with us and Richard Quest from new york. That report at the top of the hour we heard from Nic Robertson where out of a measure of prudence the israelis are beefing up their air Defense System worried potentially that maybe this airliner is on the ground someplace, could be refueled and flown towards israel as sort of a missile. How serious should the israelis and other countries be . Theyre paid to worry about these kinds of things. They have the best security of any airline out there. Its puzzling to me if this is a terrorist event theres been no claim of responsibility. The groups that either have capability or intentions of doing this really dont have the capabilities to get something as sophisticated as this done, the local al qaeda affiliate wouldnt, i dont think, target a Malaysian Airlines. Theyre likely to target a western airline. And chinese uighurs that have been mentioned their previous attempts at hijacking have been incompetent. From your sources are you hearing that the u. S. Has taken sort of new steps to beef up its air Defense Security . Not . Response to this but after 9 11 u. S. Sir veil ens and identification measures are very severe, some of the best in the world. They may already have a higher standard than some. Israel is always the first, i think to take the most severe standards because of the nature of the threat to them. At this point the u. S. Has not taken any new measures in response to this. Could this airliner have flown on that northern route over these countries in central asia, sort of just trying to blend in with other commercial airliners and not be detected by any of these countries . I think that would be very difficult because you would have to either drop down to such a low altitude that people would see you. Even if it went down to 5,000 feet, as one of the malaysian newspapers suggested is, radar could still detect that aircraft. And people would hear and see you and the fuel burn would be much higher. It would limit their distance. Thats a hard thing, a commercial airliner, trying to blend in that way. Youd have to be a very good pilot. It might set off tcass alerts on the lead plane. A very challenging event. Richard, for a pilot to do that, to blend in sort of shadow another commercial airliner and pretend that the radar, whatever signals that are being emitted are coming from one plane as opposed to two, that would be an extremely sophisticated maneuver. It would be so sophisticated, it would be so challenging, what method are the yyou going to us actually follow this aircraft . Anything you do, any of the normal mechanisms of radar or coms or anything at all that you would use to follow them would naturally be picked up by somebody else. The tcass, that you cant switch on your responder to find him because his tcrass, the emergency avoidance system would light up like a christmas tree. You cant switch on your acars. Your radar will be extremely limited. At any moment you might fly into a fog bank or cloud. While its a deliciously enticing theory, it doesnt bear scrutiny in the cold light of facts. Now, possible . Maybe. Probable . Unlikely. Peter, what bothers me is this boeing 77 apparently flew over very Populated Areas of malaysia and the Malaysian Air force didnt scramble jet fighters, didnt do anything as far as we know, right . Thats the question. They were tracking it on primary radar which can occasionally, particularly at the outer limits, be unreliable, but naes the question. How did it come back over the island without anyone being alerted. When youve had those incidents where a private pilot takes a left turn anywhere near washington, d. C. And everything lights up like a red alert. You know thats a measure of where the u. S. Is in terms of unidentified flying aircraft. Here you have an aircraft crossing one, two, three separate military radar zones. Rene, you reported this notion of a pilot deliberately shutting down that socalled acars system, theres no real reason to ever do that, right . Absolutely no real reason. And just to talk a little bit about that switchoff point going from one air space to the next and whether thats the best time to disappear if you wanted to, you know, i spoke some time with some experts and they say in the United States within five minutes they would know that a plane is missing and not where its supposed to be, however it gets a little ambiguous when it gets to certain area, certain regions where youre talking about being over water and in between countries. You may be out of radar contact, you may be out of Radio Communications so that possibility of maybe not picking up within five minutes that this plane is missing, thats possible. But in this case an expert says within 15 to 20 minutes someone should have realized something was wrong. This case all the suspicious stuff happened when they were in this sort of nomans land between Malaysian Air space and Vietnamese Air space and the copilot or whoever was in the cockpit says all right, good night. I guess the Malaysian Air Traffic Controllers, peter, they just went to sleep. They werent there. They should have sparked and said, where is Malaysian Air flight why hasnt it checked in . And the company should have sparked. The piece to that, also, is the transponder went off after all right, good night. So it would make it really difficult for the Vietnamese Air space to even be able to begin to identify on their radar who is this person because they cut off their identifier. Stand by because theres a lot more to dissect. Still ahead, malaysian officials reveal new information about flight 370 and their investigation. Were about to go live to kuala lumpur. Were also in beijing where the partner of one of the three missing americans is speaking out in an emotional interview with cnn. Why shes convinced hes still alive. 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Make a my financial priorities appointment today. Thats a little better, right . Now, see i love this neighborhood. Trulia says the schools are excellent. I like it. Must see. Well, that was a bust. Mnh. Its three bedrooms. I found a great new listing. Little busy here. Nice. Uh huh. This ones open right now. Lets check it out. Its the agent. They accepted. Shut up were getting a new house what . They accepted. Owww. [ male announcer ] that moment when it all comes together. Thats your moment of trulia. Download the free trulia app today. To our north american viewers, crossfire wont be seen tonight so we can bring you more of our special report of the mystery of flight 370. Malaysian officials are giving new information about their investigation into the disappearance of the flight even as they face sharp criticism over their handling of this mystery and conflicting information that theyve been giving out. Cnns Andrew Stevens is joining us from kuala lumpur, the capital of malaysia. Whats the latest youre getting over there . Reporter well, the facts remain, wolf, very few and far between. What weve learned in the past 24 hours is it was the copilot who signed off, the all right, good night, line. But that has been compounding the confusion because the malaysians are now saying, apparently backtracking on the timeline cockpit, they cant establish whether the pilot actually said that after things had started to change in the cockpit. Thats what were being led to believe by the malaysian government. If they cant stab that, that casts some doubt over whether it was a deliberate move to turn that plane back across malaysia or perhaps it was a mechanical failure. If the pilots were still in control after they signed is off whatever happened after that event. Weve been working on the assumption that something was happening before the pilots made that signoff. Thats significant. Just adds to the mystery. The facts are few and far between. Theyre still looking at the simulator or three days on now. We dont know what was on that simulator which was at the home of the pilot. The background checks continue. There was a Civil Aviation engineer on that flight and as far as the search is concerned, 26 countries are now involved in this search, 11 countries over land getting reports about radar sightings or nonsightings, the indian ks and the pakistanis saying they havent seen anything. Still waiting for more information on that. The malaysians are saying that they are getting cooperation with the countries involved in the search and the planes potential overflight. At this stage we dont know to what degree. Are they giving up sensitive radar satellite information to them thats track this plane. Weve seen video of the two pilots going through security to board the airliner, the boeing 777. There you see the video theyre going through some security checks. They have not released the actual video of the Malaysian Airlinerin