>> ten days of searching and still no sign. we begin with malaysian flight 370. >> 26 countries continue to search for the missing plane. >> missing for more than a week now and with questions growing. >> in what is a criminal probe. >> i wish to be very clear. >> we have no wreckage. we have no evidence of a crash. >> we are still investigating all possibilities. >> nothing is off the table. >> the search effort has now been extended into two corridors. >> this is a vast expanse. 28 million square miles. >> we begin with day 10. >> ten days. >> missing for more than a week now. and with questions growing. >> now to the crisis in ukraine. >> ukraine. >> ukraine. >> ukraine. >> ukraine. >> parliament today was work overtime. >> crimea's parliament declared the region an independent state. >> then decided to appeal directly to russia. >> i believe there's still a path to resolve this situation diplomatically. >> president obama's comments today on the crisis in ukraine. >> the first on-camera reaction from president obama. >> i'm authorizing sanctions on russian officials. >> announcing sanctions on seven russian officials. >> these sanctions are interesting. they're dramatic. >> does putin know his own end game? >> do we know the end game? >> or is he just making it up as he goes along? >> where do we go from here? there are some really big questions looming. >> we are imposing sanctions. we're making it clear there are consequences for their actions. good evening to you. i am ari melber in for lawrence o'donnell. we begin with breaking news on malaysia airlines flight 370. "the new york times" is reporting tonight that the plane's first turn that divert td from its original flight path was "carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the plane's cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems." that's according to senior u.s. officials. now, 26 nations are now involved in the official hunt for malaysia airlines flight 370, a mission that enters its 11th day. of course with many mysteries remaining. there's still no defined search area. instead investigators are focused on this large area over a whole lot of land and water. an area stretching above and below the equator. areas the plane might have crossed while making its last satellite transmission. we do know investigators believe the disappearance was a deliberate act. that means it wouldn't be an accident. but there is still far more theory than fact in this ongoing mystery. today officials indicated they're investigating whether whoever was piloting the jetliner after it went missing might have used something called terrain masking. that's a process of flying below 5,000 feet to avoid any kind of radar detection. that type of flying, however, is extremely dangerous. it can cause not only extreme sickness on board but also put severe stress and levels of force on a boeing 777. malaysian police have also removed a homemade flight simulator from one of the pilots' residences. they searched over the weekend. that's another attempt to mine clues that are of course far from the official search area for this missing plane. the simulator's mere existence like a lot of details about this pilot doesn't shed much light automatically on the incident. but speculation and misinformation has abounded on a story like this one. and that's partly because it -- well, it grips so much of the world. and if you get your news from browsing tabloids online you may have seen a lot of speculation about one of the pilots' politics. he reportedly backed malaysia's opposition leader anwar ibrahim. so some new headlines have been declaring that the pilot's views were fanatical. and others asked whether those views could have actually driven us to a hijacking. well, for that kind of case you would of course have to prove a hijacking occurred. and that scenario has not been confirmed in any way at this point. in fact, foreign affairs journalist william dobson added some useful context to all of this writing in slate that malaysia's opposition leader actually is trying to defeat malaysia's authoritarian regime through elections, not terrorism, let alone revolution, and to be clear, "what we know is that the pilot of this plane is a fanatical supporter of a non-violent man who supports a pluralistic and democratic malaysia." moreover friends of the pilot tell nbc news they can't imagine their friend would take over a flight under his command. >> can you imagine him ever commandeering his own plane, putting his own passengers at risk? >> i cannot for one minute imagine him making that sort of decision. >> it just wouldn't make any sense that he would have anything to do with any sort of deliberate action on his part. >> now, for more on the search and what we do know about this timeline of flight 370 we turn to nbc news correspondent tom costello. tom? >> hi, ari. the pentagon tells us it is preparing to reduce the u.s. part of the search. the "uss kidd" will soon end search operations leaving only p-8 and p-3 planes to search massive areas of water. and with no other country finding any sign of the plane was ever on radar, the search zone is shifting now to the south. just 500 feet above the indian ocean a u.s. anti-submarine hunter today searching for any sign of flight 370. also today more contradictions from malaysian authorities. after first saying the plane's last automated data, or acars transmission, was turned off before the last cockpit radio call, suggesting pilot involvement, today authorities backtracked. >> we don't know when the acars system was restored. all we know is the last transmission and we did not receive the next transmission. >> so here's the latest timeline. at 12:41 a.m. saturday march 8th flight 370 left kuala lumpur bound for beijing. at 1:07 a.m. it transmitted its last automated data burst, called acars. the next acars transmission was scheduled for 30 minutes later. it never came. at 1:19 a.m. the co-pilot radioed "all right. good night" as malaysian air traffic controllers handed the plane over to vietnamese controllers. just two minutes after that very standard conversation, at 1:21 a.m., someone in the cockpit turned off the transponders that send speed, location, altitude, and heading information. soon after that the plane turned around. at 2:15 a.m. the last radar contact in the strait of malacca headed north. over the next six hours the plane transmitted one ping an hour to an orbiting satellite until 8:11 a.m. when the last ping was received. that puts the plane somewhere along these two arcs as far north as kazakhstan, as far south as the deep indian ocean. australia is now taking over that search zone. >> we will do our duty to the families of the 230 people on that aircraft who are still absolutely devastated. >> reporter: experts say turning off acars then the transponders then flying the 777 for hours requires expertise, which is why there's intense focus on the cockpit crew. >> what is a potential motive and what can be learned from looking deeply into the background of the pilot, the co-pilot, and anybody else on that plane that had the skill to fly it. >> reporter: meanwhile, for the family of american phillip wood, the wait is agony. >> i don't believe that the plane has been crashed. i haven't ever believed that the plane has been crashed. it just doesn't make sense to me. and i don't feel like that's the right answer. >> reporter: investigators continue to look at the backgrounds of everyone on board, including an off-duty flight engineer. but his father tells nbc news he was not a pilot, he was only a mechanic. ari? >> nbc news, tom costello. thank you very much for that report. and for more we bring in a pilot and former ntsb investigator greg feith and anthony roman, former pilot and president of roman associates, a global investigation firm. two professionals who have been on this story for us repeatedly. we thank you for that. we've got the new "new york times" report here. greg, weigh in on that for us. >> i think right now when you look at all of these stories that are coming out and these senior officials leaking this information, that's really upset the malaysians to begin with, but this information really isn't vetted. the fact that this turn was supposedly conducted or at least initiated and executed by the fms system, it could have been done also by just the autopilot head itself. the fms system is the guidance system. you program in your route of flight and in this case it would have been to beijing. it would have had to have been reprogrammed and executed for this turn to occur. the turn was only about a 20 degree bank. that would have been a standard bank rate for an automated turn, whether it's the autopilot or the fms directing the autopilot to make that change. >> so just to slow down that point because "the new york times" and several news outlets are going big with this, what you're saying is even according to the information released it wouldn't necessarily require the kind of personal diversion of the pilot? >> it will require a pilot to have intervented. they're going to have to execute the fms. they'll have to reprogram it, execute it or use the autopilot to heading select and use that system to fly the airplane. but it takes a human to do that. >> so does that make foul play less or more likely in your view? and then to anthony. >> i don't know if it's about foul play. it just says that whoever was in that cockpit guiding that airplane will to make those deliberate inputs to make that airplane turn off its course from beijing. >> well, and so anthony, the reason why i press on that -- and i appreciate the note of caution. the "times" is reporting it and everyone's looking at this story, every new shred of detail that we get, as the kind of action that whether or not you understand everything greg just said on the details, the kind of action that makes this more suspicious. >> no, i don't believe it makes it more suspicious. this type of aircraft has a very similar cockpit to automated corporate aircraft and other jet aircraft of its class and category. in this particular instance this airplane is generally flown as a matter of routine by its flight management system, and this will guide the airplane to wherever it has to go along its waypoints. now, greg is absolutely right. this could have been a manual or a semi-manual turn. either way. using the autopilot or manually turning the plane using the flight controls. however, the subsequent track that the aircraft flew following standard navigation waypoints would strongly suggest that the navigation system was reprogrammed and used during the course of this flight. >> and on that point wnyc put together a map here, and we just played of course some sound from a family member saying they believe or hope that this plane landed somehow. and on this map that we've seen here you've got 634 runways in 26 countries where technically you might have that kind of landing. what is the likelihood, though, of that? greg. >> it's very unlikely. almost impossible to even fathom. that's a large airplane. you're talking a 600 to 650,000-pound airplane. and while there may be a runway down there that can accommodate it as far as length, trying to hide that airplane or disguise it in some way once you got it on the ground would be virtually impossible. it's not like you could put it down in a jungle strip and then hide it somewhere. >> yeah, and building on that point, i want to get your thoughts, anthony, "the new york times" also contrasted this to other hijacking scenarios including 9/11, where there were cell phone or other types of communications from some of the passengers. and the "times" writes, "as far as investigators have been able to determine there have been to phone calls, twitter postings, instagram photos or any communication from anyone aboard the aircraft since it was diverted." in your view, anthony, how should we weigh that lack of evidence, so to speak? >> well, it's likely this aircraft flew above 10,000 feet. there are varying reports of it being at 5,000 feet. it would burn far too much fuel to have reached the waypoints that it reached at 5,000 feet. so based on investigative theory, we would conclude that the aircraft was at a reasonably high altitude to increase its range. jet engines burn much less fuel at higher altitudes. the cell phones just don't work above 10,000 feet, or out of sight of cell towers. now, with regard to some of the other facts involved here the cia actually back in the '80s during the cold war planned the theft of a soviet aircraft with the participation of the soviet pilot, landing it on a prepared remote air strip to steal the secret technology of the time. and they were prepped to camouflage the aircraft. so there is planning and precedent for this kind of thing. as remote as it sounds, it is a theory that has to be kept on the table up until the facts are laid out. >> yeah. and it's a theory that as we know, when you look at a story like this, with a complete question mark of this missing plane, people around the world wondering about it, families wondering about it, there's obviously an intense emotional desire to hold out any kind of hope. although as you've articulated, a lot of reasons to be wary of holding out too much hope. greg feith and anthony roman, thank you. i'm sure we'll be hearing from you again. and coming up, the last word on today's theories about flight 370's pilots. we'll keep you posted on all of that later in the hour. but first, what does vladimir putin want? we're going to look ahead to the speech he's going to give tomorrow on ukraine and crimea sanctions. and a milestone, a real one crossed in the affordable care act. all that and much more ahead. weekdays are for rising to the challenge. they're the days to take care of business. when possibilities become reality. with centurylink as your trusted partner, our visionary cloud infrastructure and global broadband network free you to focus on what matters. with custom communications solutions and responsive, dedicated support, we constantly evolve to meet your needs. every day of the week. centurylink® your link to what's next. ameriprise asked people a simple question: in retirement, will you outlive your money? uhhh. no, that can't happen. that's the thing, you don't know how long it has to last. everyone has retirement questions. so ameriprise created the exclusive.. confident retirement approach. now you and your ameripise advisor can get the real answers you need. well, knowing gives you confidence. start building your confident retirement today. the washington nationals baseball team may have broken federal law. how? simply by trying to take photos of the team during spring training in florida. the nats launched a small four-rotor helicopter drone to take publicity photos of the players. these were pictures that would have been impossible for somebody to snap otherwise. and the nats forgot one important thing. to get the required clearance from the faa. and the faa is working on regulations for these kind of drones. but in the meantime the agency has banned commercial use of them. that's partly because the faa likes to get a heads-up before new flying objects start whizzing around. as for the nats, a team official told the a.p., no, we didn't get it cleared but we don't get our pop flies cleared either and those go higher than this thing did. maybe they don't have to be good at arguing because everyone loves baseball. and up next ukraine, russia, and vladimir putin's next move. 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[ voice of dennis ] ...safe driving bonus check? every six months without an accident, allstate sends a check. silence. are you in good hands? as i told president putin yesterday, the referendum in crimea was a clear violation of ukrainian constitutions and international law. and it will not be recognized by the international community. today i'm announcing a series of measures that will continue to increase the costs on russia and on those responsible for what is happening in ukraine. i'm authorizing sanctions on russian officials, entities operating in the arms sector in russia, and individuals who provide material support to senior officials of the russian government. and if russia continues to interfere in ukraine we stand ready to impose further sanctions. >> a few hours after president obama made that statement today the kremlin made it official on their website. president vladimir putin has signed a decree recognizing crimea as a "sovereign and independent country." that follows sunday's re6r7bdum in crimea where 97% of the people voted to secede from ukraine. tomorrow morning putin will address the russian parliament where he's expected to recommend that russia formally annex crimea and there are already reports that he will outline new sanctions of his own. foreign affairs reporter josh rogan broke a story on the daily beast today that putin will actually draw up his own list of retaliatory sanctions which includes barring two u.s. senators from visiting russia. and that leaked russian maneuver finally sparked, well, some bipartisan unity on the issue in congress. dick durbin, the democrats' number two in the senate, issued an official response and he said, "my lithuanian-born mother would be proud her son made vladimir putin's american enemies list." and john mccain piped up with his trademark sense of humor adding, "i'd be honored to be on that list. i guess i'm going to have to try to withdraw my money from my secret account in st. petersburg." joining us now are steve clemons, washington editor at large for the atlantic and msnbc contributor and adrian karatnycky. adrian's a managing partner for the miramidun group which advises companies looking to enter ukraine. did i say that right? >> sort of. >> say. >> myrmidon. >> the consequences here. we've heard some talk about this being a relatively small number of individuals the u.s. is currently targeting. and there you have putin looking to do some sort of ceremonial or more blockage back. >> well, this is a sequenced set of sanctions. the u.s. has made it clear and europe has made it clear that they're going to ratchet this up as russia misbehaves and ratchets up its pressure. so this could accelerate over the course of weeks. tomorrow if he absorbs, you know, crimea into russia, that may trigger another set of sanctions. if he menaces ukraine on its eastern borders, yet another. and i think, yes, he can retaliate with some sanctions. but frankly the economy of russia is the size of italy's. it is not a world economic power. it's a relatively modest power. apart from its energy and apart from its nukes, which are very important. but let's not exaggerate what that means in terms of economic opportunity and economic clout. >> yeah. and that's an argument jay carney made today, speaking on behalf of the white house, about the fact that the russian stock market is being rocked. your point being it's not so large that can just withstand anything. steve, take a listen to what jay carney said today. >> the russian stock market has decreased as a result of the actions that have happened. the ruble has lost value as a result of this. and international investors who are looking for safe places to put their money are surely reevaluating any consideration they may give to putting their money in russia. and in russian industries and the russian economy. and those effects, those impacts will only compound as time passes and russia doesn't reverse course or engages in further provocations. >> steve, your take on the measurable impact here in russia. >> well, i think that what adrian just laid out is exactly right. that the overall size and scale of the russian economy is rather modest. i would compare it to the size of the netherlands in my book. but nevertheless, i talked to several former treasury secretaries in the last two days, both republican and democrat. people who are in high finance. and sanctions are messy and complicated. and there is a severe chance of blowback. so while we may think that the west can stand strong by imposing penalties on the russian economy, one, these aren't unilateral -- these are unilateral sanctions largely or they're french -- i mean european and american sanctions but there are lots of outs that russia has. and in addition, i think putin could take measures that cause pain inside the united states. you have to remember that when superpowers deploy themselves, whether with military power or economic power, there can be blowback. and i think that's part of the undiscussed element of our actions that we're taking today. and i don't know what our end game is. when does that point of escalation that adrian just referred to stop? and when is putin likely to fold. but when is the united states likely to fold? that is still i think the big question mark here. >> yeah, you say that. and henry kissinger's piece in the "washington post" made a similar point, discussing the fact that the test of a policy is not where it begins but where it ends. and i want to read part of that and his view of the sort of contrasting approaches here. kissinger says, "putin is a serious strategist on the premises of russian history. understanding u.s. values and psychology are not his strong suits nor has understanding russian history and psychology been a strong point of u.s. policymakers. and steve, kissinger goes on to argue something that i think is relevant to what you were just saying, which is where the off-ramp? >> well, i think that's a very important point. and the other thing is we're talking just about ukraine here. at the height of the cold war with the soviet union, the former soviet union, if you had 15 or 16 different bridges in dealing with russia, whether it was an agricultural trade or nuclear negotiations or dealing with trying to get people out of russia, if one of those pals would close down or be complicated you would have other communications points. it's worrisome to me we've targeted people around putin in such a direct way because we have other things that we have to do collaboratively with russia in the world other than deal with ukraine. so when you throw all of your eggs into the basket of trying to manipulate or move russia over this box on the chess board and you've ignored the other elements of the chess board it begins to make me worry that we're not seeing that bigger strategic picture and haven't really identified a strategy to move russia. >> adrian. >> i think we can't count on russia to be a partner in any of the big picture issues when russia basically transgresses territorial integrity in the heart of europe. there's another country bordering on a nato country in moldova, and there's a district called gagauzia which on february 2nd had a referendum saying that if moldova moves into the european union they're going to break away and join russia and they're asking for russian protection. so we can have a cascading effect of changing borders, russia making territorial, new territorial claims. the last thing is on strategy. i don't think he is a great strategic thinker. i think he is a person who understands how to use power and who respects power. and here i would say taking tough positions against putin will lead him to compromise. if he sees the west vacillating, he will move forward and he will be relentless. if he feels some pushback, he will negotiate, he will respect that pushback, and i think that he's not a madman. we can find some kind of a compromise. >> right. i understand that. i think ultimately the test of that policy will be whether those actions are felt by putin. not all of the talk that we hear in the united states but -- we're out of time. but in the u.s. sometimes we have the bombast over the actions. putin's going to measure the actions over the speeches although he's got his own to give tomorrow. steve clemons and adrian karatnycky, thank you for joining us. coming up what the republicans got wrong for the affordable care act. we don't have time for all the things they got wrong but we have time for a pretty big numerical one that happened today. that's next. alright, that should just about do it. excuse me, what are you doing? 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[ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. accelerate. shift. shift. ♪ and shift again. through all eight speeds of a transmission connected to more standard horsepower than its german competitors. and that is the moment that driving the lexus gs will shift your perception. ♪ this is the pursuit of perfection. the idea that the federal government should come in and create a one size fits all for the entire country never was going to work. >> only six people signed up for the health care law on its first day. that's right. six people. >> if enough people don't sign up for these exchanges the rates on these exchanges are going to be astronomical. >> six? i mean, you couldn't make this up. if i had said six, they would call me crazy, racist. who knows what they would call me? six. >> it's not just a broken website now. it's a broken pledge. >> they don't know the number of enrollees. they don't know who's signed up and who hasn't. they don't know who's got insurance and who hasn't. >> in total 248 people enrolled in obamacare nationwide by the end of day two. >> i don't think this is ever going to work. >> only six people, you guys. well, not really. in the spotlight tonight new numbers and some good news for obamacare. you have heard those republicans. their bleak predictions about the aca in misleading ads like this one. >> the affordable care act, i'm going to have bureaucrats telling me what kind of services i'm going to qualify for. >> but alas, today was another chapter in the reality-driven obamacare backlash fact checking because numbers. today the health and human services department reported that aca marketplace enrollment numbers hit the 5 million mark. there are just two weeks to go until the enrollment deadline. and while numbers are rising, the white house isn't taking anything for granted here. that's why the campaign has been everywhere from between two ferns to web m.d. to going inside the paint with a man nicknamed lbj. not that lbj. they also call him king james. >> the deadline to enroll is march 31st. so sign up now. you never know when you might take a hit. spread the word and get covered today. >> joining us now to spread the word, dr. zeke emanuel, former obama health policy officer and author of "reinventing american health care." welcome, sir. i hope you're an lbj fan. >> i love it. it's great. >> let's start right here with something that goes to the politics of this, and then of course i want to get you on the policy as well. first the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll shows something pretty interesting. take a look at this. 48% of americans would rather vote for a democratic candidate who supports fixing and keeping the aca compared to 47% who would vote for a republican supporting repeal. and that's in of course what has been an arguably rough midterm environment for democrats. do you think, do you argue that part of what's happening is the facts are catching up with the most negative horror stories about the aca? >> yeah. i think it is the case that people are beginning to realize there are some benefits here to the affordable care act. young people can stay on their parents' plan. people can get on medicaid. millions of people can get coverage through the exchange even if they have a pre-existing condition. and there's other things which don't get the headlines like quality improvements and cost control. and i think people are beginning to realize this thing is good. but like every piece of big legislation, you need adjustments. in massachusetts in the few years since they've had their plan they have had six major adjustments to their bill. so i think americans are getting to understand that. >> and doctor, on the policy, what happens here after this big deadline of march 31st? what happens to someone who wants to get care offer that? >> remember, march 31st is the deadline, and there's a really good reason to have a deadline. people all by nature work towards deadlines, and if you don't put in a deadline people will postpone and kick the can down the road as long as they can. that is a real deadline. and i don't believe the administration is going to move it. what that deadline means is if you don't get insurance by march 31st, first of all, you'll be subject to the penalty. while you think that's not big, it's going to increase over the years. two, you won't be able to get insurance until november 15th, 2014. so you will be going for more than seven months without being able to buy insurance unless you have a life-qualifying event that's a technical term for things like you have a birth or you get divorced and you need to buy insurance. or you move states and you need to buy insurance. but you are out of luck if you don't buy insurance before the deadline of march 31st. that is a real barrier, a real limit. >> and your view of the 5 million number significance, because it is way more than, say, the six people that some on fox news were talking about, but it is to be fair short of where the administration wanted to be. >> so the congressional budget office, when they were projecting things, thought we would be at 7 million by the end of open enrollment on march 31st. even if we have a terrific next two months, we'll be short of that. we'll probably be at maximum 5.5, 6 million people. but that, by all estimations, is first of all enough to keep the exchanges stable. second of all enough to make sure that next year's premiums, which are important, are not going to zoom up. they may go up just because of natural inflation in health care, but they will not zoom up. in other words, the exchanges are stable. and that's i think a very good sign. i should also note california alone has more than a million people signed up through their exchanges. so that is a big, big number. and of course between california and texas and florida those are the three biggest states in terms of absolute number of people who are uninsured who need to be covered. >> it's a big market. the national number is something we measure for all sorts of policy reasons. the local markets are where most of the competition occurs. and of course the states that have been more cooperative have seen some of those benefits, which may be a policy argument for continuing down the path. zeke emanuel, thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you. nice to be here. >> appreciate it. now, coming up, the illegal sex trade in the u.s. and why it is actually not what you might think it is. and later, we will have more on the theories and the latest breaking news on the two pilots who flew flight 370 before it disappeared. instead of mailing everyone my vacation photos, i'm saving a ton of time by posting them to my wall. oh, i like that one. it's so quick! it's just like my car insurance. i saved 15% in just 15 minutes. i saved more than that in half the time. i unfriend you. that's not how it works. that's not how any of this works. 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(vo) meee-ow, business pro. meee-ow. go national. go like a pro. senator mitch mcconnell's campaign posted a two-minute video of staged photo of him at work and smiling and generally being amiable. now, why would they publish what amounts to footage from the cutting room floor? several reports say it's so that super pacs can use that video without officially coordinating with the campaign. that would be against the law. and parodies of the video are now all over the internet. like this one. ♪ you would see the biggest gift would be from me ♪ ♪ and the card attached would say ♪ ♪ thank you for being a friend ♪ >> better than the real commercials. the videos have spawned their own hashtag on twitter, mcconnelling. and jon stewart and the "daily show" writers got right into the act. >> we put a million songs to this. because it's funny [ bleep ]. give me another one. ♪ what a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man ♪ ♪ he's a mighty mighty good man ♪ >> here's the secret. it works with every song. it works with every song that has the word "eyes" in it. ♪ no one knows what it's like ♪ to be the bad man ♪ to be the sad man ♪ behind blue eyes >> it goes with almost any body part. ♪ i like big butts and i cannot lie ♪ ♪ you other brothers can't deny ♪ ♪ when a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist and a round thing in your face ♪ ♪ you get sprung >> it makes no sense! >> mcconnell was of course asked about the new hashtag today and he said, "it's nice to have some fun occasionally." that's the spirit. now, coming up we do have the latest details on the missing malaysia airlines jet. and next, this is an important one. what you don't know about the sex trade in america. switchgra, change engineering in dubai, aluminum production in south africa, and the aerospace industry in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. 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mind. centurylink. your link to what's next. when you look at crime and violence against women, there are key parts of criminal networks that are very hard to track. sociologists call these hidden populations, groups of people who hide their identity because they're afraid of stigma or prosecutor. when attorney general eric holder took over the justice department in 2009, there were no reliable government studies on how prostitution actually worked in the u.s. prosecutors said it was just too hard to get reliable information from those largely hidden populations of pimps and prostitutes. so in 2010 the justice department commissioned independent research from the urban institute to tackle the issue. researchers spent three years interviewing convicted pimps and sex workers in eight u.s. cities. the research was just released in what the "new york times" is calling a landmark report that could fill the wide gaps in the understanding of how the underground sex trade works. the report found that many pimps are deterred from certain behavior based on police punishment such as avoiding drug dealing and pimping for minors because of harsher punishment. prosecution is an underground business it turns out with many mainstream tools. half of study participants said they conduct business online and pimps recruited on craigslist, a quarter of pimps said they use business cards for one example. and coercion by pimps involves non-violent acts according to the study such as fraud, social and romantic pressure and confiscation of property. now, while the researchers are focused on this data, not necessarily policy prescriptions, the report is a key contribution to a wider debate about how police approach prostitution pimping and sex trafficking in our country. and without being -- without seeing the fact that any side of a prostitution transaction is illegal in most of the nation. there is something new here. the idea that reformers say women are being incorrectly categorized as criminals in this underground economy when they are actually victims, coerced into crime or trafficked as property. joining us now is vinita carter, founder and executive director of breaking free, an organization that works on these issues in minnesota. tell us your reaction to the report and how you've worked on these issues. >> well, breaking free works with 400 to 500 women and girls a year that pretty much want to get out of the life, and we help them do that. but i have read the report. and the report, most of it is really pretty realistic. it's pretty true of -- outside of pimps saying there's no violence and of that sort and recruiting women and keeping women in the life, there is very much violence. but one thing that i say that people need to understand, the real inherent violence is just the act itself. women have to be with between one to maybe 20 to 40 guys a day. and that in itself is an act of violence. the human body wasn't built for that kind of torture is what i'll say. >> yeah. >> and many pimps have groups of women that work for them. i'm talking about 5, 10, 15 girls at a time. and they all have quotas that they have to make. before they come back to him. and their quotas can be anywhere from $200 a night to $1,000 a night. so there's a lot of money to be made for a pimp in that. >> vednita. you mentioned that. and that again goes to that idea of how law enforcement and how in policy conversations we classify this. i want to look at a 2013 article that came out in the fbi law enforcement bulletin which described how sometimes in police investigations they begin with what they think will be a prostitution case of prosecution and then they find they're actually arresting sex trafficking victims and reading from the article, in over 100 arrests most of the women expressed prostitution was not their career of choice. in one study 88% of the prostituted women surveyed stated they wanted to leave the sex trade industry. in your view how much of our understanding of this issue should be about sex trafficking rather than the crime of female prostitution? >> i'll tell you what we believe. what i believe, what breaking free believes, is that prostitution and sex trafficking are pretty much one and the same. if a woman is being trafficked, she's being trafficked i'm going to say from the same part of minneapolis. that's trafficking. people oftentimes think of sex trafficking as women coming from other countries. but there are women sex trafficked right here in our own towns and our own cities and states. and so we look at prostitution and sex trafficking about an individual being bought and sold. that's what the bottom line is. they're being bought and sold. it doesn't matter if she's called trafficked or prostituted. and we work with women from other countries as well as domestic women right here from the city. st. paul and minneapolis. and they both have something in common. that is that they both have been bought and sold and that they both wanted out. that is not what they wanted. and didn't know how to get out and it was very difficult for them to get out of the life. >> yeah. and just briefly, why do you think that is? you make the comment that perhaps americans sometimes see this more when we look outside our country than within it. >> i think because we have a little bit more passion. our compassion for foreign women. because many times their circumstances might be different to us in many ways. they're brought from japan over to the united states against their will or they're lied to, they're told they're going to make a lot of money. we don't realize those same situations are here in this country. women are made promises. they aren't told this is what they're going to be doing. you look at the movie "pretty woman." that movie really did make a lot of young women believe that there's a lot of money to be made in this industry. and so they got in it with the intent of hopefully making millions. i have not met one woman yet, and i mean this, i have not met one woman that made millions of dollars a year. but i have talked to many pimps that have made a lot of money off the women. they barely see anything. but there's just a misunderstanding, or people don't understand the dynamics of this issue. so they -- >> yeah, well -- go ahead, i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry. no, it's just that people have to understand, there's no real difference between sex trafficking and prostitution. >> right. >> they are two of the same. >> and that's a point that comes through in the report and some new data here that's a tough read but pretty fascinating. vednita carter, thanks for joining us tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> coming up, the last word on the new theories about the pilots of flight 370. pay my bill. 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... 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"the new york times" is reporting tonight that senior american officials believe malaysia airline flight 370's first divergent turn was 3r578d into the airplane's computer system. that focuses even more attention on the plane's pilots. and a new youtube video appears to show those pilots going through airport security. nbc news has not yet verified this video's source or timing. earlier today malaysian authorities said they believe it was the co-pilot, 27-year-old fariq hamid, who last spoke those known words from the plane, "all right, good night." it was just two minutes after those words were said that the transponders in the cockpit were turned off. joining us now for the last word on all of today's developments is jim cavanaugh, a former atf special agent in charge and an msnbc law enforcement analyst. good evening, sir. >> happy st. patrick's day, ari. >> happy st. patrick's day. yes indeed. now, what do you think, though, of this new "new york times" report? does it make it in your view from your investigative background more likely that there was some sort of human-caused problem here? >> yes. a human hand turned the plane and did this series of events. we know that from the evidence that's been released by the malaysian government and the reporting on it. but i would bracket what we know now, the radio call from the co-pilot, the transponder two minutes later, the manual press in of the new direction and western travel, and then the acars system is disabled. and then japanese air pilot makes contact with the cockpit by radio and says he only hears murmuring. the japanese pilot believes it's the co-pilot. and that's sort of left out of the discussion. this thing is bracketed by two radio calls. the last one sort of unintelligible. if there's a tape of that on the surface vessel or plane, it should be retrieved and enhanced. but anyway, turned by a human hand. the next question is what's the mind operating the hand? is it attached? is it behind it with a gun or a knife or somehow coercing that hand? and that's what the investigators need to know. >> right. and you raise that point. that goes of course to the technical piece of this. that a lot of the reporting reflects the use of the technology, the autopilot function or something that was done by someone experienced. but that doesn't necessarily mean to your point it was done by free will. i also want to flag something on the way these investigations work internationally. there's been these hurdles for cooperation. they become more glaring as the search has continued. today some military analysts were telling the "wall street journal" that governments continue to view one another in this region with a suspicion characterized by historical enmity that make them disinclined to share data even in a crisis. the mistrust includes nearby neighbors in china which includes them being highly secretive. that's something you may know a lot about but a lot of other folks don't, which is that this is a crisis, there are people's lives in the balance from many different countries, and yet that doesn't necessarily spur the kind of cooperation we'd like. >> right. it's really sad. you know, we have all these lives lost, these families being ripped apart. and we have this, you know, jumbled mess, command operation on the ground. it's tightened up somewhat. the facts are tightening up now better than they were last week. but yeah, it's a mess. but you know, this is a mystery because he it was intended to be so. the actors intended this to be a mystery. and whether that is suicide, which is a likely cause here, or greed or terrorism or another event, it was planned this way and planned maybe to never be found or be discovered once, you know, the completion of the criminal act ended. so. >> right. and planned that way and as far as we know not claimed or advertised in any way to the extent that it goes into the criminal or terror investigations. jim cavanaugh, want to thank you for your time tonight. you get the last word. >> thank you, ari. >> i am ari melber in for lawrence o'donnell. you can find me on facebook at facebook.com/arimelber. and chris hayes is up next. ten days later and still more questions than answers. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm joy reid in for chris matthews. leading off tonight, why, where, and how? it's been ten days since malaysia flight 370 vanished, apparently into thin air. it's now a criminal investigation, with 26 countries involved in the search effort. countless teams of investigators are poring over information, investigators are raiding homes. the most sophisticated tlnl in the modern era is looking for clues and remarkably we are no closer to answering any of these basic questions than we were ten days ago, whenal