the families of the 239 passengers of flight 370 have reached a breaking point. they issued a list of 26 questions for malaysian authorities. despite multiple meetings the questions have not been answered. they really haven t even been addressed. instead the families were pressured on a timeline for, quote, moving forward including the issuing of death certificates for their loved ones. meanwhile, the search continues to come up empty only making matters worse. we have with us mary schiavo and represents victims and families after airplane disasters. and an airline accident investigator, airline expert. mary, i start with you. counsel, i give you 26
underwater submersibles. spokesperson for the u.s. navy telling cnn that the key stakeholders are at the early stages of these discussions and they re planning for as far out as july. kate? all right. erin, thank you very much for that from perth, australia. let s bring in our aviation experts to discuss the developments. mary schiavo and former inspector general for the department of transportation. he she has also represented families and victims after airplane disasters. and miles o brien, cnn aviation analyst and a science correspondent for pbs. good morning to both of you. let s start might where erin mclaughlin left off in perth, australia, miles. the u.s. navy telling cnn that they are now in the early stages of talking about now how to proceed with the search on a long-term basis. planning as far out as july. what could those plans include,
and families after airplane disasters. mary, i want to start with you. i want to start where mathew chance began. the statement from the prime minister this morning is saying we re very confident the signals from the black boxes are the missing plane and then he says we are confident we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometers. that s going further than we can say anyone really has, especially someone of his position to this point. and that seems to really narrow it down more than the search area we ve discussed so far. what do you think? well, that is a significant narrowing because when we last heard the pings were some 17 miles apart and that would make a very large search area for the submissibles. if we have it narrowed down, one bluefin-21 can cover about 40 square miles, as they call it, mowing the ocean floor a day. so that would indeed be good news for the crew that s going to put the submersibles down to
shield, the american provided blue fin 21. the narrower the search field the easier it s going to be for them to be able to gounds nooet the water and find the actual wreckage. very promising developments here in australia. but again, they re still while they re saying they re promising signals they do still need to determine whether or not these are, in fact, from the missing plane. kate? let s dig deeper on this latest news just coming in with mary schiavo and attorney who represents victims and families after airplane disasters. and david gallo, co-leader in the search for air france 447 and director of special projects. good morning to both of you. mary, let me get your take real quick on what erin was just reporting. i hope you were able to hear her. right. i believe this was the first time we ve had a sonar detection, acoustic detection from one of the planes from the
for investigators. chris? important detail, nic robertson, thank you for bringing it to us. let s get more perspective on why it s so important and these other big developments and what it means for the overall progress here. we have david soucie, new day family and cnn family as a safety analyst and the author of why planes crash, former faa inspector. and ms. mary schiavo, cnn aviation analyst, former inspector general of the department of transportation, also an attorney who represents victims and families after airm d airplane disasters. and creator of pasteurization. is that not true, mary? tell me, mary, because you have this pedigree, why do i care that it was the pilot whose voice was heard in the cockpit? what does this do for me? well, gives us a couple of clues. we know that at least at that point the pilot was still alive, still able to communicate, still able to function. and, of course, the other thing that we wish we knew is who did all other communications.