joining us by phone is bob haeger. so, bosh, you have this spotting in satellite imagery. what are dha going to be looking for here? well, this is, i think, a very, very important development. i mean, because this has been an investigation that, so far, we ve got so little to go on. and all of the sudden, here s a glimmer of hope. and it s just that. it s a glimmer. a glimmer of hope that we can get things going. and get this thing moving. so as soon as planes can get to that area, they ll be able to fly down low. they said the visibility is poor, so hope flim they can get low enough. the planes will be the first to get there, long before any ships do, and see whether it looks like it really is wreckage from if plane. i think the larger of the two
but as bob said, we found out the ntsb it was the only agency that could do it effectively. well, and bob, to what peter was saying, you ve got to have, i think as a family member, you want one source of information you feel like you can trust. one of the frustrations apparently that they had was they were told they wouldn t receive anymore briefings now that this was a criminal investigation. i m assuming that s because it s under malaysian protocol, that s how they re doing it. obviously, we would do it very differently. yeah, the national transportation safety board has been very good and very open about the information they give you. they would do daily briefings, if not more than a couple times a day. and even sometimes gather you for a little off-the-record sessions. they were very, very good with information. but typically in a foreign country, especially a small foreign country, you don t get that at all. that s not surprising in this case. i think they re kind of feeli
past nine days have been for the friends and family of the 239 people on board flight 370. nine days after their loved ones went missing, the malaysian government is under fire for the handling of its investigation. the search area has expanded, but we still have more questions than answers. as suspicion about who may have caused the plane to divert from its original path turns to the passengers and crew, the famili families frustration is understandable. joining me now, bob haeger and peter goels. thanks for joining me. bob, i want to start with you on this point you had 200 family members attend a briefing by malaysian airlines in beijing last night. you could see tensions were running high. there s a lot of frustration. i have to think that every time some new theory comes out, these folks must be going just in agony. yeah, sure. and that s typical. we have that same kind of frustration with american families after an american
members needed more than anything else was a source of information that could above all be trusted. when there were facts to be had, they needed to trust them. and that s why in the united states the ntsb does the briefing. they handle the families. for whatever reasons, and it s good work that the agency does, they re trusted by the public. they re trusted by congress. and the ntsb is trusted by the families. bob, to that let me just add to what peter said. sure. i just thought viewers should know at the time peter was the manager there, that s when all this began. ntsb did not have responsibility for taking care of the relatives of victims before that. it was under his time that they undertook that whole program. and we did it very cautiously. we were very nervous about this responsibility. sure.
engender. as bob said, i ve done family briefings after major accidents. i did it after egypt air. i can tell you that the idea that there s even a sliver of hope that the families could be alive is just agonizing. and that after nine days, the horror that they feel is really just tragic. i m afraid i agree with bob. there is literally no hope this plane is going to be found intact. peter, how would you have handled this part of the investigation, this part of the proceedings differently in terms of dealing with the family members? it seems like there should be best practices instead of the kind of frustration and lack of answers that we ve been seeing. well, we looked at this very carefully in 1996 when the family assistance act was passed. i helped write that act. we figured out that what family