right now. joe, who heard these recordings and why? reporter: well, it s pretty clear that these recordings were heard by friends and perhaps other pilots, fred, who were given these recordings to actually listen to to try to identify, among other things, the voices and who was actually speaking. the families did not receive an opportunity to listen to those recordings and perhaps some concern over that, but it s quite typical because this is still considered by the law enforcement authorities to be a criminal investigation in kuala lumpur, and typically even in the united states when there s a criminal investigation going on and it involves a plane, the cockpit recordings are not released to the public, fred. and then i know it s in the middle of the night, but malaysian authorities, what, if anything, are they saying about these chinese news reports that something might have been
could it be some other factors, debris in the way, other items blocking the signal? possibly, but intermitten si is not something we typically demonstrated in the lab. anish, miles, rob, thanks to all of you. appreciate it. so passengers on flight 370 have been ruled out as suspects in this plane s disappearance, but the crew members are still suspects. and today an interesting move by investigators when it comes to those cockpit recordings. we ll talk about that next. at your ford dealer think? they think about tires. and what they ve been through lately. polar vortexes, road construction, and gaping potholes. so with all that behind you, you might want to make sure you re safe and in control. ford technicians are ready to find the right tires for your vehicle. get up to $120 in mail-in rebates on four select tires when you use the ford service credit card at the big tire event. see what the ford experts think about your tires. at your ford dealer.
process. it s been referred to the commerce committee, so it s in the early stages, and i think we can get it passed, and i think the house will pass it as well. but as miles alluded to, sometimes you don t have to wait for a bill to be passed for the regulators to push through measures, regulations that would ensure that this happens but i think it s important to keep the public pressure, and i know that ellen has been on cnn as well as other networks and interviews she s done and it s critically important we start to highlight this as a major priority. well, we re certainly glad to highlight it today talking to you. senator bob casey, appreciate you being with us. miles o brien, les abend, thanks to you guys as well. passengers on flight 370 have been ruled out as suspects in the plane s disappearance but the crew members still haven t been completely cleared. today an interesting move by investigators when it comes to those cockpit recordings. we ll talk about that next.
thank you as always. here s the other piece percolating today. malaysian officials are refusing to allow passenger s families to listen to the recording of radio communications between flight 370 s cockpit and air traffic control. saying the investigation is ongoing. let s get context. and our retired airline pilot, captain john branson. nice to see you again, sir. let s begin with the cockpit recordings itself. to be clear, two ways you can hear what happened on the cockpit. buried on the ocean floor, two, between air traffic control and the cockpit. what would they hear on that? well, in addition to things you can assume they hear because of the transcript, there s a lot you can pick up. for example, in some aircraft when the pilot transmits, it includes a side tone. it s a 400-cycle side tone. and it can tell you whether or not the engines are putting
that from antiquity people have been troubled by that. and what she is saying is very wise and very true and it cuts across cultures, by the way. well, you know the other thing that we ve been talking about this morning are these cockpit recordings. officials have now denied the family request to release the audio. there s been a transcript released but not the audio. they said it s part of an ongoing investigation. so if families were able to hear those moments, do you think that would help in any way, hurt? well, right now the families are just trying to survive after a disaster, and may i talk more generally about the other disasters i ve worked with. families are just trying to survive it first, and perhaps hearing the cockpit cockpit recordings would be more trauma right now. and what they need right now is each other.