so far u.s. officials say they don t see any data that that emergency beacon system went off. certainly nothing that the malaysians have shared with them yet. so that adds to the mystery. the plane if that did not go off was certainly for some period of time in some form of relatively stable flight, officials say. but did it land somewhere? we ve asked everybody. and i have to tell you, you get the same answer, piers. head scratching. in today s modern world, in today s age, is it actually plausible that a passenger airliner with so many people on board landed somewhere and nobody noticed? but at the same time, barbara, clearly everything about this story is highly mysterious. reporter: absolutely. if not suspicious. i think most viewers will be sharing my utter disbelief that it s taken nearly a week to discover that they had these ping signals and this data information, presumably they had that pretty immediately and yet
location information. the radar gave them location information. the pings went on for about five hours, which tells them how long the plane might have been flying in some sort of relatively stable flight situation because, again, remember, we ve also been told that the emergency beacon system that would have indicated a crash, an impact into the ocean or on land perhaps, that never went off. so this plane was in some sort of flight condition, by all accounts, up to five hours and that also has contributed to this very high-technical cue lags that is now being made. but again, wolf, it is a calculation. they will look everywhere they feel they need to. and you quote these sources, barbara, as saying that it likely crashed in the indian ocean. does that mean they don t believe it s possible it could have either crashed on land or
that goes off. and it registers and transmits the data of impact. so far u.s. officials say they don t see any data that that emergency beacon system went off. certainly nothing that the malaysians have shared with them yet. so that adds to the mystery. the plane if that did not go off was certainly for some period of time in some form of relatively stable flight, officials say. but did it land somewhere? we ve asked everybody. and i have to tell you, you get the same answer, piers. head scratching. in today s modern world, in today s age, is it actually plausible that a passenger airliner with so many people on board landed somewhere and nobody noticed? but at the same time, barbara, clearly everything about this story is highly mysterious. reporter: absolutely. if not suspicious. i think most viewers will be sharing my utter disbelief that it s taken nearly a week to
piece of debris rather than just trash or garbage floating through the ocean, something more legitimate than what the chinese purported to show about 24 hours ago but there s an even bigger mystery here of another piece that they can t confirm right now, the same u.s. official telling me the emergency beacon system on the airplane that would have transmitted an emergency if the plane was about to impact the water or impact land. if it was about to go down. that system should have gone off and so farther not finding any data that shows it went off. doesn t give us much to go on about what happened to the plane and it s another piece of puzzle, jake. barbara starr and jim sciutto, thank you. joining me now from chattanooga, tennessee, former head of the national transportation board. he was head during the crash of