long dead, likely. no new pings detected. there s no new information. why is this weekend any more important than any other? this weekend is important simply because they are looking at the area of highest probability relating to those pings. we have four pings, four strong pings and two fade-out pings. they were in an area of approximately converting from kilometers to miles approximately 15 x 10 miles. they are examining the sea floor in that area. by the end of the weekend, probably by tuesday, maybe wednesday, they would have searched the entire area that is the major focus. let s bear in mind, it was the 18th bluefin mission they
what when, where or how. what they are trying to gauge from that is why do the authorities, why are they so confident? if you read back again, when they did find these or heard these pings, they said it was consistent with the black box or flight data recorder. so they want to know upon what basis can they be confident that it is a pinger from a triple seven black box. the final of the questions on protocol, we want mh-370 s logbook. we want the voice recorder and require the atc audio. i think karlene, like all of us they want to know what happened in that cockpit. yeah, they do. here s the thing with the logbook. it is irrelevant. we know the plane was intact. it flew for seven hours. there wasn t a fire and it didn t fall out of the sky.
boeing 777 or even the exact black box mounted on mh-370. do we know that boeing sent a signal to compare with the pinger? no, we didn t know who sent what when, where or how. what they are trying to gauge from that is why do the authorities, why are they so confident? if you read back again, when they did find these or heard these pings, they said it was consistent with the black box or flight data recorder. so they want to know upon what basis can they be confident that it is a pinger from a triple seven black box. all right. the next one, a new panel, the final of the questions on protocol, we want mh-370 s logbook. we need malaysia civil aviation control s voice recorder and we require the atc audio. i think, karlene, like all of us they want to know what happened in that cockpit. yeah, they do. and here s the thing with the logbook. it is irrelevant. because we now know the plane was intact.
i think it s not fair to compare this to air france 447. we are supposedly looking for pings. and these pings, the acoustic the towed locator only has a range of one to two miles tops. this should be a very compact area. it should have already have been searched. we should have already ruled out the pings were from the mh-370. i want to get to jim tilmon now. this is a huge question and maybe the most important question especially when it comes to dollars. the top adviser said the search could cost a quarter of a billion dollars. that s in u.s. money. who should foot the bill for this because how long this search goes on depending on how much it costs and who foots the bill is how long the search will go on. that s what will determine that? this situation is one that affects all aviation, particularly commercial aviation over this entire planet.
well. we re in day four, four and a half in to this search on the bottom. we have a long ways to go yet before we sort of really completed a thorough search of the area where the pings have come from. don t forget, we have had four very strong pings. we had two fade out pings. according to one of the greatest wreck hunters of the world, david burns, he says we ve found it. he s very, very confident that they are looking in the right spot. there s also a very high level of confidence, off record from officials who say, yes, we are looking in the right spot. richard quest with me here in new york. the wall street journal is reporting the plane may have been an auto pilot headed to perth. cnn checked with sources in the australian government who said their official did not tell the journal that. how does this reconcile with other reports that may have taken deliberate action at this point? some interesting notes to this whole question, where was the plane headed an why was it going