Honest. We begin with the new discoveries, possible new directions and growing questions in the search for flight 370. The discovery that piece of debris that washed ashore in the far southwestern corner of australia where an early assessment is in. Theres word that the bluefin 21 has less than 10 more ocean bottom to cover in the search area. It may take far longer to do that than weve been previously told. Several weeks instead of a couple days. Deepening questions about how the search is being conducted and why we havent yet seen a single image from it. Theres also talk of widening the search area. In the words of one expert, rethinking everything, everything on the table. And beijing and malaysia, growing demands for transparency by authorities and family members. A lot to cover. With michael holm in perth and Michel Marquez where they found the debris. Lets start with you, the number to augusta, what do we know about it . What did it look like . Reporter yeah, local officials are
Investigators in france have just called a News Conference which, by the way, is set to begin any minute now and well take there you live momentarily that we expect will officially confirm that the debris is in fact part of the planes wing and the very first discovery in this mysterious disappearance. Just to go back for a moment. This plane part in question washed up on this island. This is off the coast. You have africa off the coast of africa madagascar and a tiny island off of madagascar is reunion island. It was quickly confirmed as a flaperon belonging to a boeing 777, the very same model aircraft that was flight 370. That plane that vanished without a trace nearly 17 months ago now with 239 people on board. Cnns simon mosten is standing by live outside of the press conference in france and we have cnns will ripley in beijing on the angle, of course of all of these families who must be absolutely devastated Erin Mclaughlin is on reunion island where the debris was first found, ma
follow the breadcrumbs by reverse drifting it doesn t take you much further than a rough area in the ocean and that s why he says here he says again and again and again and they all say they believe they have in the right place and this doesn t change the search location. they are pretty soon they know where it happened. mary schiavo, let me bring you in. you ve investigated many a incident. i feel like this seems a bit unprecedented in so many ways. as far as the what happened how then will they ever be able to know will they have to find the black boxes. they have to find the black boxes or additional parts of the aircraft. remember this is one piece and it had to float there. the one thing is the theory that it s in the indian ocean over closer to australia means that this part floated on that giant south indian ocean geyer, big will pool full of trash and as people as they are scouring the
here s a toy leg from a a baby. flip-flops. reporter: not items from a la landfill but from the ocean. more specific, the indian ocean, essentially a garbage patch swirling with trash and overflowing with plastic. the massive rotating current spins counterclockwise. marcus erickson is the director of research in california. he says geyers are like plastic soup. that s typical of what the material looks like. reporter: in 2010, he sailed through the indian ocean geyer. the same area where search teams are looking for doomed flight 370. what we found there were things like derelict fishing nets, multicolored buoys. the little buoys like the one behind me. lots of buckets and crates. other goods like bottles and bottle cap and bags and forks and knives. there was so much stuff already there. the aircraft, when they debriefed the aircraft, it s
blending interest all that. reporter: one reason making finding the missing plane such a challenge. recently a chinese ship in search of the airplane came across trash trash instead. even sea life can t tell the difference. fish, sea lions, birds, they ingest this junk thinking it might be food. i heard about there being 300,000-police pusz in the aircraft. there are 300,000-plus pieces in the aircraft. there are more. there are two in the pacific and two in the atlantic. they form when ocean currents bounce off the continents and create a vortex of swirling water which pulls debris from the shores to the center of the ocean. the geyer is thought to be two million square miles. keep in mind, the entire united states is under four million square miles. and this garbage patch isn t just huge, it s on the move.