right now. which is unfortunate. that s been a continuing part of this story, right, is the reluctance of some countries involved to reveal their capabilities, whether by satellite or by radar. alexander, i got another one for you. this is from a viewer, mike. he asked why won t malaysia or inmarsat release the definitive altitude versus time? altitude speed assumptions for the final leg of that trip? i know you were an oceanographer. you ve been looking at the possible causes for this trip. what do you think explains that reluctance? well, jim, it s hard for me to speculate. this a question which i m asking myself when i m watching the news as well. right? this is not so much information about why this kind of decisions are made and why, for example, not only the distance which the plane traveled but also the direction which the plane
to run a search like this and just the movements of the ocean. i mean, we re already more than three weeks past. as this stretches out, how scattered would this debris field be? and how hard would it be to find little isolated pieces of wreckage, you know, floating out there in the ocean? well, jim, let me tell you this. it s perhaps more cooperative with oceanic conditions than the previous area. the waves are not as high as in the previous area. we re talking about waves on average in the month of march, at least, i m looking at the satellite map, about three, tree and a half meters. maximum waves about four meters. the maximum winds on average, the extreme winds, 12 meters per second which are strong winds but nothing like a hurricane. so this is much better
speaking to the press. making some sort of comment, jim. is there any indication that he has something important to announce or is this just a regular update rallying the troops there at the search zone? reporter: his comments have not been we haven t gotten any notification of what he s going to be talking about. the fact that he hasn t released anything like that shouldn t be read as some important announcement. it s most likely that he s probably just coming here to get an update, to make some sort of comment. he has been making a comment every single day. usually from another city in australia. but he s expected to arrive here perhaps to talk to some of the search teams. all right. we ll listen out for updates for what he has to say. we ve talked a lot about this u.s. pinger locater that had been flown to australia. it s now been loaded on that ship, the ocean shield. we saw some pictures of it. do you know when that heads to the search zone? i suppose the goal, since they
link to flight 370 s disappearance. cnn aviation correspondent renee marsh joins me now from washington with more. renee, you and i both have been speaking to intelligence officials since this plane disappeared. they ve always been saying nothing to indicate a tie to terrorism yet. but they re clearly not closing that door, are they? no. absolutely not at this point. as you mentioned there, jim, a senior u.s. government official tells cnn that investigators there are still very much looking at the pilot as well as the co-pilot. but at this point, no aha moment, so to speak. a review of the hard drives from the captain s flight simulator has not raised any red flags. and another source telling cnn that nothing suspicious was found after reviewing the passenger manifest. that said, when it comes to the question of whether someone deliberately took this plane off course, officials continue to believe based on how this plane flew, it suggests a deliberate action inside of the cockpit.
so that s why the focus was on jim duckett. there was no reason to suspect a law enforcement officer would do such a horrific crime. beth, what s your response? other than the evidence. when you hear of evidence like that, that steve was talking about. for instance, the fingerprint on the hood of the car, the tire tracks. what s your response? well, after trial we discovered a number of things. for example, the tire tracks, one of the police officers, jim s boss at the time, said that he came back after the crime scene tape had been taken down and realized that the plaster for the tire tracks was actually outside where they alleged to have found them. and it was where his car had been parked. and he had the same tires. so i think there s substantial evidence. the fingerprints, presumably she jumped up on the car. mr. duckett had the opportunity and was supposed to wash his car at the end of the night and didn t do it because he was