well, these were the search planes as they returned from patrol late saturday in western australia. the report from all of them was the same again. they saw absolutely nothing. you know it is now dawn, sunday morning, in perth, australia. the headquarters of the search mission and cnn s michael holmes is stationed in that search area. with me, joe johns in kuala lumpur where the flight originated 37 days ago. michael, start with you. are planes again heading for the search areas yet? reporter: absolutely, don, as they have every day for now we re into week six. seems extraordinary. doesn t it? not a scrap of wreckage has been found in all that time. but more than a dozen planes are out and about today. they ll be out there searching from the skies and on the ocean. there are more than a dozen ships searching. two, of course nbc thin that ar where the pings were heard. the four pings the australian
erased even before investigators get a chance to hear it. wolf? joe johns in kuala lumpur. good report. thank you. let s bring back our aviation correspondent, richard quest. richard, of all the countries involved in the search, who do you believe should get first crack at that black box if it s found? reporter: well, it s going to be one of the big major countries that have huge expertise in this area. so i guess you re looking at australian where the atsb is enormously experienced. the british where the waaip, the ben french, or, of course, the united states with the ntsb. today are the countries that would would look at initially because they have had there are many countries who can do it. the ones who have really pulled together, pulled apart a black box before and extracted data in very exceptional circumstances. it might be, for example, this might be the perfect one for the
malaysian airlines flight 370, michael holmes monitoring the search. he is in perth. joe johns in kuala lumpur with the breaking news on the investigation. at this moment, they ve got a fifth possible ping and they re analyzing it as they think it could have come from the black box. this is a new ping. they re look agent it at this moment. they re hoping to that that analysis any instant at this hour. the navy supply ships cesar chavez en route. as for the investigation, this is amazing. officials tell cnn, officials now say it was the pilot, who spoke the final words to air traffic controllers, good night malaysian 370. earlier in the investigation that. said the copilot said that. he had been having earlier communications. so this would have been a change to the pilot. the source says there was no sign of stress in the captain s voice. we re going to have much more on that breaking news coming up and a friend of is the pilot out front later this hour. i want to begin with the bre
ship, an oceanography ship, the hms echo. it s going to work with the ocean shield to look at the ocean floor. it casts a two-mile wide echo ping down to the ocean floor, hoping to get a ping back from the wreckage. so it s a big development to get that out there to help the ocean shield while other ships are looking for wreckage several hundred miles away where expert says it might have drifted. erin? thank you very much to you, michael. those first planes out of the gate are from new zealand tonight. we re going to be joined by the commander in charge of the search live in a moment. i want to go to joe johns in kuala lumpur first with the latest on the breaking investigation. they ve been saying for weeks they thought it was the copilot who had the final words of communication because he had been tacking to air traffic control before that. now they re saying it s the pilot. how did they figure out that out, and how important is this? honestly, it s very fundamental, erin. it s vo
whistles would go off with the people operating their defense radar saying the civil aviation people have lost this aircraft. what do you see? reporter: but our source says the air force did not inform the rest of the malaysian government until three days later, march 11th. a source involved in the investigation told cnn. malaysian police continue their criminal investigation into the disappearance of the plane and they say no conclusions have been reached. the home minister here says 180 people have been interviewed, including the cabin, crew, and employees of the airline. he said police have not been focusing on the family members of the passengers. jake? joe johns in kuala lumpur, thanks. let s bring in ambassador ken beazley, the country s former aviation minister. ambassador, it s good to see you