after days of searching need to rest. greta? there is so much sen trace on the southern routes, indian ocean with the p-8s and p-3s and the images from these satellites is anyone paying aany attention to that northbound route. i m sure somebody is paying attention to the northern route. our sources tell us they are focusing right now on the southern route. in fact, they are sort of catching their breath after the initial first week where they were scouring even looking for run whys out in the middle of nowhere. again, the focus right now on the southern corridor. nothing very positive coming out of that search at this point. indeed. i go back to the fact that the odds are that it s in the indian ocean, in the south. the odds are never evidenced. at least not in court. jennifer, thank you. and now so-called ghost plane theory. the wall street journal investigating whether it s even possible that that 777 kept flying if the pilots became exas at a timed. jason bellini joins us.
a quarter billion dollar piece of machinery, the americans gear out there currently searching right now. for all that we see here, i think there are only nine people that actually man this technology. yeah. there s nine people on board and they ve all got various roles. you ve got three people responsible for the radar. this thing has got has got what s called a synthetic appear tour radar. we have all heard of the primitive primary radar that sends out pulses and pings back. this can send out an energy pulse and recognizes what a ship is or aircraft through its al although rhythmic systems. question, if i may. please. we have seen video of the traditional p-3s and the helicopters. and they are people looking out of the windows, looking to see what s on the water. using just the eyes. are you saying that this doesn t do any of that. this is entirely electronic searching, or are there only two windows on this thing, from what i understand. yeah.
we still don t know if those two fuzzy satellite images are pieces of the missing plane, but either way, it does seem like a few major countries are going all in to search that area for malaysia airlines flight 370. just today, china announced it s sending three warships to the coast of australia, japan, and india, and also sending resources, new zealand the resources from new zealand, australia, and the u.s. are already there. joining me now, nbc s tom costello. what s the latest? the latest, they still have spotted nothing out there, of course, and now it s, what, 10:30 at night in that region. of course, all assets are back down on the ground. and they will again pick up the search tomorrow. but in a little bit of a limited fashion in that they won t have that american p-8, the most advanced sub hunter which was in the skies today in that renalen. tomorrow, saturday, will be down for maintenance, scheduled maintenance there in perth, australia. we had five planes in total search
i think it s really just a matter of flight conditions and darkness, to be honest. it s 11:00 at night there. you have now had today five planes in that search zone. you had three p-3s, these sophisticated submarine hunters with those radar with that radar technology. those coming from australia and new zealanzealand, also a p-8, very sophisticated, most modern sub hunter the united states has, and a c-130 cargo plane was out there as well, dropping these buoyant markers. the idea is they transmit constant data about the sea currents and the ocean conditions, and that information transmitted back via satellite to the headquarters in australia so they can keep an eye on what s happening with the ocean currents and if there is debris out there, might they be able to track it and figure out where it s going. also moving into that area, two chinese aircraft are expected on saturday. two japanese aircraft, and really a small flotilla, international flotilla also expected on the surface
that means the planes have to go very low and the admiral mentions terrain. there is no terrain. there is no terrain. it s up in the air. not like the atlantic ocean where you have islands and two continents and things like that. you are heading toward antarctica there, right? well, that s facially right, bill. because when you are flying, you have to turn when do you search patterns. so if you want to balance getting low so you can see initially any floating debris but then when you turn, on the 30 s and p 3s you have 35 feet of wing hanging out there that you don t want to scrape a wing tip on the water and be added to the search. 7500 feet is the sight range about 500 feet? that s correct. you can go loor than that go down to 300 feet as well. and some cases down to 150. all right. now, in this kind of a situations though, when you are looking for an 80-foot and that sounds big, it is