miracle if this does turn out to be the aircraft location. miracle, a strong word with an even stronger warning from u.s. navy captain mark matthews. i caution not to be overly optimistic here. we ve got some work to do before we can say that we have a true contact here. matthew s team is on the ocean shield using a pinger locator listening for pings from the black boxes. over the weekend, they heard two promising signals in the southern indian ocean, one of them held for more than two hours. what i d like to do before i absolutely say with certainty that it is the aircraft is, one, reacquire the signal. two, deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle with the sonar to map the debris field and then, three, switch out that sonar with a camera unit and take photographs of what would be the wreckage. slow and tedious work nearly 15,000 feet, almost 3 miles,
it s the sound search teams have desperately been trying to find and now they just may have. the pinger locator towed behind the ocean shield detected distinct sounds that may be from the black boxes. the first detection was held for approximately 2:20. the ship then lost contact. the second detection on the return leg was held for approximately 13 minutes. reporter: the detections about a mile apart in water more than 14,000 feet deep. on one occasion, two separate pings were heard, which only heightened the excitement because the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder ping separately. this is the most promising lead. reporter: but we ve heard that before. the most promising lead. credible leads. credible leads. reporter: but this time it could be different. the audible signal sounds to
less sophisticated means? perhaps the last day of battery life. after all the deadends, does this sound too good to be true? also, in the politics lead, he says that immigration is often an act of love. no, not some democrat. i m talking about the former republican governor of florida, jeb bush. we will ask senator ted cruz this hour. good afternoon, everyone. i m jake tapper. we begin with the world lead. yes, more than once we ve heard officials describe a 239 people on board without any concrete sign of it. please consider it the most promising of the most promising lead. a signal detected in the indian ocean, using highly specialized equipment from the u.s., this is
reliable headsets to listen for the pulses. the team was also traveling with a spare pinger on board which could have been emitting a signal of its own and the chinese said they did not have time to record the pulses, making a scientific analysis impossible. one thing is certain, china is eager to show it is working on behalf of the 154 chinese citizens on board flight 370. the chinese government wants to be seen domestically by its own people of doing its upmost to find out what happened to this plane to give closure to their families. reporter: and that last point there is what all of the experts that i ve spoke with today stressed to me. whatever doubts people might have about the strength of the evidence that china has provided when it comes to these pulses or pings, whatever conspiracy theories that may be out there, it s in china s interest to do everything that it can to find these pings. that s what they say china is doing here. athena, how is it that the
me just like an emergency locator beacon. reporter: search crews are cautiously optimistic. certainly we re jumping to conclusions here. we need to reacquire the signal to confirm that it is the aircraft. reporter: the task now? the ocean shield is trying to find the signal again and hoping for confirmation. if the ping is detected again, crews will launch this underwater drone. it can scan the ocean water and take photos of any potential debris. at the same time, 375 miles away, chinese ships and the british hms echo are trying to confirm pings that the chinese briefly detected on friday and saturday. an australian official says it s unlikely to be from the same source. it s not possible for sounds to travel latterly but it would be difficult near the surface of the ocean, for instance. all of this activity is happening around the arc where