Transcripts For CNNW State Of The Union With Candy Crowley 2

370. A threeweek search using fuzzy satellite pictures, fishing nets and everything in between finds no answers, leading to new questions. How involved is the u. S. . Do Intelligence Services know more than theyre saying . Are these images the best the world can do . The chair of the Senate Intelligence panel, Dianne Feinste feinstein, joins was her take on the plane and the u. S. russian staredown over ukraine. Then im not sure whether i could be at home. Suppose nothing is ever found. What next for aviation and for the families of those aboard the missing jet . Our experts look at the what ifs. Plus the rain and the wind and the weather is basically working against us. Two small towns grapple with disaster and devastating loss. Governor jay ins lease joins us for an update in washington. This is state of the union. Im Candy Crowley in washington. The search for the missing jet has ended for today. Theyve found some objects but they cant be verified or discounted as being from the missing plane until they are recovered by a ship. There is about a week left before the batteries could run out on the pinger designed to help locate the planes black boxes. The australian ship ocean shield leaves for the search area monday. The sip ship is carrying the hightech black box detector and a special underwater vehicle. Earlier on state of the union i spoke with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein about the vagueness of satellite imagery that had been produced so far and whether the u. S. Might have better leads. I think it depends on the satellite and the resolution provided by the satellite and how sophisticated the satellite is. Im not going to go into what we had or what we dont have but what i just said suffices. Can we assume that the u. S. Does know more or can see more as it relates to this plane . Not necessarily. I would answer that that way. I dont know whether more sophisticated satellites could be turned on to this area. I just dont know. Turned over time, because it has been three weeks whether they could do that. I dont know. Yeah, and so what im gathering from that is that you have not seen anything. And i asked this of the White House National security council. And you know, you have not seen anything that is more definitive than the sorts of things that were seeing in public. No, have not. Have not. And have no more broader information of what happened to this plane or what might have happened . No, and you have to understand that american intelligence doesnt gear itself to be ready for plane crashes. That is not its job. Our job is terrorism. And Missile Defense and that kind of thing. I spoke with commander william marx about todays search effort. As they do every day, they do see some form of debris on the water but typically thats trash or seaweed. Theyve even seen dolphins splashing around. Nothing from todays search so, no conclusions or debris from a wreckage. And whats important to realize is all the satellite imagery is helpful but really that is not enough to get us concrete evidence of debris where our oceanographers can then do a reverse plot, reverse engineer to currents and the winds to come up with a starting point, and thats really what we need. So what were looking for between the u. S. Navy and any of the ships or aircraft out here is a conclusive piece of debris which would allow our oceanographers to work backwa s backwards, find this starting point, because without a starting point we really cant put the pinger locator in the right position and its far too big of an area right now. The search for flight 370 resumes monday. Joining me now, chad sweet, ceo of the chertoff group, ken christianson, an expert in satellite technology. Hes the president of integrative aviation solutions. His long resume includes time working with nasa and the department of homeland security. And around carr, president of american underwater search and survey. Gentlemen, thank you all for joining us. Chad, let me begin with you. Why, first of all, does it take four days for the chinese to say, oh, we spotted this in this place and why are the pictures so bad . You have to remember this was a large area and they were probably digesting all that data. The second is they have over the last three years almost doubled the number of satellites they have. Our own Defense Department is estimating theyll launch another hundred by 2015. They may have capabilities theyre wishing to mask so they may have taken time to dumbdown their imagery to prevent showing full capabilities. You dont want folks in that region or anywhere else knowing you have that technology. Thats true, but only a handful of actors such as the United States. You think about right now theyre trying to attract vast areas of ocean. Our satellites that have this electrooptical capability can look at the surface of the water, some that can go below the water to a degree but theyll only pass over that area about ten minutes twice a day, so you really are betting on hoping that youve got coverage. Most of our capabilities are going to be focused on north korea, russia, china, and you can imagine right now with whats going on in the ukraine, the competition for these resources if youre president , you have to weigh you want to focus on the Ukrainian Border or do i divert assets in this region. Ken christianson, next to you, because i know this is also your field of expertise with the satellites. Im told that a lot of the bad picture, if you will, are because of the angle of the satellite that as you get out of the periphery of where its pointing you get blurrier and blurrier pictures. I thought you could turn these things. How long does that take and could it have been done in the past three weeks . Candy, thats an excellent question. And with satellite, the point of origin is over here and the picture is over here. You have this angle. So on again debit on the resolution, of course, but you can stretch these photos from satellite imagery. So they could look longer than they actually are. You dont know until you get to the very lower resolution, half meter resolution or less, that real details on these items. And to date i have not seen anything of the debris field or the proposed debris field that had that kind of detail on it. And let me just as i have you, i have so many people saying wait a second, we can read a license plate from these satellites. Somethings wrong here. Are we expecting too much . Sometimes, yes, youre expecting too much because in the indian ocean where that is, its just vast amount of space. And satellites have to be moved or pointed to objective areas to get that detailed imagery. And this might not be an area that the some of the satellite owners of these satellites want it pointed at. So that could be go ahead. Mr. Carr, i just wanted to bring you into this. With the equipment that is available right now that are submersibles, can go under water and maybe help find wreckage, it is my understanding that, because of the short amount or the short distances that sonar equipment actually is useful, but that you really shouldnt you cant put these submersibles into the water right now since we dont know or even have an idea where the fuselage might be. Thats quite correct. The problem you have is the vast area and the low distance that, like the pinger, can be seen. Even towed equipment, low water to the air or especially in the water has that problem, if you think of the pinger, think the onemile limitation of the pinger when its active and think vertically that you are really at about one mile or more depth. So and when they talk about these underwater vehicles, what are their limitations and what are their strengths . This is also not something you can just plop in there and go looking. Well, you can use a tethered remote vehicle from a vessel, but or a towed vehicle, but really when youre getting into the advent of winter in that area, what you really need is Something Like the auv, the autonomous underwater vehicle, like the long 12foot tubes that you do see and have seen. And they can be launched, work independently regardless of the sea state. The biggest problem with them, though, is the recovery, that if you get a too vile sea state its very difficult to recover. Right. And in terms of democrats and lets say we goat a debris field or someplace we have a pretty good idea that the attack sonar equipment might be able to pick something up. How able is that piece of equipment to pick up precisely a black box or a part of a wing, especially when, as i understand it, you know, at the bottom of this ocean is a lot of, you know, mountains and rolling you know, theres a lot at the bottom of this ocean. So how specific can that sonar get . You really need to tow the sonar down near the bottom up off the bottom. And a rugged bottom like you mentioned makes it so much more difficult. The auvs, the independent vehicles that they would launch, can run for maybe a half a day or a little bit more, and when properly programmed really cover the bottom. What youre doing here would be like take the white mountains. You know, looking for a quarter in the white mountains, a small coin, thats the level of difficulty. Wow. Every time we talk about, you know, what might be the next phase it sounds more difficult than the current phase were in. Chad, to you, are you as seemingly convinced as much of the u. S. Intelligence community is that this does not have aspects that would lead you to believe terrorism was involved, that it was either equipment failure or a deliberate act by someone in the cockpit . Actually, no. I think if you look at it on balance, the community is split and the scenario still does have probability of having a terrorist beginning but an accident ending, i. E. , Something Like we saw on united 93 where you start off as a terrorist plot, theres just too many pieces of evidence that point towards intentional event, i. E. , the diversion of the airplane precisely at the sea between air Traffic Control in vietnam and malaysia, the transponders being disabled and the acars system. If you look at the flight path, it actually not only cuts exactly at that moment but precisely along the border between thailand and malaysia itself. The two paths analyzed now, one at 4 knot path, one 50, the 4knot is preferred but it turns and goes back toward australia. There are a number of u. S. Bases and other bases in Northern Australia that could be a potential target for terrorism. Gotcha. And, ken, my last question to you, and that is lets pretend that we never learn anything more than we know right now. Does aviation change in any way . I think it will. If you look at just the vast number of assets that are out there now, searching for the aircraft and the time, you know, we did not have the data that we needed to this look for survivors if there were survivors, and this, in fact, is in the indian ocean. So i think this instance is going to be a catalyst for improvements in aviation. For instance, cockpit voice recorder, instead of doing two hours of recording weather the new flash memory i think you should have the ability to do 13, 15 hours of recording and this will probably be the new standard. As far as the flight data recorder, the flight data thats on there is good, but how does that flight data and the cockpit voice recorder, how do they both communicate autonomous from the aircraft . And i think well see a gps transmit theyre just takes gps information away from the cockpit and actually transmits it so you will have a gps location. Had we had this on this incident we would have been able to go directly to the crash site and looked for survivors. I think thats going to be the change in the future. Ken christianson with integrative aviation solutions, thank you so much. Around carr, american underwater search and survey, thank you. And of course chad sweet, to you, ceo and cofounder of the chertoff group. Thanks all. Thank you, candy. 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In a fiery nuz conference, they begged officials to give them, quote, truth, evidence, and an a apolo apology. We want to go to cnns paula hancock. Are the families acting alone out of their own frustration . Is this an organized have they organized . Whats going on here . Reporter well, candy, were going into the fourth week now. This is certainly becoming more organized. We saw the families sunday morning at a local Hotel Meeting with Chinese Embassy staff and officials to coordinate the effort and figure out how they can get more information. It was an impassioned press conference we heard afterwards. Imagine more than three weeks they are physically and mentally exhausted. They had to physically come down to kuala lumpur from beijing because they thought they werent getting enough information. Its questionable whether theyll get any information being here on the ground, even the relatives ive spoke on the who have been here all along say they have believed theyre getting all the information. They say sometimes theyre watching televised press conferences and then afterwards theyre called by the airline or by authorities and given the same information. Theres a huge amount of frustration. One of these banners read hand over the murderer. Tell us the truth. Give us our relative back. So that its a tremendous amount of bitterness but of course if the information isnt there for the malaysian authority, they cant give it to the families whether theyre in beijing or kuala lumpur. Absolutely. Almost since day one there has been an intensive look at the pilot. Is there anything new about that investigation . Reporter weve been asking about this all along. And for days there has been no Fresh Information coming from the malaysian authority. These questions are always back to the way whether or not it is because they simply dont have information to give us. We know that the hard drive of that Flight Simulator from the pilot is in fbi hands. Weve heard from u. S. Officials saying there o saying theres no smoking gun at this point, but from the malaysian point of view, they havent released the cargo manife manifest, although they say there isnt anything abnormal that. They havent released the transcription of the conversation between air flight controllers and the pilot and the copilot of the missing flight. And they said at one point that will be released in due time. That we are still waiting for as well. Wa candy . Paula hancocks, thanks for keeping us up on all of that. I am joined by retired United Airlines captain roy ligett who wrapped up his long clear flying with 777s and don phillips known for decades as the dean of aviation reporters, form wlir the Washington Post and the International Herald tribune. Thanks for joining us again. I appreciate with it. Let me start with the families just because its so easy to identify with these folks and how horrible this situation is. And no matter what malaysia has done wrong or right in the investigation, is it pretty clear that they have mishandled the families . I dont think mishandled is a way to put it. They have done some really poor things mainly because they dont have much experience in this. The United States has a lot of great experience in this. And the National Transportation safety board, one section of it, which is separate from the investigators, does know a lot about this. They know for one thing, for the first four years or so after a crash, nothing is going to satisfy these people. Nothing. Its just the way it is. And so what you have is people who are trained to give as much information as possible out. Theyre asked questions. Theyll say we go right now and find out what we can. Theres no guarantee that the people will listen to what they bring back, but it will tone them down, and thats not happening here. Theyre running after the whirlwinds, which is almost worse. Its terrible. Terrible. Roy, let me move you to that 777 since you each had experience flying it. From what youre seeing now, from what we know, is there something some upgrade to 777s you would say, you know what, they really need in this plane is x, y, or z . Sure. And i dont think its particularly the 777. I think what well learn out of this and we learn in every of these instances, that