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Erin Burnett Outfront

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Resigning; Possible Fifth Signal Detected In Search Area; Sources: Jet's Altitude Likely Dipped To 5,000 Feet

Aired April 10, 2014 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Next breaking news, CNN just learning Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gone. We are live at the White House.

And breaking news on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. We are standing by at this hour for confirmation of a new ping. Officials say this could be from the black box. It's being analyzed at this instant.

Plus, we now know the last words from the cockpit came from the captain. Let's go OUTFRONT. Good evening, everyone. We are following two major breaking news stories tonight. The hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and the news just breaking now from the White House. Embattled Health And Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is resigning, gone. This news just coming in to our own, Jim Acosta.

I want to go straight to the White House. Athena Jones is there for us. Athena, what more can you tell us? People have been calling for her head. It seemed like she might have survived but no.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Hi, Erin. All along during the disastrous roll-out of healthcare.gov, Secretary Sebelius was under an enormous amount of pressure and the administration stood by her repeatedly in briefings. You heard from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney saying that the administration had faith in Kathleen Sebelius.

So the word here is that she wanted to wait until they could announce these positive numbers in the end. You'll remember just a week ago the administration was able to say that 7.1 million people ended up signing up for health insurance, despite that rocky start, that rocky roll-out to healthcare.gov.

And even this morning, we heard from Secretary Sebelius on Capitol Hill saying that another 400,000 people have now signed up. So bringing that total to 7.5, which is a number that many people, many people doubted the administration would be able to reach. So she can point to that as a success.

We should mention that Kathleen Sebelius is the only person who served in this role as HHS secretary for this administration. She was sworn in back in April of 2009 and she'll be replaced by Sylvia Matthews Burwell, who is the current director of the Office of Management and Budget -- Erin.

BURNETT: Before you go, Athena, the bottom line here is they just wanted to wait to do this so that those who have been critical of healthcare.gov and Obamacare wouldn't have been able to spike the football too early on?

JONES: Right. One last thing that the critics could point to, Kathleen Sebelius was able to show that this positive number, and then bow out -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Athena, thank you very much. We appreciate it. We're going to have more on that breaking story throughout the hour tonight with Kathleen Sebelius out at HHS.

Now to our other top story tonight, the breaking news that we coming in, in the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a major development in the search and the investigation, and we have all of it covered, 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 looking at it at this moment. We're hoping to get that analysis any instant during this hour.

Also the U.S. Navy supply ship, Cesar Chavez en route to the search area. As for the investigation, this is amazing. Officials tell CNN, officials now say it was the pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah who spoke the final words to air traffic controllers, "Good night Malaysian 370."

Earlier in the investigation, they said the co-pilot 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 the pilot OUTFRONT later this hour.

But I want to begin our coverage tonight with the breaking news from Perth and our Michael Holmes. What is the latest there, Michael?

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erin, that latest ping coming from a sonar buoy. These planes that have been out there, this is really an added tool to the ship that has been towing around that ping locator. What the planes do, they can carry up to 84 of those things. And they've been peppering the ocean near the "Ocean Shield" vessel where which picked up, of course, the four pings since last Saturday.

These buoys drop a line a thousand feet down into the ocean and they listen. Well, it seems one of them got a hit, a ping within the frequency range, all the data recorder and according to researchers, has the potential from being from a manmade source, their words. Now this is preliminary data, in many ways experimental technology.

As you said, sent off for examination and analysis. Hope to hear more in the hours ahead. Meanwhile, a dozen planes, a dozen ships again out over the ocean, scouring. Interestingly, the "Ocean Shield" joined now by a British naval 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.

BURNETT: All right, thanks 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 that search live in a moment. I want to go to Joe Johns in Kuala Lumpur first with the breaking news on the investigation.

Joe, I mean, it's amazing they've been saying for weeks that they thought it was the co-pilot initially who had those final words of communication because he had been talking 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?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Honestly, it's very fundamental, Erin. It's voice communication at its most basic level. Our understanding that police replayed recordings of the tower conversations to five other Malaysian airlines pilots who knew the captain and co-pilot of the missing plane and would have been simply familiar with their voices.

A source tells CNN there were no other people detected, no other voices detected inside the plane. No signs of duress detected. It seems like everything was normal. So it only adds to the mystery of what went on in that cockpit as the plane disappeared -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Joe Johns, we'll see you in a few moments. Thank you.

I'm joined now on the phone by Kevin McEvoy, air component commander at Joint Forces Headquarters for the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Good to talk to you again, Commander. Searchers have been desperately trying to analyze that ping, picked up by a sonar buoy all night and day. Any idea when we're going to get the results and know what they have?

AIR COMMANDER KEVIN MCEVOY, ROYAL NEW ZEALAND AIR FORCE (via telephone): No. The acoustic event that happened, you say the ping was picked up after a Royal Australian Air Force Orion dropped some sonar buoys and they picked up that, and that data will be analyzed overnight. So we're anticipating with the search later on today, potentially, there will be some feedback and some refinement of the area for the search. And more importantly, for the recovery potentially.

BURNETT: Your planes obviously going airborne at this hour, going out again. Where are you searching right now?

MCEVOY: So we're already airborne. We're over the first off the group today. We're searching in the area, which is removed from the subsurface search. The area where the pings are going on that the ships are looking in will be different from the area that the majority of aircraft are looking for. The aircraft are mainly looking for debris on the surface. Other than the Australian Orion, which is specially equipped, dropping those specific so sonobuoys.

BURNETT: Commander, how surprised are you that there has been no debris. Obviously, there are pings. They seemed to be so promising in terms of getting an answer to what happened to this plane, but you haven't seen any debris.

MCEVOY: It's a very, very, very challenging search. It's a very large area. Day 35 of the search. A lot of time has passed and that brings its own challenges in terms of where the event happened. The drift from the ocean currents so far. So in some respects, it's not surprising that it's so difficult to find debris on the surface. It's also very, very deep, four and a half kilometers deep.

So it will take some time for some of that surface to reach, for some of that debris to reach the surface. So not surprising. You know, it is a very challenging search that's been going for a long advertisement. And our crews are focused, professional, and they're motivated to find something and have some closure for this event.

BURNETT: All right, but Commander, you feel optimistic tonight?

MCEVOY: We're always optimistic. We go out looking for a positive result from the day. We'll search in the area that we've been tasked to. It will be according to the most credible evidence, all of the data, all of the information available to the search coordinates. And we're always going out there with the crews motivated, professionally trained, looking for the debris or listening for whatever that may be. Difficult challenging search for them in terms of the environment.

BURNETT: Right.

MCEVOY: Difficult seas. We've always got our fingers crossed.

BURNETT: All right, well, Commander, thank you very much. We appreciate you're taking the time. Of course, as Commander McEvoy just said their planes the first one out of the gate tonight.

MCEVOY: Thank you.

BURNETT: Those planes are hunting OUTFRONT. Next, breaking news as we're standing by for a confirmation that a possible fifth ping has been detected and what it tells. An exclusive look at the cutting edge technology so crucial to the search. Plus, sources now telling CNN that Flight 370 made a drastic drop in altitude. So here is the question. Why was the plane flying below 5,000 feet?

And we now know the last words from the cockpit came from the pilot. His close friend OUTFRONT. We have exclusive pictures you've never before seen of the captain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BURNETT: Breaking news in the hunt for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Searchers now say there is another possible ping that could be from one of those crucial black boxes. Now this signal was picked up by a sonobuoy. A plane flies over, drops it in the ocean about and it picked up the signal. So it's different than the ones the ships have been towing along the surface. Experts are now analyzing the acoustic data. We are hoping for results any moment.

As we await that, I want to go to David Mattingly to talk about these sonobuoys because it's pretty incredibly, planes flying over, dropping these down into the water. You actually were on the U.S. exclusively, the most sophisticated jet the United States has, the Poseidon P-8 with this technology. And you saw it in operation. How did it work?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, these devices are actually not made to track pings from a black box. They're made to track submarines. What we're seeing in the Indian Ocean is actually an experiment by the Australians that could be paying off here. These buoys are not very sophisticated devices. They're parachuted out of airplanes into the water. Part of it floats on top, transmitting radio signals. Part of it deploys in a ray of sensors under the water and can go very, very deep.

The Australians actually had to modify their buoys to listen for that high frequency of pings that is being emitted by the black boxes. And what they've done we're told is they've added equipment to what is similar for listening to the high-pitched sounds of marine mammals. It's not the same thing. It was just similar.

It was a gamble. They didn't know if it would work. They still don't know if the signals they're hearing are coming from the missing flight. But if this is the right signal, the buoys will not only help them hear it, it will help direct them to it.

BURNETT: That's a pretty incredible thing. You're saying they weren't even developed to do this. They sort of sound like they're perfect.

MATTINGLY: Well, these buoys do have their limits. They only have about an eight-hour shelf life with the battery. Once they're done, they sink in the ocean and they're finished. Ship movements, propellers, everything that makes noise in the water can make listening for that ping very difficult. That's why we're waiting for this very painstaking analysis that is going on right now.

BURNETT: So who is the leader in this technology?

MATTINGLY: Australia right now is taking that gamble. They're modifying the equipment. The U.S. Navy will only tell us that they are not using their sonobuoys to listen for the black boxes. They're not doing an acoustic search. I got a firsthand look at those devices on board a P-8 jet a couple of weeks ago. The Navy tells me they are using them just as they were before, to track the ocean currents, the movements in the water.

They're very secretive and sensitive when it comes to protecting the capabilities of their technology. They don't want people to know exactly what frequencies they can and cannot hear because tomorrow they may have to use the same equipment to go tracking a submarine.

BURNETT: It's very amazing just in all of this, the technology that we have, even the surface of this that we now realize exists. David Mattingly, thanks to you.

I want to bring in Richard Quest and Miles O'Brien into this conversation. Richard, this is stunning when you think about this, in this day and age, right, you haven't had wars like this in a long time. Yet, the technology intended to be used for that purpose is out there and it's so sophisticated, and it's amazing.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: And they keep having to refine it and adapt it. And you need look no farther than that Inmarsat satellite. Many of those satellite systems were similarly designed for warfare originally. And now being adapted again and again and again to take advantage of these new situations because they really are -- the clock is ticking on those pingers.

We know there are days left, if that. Therefore, what I'm guessing and assessing is that Angus Houston is now throwing everything he's got, sonobuoys, the Echo is going up there, every bit of craft he can possibly get is heading to the area.

BURNETT: And of course, he is the man in charge of the search.

QUEST: Yes.

BURNETT: Miles, it is pretty stunning. With all of this that is happening, that there still has not been a single piece of debris. Everyone says a cyclone or a typhoon came through the area so the stuff could have spread like flotsam and jetsam. Fine. Don't you think one piece would have been seen on shore by somebody or a boat or something?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Or the snorkelers near the area of the pinging where they might have found an emergency card from a seat back or an air sickness bag or something that wasn't quite floating, but was suspended in the water. It's extraordinary. It just keeps taking me back to this idea of an intact ditching, which as extraordinary as that sounds, you know, given ocean swells and everything, maybe, just maybe happened here.

BURNETT: I mean, you think it did, Richard? You would expect to see one of those.

QUEST: The idea, Miles, you'll agree I think that when first you talk about an in-water ditching on an ocean, anyone who has covered these things looks as if you're mad. You're absolutely mad to be even thinking, the idea. It breaks up. The plane breaks up. We've seen it again. But then you have to come to this conclusion there is nothing there. Therefore, there has to be at least mainly intact down below.

BURNETT: And Miles, also to the question, I know we're going to talk more about this. But the question is, is there any way that the scenario you're talk about could have happened without human intent?

O'BRIEN: I think it could be very unlikely on autopilot that would happen. Sometimes when you fly a paper airplane, instead of landing on its nose, it lands smoothly. I suppose randomly that could have happened. To me that would require a skilled pilot who really knew how to time the swells, which is something we actually train for. We don't do it as pilots, but it's something you think about, you get tested on, and there is a way of doing it, of navigating the swells.

You want to come on the back side or parallel to them. It can be done. I don't know what the sea state was that morning. That's something we should try to find out that is a key thing to know. I got to say this. That Boeing 777 is a hearty aircraft. If a pilot was very care informal a ditching procedure, it could have been sully event.

QUEST: Since we have gone down this road, if I may, quickly, the 777 had been designed and there were modifications and there were attributes of its architecture, such as the engines shearing off, the flaps not being -- the flaps would not impede it, the undercarriage coming in in the format of the underbelly of the aircraft in case of water.

BURNETT: In case of water. But we look at the distance here, we're talking about more than 14,000 feet below the surface. A few miles. The Empire State Building looks like a speck. This is huge. This is deeper than the titanic. What about the pressure level? Yesterday somebody was explaining to me as putting a Cadillac escalade on top of your fingernail. Could it be intact down this with that kind of pressure?

QUEST: I have asked that question a million times. Everybody says it's the metal. Yes, if you put a tin can down there, it will crush. But for some reason you put the Titanic down there, it doesn't crush. Miles, do you know the answer to that question?

O'BRIEN: I think it's a question. The pressure differential is the key. As long as there has been a breach, I think you'd find it intact.

QUEST: No, because I can't help feeling that it still would have crushed whatever --

BURNETT: Like a window would have popped out.

O'BRIEN: The window pops out. The water rushes in. It equalizes the pressure. It's equal pressure on both sides of the aluminum skin and therefore it would stay pretty much intact.

BURNETT: And there is also new composites these 777s.

O'BRIEN: There is not a lot of composites.

BURNETT: Composites?

O'BRIEN: Not much. BURNETT: That's what I was hanging my -- but not a 777?

QUEST: Not many.

BURNETT: Weigh in, please, viewers.

All right, still to come, the breaking news, as we with trying to find out, waiting right now, analysis of that ping could come any moment. And what caused the plane to go down to 5,000 feet during the flight for a period of time.

Plus, OUTFRONT tonight, you will see exclusive new pictures of the pilot. You've seen him before, but not like this. We're going to see them and hear directly from his friend later this hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Breaking news in the search for Malaysia Flight 370. Sources tell CNN it appears the 777 disappeared from military radar for about 120 nautical miles as you see there as it went across Malaysia. According to a senior official with the Malaysian government, the absence from radar means this, that this plane likely plunged down below an altitude of 5,000 feet. That that enabled it to avoid radar.

Let's talk what in would have felt like. Martin Savidge is OUTFRONT in the 777 flight simulator. So Martin, how would this have felt? How dramatic of a drop, given what we know about how this happened, from where it was flying up around 30,000 feet down to 5,000, how quickly it happened? How would it play out in the cockpit?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me just say this first, Erin. This new information doesn't really play out well in the simulator. It doesn't quite add up. But given that, let's say this. We don't know exactly what the rate of descent was. All this tells us is that at some point, it flew under 5,000 feet for 120 nautical miles. It was at one point 35,000 feet. But it was also crossing the Malaysian peninsula.

So it had plenty of time to descend normally. But if it went down really strongly, we have got time to take you from 35,000 to 4,000 feet in the live shot. But let's just give a taste of what a desperate kind of dive down would be in an aircraft like this. And Mitchell is going to nose us over and send us into a very steep and soon you'll probably hear the alarms.

You can already see that's the ocean that is going to be racing towards us. Remember, this would have been nighttime. But for the purpose of this, we wanted you to see. You've got the sink rate alarm that is going off. We're descending at over 15,000 feet a minute. So this would be very severe, very harsh on the aircraft, very noticeable for any of the passengers, who would be screaming at this point. And it is very, very sharp.

But then you level off. And we're just dropping below 5,000 feet now. So we went from 10,000 to 5,000 fairly quickly. The question is why did they do this? And it's been reported that, OK, they were trying to fly or were flying below radar. But I think so, come on, Mitchell, you know, any pilot knows.

MITCHELL CASADO, PILOT TRAINER: If you're at 5,000 feet, if you're at 4,000 feet, you know you're on radar there is no way you're going to think you're not that.

SAVIDGE: That is not a level that takes you below anybody's radar. The other thing we'll point out real quick is we're over the Straits of Malacca. It's one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. And for an aircraft of this size, jumbo jet to be flying at 4,000 feet above this heavily traveled waterway and nobody is sort of saying wow, did you see that plane go over or did you hear it?

It would be quite a commotion. So there is just a number of things that don't make sense. They weren't avoiding radar and they would have drawn a lot of attention to themselves. So maybe they were struggling with something in the cockpit.

BURNETT: Martin, thank you very much. And also, maybe of course, I know we have sources saying this. But you all may remember following the story so closely, at one point we were told this plane flew up to 45,000 feet. We haven't heard much more than that. All the levels we've heard, take them with a grain of salt.

Up next, what the Malaysian government really knew about the plane's path right after it disappeared from radar.

And of course we're waiting, an analysis of the ping could come any moment.

Plus, exclusive new images of the pilot. One of his close personal friends is bringing them to you OUTFRONT tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Breaking news tonight in the search for Flight 370. At this moment, searchers analyzing a possible ping detected by sonobuoys. Those are buoys a plane drops into the water, and then they pick up a ping.

This is the first detected that way, and the analysis is going on at this moment, as I've been saying. We're awaiting it at this instant. They say it's consistent with the black box.

At the same time, there is new information raising serious questions about what Malaysian officials knew and when they knew it about the plane's path.

Joe Johns is outside in front in Kuala Lumpur tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Today, more than a month after the flight disappeared, we're just learning that Malaysian search aircraft were dispatched soon after the airline reported its plane was missing. Malaysian sources told CNN the search planes were headed for the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea where Malaysian authorities had initially focused their search. The search aircraft took off before authorities corroborated data indicating that the plane turned suddenly westward from its original course.

But our source says the air force did not inform the rest of the Malaysian government until three days later, March 11th.

ANTHONY ROMAN, AVIATION EXPERT: I'm suspicious of the information that they've provided. I think the most likely scenario is that they detected them on military radar. They scrambled the jets, and either couldn't locate it or some other problem developed.

JOHNS: And the Malaysian government denied in a tweet that any Malaysian air force aircraft were scrambled. That comes on a day of several other significant developments in the investigation.

We're learning the plane disappeared from military radar for 129 nautical miles after it made that left turn and crossed over the Malay Peninsula.

A senior Malaysian government official and a source involved in the investigation tells CNN the plane must have dipped in altitude to between 4,000 and 5,000 feet, a possible sign the pilots were at the controls.

What is clear now, MH370's captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, not his copilot, was the last person on the jet to speak to air traffic controllers, telling them, "Good night, Malaysian 370", Malaysian sources tell CNN. The sources said there was nothing unusual about his voice which betray no indication he was under stress and no third voice is heard.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: And, Erin, you know, these new details suggest a familiar scenario in crisis management, the kind of thing we've heard before. That in the early hours of the crisis, when things were most confusing, when Flight MH370 disappeared, the Malaysian military could have been acting on information that civilian authorities didn't get access to until later, Erin.

BURNETT: Joe Johns, thank you very much. Live from Kuala Lumpur. I guess it's tomorrow morning when you think about it.

OUTFRONT now, Miles O'Brien, Richard Quest and Arthur Rosenberg, another pilot.

All right. So, Richard, let me ask you this, because on this issue of the pilots communicating, it could have been one of the most crucial things to determining who knew what, who was doing what on this plane, if it ends up being that's the story. Most of the pilots we've been told up this point, the reporting have been, that the person communicating with air traffic control was the copilot. Now, they're saying from this voice analysis that this final crucial communication was from the pilot, not the copilot. So, put that together. What does that mean to you that they switched to his flying? How unusual would that be? Tell me.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It means we don't know. I've got the transcript here as released on the day. It doesn't say.

The source says it was the captain. The source says it was the captain. The source also says it with us the copilot who had been doing the radios on the ground.

BURNETT: Right.

QUEST: That can be explained away because of Malaysia Airlines. There is a rule, the captain is taxiing. Therefore, the copilots would do the radios. You get into the air, the copilot fly, the captain does the radios.

BURNETT: So, it doesn't. It wouldn't surprise you this would have happened. By the way, let's note one thing about this copilot -- this was his first time in this plane without a trainer with him.

QUEST: No, no. It was his first time. Not quite. It was the first time --

BURNETT: Without --

QUEST: Without a third member in the cockpit. Without a check airman.

BURNETT: Right.

QUEST: So he had certainly flown with the captain before.

BURNETT: But the third person was not there.

QUEST: It's irrelevant.

BURNETT: I'm saying, would that change the likelihood of him being at the controls?

QUEST: No. Because he was an experienced or a semi experienced. He had 2,000 odd hours on 737.

BURNETT: Arthur, what do you think? Are you surprised that --

(CROSSTALK)

ARTHUR ROSENBERG, AVIATION ATTORNEY: You are going to be shocked, but I do not agree with you for the following reason.

You have to look at the facts in the context of the accident sequence, which began at 1:07 when ACARS reported everything OK; 1:19 was the last communication. Two minutes later, the transponder is off. And now we start the turn and maybe a descent, maybe a climb. We don't know. But here is the thing. The final communication, if you buy into what we're now being told that this the captain talking, in the context of the accident sequence, I think puts the captain right smack in the middle of the intentional deliberate act of flying this airplane. Now, before you jumped --

BURNETT: His fingers are going.

ROSENBERG: Before you jump at that.

BURNETT: Miles wants in too, Richard.

OK. Finish Arthur, then Miles.

ROSENBERG: You cannot analyze facts in isolation. They must be analyzed in the context of an accident sequence, which is a 14-minute period when this communication between the captain.

BURNETT: Miles, what do you make of this, though? This possible switch in who was communicating?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Arthur knows well that it could very well be the case that as they leveled off, the first officer was doing the P.A. announcement for the people. And so, the captain got on the radio to answer the call. It happens all the time.

BURNETT: We're now at our cruising altitude, enjoy your flight.

O'BRIEN: Exactly. Exactly. And it would be customer for the captain. It was the first leg. It is the captain's discretion always who is the flying pilot. It would be his, it would be customary for the captain to take the first leg and that's probably what we saw there. It could be as simple as a P.A. announcement. So, I don't know. I don't know if you should read that much into it.

QUEST: And I'm not sure what I'm disagreeing with. I'm merely saying don't add one and one together and come up with three.

ROSENBERG: I'm going to add one more fact to this.

QUEST: Oh, do you have to?

ROSENBERG: One more fact to this -- the final communication, right, "Good night, Malaysian 370' without the frequency to the Vietnamese controller, which was different from the custom and practice of what had preceded it, looking at it in the context of the accident sequence, a simple explanation why he didn't repeat back that frequency, he never intended to tune into it. He never intended to transfer to Vietnam.

QUEST: Oh, come on. One plus one equals a half a dozen.

I agree with you about the series of events and the series of incidents and the series of fact. And you have to take the totality. Where I do disagree with you, Arthur, is your insistence on always wanting to come up with the answer as a result of that. ROSENBERG: I say you have to look at facts in context. You cannot look in facts in isolation which you love to do.

BURNETT: Miles?

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Well, let me say one more thing. If it was in fact the captain who made that call, how many times do you think he had done that radio handoff between Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City over -- you know, 18,000 hours? He had that frequency already in the radio. He knew it was coming. But just a casual handoff I'm guessing.

BURNETT: Wasn't he the pilot in charge of pilot training at this airline, a person setting an example.

O'BRIEN: You're right.

BURNETT: His big first flight, that you would want to do everything perfectly?

O'BRIEN: It was not a standard response. You're supposed to say the frequency. There is no question about it.

But I don't know, Arthur. You might be taking ate little too far. I don't know.

ROSENBERG: At a critical time in this flight, all these anomalies suddenly appear. I think they stand for an important facts in a sequence of events which lead us to an inescapable conclusion, which is my opinion and has yet to be established.

BURNETT: And when you take this, Richard, we were talking with Miles earlier, which is now, again, we don't know, because we don't know if the plane is even there that we're looking for, though the signs point to it would be. When you take this event happening and eight hours later a plane that may be intact, which is very difficult to do without a human, when you put those together, do you think that's fair to do?

QUEST: You're cheerleading now on --

BURNETT: No, I'm saying if these two things are the case, which at this point it might be, what would you do with those facts?

QUEST: I would prefer to leave that aspect of the inquiry into the investigation.

BURNETT: Until we have the voice recorder.

QUEST: For a moment or two further reflection, because you can't prove it, and neither can I. But what we do need to do is get down there and get the boxes.

BURNETT: All right. Well, thanks very much. And by the way, just imagine on that voice recorder if it is two hours of silence. It keeps taping over itself. Well, unless it was a person and they wanted to make a statement.

ROSENBERG: Or he said some final thing before the final act.

BURNETT: If it was intentional. Thank you. Our set is tense here tonight.

Still to come, breaking news in the search for the flight. We're awaiting that analysis of the fifth ping from the black box I said could come any moment.

And next, a close friend of the plane's captain OUTFRONT with exclusive never before season images of Captain Zaharie.

And video that you have to see. Hillary Clinton dodging -- well, you'll see.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: And now let's check in with Anderson with a look at what is coming up on "AC360". Hey, Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Erin. We'll be coming breaking news obviously. Australian officials are analyzing sonar data, specifically, a possible fifth signal to determine if the sound is, in fact, from one of the black boxes on the flight. A live report from Perth on the progress ahead.

Other potential significant new information tonight, sources telling CNN that 370 dipped dangerously low, as low as 4,000 feet after crossing back across the Malay Peninsula. We'll take you back inside the flight simulator and ask our aviation experts what -- who could and would fly the 777 so recklessly. And equally important to investigators, why?

I also had my conversation with Sarah Bajc, whose partner was one of the 239 people aboard the flight. She says she is keeping hope alive. That's all at the top of the hour, Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Anderson. Looking forward to seeing you and Sarah.

Well, breaking news in the search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. The new details coming in tonight about what happened inside the cockpit the night the flight vanished. Sources are telling CNN now that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was the last person on the jet to speak to air traffic controllers, the words, "Good night, Malaysian 370". Earlier, we have been told it was the co-pilot and he had done some of the communication earlier in the flight according to sources.

So, this is an important development and it raises question. Tonight, we have new exclusive images of the captain. They show him with his friend, Sivarasa Rasiah, the vice president of the Malaysian opposition party and a member of parliament. He knew Captain Zaharie very well. Captain Zaharie volunteered on Siva's campaign. And as you see in this picture, they even listened to karaoke together.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Sivarasa Rasiah joins me now via Skype.

And, Sivarasa, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, he was a friend of yours. What can you tell us about him?

SIVARASA RASIAH, FRIEND OF FLIGHT 370 CAPTAIN: Well, I first got to know him quite well around April, May 2013, that was the time of the last general elections in this country when I ran as a candidate, as a member of parliament. He was one of the several hundred volunteers in my campaign team, and he followed me around in the campaign trail a couple of days. Subsequently, we met a few times at social events organized in my constituency, and that's when I got to know him better as well.

Captain Zaharie is, you know, basically is -- you know, a person who is easy to like.

BURNETT: We have some pictures that you took together, that you just provided us. This is first time anyone has ever seen them.

What did you do together? I mean, we've got some pictures of you singing karaoke together. I mean, tell us what it was like socially with him.

RASIAH: Sure. As I said, he was a fun kind of guy, easy to be with, easy to interact with, and you know, easy to like.

So, that photograph of us, karaoking together was at one of the social events end of last year organized by my youth wing in the party, in the constituency. And, you know, he obviously likes to karaoke, so he was up there singing and I got pushed to join him.

And there we were, both of us trying to sing "Hotel California" and quite badly at that, too.

BURNETT: Now, we know Captain Zaharie was married, three children, a grandchild. There are reports, of course, that his wife was staying at another smaller with relatives. Did the captain ever talk to you about anything in his personal life?

RASIAH: No, unfortunately, we never did. I never really met the family. When we met -- as I said we met at the social events organized by the party within my constituency. And we talked most of the time with the other members. We talked local issues, national politics, we would gripe about the country, what we needed to do to change it, because that was our bond in the party, talking about the reform that this country needed. That Malaysia needed.

BURNETT: Today, sources have said that Captain Zaharie was the last person on that plane to talk to air traffic controllers. You know, earlier, they said it might have been the co-pilot but now, they're saying that it was him. Is it possible Captain Zaharie is responsible for the plane's disappearance from what you know of him as his friend?

RASIAH: The Captain Zaharie that I know would never have put the lives of his passengers in danger, or his plane at risk. That's not the man I know.

So, I can't imagine for one minute that Captain Zaharie would do that. Something obviously went wrong on that plane and we still don't know, we don't know the answer. But I mean, the man I know wouldn't be doing that. Not deliberately.

BURNETT: All right. Well, thank you very much, Sivarasa. I appreciate your time tonight.

RASIAH: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: We've heard this again and again from people who knew that captain that he was impeccable, kind, warm, and a wonderful man.

Still to come, somebody throws a shoe at Hillary Clinton. And we're going to show you because we're just getting video.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Hillary Clinton dodging something during a speech in Las Vegas today.

Take a look and listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: In about two -- what was that, a bat? Was that a bat? That's somebody throwing something at me? Is that part of Cirque de Soleil?

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: My goodness, I didn't know solid waste management was so controversial.

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: Thank goodness she didn't play softball like I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Especially if she thought that was a bat. Anyway, the woman who threw the shoe, you saw her, we don't yet know who she is.

Well, season two of "INSIDE MAN" premieres Sunday at 10:00 Eastern. In the first episode, Morgan Spurlock takes a job as a paparazzo. This is awesome. He stopped by to tell me about it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Here's the question, do you read all of those celebrity magazines? MORGAN SPURLOCK, HOST, "INSIDE MAN": I did research for this episode. I don't know if I'm particularly in the target audience of these magazines. But --

BURNETT: You're not looking for the latest of Kim Kardashian --

SPURLOCK: But it is nice knowing that stars are just like us, you know? It's a good thing to know.

BURNETT: All right. Being a paparazzo, getting those pictures, I remember seeing one of them on the beach in Barbados, and thought really, that is a tough gig to go to these fancy locations and take pictures of people.

SPURLOCK: Yes.

BURNETT: Is it hard or easy?

SPURLOCK: Well, I mean, you think it is going to be easy. But then you realize you do have to have good skills to be a good photographer, and especially a good paparazzo, because you have to react super fast. And you also, depending on what your job is, you have to be willing to sacrifice some of your ethics, you know?

As we're doing this job, I was asked like camp outside of Lamar Odom's house, this was in the middle of his potentially or alleged drug meltdown. So, you start to feel a little dirty time sometimes.

BURNETT: And what about the paparazzi, the people who do this for a living? I mean, did they also feel that way, or did they sort of become -- I don't know, you become immune to it?

SPURLOCK: Well, I think there are guys who have a code of ethics, who will not take pictures of kids, because they have kids of their home, who do draw a line. But I think there are guys who are mercenaries. You know, they will do whatever they can to make a buck and if it means getting outside someone's house and catching them at their absolute worse or at their lowest, then they're going to do it.

BURNETT: And physical altercations.

When you see one picture, I see it in all the magazines. So it is not the same guy taking the picture.

SPURLOCK: No, there's hundreds.

BURNETT: These guys fight -- hundreds, right? I mean --

SPURLOCK: Hundreds of guys.

I was called to go to the airport because Kim Kardashian was flying in from Paris. And I'm there with probably 60 other paparazzos that are just like, oh, they're taking pictures. I mean, it's -- and you're fighting to get a shot, you're getting knocked out of the way.

BURNETT: Do they buy into it? I want -- if I'm one of them, hey, I'm really -- I'm getting into Kim Kardashian -- or, do they go, oh, my God, here we go, I'm taking a picture of Kim Kardashian?

SPURLOCK: Their whole thing is like, I'm going to make it paid. All they look -- every person has a dollar sign, they look at the face and that's just a dollar sign.

BURNETT: I can't wait to see this.

SPURLOCK: Yes, it's good, you'll like it.

BURNETT: All right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Check it out. Anderson is next.