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More Leads on Malaysian Airlines 370

Aired March 15, 2014 - 16:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York. Nothing more definite has come out of the search for that Malaysian Airlines jet, but what we have for you is a new focus on a few possibles based on the best information we have right now. And much of that information is new. So let's go to it right away.

First, a new timeline of events. American, British and Malaysian experts working separately all now agree that somebody on that plane switched off the critical communication system while it was still over land. That's a vital piece of information because a very calm and normal-sounding handoff message was sent from the plane after that point, after the tracking system was turned off. Extremely mysterious.

Back to the ground for a minute. Police went through the homes today of the pilot and co-pilot. They are looking hard at the passenger manifest and very hard at the flight crew. Little else to go on, officials are trying to learn all they can about the people on that plane. Now back in the air, if that plane kept flying, it had enough fuel to reach anywhere in western China or all the nations of Central Asia.

That's interesting because some of the groups in that part of the world have very big problems with China and with the west. And quite possibly the political or ideological reasons to justify stealing an airplane filled with innocent people as remarkable as that sounds.

Now I want to bring you to that region a bit to explain the dynamics on the map here. First, we're going to look at the ark. This is now the new ark of the search area, which is incredibly large. But it's important to describe what is in that ark to get a sense if someone was trying to commander this plane and take it somewhere, where might they want to take it. A huge range, it could get to India.

Now the thing about India is India has a very mature civil aviation industry there. It also has a very mature and large military with a lot of surveillance that could detect this kind of thing as do many of the other nations here. But also this ark brings this northern part of Asia into play here in the range where that aircraft could have gone. And let's look at some of the countries in that area because as you get up here, you have the central Asian countries of Krygyzstan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan as well as in western China, the Xinjiang province. That's that area just north of the Tibetan area which many Americans will know about, Xinjiang region, part of China since 1949. This is where the Weeger population lives. It's a middle Eastern, Central Asian population that are Muslim. There are groups there that are fighting for independence from China and have used violence in the past.

There's no definitive evidence that any of those groups are involved in this attack, but we do know that investigators have been looking to see if there are any people of Weeger nationality on the plane as a possible lead. Not a definitive but it broadens the area of potential actors when it comes to this. Now that we know that the flight range after this plane disappeared includes this region today. So it's an area of inquiry.

As we get into that, I want to bring in now some of our experts who know so much about flying. We have right next to me here, Arthur Rosenberg, a pilot, aviation engineer and aviation attorney. We have Bob Baer, a former CIA officer and CNN's national security analyst. Arthur, if I can, I want to start with you. You're a pilot, you're an engineer. You know how these planes work. Let's focus for a moment on that new information today.

ARTHUR ROSENBERG, COMMERCIAL PILOT, AVIATION DESIGN ENGINEER: Sure.

SCIUTTO: The sequencing, the first system, the acre system shut off before it leaves the Malay peninsula. A few minutes later, transponder turned off, after which or around the point at which you hear a pilot give a very calm handover. "Thank you and goodnight." What's the importance of that sequencing?

ROSENBERG: Well, I think you have to look at that sequence of events together with the fact that the plane left Kuala Lumpur, was airborne for about 45 minutes and then today with the prime minister of Malaysia's announcement for the very first time, I characterized it as - it's a deal breaker. It changes everything. It's a game changer. The transponder was turned off. The acre system was turned off. Then we have what may or may not be, I think it was, AN inappropriate communication from someone in the cockpit back to air traffic control, "all right, good night."

SCIUTTO: Inappropriate meaning misleading?

ROSENBERG: Meaning that it's been suggested that maybe that was a code for the Malaysian Airlines letting people on the ground know that something was wrong. It's possible. Typically you'd get Malaysia flight 370 and they would repeat the frequency to the handle of controller, which would have been the Vietnamese controller. But what happened after that is also telling. You have an airplane after a transponder and acre system was turned off became largely invisible to the air traffic controllers. Then the plane makes a left turn. Shortly thereafter and heads back in a southwesterly direction. What does it mean in short?

SCIUTTO: It's a deal breaker why? Because it gives greater evidence this plane was commandeered?

ROSENBERG: Exactly. And prior to this, there was uncertainty whether this plane had been commandeered, whether it had been hijacked, we had a lot of scenarios that we postulated. But I think this makes it absolutely clear whoever said that on the air knew that the transponders had been turned off, the acre system had been turned off and they wanted to become invisible. And they did.

SCIUTTO: I want to go to Bob Baer now. Bob, your extensive experience in intelligence, how important is this information and does it convince you that the plane was commandeered?

BOB BAER, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: I think at this point turning off all the systems, the change in direction, I have been listening to the pilots. I'm not a pilot myself. I think the evidence is conclusive. The Malays have come out and finally admitted it a week later. The question is, why steal an airplane like this? Was it intended to be flown to for instance, Diego Garcia and crashed into an American base there? I just don't know that. Nobody knows that.

Then the second question is could you hide one of these airplanes? Again, I'm not a pilot, but I can tell you in the '90s, I used to fly in a c141 which is a very large airplane. We used to fly into Central Asia, through the mountains, it was quite fantastic flight to avoid Russian radar at the time. I can tell you the air force can get into these places and disappear an airplane very quickly. Now, I can't believe a terrorist group would, but what do I know?

SCIUTTO: I want to get to some of the issues about the handoff because it does raise questions about how easily a plane could have avoided the many militaries that have radar et cetera, civilian as well. But Bob, let's talk about those groups in western China and again with the caveat that we don't know. There's no hard evidence they were involved, but what do we know about the capabilities of groups, for instance, Weeger separatist groups. They have been blamed for attacks, a suicide car bombing in Tienanmen Square last fall, a knifing attack in Kunming (ph), just a couple of weeks ago. Do they have the capability and the ambition to do something as bold as stealing an airplane?

BAER: They have the motivation to do it. The Chinese are cracking down on them hard in Xinjiang province. They are tearing down their cities. I could see them coming after the Chinese. The problem is I have never seen them turn to aviation before. They are not very sophisticated. They would need to contact a group from Malaysia who could assist them on this. Themselves alone, I doubt it.

SCIUTTO: And early on I was asking intel officials in Washington whether they had this group had the capabilities. That was the read was that maybe the ambition but not the capability. I want to get back to Arthur, before we finish just on this point of the handoff, because when that plane gave that good night, a handshake, in effect, why didn't the Vietnamese authorities alert someone when the plane didn't show up on their radar screens?

ROSENBERG: Well, standard protocol would absolutely be that the controller who was second in the sequence, who received the football, who received the handoff would expect within a short period of time for the new frequencies to have been dialed in in the airplane and then the flight crew to make contact with the new controller. The fact that it wasn't here is telling. It immediately tells the downstream controller, "hey, where the hell is the airplane?" Should they have gotten on the horn and tried to communicate with the airplane, called up the Malaysia controller, "Hey Malaysia controller, where is Flight 370?" At this point, I'm unaware whether those communications actually did take place, so I would characterize that as pieces of the puzzle which have yet to be defined.

SCIUTTO: And that's a fair point. Because we have seen many of these pieces come in. They have dribbled in often too slowly from the Malaysian side. Bob, I wonder if I could come to you just for one more thought as we get here.

Early on when the possibility was raised that this plane could have been commandeered somewhere for a later use, that was seen as a far out there possibility, but no one was taking it seriously. Something that you take more seriously now?

BAER: Absolutely. I mean the fact that they haven't found the wreckage so far, I know it could have gone down in a great number of places, but they haven't found it. The fact that it was so organized makes me wonder if these people have certain capability. I mean I think they were heading somewhere with this thing. Did it fail? That's most likely the chances of them actually stealing an airplane and hiding it, I would expect a government to be able to do that but not a terrorist group. So it's still way down the list for me.

SCIUTTO: This is some remarkable possibilities now even as the evidence has come together. Thanks very much, Bob Baer, Arthur Rosenberg. We're going to be plumbing the depths of these issues as we continue tonight.

As we just discussed, all right, good night, were the last words radioed from the cockpit of Malaysia Flight 370. Ahead, hear how those words are connected to what one aviation expert says is the biggest breakthrough we've had so far in this investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto, in New York.

Did something sinister happen in the cockpit of Flight 370? We have some exclusive new reporting on the disappearance of this jet. CNN has just learned that the last radio transmission and those words "all right, good night" were said after the tracking system were switched off. Joining me now is Richard Quest, who knows flying better than really anybody in the building, I would say and most of the world.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION EXPERT: This is really interesting. Because what's happening here is all I've done is take the prime minister's statement and I've compared it to events that we already knew about that happened. So if you put them all together, you end up with the following.

The prime minister saying that the acres was switched off as the plane flew out over the eastern coast of Malaysia. SCIUTTO: The Acre is the system that sends data from the plane, flight altitude, et cetera.

QUEST: Absolutely. The information. So (INAUDIBLE) this point, acres is disabled. At this point, both the transponder is switched off and we also get the "all right, good night."

SCIUTTO: Seemingly innocuous everything is fine.

QUEST: Right. It doesn't really matter which you take the all right, good night or the transponder switched off. Although if it was the transponder was off first, air traffic control might have questioned it. But it doesn't matter. What it does tell us is that at that moment whatever was happening was happening and there's no indication on the "all right, good night" that there's something wrong.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you a question. This presents some possibilities. It presents the possibility that the pilot did it, right? Either willingly or under duress. Or someone else got in the cockpit and you know, said all right, good night on a staticky line, anybody could sound anybody.

QUEST: Correct.

SCIUTTO: Perceivably.

QUEST: Anyway, air traffic control wouldn't know what he sounded like.

SCIUTTO: Exactly. Maybe the first time they heard from him. But let's see, you do all these things quite calmly, I imagine under - you would need to have knowledge to do it whether or not you were the pilot or someone else who didn't belong in the cockpit, right?

QUEST: Right. Which is the extraordinary thing about all of this because the timeline - let's just put it this way. Let's say it's the pilot who and it's a mechanical or there's something seriously wrong with the aircraft. But they don't know about it yet. It's not feasible. It's just not feasible.

SCIUTTO: It's not feasible to say that they didn't know, for instance, the acres had stopped working and they are just going to continue flying?

QUEST: Chirp like a bird and it failed. But assuming that it is possible, although pilot people (INAUDIBLE) I've spoken to say really you'd know (INAUDIBLE). But let's assume it is. As these things continue, it would be the pilot who would be saying "all right, good night" without knowledge of what was about to happen.

If it's somebody else involved, you have to have a fairly detailed knowledge of how to disable acres. It's a buzz, it's an electronic thing at the back. You got a couple software pages to deal with. It's not like turning off the transponder.

SCIUTTO: OK. A couple questions here. How easy is it? Let's say it was under duress. QUEST: Right.

SCIUTTO: And again, this is speculation. Because we don't know but we're getting pieces to the puzzle.

QUEST: It's the important pieces.

SCIUTTO: We're like police investigators, you know, pulling this together. But if it was under duress, it would have been easy to send one of those sly I'm being hijacked signals right because they make it very easy in the cockpit to send that signal, is that right?

QUEST: You mean, I'm not going to give the number out. (INAUDIBLE) who has read half a dozen books know what what it is. Turn the transponder to the emergency frequency.

SCIUTTO: Exactly.

QUEST: Jim, if they disabled acres, then they certainly knew what they were doing about transponders from anybody who has read a Tom Clancy novel. What I think is very crucial here is not to jump to - as you have been saying all week is to accept what we know and work out from there. And what we know is acres was disabled, transponder disabled, we're waiting for more confirmation on the "all right, good night" for instance. Was it just a simple "all right, good night" in which case it would be improper because it should be Malaysia 370, whatever, whatever, the instruction.

SCIUTTO: Interesting. Does that give a clue at all in that it was so simple that it didn't give an identifier, flight number, et cetera?

QUEST: Well, what you would have been told is Malaysia 370 contact Vietnam control (INAUDIBLE). And then he would have said, contact one, Vietnam control of 117 decimal four, Malaysia 370, all right, good night." But we don't know whether the officer who revealed "all right, good night" just didn't tell us the precedence of that.

But before anybody jumps on me on all of this, my Blackberry is bursting with pilots who are pointing the - the information may be lacking is about procedures and methods and means is being provided and is being assisted by an entire body of people out there who are helping us understand.

SCIUTTO: Well, you know, and thanks very much. We're going to have Richard Back in the broadcast. Just to be clear, we're making baby steps forward as we look into the investigation as well. This is a step forward. It doesn't eliminate really any explanation, but it does give more evidence for the plane even as the Malaysian prime minister said being at least under control at that point by someone, you know, either under duress or intentionally leading the plane. So we're moving closer in that direction. Thanks very much, Richard. We know we're going to have you back.

Coming up, he's a best-selling author, host of History Channel's "Decoded" and he was even recruited by the Department of Homeland Security to help prevent terrorist attacks. Brad Meltzer joins us next to talk about Flight 370 and why its disappearance has captivated the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto, in New York.

Everyone wants to know what happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 and with so little hard evidence to go by, everyone, it seems, has a theory. Brad Meltzer is the host of Brad Meltzer's "Decoded" on the History Channel. He's also author of "History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of all Time."

Brad, thank you very much for coming on. We're glad to have you on because you are a student of history. And just looking at this, I'm just curious, when we look back through history particularly involving flight, is there any precedent for this kind of thing where a plane just disappears. We don't know what happened to it, but there's talk of it being commandeered, taken to a far away place. Is there any precedent for that?

BRAD MELTZER, AUTHOR: You know, it's interesting. When you look at it, I'm actually - forget about the flight part. It's amazing to watch historically how times have changed. When Abraham Lincoln was killed, it took weeks, sometimes a month before some people knew that the president died. Just to look at the flow of information. With JFK, of course, it was hours. And then you look at something like the Boston bombing, (INAUDIBLE) and you see how quickly information moves. That's what's the most fascinating part to me is when you look at this, you're seeing almost the investigation happening realtime. We all know it's happening in real time but everyone needs to see it happen in realtime.

And that's kind of the unprecedented part here. Because I got a call - for instance, I was telling you offline that the best investigator I know in private security, I knew something was up when she called me two days ago and said watch. Watch what's going to happen. You can just feel right now the American people feel that something just smelled wrong here.

SCIUTTO: No question. Every day there are more signs that something went wrong here. Maybe something nefarious. But let me ask you , you talk about technology. You know, certainly the information moves more quickly, but would you have a false sense of security by the idea that there's so much technology it would make something like this impossible, right? So many systems on the plane, redundant systems, satellites watching, radars watching, I mean the idea that this thing could just disappear, it just seems incredible.

MELTZER: Of course. I mean, listen, that's what always is at the heart of conspiracy theories. Two things. One, it's just the facts that seem wrong. And one of the first ones before we had any information was that simple detail that in this NSA tracking world that no one had a cell phone that was on and suddenly people are saying when you call a cell phone on a plane it should go to voice mail, but there are family members saying "No, the phone was ringing when I called it. That phone was still going." And suddenly people start going, "Wait a minute, that can't be right." Anyone who has been on a plane knows there's got to be one person on the plane whose phone is on and who doesn't listen to the rules. Who just says you know what? I got to text my loved one before I leave. And you're telling me all of them are gone? Again, people go, what's happening? But if you want to know, to me, the real root of where these conspiracies take place is they always come from our deepest fears.

And to me that's what we have to focus on here. I mean we are watching the plot of "Lost," the TV show "Lost" play out in front of our eyes. The only thing missing is the magical island (INAUDIBLE). And the American people look at that and combine that with the great fear of plane crashes on a regular basis and some you have the makings of what you see here, which is, of course, everyone reacting. We all know this is not a normal news story. There's something bigger and something that people smelled a mile away.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's incredible when you think that one of the early conspiracy theories on the lost of this flight was taken somewhere and that somehow the passengers are still alive. Six, seven days ago that seemed a fantasy. Now there seems to be some evidence that's at least possible, far from confirm, but at least possible. So here's a case where the conspiracy theory moves into the realm of the possible.

MELTZER: Listen, that's always the fascinating part. (INAUDIBLE) look at conspiracy theories and say what a cook. (INAUDIBLE) would have been, you know, too young Nepals until they are right. And when they're right, it's a very different game. It's the same thing here. On Thursday every network was saying the conspiracy theories, those are ridiculous, those are silly.

Today, they are suddenly going we need to investigate where the plane is, we need to know where the security tape is of the people that got on the plane. We want to know, how anyone on that plane - what did they know, who could fly a plane, who knew how to use the different systems that were on that plane and suddenly all those cooky theories are suddenly going into the realm of truth. And I think it makes people realize that conspiracy theories, in a way, are the very original form of crowd sourcing. Because there's a real power when you bring people together and you let them play it out.

And I think we saw it again in the Boston bombings, right? In a matter of hours after the bombings happen, we suddenly have information. We have ATMs, we have people's cell phones, and in a matter of seconds, they say, we got to find these guys. Let's turn it over to the American people and they find them.

This is what you're seeing here. Again, it's that form of crowd sourcing where all this information, all these questions and the demand for answers at one time are what's providing - not just to keep the story going but to dig for a real truth.

SCIUTTO: Well, they are at least in the realm, if possible we should at least caution our viewers that there are other equally plausible theories. For instance, U.S. military officials saying that it's most likely in their view that the plane is on the bottom of the Indian Ocean now. Not proven by any means, but at least that's plausible too based on what they know. So it's early stages here. Brad Meltzer here, thanks very much for talking us through some of the many possibilities.

Coming up, CNN's Martin Savage will take us inside the cockpit of a Boeing 777 in hopes of finding clues to what happened in the moments before Flight 379 disappeared.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York.

The new focus for all of the search crews and international agencies searching for the missing Boeing 777 is this -- what was happening on that flight deck before the jet vanished from every scope watching if from the ground?

Here's one working scenario: the plane may have flown this pattern northwest over China and possibly into central Asia, Turkmenistan and possibly Kazakhstan. That's where some groups have some strong political and ethnic issues with China and the West, and analysts say they could see the value in taking over an airplane. Again, it's one of the many working theories, but one that becomes more plausible now in light of the possible flight path.

Now, investigators say Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 made extreme changes in altitude. It climbed to 45,000 feet and then dropped to 23,000. But is that even possible?

CNN's Martin Savidge demonstrates what that would look like from inside a cockpit simulator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, the great thing about having this whole system here where we can practice, simulate is the fact that we can take all these new scenarios that are put out there and literately see if they fly. And some of them don't.

Let's start with the reporting that this aircraft was at one point operating at 45,000 feet, which is where we are now in a simulator. It's a struggle to get the plane there. It was never meant to fly this high. And even though we've got Mitchell Casado as a real good pilot -- tell us what it's like to keep the aircraft here.

MITCHELL CASADO, FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR: It's very difficult. It's very difficult to control.

SAVIDGE: Part of the problem you have is really kind of ironic extremes. This plane is on the brink of stalling, going too slow, but at the same time almost at the brink of going too fast, a razor edge of balance.

OK. Let's talk about that sudden decent that's been described. A plane descending pushes over the top, at something reported to be around 45,000 feet a minute. This plane couldn't fall that fast. But if you try to descend quickly, this is what happens. The alarms are all going off and now you know you're in trouble.

What's happening with the airplane?

CASADO: We're sinking at close to 20,000 feet per minute and the plane would be breaking apart at this point.

SAVIDGE: Yes, the air structure and the integrity of the airplane would really now be in jeopardy. Whether the plane could survive, whether the pilots in any could pull it out of such a dive is hard to imagine. If a plane was in any shape to continue flying that, who knows what would have happened to the passengers.

Let's talk about something else that's been reported. That is that there might have been two conspirators or more. And the reason they bring that up is that somebody was flying the plane while allegedly another person was down below in the electronics bay, one level, below this and they are dismantling systemically some of the radios here.

Yes, it's possible, but as we fly with the simulator, you don't need two people. You could mention, what, have it on --

CASADO: On auto pilot. And it's ideal to have two. The more the better, I guess, for that purpose. It sounds weird, but, yes, the auto pilot could be on. One guy could be down there, come back up, turn the pilot off and then execute what they needed to do.

SAVIDGE: Or you can have just one person put on auto pilot, climb down, come back and finish the deal. So, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean two.

Let's talk lastly about the transponder, because the transponder really is the first indicator that this plane had a problem. It's a very simple device and it's found right here next to me knee. This transponder essentially is what identifies us in the air as to who we are.

CASADO: That's right.

SAVIDGE: The important thing to remember is no pilot in their right mind would switch it off. But somehow it was disabled.

How do you turn it off if you had to? Well, it's simple. Grab this knob, three clicks to the left, it's off. It means we're no longer transmitting who we are, where we're headed. We still show up on radar, but we're unidentifiable.

The problem is that's like going the wrong way down a highway. You just would not do it.

One last thing about the transponder, you could use it to use a distress signal, if you've been hijacked. The way you do that is enter a specific code. It's done like this. Clear, I'm not going to enter the exact code, but it would be like this. Now, this aircraft is automatically admitting it's under a hijack situation. On the ground, alarm bells are now ringing, jets are probably scrambling to intercept. There's no indication that happened, but it could have been done.

What you find with the simulation each time you run the scenarios is, it's still a mystery and we're no closer to finding the plane or the people who were on it -- Jim.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Martin Savidge on a 777 simulator.

Richard, you've been in a simulator before. Watching that sequence, is there any scenario you can imagine where there would be a fire or some sort of system failure that could create the same conditions, that 45,000 -- rise to 45,000 feet, descend to 23,000, the turns and all this kind of stuff?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The numbers involved are -- they're not confirmed. The important point about that is where they are getting the data from. And even the article that talks about this, I think it's "The Times" that's got the 45,000 and 23,000, "The New York Times". Even the article itself basically says --

SCIUTTO: It's not certain.

QUEST: It's not certain that those are the parameters.

SCIUTTO: But how about the sequencing? Could that have happened?

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: Where the plane goes up and down and up and down, it's a well- known problem that does happen sometimes. As you aim for stability in the air.

To go to 45,000 and down to 23,000, I mean, I would spare a thought that the passengers that would be going through that. That's horrendous.

SCIUTTO: Not designed for that kind of decent.

QUEST: Not, it's not. As for the buttons and knobs and all those sort of things, it's all doable. You need a bit of experience, a lot of experience, but it is all doable exactly as Martin and the captain showed.

SCIUTTO: We're going to talk more about this after the break. Thanks very much.

Richard is going to stay here.

As the search for Malaysia flight 370 expands, investigators are now digging for more information on the people on board that plane. Richard Quest actually did a story with the co-pilot just one week before the plane disappeared. We'll talk to him about that next.

But first, want to give you a quick update on another big story that we're following, the situation in Ukraine. One day before a potentially explosive referendum in Crimea, Moscow's military is on the move. Ukraine says about 60 Russian troops and helicopters and assisted by three armored vehicles crossed into Ukraine's kryshian region, near the border with Crimea.

The local governor says Ukraine repelled the troops, but border guards say they are still there. This comes as Crimean residents decide whether to leave Ukraine and join Russia or essentially become independent. Earlier, Russia vetoed a draft resolution in the U.N. Security Council declaring that referendum invalid. Thirteen of the 15 members supported it, with only China abstaining. Meanwhile, the atmosphere is tense throughout the region. Thousands of pro-Russian protesters in support of the referendum rallied peacefully in the eastern city of Donetsk.

We'll be right back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Keeping you up-to-date on the missing Malaysian airliner. The search area is now bigger than ever.

And today, new information about when the plane's transponder may have been switched off. According to official statements, the tracking system was shut off before the point of last contact when the pilot said those words "all right, good night." But the latest analysis shows the plane may have flown for another seven hours, first turning west, then possibly turning again either north towards Kazakhstan or south toward the Indian Ocean.

The U.S. now has several assets helping in the search for the plane. The U.S. Kidd is in the Indian Ocean, that's a destroyer, and in the Bay of Bengal, two U.S. military aircraft searching as well.

As we learn more about what happened inside that cockpit, as the plane dropped off the grid. There's a new focus for the investigation, the people on board the plane. CNN has just learned that police searched this man's home. He was the pilot, scouring his Malaysia residence today. After the country's prime minister confirmed that the plane was likely, in his words, deliberately diverted.

Police vans were also seen leaving the co-pilot's home. You can see him right here, because CNN's Richard Quest actually did a story with him just a week before the disappearance. You can see him there inside the cockpit with him.

Now we know that last transmission, "all right, good night," was made after the transponder was turned off. Do you think this suggest something, Richard? Especially in light of your experience flying, and heck, you were in the cockpit with him. Does that convince you more that something sinister happened?

QUEST: You know, I've been fighting against that very thought all week. And then if anything, I would be one of the people that resisted that suggestion. But you do start to see pieces of the jigsaw being put on the table that lead you to a particular way. So, you come back to this idea of if the plane was being maneuvered in a deliberate fashion in this manner, why? And there really aren't that many reasons why.

One end of the spectrum, you have hijacking and terrorism. The other end of the spectrum, you have a disabled aircraft and the pilots are flying and doing the best they can in some terrible, extremist circumstances. I am not prepared. I don't think anybody could be prepared to say at this definitive stage what it is. And, indeed, the prime minister of Malaysia would not go that one stage further and say he could not say it was a hijacking.

SCIUTTO: Right, deliberate but not necessarily hijacked. Something else could have caused that to happen.

QUEST: No, no, no, we've seen so many -- whether it was Helios, whether it's 447, whether any of the Air France, we have seen so many cases where a set of facts presents themselves which at first leads to a conclusion, but ultimately chooses, but we need to look at all the options. So, I don't deny the possibility. I'm not saying it's not. I'm saying I'm keeping an open mind.

SCIUTTO: As the investigators are, and I speak to U.S. -- in television -- officials and their assessment of terrorism has not changed in the last eight days, even as this new information, they say we haven't eliminated it, but we haven't established a clear link. I just want to ask you a question about fliers out there because they -- they're thinking, this as I was thinking this. I flew from Washington to New York this morning. We took an odd approach to LaGuardia. We took a long loop. Now, that happens. But we also took it at a fairly low altitude.

QUEST: But your --

SCIUTTO: By my -- no question, but I have flown a lot like you. The first time I have ever done that. And I have to admit and I've never been afraid or nervous in a plane before, but the thought occurred to me, why are we taking this long, weird circuitous route? Because you begin to think are our planes, is our air system, passenger air system, as immune to this post-9/11, 13 years later, with all the controls that we have as we thought? Should passengers think that this is a worrisome sign if it turns out to be a commandeering of that plane?

QUEST: No, not really. The numbers involved are extremely small. I mean, infinitesimally small.

But also that's why they've got to get to grips with this one. That's exactly why they've got to get to grips because they don't know why. I've got a question for you. Are your intelligence sources leaning one way or the other, or are they still keeping an open mind?

SCIUTTO: Well, they are intelligence sources, they won't tell you where they are leaning. I think it's safe to say they are keeping an open mind. I think it's safe to say. They are doing exactly frankly what you just said and what we keep saying the viewers were doing which is we don't know. We have indicators, but we haven't established clear links. That's where they stand.

Richard is going to be back because we won't let him go. Thanks very much for joining us.

The mystery surrounding Flight 370 may seem rare, but it's far from the first time an aircraft vanished off the map. Next, a disappearance of two U.S. congressmen and the why the largest search in Alaska history yielded not a single clue, when we come back.

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SCIUTTO: While such situations are extremely rare, the puzzling disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 is not the first time a plane has vanished without a trace. Some of these cases remain unsolved decades later.

Our Rosa Flores joins me now with three cases in the serious plane disappearances.

So, what you're telling us is this has happened before.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And some of them are still a mystery.

I'm going to start with the most recent and go to a case that involves cannibalism. Yes, we are going to go there. This first case you probably remember this is back in 2009. It was Air France Flight 447. It was headed to Paris from Rio.

And this flight plunged into the Atlantic Ocean killing the 228 passengers and crew on board. It took five days to find the wreckage and -- hear this -- three years for the investigators to determine what had happened in this case.

It turns out ice crystals caused the auto pilot to disconnect. We should add that the bodies of 74 passengers remain unrecovered.

And now we go to the other case. I'm going to take you to 1972. Two congressmen disappeared in Alaska. Their small Cessna was headed to Juneau from Anchorage. They were never recovered. The wreckage was never found.

And this again was in 1972. The active search lasted for 39 days. It involved 70 aircraft and 3,600 hours of fly time. Nothing turned up, zero, zilch, nada.

Now, I want to say, in 1972 because, hear this, this is Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. It's headed to Santiago, Chile. It crashes into the Andes Mountains, killing 12 people. There are 42 passengers onboard. Now, authorities are not aware that there are survivors.

But there are survivors. Now, you probably remember this plot from a movie so hang on with me. So, an avalanche actually hits the wreckage. The people on board are using this wreckage as their shelter. This is what we are using.

But an avalanche hits it so another eight people die. So, imagine that. So, survivors resort to cannibalism to stay alive. They are rescued two months later.

And, of course, a lot of people have probably watched the movie, but it just adds to the suspense when we think about the mystery of 370.

So where is it? Are we going to learn later perhaps that these people are alive? Or are we not -- we just don't know, because the pieces of the puzzle are kind of everywhere at this point.

SCIUTTO: Well, the point you make with all these disappearing planes, what was thought originally didn't turn out to be true.

FLORES: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: There were so many theories about the Air France flight before it was discovered, what the cost was there.

FLORES: Right.

SCIUTTO: Thanks very much, Rosa Flores.

FLORES: Of course.

SCIUTTO: See you in the next hour with three more aviation mysteries.

But coming up, they came from more than a dozen different nations and from all walks of life. A look at some of the passenger on board Flight 370, right after this.

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SCIUTTO: We are now in the ninth day since the Malaysian airliner disappeared, but the families of the passengers and crew are holding on to hope still to this day. Hundreds of people are leaving messages on this wall of hope set up at the Kuala Lumpur airport. People are writing prayers, some write messages saying, quote, "Dad, please come back."

Two hundred and thirty-nine people were on board the plane. A father of one passenger says he hopes the plane was hijacked because then he could believe his son was still alive.

Now, we spent a lot of time talking about the theories, the conflicting information, the false leads, the investigation, but it's the people on board who are at the center of it all. Among them, a stunt man and an artist, mothers and fathers, Buddhist pilgrims and vacationers coming from at least a dozen countries, including the U.S.

Nick Valencia has some of their stories.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, 239 people on board, 239 unique and individual stories from stuntmen to engineers to ordinary, average, everyday travelers. Phil Weeks was one of them. We worked this afternoon and this morning to try to put together a portrait of some of those passengers on the plane. Phil Weeks, originally from New Zealand, was on his way to a dream job as a minor in Mongolia.

Before he got on the flight, his wife said that he handed her his wedding ring and his watch just in case he anything happened to him, he wanted those items to be passed on to his young sons. She's still holding out hope for his safe return.

Another two passengers that we can confirm that we're on that plane was Mukesh Mukherjee and his wife Bai Xiaomo. They're originally from Canada but were living in Beijing and were on their way to vacation in Vietnam. They also have two young boys who were left with their grandparents as they went to enjoy a vacation.

Earlier, our affiliate caught up with Mukesh's boss who called him a great colleague and just really a great friend. You see the beautiful couple there.

Also, we're learning of another woman who was a Malaysian national that had been living in the United States since 2010. Her name is Chng Mei Ling, I'm sorry. She was described as a funny woman, humorous woman with an infectious laugh. Very smart as well. Originally from Malaysia. She was working at a chemical processing plant that helped make rubber supplies. All her friends and family also holding out hope she will one day return safely.

Back here also in the United States is Phil Wood. He's a resident of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was an IBM executive and had a travel bug. He loved to travel the world. He's a globetrotter, that was something that's sparking him at a very young age when his family moved to Germany. His friends and family describe him as a very God- centered man, a very humble and kind man.

We hope that this gives you a sense of who was on that plane and that 239 is not just a number, but individual stories and lives all on Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 -- Jim.

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SCIUTTO: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Sciutto, in today for Don Lemon.