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Striking New Developments Emerge In The Mystery of Malaysia Airline Flight 370

Aired March 15, 2014 - 18:00   ET

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to give you the update on another big story we are following at CNN, the situation in Ukraine. One day before a potentially explosive ultimatum 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 Kherson (ph) region near the border with Crimea. The local governor says Ukraine repelled the troops. But border guards say they are still there on the grounds. This comes as Crimea residents decide whether to leave Ukraine and join Russia or become independent. Earlier, Russia vetoed drafted a referendum in the U.N. Security Council declaring that referendum invalid. Thirteen of the 15 members supported it. It was just China abstaining.

Meanwhile, tensions on the ground are rising. At least 30 heavily armed men in matching uniforms burst into a hotel in Simferopol today. One man claiming to be the new Crimean minister of defense said it was quote "training exercise." No one is hurt.

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

Nothing more definite has come out of the search for that missing Malaysian Airlines jet. But what we have for you today is a new focuses on a few possible based on the best new information that we have right now. And much of the information is coming in as we speak.

There is a new time line of even events. American, British, and Malaysian experts, working separately, all now agree that somebody on the plane switched off the critical tracking system while it was still over land, right at that point there. That is vital 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.

And on the ground today, police searched the homes of the pilot and the co-pilot. They are looking hard at the whole passenger manifest and very hard at the flight crews as well. With little else to go on, officials are trying to learn all they can about the people who are on that plane.

And back in the air, if that plane kept flying, it had enough fuel to reach anywhere in western China or the nations of Central Asia. That is interesting, because some groups in that part of the world have very big problems with China and with the west. And quite possibly reasons extreme enough to justify stealing an airplane filled with 239 innocent people. I want to show you the map, because it is so important to the story, before we get to the guests there, Chad Myers and Mary Schiavo.

This is the arc that you are going to see here behind me where it is possible that the plane may have gone. And it encompass this area of north and central Asia, and why is that important. The Xinjang region which is in the western part of China inside of the arc at the top is a part of the country that many people of the country want to pull away from China, and that has led to a violent uprising there, including recent terror attacks. There was a knife attack in (INAUDIBLE), killed more than a dozen people recently, a suicide bombing inside of Tiananmen Square in Beijing last fall.

And that is one concern here. It is one concern, not a guaranteed concern that possibly one group from this area might have had the intention, at least, the ambition to carry out an attack like this. Now, intelligence officials I have spoken to over the course of the last week have said consistently that the Wigo (ph) group, the Wigo (ph) people, that is the minority that is in Xinjang province, those groups was extremist groups, to this point have not shown the capability, even if they have the ambition to carry out an attack such as this.

But as that arc is extended up into this area where this plane might have gone, it has brought attention back into this part of the country as a possible area of concern and certain investigation.

So joining me now, the department of transportation's former inspector general Mary Schiavo, as well as CNN's Chad Myers.

Mary, if I can talk with you now, first, just in light of the new information we have today from the Malaysian government saying it is that their understanding now that this plane's system were deliberately switched off and before the final handoff message of the calm, warm and fuzzy, even good night and thank you, how significant is that to you and what does it tell you?

MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Well, it is not so much that there a lot of new information, but it is in a new light. And I think it is very helpful to the investigation.

You know, first of all, the fact that the pilot said, you know, good night and did not readback the instructions from the air traffic controller, ordinarily what the pilot does is readback instruction, you know, switch to whatever frequency, contact Vietnam control, et cetera. You read it back and you read it back because that where the controller knows you have the right frequency and they can double- check it, and there are accidents caused with people didn't get the right frequency, and that is why it is important. This is different, but flight air traffic controllers usually bust pilots for not doing the readback right, no. Usually, there is a civility in the cockpit, and I mean, I have been wished happy birthday in the cockpit before. So, that is unusual of itself.

However, if at that point, if for whatever reason, the communications equipment, the transponder or the ACARS had been already turned off or stopped transmitting. We still don't know which it is yet, but if the pilot had been, for example, hijacked, if there is someone else in the cockpit, the pilot could have spoken words or done something, usually airlines have a hijacked code and they say, look, if you are hijacked and there is somebody behind you, say this or do this and sometimes is it a series of words, sometimes it is a maneuver. You dive and you climb, turn left and right. But each airline has this it. But the airline should have known this long ago. But now, maybe they can now go readback and reexamine and, of course, they will ask others to be sure that was his voice saying those words.

So it is an important development and will help us to sort out. And certainly it doesn't look like pilot suicide, because now we know that the plane flew on for seven hours. That would be a long time if that was your plot.

SCIUTTO: Well, you make a good point, Mary. It is not what he said, all right, goodnight. It is when he said it after those systems were turned off which is giving new information here and the new evidence possibly it was deliberate to take control of the plane.

Chad, I want to talk to you, coming out of the map we described just at the top of the hour, look at the arc and help explain to us how that plane, you know, the distance it could fly, but also what that part of the world looks like, and are there places where you could land? And two, hide a plane? Are there a lot of options for a pilot trying to take the plane somewhere it is not meant to go.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, there are a few in you know where to go. So the answer to that question is yes. I won't say it is a high probability, but there certainly that out there. There is a company called in Marset. At 8:11 in the morning that that plane went missing, it got a ping from the airplane. It sent let out a ping and it sent it back. And it knows, this satellite knows how long that ping should take to go from one and then back, and that is a distance from here-to-here. The problem is there was only one satellite, only one ping, so we don't know exactly on triangulation.

And let me show you how that makes a difference. This is the circle, the distance from the satellite which is right here, 22,000 miles in space pinged to this and then back. This is the area that the plane may have been. If we can find a couple of more satellites, this is what it is going to look like. We are not going the look at one big ring anymore, we are going to look at the place where the rings cross. If we can get two more satellites to say, hey, I saw that plane, too, it is right here, because that is where it crosses. This is what we have. We don't have two planes. We have two satellites. All we have is this arc here, one here and one other here. We don't have the arc across parts Malaysia because it is covered in radar and they don't believe it is there anyway.

Why do we draw this yellow arc? It is not a satellite ping. It is how far the plane really could have gone in the time or on this fuel to get to Beijing. That is the fuel that it should have had or it only goes about 480 miles per hour, as fast as it could go. So you multiply that by the hours, that is about as far as the plane can go. But there is so much space up here, not densely populated space either across parts of the Upper Peninsula here. We can talk about Kathmandu. We can talk about this as the top of the world. Here is Mt. Everest, Kathmandu, K-2, 23,000 peaks here. Until 23,000 sea high (ph), 100 peaks up here that the plane would have had to fly over.

Down to the south, the other side of this is a little bit more, I would say intense to find a place to try to land this thing, because if you continue the arc all of the way down here, there is not much land. And I heard you ask this question during the break in my ear, Jim. The plane was on one of the spot, something on red on my map, the plane was there at 8:11 in the morning, either here, here or here or here or here or here. It wasn't anywhere here. It wasn't here. It was on this line here or it was on this line here, if we could get it to triangulate with another satellite, then we would know the cross is here or the cross is here. We don't have that. That is why there is so much square footage. One million square miles, the size of Alaska, California and Texas added together.

SCIUTTO: Yes, and we do know that attempt, that effort is under way now. We know that the military looking at the commercial imagery, civilian government satellites, such as weather sites trying to find another ping in effect to, as you say, triangulate.

Mary, I wonder if you could bring us inside as former inspector general of the NTSB, what is the situation room, for lack of a better term, look like now as the investigators are trying to piece together the small pieces of evidence together, and how are they dividing this up or following the trail? What does it look like there?

SCHIAVO: Well, in the United States, the way we do it, the way that the national transportation safety board rather does it is that they have a different group,. They have a human factors group, and they look at the different things that, you know, the human element. You know, what would humans be doing. They look at the engines group. They have the communications group. And they break up into different groups. And here probably the most, well, the couple most important groups is the groups that is trying to even out and smooth out the discrepancies in the data.

You know, the data you have the take it and blend it down and take out the white noise and what they called smooth it out. That group is working feverishly to take all of the information from any satellite they can get. And already, I mean, at least we have more clues today than we had on Friday. And the other groups are looking at the human factors. They are looking at the pilots, et cetera.

Another group is looking at Malaysia's training. Did they have hijack code training? Did they have a plan in place how if there was a gun to the pilot's head, he or she could signal that something is going wrong without touching any equipment? You know for example, a word that they said, maybe good night was the signal. And so, each of these groups take it and they break it all apart, and they each bring the expertise forward. And that is how we solve almost every disaster that we have had.

SCIUTTO: All right. We hope that there is that kind of cooperation going on now with so many countries involved in this.

Thanks very much, Mary Schiavo, NTSB, Chad Meyers knows the planet better than anybody down at CNN in Atlanta. Thanks very much.

We are going to go Kuala Lumpur. Now, that is where the flight originated and the last place the flight crew and the 239 passengers were seen.

We have CNN's Andrew Stevens in Kuala Lumpur today, daybreak on that side of the world.

Andrew, officials still not saying the word hijacked, are they? They are saying deliberately taken off course, but they are not saying hijacked.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not saying "hijacked" be but certainly not ruling it out at this stage, Jim. You are talking about the human element there just a moment ago. This is very much the ground zero for the human element if you like. And obviously, at this stage, they focus very much on the pilot, the pilot and the co-pilot. Police are searching the homes of both pilots in the last few hours, and taking away plastic bags of evidence, of documents.

We don't know what is in the documents in relation. Police have been very quiet about exactly what they are looking for what I can say and what we do know is that the pilot, the 53-year-old pilot did have a simulator in his home. He was actually a certified examiner of pilots. He was a very, very senior captain in the Malaysian airlines. He has been there since 1981 and described as a complete flying buff, and he flew the model planes in the spare time. He also was a member of quite a pillar of the community as well. And a lot of the friends are coming to his defense now, and saying that if there was any sort of incident on the plane, he is the sort of man that they would like to see in charge of the plane.

So what we know at this stage, both of the homes have been visited by the police, we don't know what they are looking for.

SCIUTTO: There certainly been some tension between China and Malaysia that is starting to bubble to the surface now because of partly the slowness of the investigation. You have the Chinese government today urging the Malaysian government to keep providing what the Chinese government called quote "thorough and correct information." Are you seeing that kind of tension on the ground as these teams are coming together? Because what you really need now, I imagine, is cooperation, right? You don't want that kind of tension.

STEVENS: Well, given now how many countries potentially could have been a zone where that plane had passed through, the cooperation is going to be key to this. I think what is telling is with the Chinese ambassador to Malaysia is appearing at the news conferences here with the international press. I mean, consider, he gets private briefings, so we know that, yet he still turns up to the news conferences to just be sitting there listening to what is going on. And the Chinese have for several days been quite vocal in the concerns about the pace of the operation, about the fact that there's been misleading information coming out, the communication channels have been very poor.

And obviously, the Chinese have a big interest here with two-thirds of the plane was filled with Chinese nationals. And they are really putting the pressure, externally, I mean, we can see it in from Xinhua, the state run news agency, putting pressure on the Malaysian government. So behind the scenes that pressure that would be more intense. We don't know whether that pressure prompted the prime minister to finally to come forward with some facts and giving the world some sort of a handle on which to make sense of this story.

But certainly, the Chinese are not pulling back here. It will be interesting to see now, china is sending down more representatives to be part of the investigation team. And there is a lot of whispers, there has been a lot of rumors about how difficult it has been to get information from the Malaysians to the various participants in the investigation. It will be interesting in the next two or three days to see what the Chinese are saying, because at the moment, they are providing a barometer as to the concerns about how the Malaysian government has been handling this.

SCIUTTO: Sure, 155 Chinese nationals on that plane.

Thanks very much, Andrew Stevens in Kuala Lumpur.

Investigators now focusing some of their attention on the pilots of flight 370.

Coming up, we are digging deeper into what they may be looking for.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

Over the past nine days, we have heard so many conflicting reports about what happened to the missing Malaysia airliner. Today, the search area is wider than ever and we have more clues that could possibly point to a hijacking.

Now, I want to bring in Richard Quest back in. And I think for both of us to sort of explain to the viewers what we know and don't know at this point. But first with this word today from the Malaysian authorities that they are convinced that it is deliberately taken over, and commandeered. I'm not going to say hijacking, because they have not said that, are we closer today to understanding what happened to the plane, marginally closer?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: We are not really closer to understanding what happened, but closer to understanding where the plane is. And although if you look at this, you have got the site of last contact, and you got this vast area to the north that they are going to search and this area to the south.

SCIUTTO: And to remind viewers this is because of the satellite data, a ping that places the plane at that point several hours after takeoff somewhere on that arc. QUEST: Once an hour, the satellite tries to communicate and say, hello, I'm here. And if you do seven hours up, and seven hours down, that is where you are going to end up. But here is why it is discouraging the look at how much space it is. But it is not -- but they do now -- they have now been able to rule out the South China Sea.

SCIUTTO: That is right. And this is where they were searching originally right over here.

QUEST: Correct. So and all of the assets out there are now moved over that way. And they are experienced at doing it. These people who are doing it -- look, it may not happen this week or next week or the three wee weeks' time, but they will follow that path, because they have to. There are 1,100 777s flying at the moment. They have to understand what was the cause and how this came about.

SCIUTTO: But it is really two things to be clear because it is not just the arc down. Here we are showing that path, the presumed path before it hit this arc here, it is also the authorities saying deliberate, because that implies a plane under control.

QUEST: It implies, and it does not imply, but it is saying straight out that somebody was at the helm.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

QUEST: And somebody made the moves. It does not as you rightly pointed out, it does not tell us whether the pilot under duress or the pilot, extremist or the pilot or somebody else with nefarious means. It merely means these maneuvers were of a nature that suggests, that's more than suggestion, confirms, because the NTSB, the WAIB, the British equivalent, the FAA, all conquer with this.

SCIUTTO: And there is process going on now because we remember, when we got that first radar data that show the plane taking that left turn and heading out this way, it was over time that the experts studied the radar data which I have been told by the experts that it is more of a art than science, to get a better sense to plotted along, to weed out the noise and so on, the same this is happening now with satellite data. There are hunting and searching for other satellites that might have picked something up to refine that search.

QUEST: That is really important because what happens now, of course, is all of the countries, India, China, Kazakhstan, Australia, if it has assets in the Indian Ocean, all of the countries that previously were not looking at the satellite data, tonight, those countries are looking at those pictures and getting their experts.

So, I'm not discouraged in a sense because this is how you have the investigations. You have a fact, you follow it down, and more people join in.

SCIUTTO: And there is one point to say this is a very watched and surveiled (ph) part of the world, because you have of contested borders here and tensions between China and India. You have got Afghanistan, Pakistan there worried about India and that means assets.

QUEST: I have to say, I think, you know, the rail politic of this is that it did not get to India and it did not get up to Pakistan or (INAUDIBLE), because somebody else would have probably seen it by then and the assets would have been there.

One other I wrote and make, because you have been asking the questions and I have been answering. If you have a question, I will do my best to answer it. You can tweet me from what we know, and I may regret this, but if there is a question that you want to ask, that is the twitter name @RichardQuest and I will do my best to answer you individually.

SCIUTTO: Great. Thanks very much. Always great to have you on, Richard Quest. And we will have him back, I'm sure.

New attention to the pilots of flight 370. Up next, we will look at the men who flew the plane and why they are now under investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

It is being called a game-changer, the revelation that the plane's tracking system was turned off before the cockpit radioed the last words. And CNN has also learned police have raided the homes of both the pilot and the co-pilot on this plane.

Our Saima Mohsin has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Plane call police officers leave the home of co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid. No comment he tells me. Earlier, neighbors told me how the community has been in shock, and rallying together to show their support.

The neighborhood has rallied together to hold special prayers, this woman tells me, but for the past few days the family has not been here. It is very sad. We really hope that the all of them are safe. This neighbor is friends with c co-pilot Fariq's mother.

RASHIDAH ISMAIL, NEIGHBOR: We have been doing the prayers and the prayer almost every day and every night. I pray for her and for him and for the family. And I think that she is very --

MOHSIN: Patience.

ISMAIL: Yes, patience. And patience with facing this problem.

MOHSIN: Police have also been to the captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's house today but so close to the investigation told CNN they search. A source close to the family says they have not been seen since the plane disappeared.

Captain Zaharie has a house in this up market estate here. He lives here with his wife, Faisa and their youngest child, a daughter in her 20s. They also have two older sons and a grandchild, friends say he dotes on.

Captain Zaharie is 53-years-old with more than 18,000 hours of flying experience.

PETER CHONG, PILOT'S FRIEND: Captain Zaharie is a very sociable person. Person who loves people, who enjoys his work, and as far as his job as a pilot. He is definitely a very committed professional pilot.

MOHSIN: I caught up with his friend Peter Chong. They met working with underprivileged children.

CHONG: If you were allowed to choose a pilot on board of the plane, I would definitely choose him.

MOHSIN: Why is that?

CHONG: I feel confidence and trust in him, because of the joy, his passion in flying, and, you know, if something had happened to this flight, I would think, and in fact, I would believe that he would have made sure of the safety and the welfare of everyone else before he even thinks of himself, and that is the kind of person that he is.

MOHSIN: Much has been made of the flight simulator that the captain had in his home.

CHONG: It is a reflection of the love of flying. And again, it is also a reflection of the love of people, because he wants to share the joy of flying with his friends. And I have been invited to his house for a few times to try out the flight simulators, and he has always told me that the flight simulator experience is a far more challenge than the real flight experience, because in the most case cans of the real flight would be almost in ideal situations.

MOHSIN: But this time, the scenario was very different, and what happened on flight MH 370 remains a mystery that many cannot explain.

Saima Mohsin, CNN, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Tortured, heartbroken, frustrated -- those are some of the words to describe the families of those on flight 370. Up next, we head to Beijing to see how they are coping.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: The new focus for the search crews and international agencies looking for the missing Boeing triple-7 is this: what was happening on that flight deck before the jet vanished from every scope watching it from the ground. And here is one working scenario.

The plane may have flown this pattern, northwest over China and possibly into Central Asia, Turkmenistan, possibly Kazakhstan, Xinjiang (ph) in Western China. That's where some groups have strong political and ethnic issues with China and with the West. And analysts say they could see the value in taking over an airplane. Again, just one of many working theories.

It's been a heart-breaking wait as all these theories have been presented for families of those on board Malaysian Air Flight 370. They're hoping for any word of what happened to their loved ones, and it's been a long wait.

We have CNN's David McKenzie, live in Beijing now. Eight painful days, David, for those families. How -- and I know you've been seeing them out at the airport there, at the hotel -- how are they coping after all these days with all these theories now floating around?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's difficult, Jim, for them to cope, because as these days pass on and the hope is dashed, and then it comes back again for them, at least in their eyes, it's extremely tough.

That prime minister press conference when he announced that might be, although they believe there is deliberate action in this plane's disappearance, that for many families, in fact, was giving them a glimmer of hope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I hope this is a hijacking, because they are of loved ones. I hope that they are alive, no matter how small the chance is. I haven't slept for days. We are grateful for the help from so many countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKENZIE: Well, Jim, I've heard that from many family members, and it shows how desperate the situation is. Imagine if you're in a scenario that you hope that your loved one has been hijacked. That's really how these families have been dealing with this in the days as this stretches on, this ordeal for them here in Beijing and around the world, Jim.

SCIUTTO: David, how about tensions between the Chinese and the Malaysian government. There's been frustration from the beginning, slowness of the information coming out. You have a pretty strong statement coming today from the Chinese government, pushing the Malaysian government to come out more quickly with information and, in effect, investigate and get some answers more quickly. Are those real tensions? Are those -- are you seeing them there?

MCKENZIE: Well, I think they are real tensions. They put out a three-pronged attack, as it were, on the Malaysian government here from here in China. One from the foreign ministry saying that, quote, "time is life," and they need to demand quicker answers and quicker investigation. And also from the ambassador in Malaysia, giving pointed comments. The latest from the official state media here in China, Jim, saying that they have -- need massive efforts, and those efforts have been squandered. So, yes, there's no love lost between Malaysia and China at the best of times on the government level. And because China has this huge amount of passengers on that plane, and all these families, there's a lot of pressure on the Chinese government for there to be a resolution of this.

And it seems like they're taking it out on the Malaysians. Certainly, there's been a great deal of finger pointing on all sides. This is all getting a bit messy as the days go on, and everyone wants to know what happened to this plane -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Thanks very much, David McKenzie, with the families there in Beijing and their long wait.

Meanwhile, that wait for -- the agonizing for families as the search continues.

Danica Weeks, whose husband, Paul, was aboard Flight 370, told CNN's Piers Morgan that life without him is simply overwhelming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANICA WEEKS, HUSBAND ON FLIGHT 370: I just can't unnerve. As time goes on, I mean, I'm not -- you know, I'm not deluded by the fact that, as this goes on there's less and less chance of finding anything. But, just because there is no, no finality to it, I can't give up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: And a sad twist there: Paul left his wedding ring and his watch with his wife, just in case something was going to happen.

I want to bring in Jeff Gardere now, psychologist, assistant professor at New York's Touro Medical School.

This is, in so many ways, a worst-case scenario. Right? Because you have this very debilitating, devastating tragedy but no closure, right? Because you still have this minuscule hope that perhaps they're safe somewhere. You just don't know what happened. How do they cope?

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, this is why I call it the horror and the hope. Because there is a glimmer of hope, that as the days go by, certainly, the family members are getting very, very frustrated, very angry with the Malaysian government.

So what I see that is happening, though, the family members are bonding together. They're kept together in a room, for the most part, when they're getting the updates. I would hope that they're giving, that there are grief counselors that are there, even though we don't know what may have happened to the passengers.

But it's a roller coaster of emotions, because they're getting these very fantastic theories as to what's going on, and just really, it's so unsettling that they just can't get just some basic, basic information that would give them the hope.

SCIUTTO: Well, maybe that information is not there, right? I mean, everybody is so confused.

GARDERE: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: And imagine that there's a protective thing here to direct your anger, right?

GARDERE: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: And justified inarguably, but there's also a protective motivation for that.

GARDERE: Well, exactly. If they're -- through that frustration, through that anxiety, through the anger, it's easy to now start pointing fingers at others, looking at others, because then you could take away some of the focus from the grief that you're feeling, from that separation that they're having.

So it's just a very difficult situation for them. This is one of the great mysteries, aeronautical mysteries now of our time, and to be on the other end of that, they don't know what to experience. They don't know what to think, what to feel. We haven't seen too many situations like this.

SCIUTTO: I want to run a story by you. It's a difficult and painful story, but just -- I was living in Beijing, so I've got friends there who are neighbors of one of the missing couples. A couple that left their two kids behind, and the grandparents are now taking those kids. They haven't told the story yet, and just keeping them away from the news to protect them.

How could you possibly, and this is too early to say, but how would you present that news to people who are too young to understand?

GARDERE: Well, Danica Weeks, who you just had on, was talking about her missing husband, actually has begun talking to the kids, because they're asking about it, and all you can tell them is we just don't know right now. Daddy, Mommy is missing, but we're going to pray.

Now spirituality comes right in here, but you have to be honest with children. They know much more, but you have to speak in their language. And more than anything else -- this is the important thing, Jim -- the most important thing is just listen to what it is that they have to say.

SCIUTTO: My kids are young, but I know even the young ages, they ask sharp questions, and they want honest answers.

GARDERE: That's right. As honest as you can be, and it's all right to say, "We don't know, but we are praying."

SCIUTTO: Well, Jeff, I bet that some of those families wish someone like you was there to help talk them through this.

GARDERE: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Thanks very much for your help. I know we'll come back to you as this goes on.

GARDERE: Absolutely.

SCIUTTO: We're getting a lot of questions from you, the viewer, as you watch the plot thicken in this airline mystery. We're going to attempt to answer some of those questions from you coming in through Twitter after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

We realized, as our viewers out there follow this story every day, a little bit more information, but no hard answers, we wanted to give you the opportunities to ask us some questions, perhaps questions we haven't answered yet in our broadcast, so I sent that out via Twitter, @JimSciutto, @ J-I-M-S-C-I-U-T-T-O. And we've already gotten some questions.

And I have, to help me out here, Chad Myers in Atlanta, who's been working on the satellite picture here and how they track the planes. He knows satellites well as our meteorologist.

So I'm going to start with one question, which is very interesting to me, Chad. And the question is -- comes from Lee Jenna Tyler, "Are they able to triangulate any cell phones from anyone on board?" You know, they're talking about triangulating satellites. Can they do that with cell phone signals, assuming they were still on?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, I've tried to get a cell signal. I know I shouldn't. But I've tried in an airplane. It's very hard. At 40,000 feet, it doesn't go down to a cell tower, because you're more than about eight miles high at that point in time, and you rarely can get a signal on the ground from the tower that's more than eight miles away.

We don't have any information about any cell-phone triangulation or even one ping of a cell phone. That could mean that those cell phones were confiscated, that you know, they were smashed. Anything could happen. But right now, there not one bit of evidence from the Malaysian government that any cell phone was pinged at all yet.

SCIUTTO: And just a reminder to our viewers, as we look at this map that I have behind me here, very similar to the one you have to your left, is that, you know, if you're out over the Indian Ocean, there are no cell towers there --

MYERS: Correct.

SCIUTTO: -- so it would be difficult even if you could get a signal over land.

And also, just another reminder, this search area, because Chad, you have done a great job of explaining that it's not just on this arc, but because of the fuel range of the plane, you're really talking about a big slice here. We're talking about, you know, a million square miles. You've used that statistic before. That's a large area to search over ocean and over some, you know, fairly unpopulated areas up here, just a reminder, and many of them without cell towers.

@LeahMichelle asked me a little bit ago. She said, "Now I don't understand. What is that red line? Is that a flight path?"

No, it's where the ping happened, Jim. The flight could have been going this way, and then ping. It could have been going this way, and ping. It does not mean that this is the path of the plane. Nor is this the path of the plane. It just happens to be on that line at 8:11 a.m. That's what that line means.

SCIUTTO: That's a fantastic reminder. I'm glad you explained that, Chad. It just again shows how big the search area is.

I have another question from Twitter. This might be the only one that we have more time for, at least now, but "Could it have shadowed another airline so as to avoid detection?" This one coming from Holly Kirk. In other words, you sort of get in the slip screen, in effect, behind another plane, so you might be confused with them, and they wouldn't notice there were two lifts, is that possible, or is satellite data clear enough that it could pick those two out?

MYERS: No. It is possible. It is dangerous, because of, obviously, jet wash. These are big planes, and the primary radar would probably say, what in the world was that? That was huge. That was not just some 727 that just flew over me or an MD-888. That was large. It is possible that it's military movie mania where you've got five helicopters, you know, in a big clump. But all of a sudden, as they fly on land, they only show up as one. Or even "Top Gun." Remember, there was five bogeys out there, and when they all split up, you could see them. Yes, planes can shadow each other on radars, and -- but I highly, highly doubt that happened here.

SCIUTTO: OK. Very hopeful. And Chad, who knows his satellites, as well as a meteorologist. Very helpful.

And thanks for your questions, as well. I think this is something that we'll come back to, because I know there are questions we're not thinking of. And we're happy to have yours, as well. So please go ahead and tweet them to us. I'm @JimSciutto, J-I-M-S-C-I-U-T-T-O on Twitter.

Now two passengers on Flight 370 boarded the plane using stolen passports. That's raised some red flags, even though investigators say they're not linked to terrorists, those two passengers.

Coming up, we're taking you to the passport black market.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: As authorities search for clues on the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, there is one concrete fact. Two men boarded this flight with stolen passports. What we don't know is whether that played a part in what happened to Flight 370.

CNN's Zain Asher looks at the passport black market and what the U.S. government is doing to combat it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can take weeks to make a passport. It can take a few hours, depending upon the quality of passport that the forger is actually making.

ZAIN ASHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tony Zails (ph) spent 15 years forging passports in the U.K. before he was sent to prison in 2009.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By just gently picking the edge of a passport, and now you can start to peel the passport back.

ASHER: Here he is changing the name on this passport to mine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anything can be faked. Someone actually made this passport, and that means it can be repeated again. You can see how close through to the picture we actually are here.

ASHER: According to Interpol, approximately 40 million passports have been reported stolen since 2002, some of them sold illegally to people who look similar enough to the original bearer.

GIDEON EPSTEIN, FORENSIC DOCUMENT EXAMINER: Even if you look a little bit like that person, that's going to be good enough.

ASHER: Others end up in the hands of counterfeiters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a huge black market for stolen passports. It's absolutely huge. It's -- you know, probably on a daily basis, an average fraudster buys five or six.

ASHER: But forensic document examiner Gideon Epstein said a counterfeit the passport is more likely to raise red flags at airport security than a stolen one, because many countries have implemented passport security features to prevent alteration.

For example, the first page of the U.S. passport contains an image of an eagle with 13 arrows, while a fake passport might have just 11 or 12.

And watch as the letters "USA" change color under ultraviolet light.

BRENDA SPRAGUE, HEAD OF PASSPORT SERVICE, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT: We are working to introduce a next-generation passport that will even have additional forensic features. But no matter how good you are, someone's always going to be trying to beat the system.

ASHER: And especially when it comes to theft. Not every country regularly checks the Interpol database to see if the passport is stolen.

Two men on Malaysia Airline Flight 370 were allowed to board with passports that had been reported stolen in 2012 and 2013.

One solution, passports like these that contain a microchip with biographical data, designed to prevent them from being used by the wrong person.

SPRAGUE: The border security officials all over the world can read that data and validate that you are who you say you are.

ASHER: But many countries, particularly in the developing world. are still behind on implementing them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've seen a lot of, you know, the new electronic passports come in that have made, definitely, forging a passport much more difficult, but of course, every system has its weaknesses.

ASHER (on camera): And Tony says that back in the day for a top=quality fake passport, he would charge roughly between $8,000 and $10,000. Now he's since mended his ways. He got out of prison in 2010. He now works to educate companies on retail and passport fraud.

Now, if you find a passport that is lost or you know of a passport that has been stolen, it is very important that you report it to authorities, because naturally, the last thing you want is for it to end up in the wrong hands.

Zain Asher, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Straight ahead, new details on another big story we are following here, the crisis in Ukraine. Tensions are rising on the eve of a potentially explosive referendum in Crimea.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: I'm Jim Sciutto in New York. We want to give you another important update on another story we are following here, the situation in Ukraine.

Hours before a potentially explosive referendum in Crimea, Moscow's military is on the move in that area. Ukraine say about 60 Russian troops in helicopters and assisted by three armed vehicles crossed into Ukraine's Kirshon (ph) region near the border with Crimea, but there have been no reports yet of gunfire.

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 the referendum invalid. However, 13 of the 15 other members supported it. Only China abstaining.

Meanwhile, tensions on the ground are rising. At least 30 heavily armed men in matching uniforms burst into a hotel room In Simferopol today. That's the capital of Crimea. One man claiming to be the new Crimean minister of defense said it was, quote, "a training exercise." No one was hurt.

And now to the missing Malaysian flight. If there is one positive thing, one reason to be slightly hopeful as this airliner search goes on, it's that there is no evidence yet that the plane actually crashed. Small comfort, but better than no comfort for families in China and Malaysia and in every country those 239 passengers and crew called home.

A new working theory is emerging this evening, presuming the Boeing triple-7 was forced into silence, is that it may have been taken in this direction toward western China or the countries of central Asia. The plane carried enough fuel to get that far. It is part of the world where some extremist groups have real political and ethnic struggles with the governments of China and with the West.

I'm Jim Sciutto in New York. Our coverage of the mystery of Flight 370 continues right now with my colleague, Don Lemon -- Don.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Jim Sciutto, thank you. Great reporting.