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Preliminary Results Of Crimea Vote Soon; Investigation Focusing On Flight 370 Pilots; Red Hot Louisville Looks To Repeat

Aired March 16, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. There are a lot of new developments on the search for Flight 370. Let's get to it straight away.

All right. Just a few moments ago, Pakistan's foreign ministry says the missing Malaysia Airlines plane did not show up on its radars. France is now joining the investigation on the ground in Malaysia. It is sending a team to Kuala Lumpur right now to help review the evidence. And a top military official in India says that country has temporarily ended its search for the plane while Malaysia reviews the massive deployments from 25 countries.

The search area now covers large areas of land, including extremely remote regions. Crews are looking along two corridors. One to the south, the other to the north reaching all the way up to Kazakhstan. Satellite signals picked up on Flight 370 for seven hours after the last contact with the pilot. But Malaysian officials announced today it is possible the last satellite contact could have come from the plane on the ground. And a U.S. official tells CNN U.S. intelligence is leading toward the theory that the pilots are responsible. Authorities are examining a flight simulator taken from the home of the pilot.

Our Andrew Stevens is joining us now live from Kuala Lumpur. So Andrew, who are officials saying about the importance of this flight simulator?

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, at the moment, it's key to this investigation because this very clearly has been put forth that the pilots are an integral part of this until they can be ruled otherwise at the moment. We know there was deliberate action taken in the cockpit. We know it was deliberately disrupting the flight and that the communications were turned off, Fredricka.

So the simulator in the home of the late pilot is critical at the moment. We do know the police have disassembled it and put it back together looking at it. Now, we are hearing from the police that they have not found anything yet. Reuters was running a story saying there were programs on it showing flying in different conditions, different weather conditions. They were, Reuters said, though, a normal sort of program. So we're still waiting to get more on that.

And the investigation on the ground here in Kuala Lumpur very much focusing on the manifest, on who was on the plane and who exactly they were. This is a diplomatic and political issue as well, obviously because there's a lot of background checks, and they're coming from other countries.

What we can tell you that's come out today is that the pilot and the co-pilot did not ask to fly on this flight together. Now, the crews of airlines are constantly being separated and put in different flights and different routes all the time. They had not asked to work together. No extra fuel was also loaded on that plane. So we can rule those two out. It really is getting down to a stage, Fredricka, when we're starting to rule things out.

WHITFIELD: And has there been a response, Andrew, from the Malaysian government about its military and why -- if this plane, Flight 370, did fly over its air space and did show up on military radar, why there was no response from those fighter jets or any one else within the military installation?

STEVENS: Yes. Well, I put that question to the minister of defense five days ago. If you were tracking this unidentified object, which appears to have the same sort of - or had come from the same area where you last had contact with the plane, this object was flying back across Malaysia. Why didn't you scramble jets? And basically the answer was they weren't tracking it in real time. Which means non- sort (ph), when they found that this plane came back across Malaysia, they found that 24 hours after the plane had been missing and they were reviewing all their data. So basically it looks like a big security breach if nothing else that this flight could go back across.

But the other thing about this, Fred, of course, is that it has put a vast amount of material and assets searching in the wrong part of the globe into the South China Sea. The Indonesians, which is a neighbor of Malaysia, said as much today. The deputy ambassador there saying, look, for eight days we thought this was going on in the South China Sea, so we haven't been searching around where we are. Now we know that plane may well be, may have passed, a, across into Indonesian air space and Indonesian waters. So there are a lot of critical time lost because, a, that plane wasn't identified. Took a long time. And b, nobody actually saw it at the time.

WHITFIELD: Wow. All great questions. Once again, thank you so much. Andrew Stevens there in Kuala Lumpur.

Let's try to digest some of these questions and get some sort of answers from my panel coming up. Pakistan, meantime, again saying the missing Malaysian airplane did not show up on Pakistan's radar. So let's find out what that means coupled with some of the things that Andrew just brought up. Jack Barker is a former FAA spokesman and aviation consultant joining me here in Atlanta. Bill Savage is a former 777 pilot and he's a certified airline accident investigator. And Mary Shiavo is back with us from Charleston, South Carolina. She is a CNN aviation analyst.

All right, so listening to all that information, what is included and what has been excluded or dismissed at this point, Mr. Barker, let me ask you first. What does it tell you that these pilots apparently did not request to work together, that there was no extra fuel, as we heard Andrew reporting there, no extra fuel on this plane. And it appears now at least Pakistan is now saying it doesn't appear as though that plane showed up on our radar, which would have been part of that northward arc if indeed the satellite imagery is right, that the plane may have gone north or south. But at least Pakistan is saying, nope, not in our air space. What do you do with this information?

JACK BARKER, FORMER FAA SPOKESMAN: There's a lot of information out there, and you have to start ruling things out. The first sign of what the problem was was when the transponder was turned off. Somebody, the co-pilot or someone else who knows aviation knows that that transponder identifies the aircraft; radar merely shows that there's a target out there, a target on an airplane, but it doesn't identify it. The transponder sends a signal back saying I am Flight 370 and I'm flying at a certain altitude. A lot of data. When that was turned off, that started the mystery.

WHITFIELD: It sure did. And is it your gut feeling -- and I know we don't have any definitive answers, we are talking about a number of theories. We're hearing it from Malaysian authorities as well. There are only theories that we have to work with right now. But is it your feeling based on that, switching off the transponder and communications that someone might have compromised that cockpit, that perhaps the pilots may not necessarily have done this willingly?

BARKER: Well, that's very possible. You look back at some of the hijackings that occurred back on 9/11 where somebody took control of the cockpit from the pilots. It doesn't take a lot of skill to fly the airplane once it's in the air. It takes a lot of skill to takeoff and land. But somebody could have gained control of that aircraft. Obviously, somebody was in control. Pilot, co-pilot or somebody who got in the cockpit either before or after the plane took off.

WHITFIELD: Mary, let me bring you into the fold here. You heard our Andrew Stevens reporting there that there was some level of frustration involving many assets in all these countries involved because they have been focusing perhaps on the South China Sea, and now they are hearing they should have been looking at the Straits of Malacca and then there are concentrated efforts in the India Ocean. It is just too vast, and a lot of time has been lost. Is this becoming kind of a futile search, or is it never futile?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it's never futile, but it was wasteful here, I think, is what they are trying to say. Is that they spent all the days searching someplace where if they had analyzed their data, analyzed their radar, really looked at what was going on, they wouldn't have done that. So I think it was probably just out of frustration, and everybody is frustrated because in the eight days of delay, evidence has floated away. Evidence has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, I mean, I think. Things have gotten away.

And then the other thing about the news, I really have to comment that's really important that the pilots did not ask to fly together, and they did not take on more fuel. That means that the two -- if the two of them are involved in some kind of a plot, they didn't do it together. And because they would have had to have insured they were flying together and not taking on additional fuel to mean means they were not headed on the northern route. They were not heading over the Himalayas intentionally.

WHITFIELD: Right. Because you spelled out yesterday just how much fuel you would need, the 777, 7,000 miles at 40,000 feet, but you've got to have the right amount of fuel. And the amount of -- or the locality of some of the trajectories we see in that arc, it's just not possible that the plane could have made it there.

All right, thanks so much. All of you, we'll talk with you, Mary, Jack, Phil, in a moment. Again later on this hour, we'll have much more on the disappearance of the Malaysian Flight 370 after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Back now to our coverage of this historic aviation mystery, the disappearance of Flight 370. It is now day 10 since the plane with 239 people on board vanished.

And a crucial part of the investigation is now focusing on the pilot and co-pilot. A U.S. official tells CNN that U.S. intelligence is leaning toward a theory that the pilots are responsible. Police searched their homes, desperately looking for clues. They are now examining a flight simulator found at the pilot's house.

The search for Flight 370 is covering a huge area of water and land. Chad Myers is here to give us a sense of just how big this operation is. Yesterday we were talking about this arc based on satellite imagery, and now hear that Pakistan says on our radar that plane did not appear. So what does this mean?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Let me tell you why that's significant. Because now that we know that the plane hasn't left Kuala Lumpur, ended up here, turned left, may have missed India, turned in, and then flew over Pakistan. Pakistan said, nope, that didn't happen. We did not see this plane; that wasn't there. That doesn't mean it wasn't 500 feet off the deck and they never saw it. Possibility, but I think their air defenses are pretty good.

We also believe India's air defenses are very, very good. This plane now, the only way it can get to this northern arc, is up through Bangladesh. Somewhere in this area back through here, the old Myanmar, the old country known as Burma. Up through here, air defense is not so good, especially if this thing is only a couple hundred feet off the deck.

Then you have to climb over the Himalayas, then you have to really waste some fuel to get up there, and then possibly up here, here is Kazakhstan. This is not a flight path. We have been focusing on that red line here, this red line here, they are not flight paths. It is a line that says the plane was on this line at 8:11 a.m. That's it. It's just a point. This is also not a potential flight path. It just means that's where the plane happened to be.

WHITFIELD: But if we look at what you just demonstrated there, and we talk about the possibility or the plausibility of this 777 with the amount of fuel that it had to go from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, could it also have made that trek when going to the need for more fuel in order to go greater mileage?

MYERS: If you take a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur right up to Beijing, it's about 2,500 miles. You also add 10 percent to 20 percent in case you have to circle, in case you can't land, in case you have to get diverted.

WHITFIELD: Except we are told there was no added fuel to this plane, but you say the 20 percent still applies.

MYERS: There's still a reserve. You're not going to load the plane just on that and say make it to Beijing or else. You give it an extra 20 percent in case you have to divert. So now you're talking 3,000 miles worth of fuel. Guess what? If I take this line, I turn left, I fly here -- I'm just saying, I don't want know that this happened -

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: -- but it's a possibility. If this comes up here, we fly over the mountains and we end up here in Turkmenistan, that's 3,000 miles. That's right to the end of what the fuel would have been on the reserve. But it's possible to get there. And flying over mountains that are 23,000 feet high is not a big deal for a plane that's flying 39,000 feet.

WHITFIELD: Even though you are going to be expending more fuel by getting over them at 23,000 feet to the Himalayas.

MYERS: Maybe. Maybe a little bit. But you don't go higher.

WHITFIELD: Doesn't matter.

MYERS: If the mountains were 50,000 feet and you had a flight over that, that's a problem. But they are not higher than the top of the aircraft.

WHITFIELD: All right. Chad Myers, we'll check back in with you again. All very fascinating. Thank you so much. All right. We'll have more on every development of this great mystery.

And we're also watching a historic situation unfold in Crimea. Live pictures from Lenin Square where we expect to hear early results soon in that key vote that could change the future of the Ukraine and potentially much more in that region.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A critical vote in Crimea is now over. The polls have just closed at the top of this hour. And we just got preliminary results. Officials are now saying more than 90 percent of the vote went in favor of joining Russia. Pro-Russian supporters are already celebrating in the capital city. We'll go live to Crimea for more on that coming up.

And now to other developments overseas in the search for Flight 370. Just a short time ago, Pakistan's foreign ministry said that the missing Malaysia Airlines plane did not show up on its radars. France is now joining in the investigation on the ground in Malaysia. It is sending a team to Kuala Lumpur right now to help review any evidence being collected or being investigated. And a top military official in India says that country is now temporarily ending its search for the plane while Malaysia reviews the massive deployments from 25 countries now.

All right, let's talk more about the investigation into the jet's disappearance. Our three experts are back with me now. Jack Barker is a former FAA spokesman and aviation consultant, Bill Savage is a former 777 pilot, and Mary Schiavo is back with us from Charleston, South Carolina. She's a CNN aviation analyst.

All right, so Malaysian police are still analyzing the flight simulator taken from the home of the pilot. We know that there are background checks being done on all the passengers, and that has been complete. And apparently there are no red flags. So what more is on this to-do list for investigators?

Bill, to you first, do you feel like investigators are now trying to refocus their search or the focus of this criminal investigation? Do they feel comfortable enough to perhaps turn away from the fact that the pilots may not have been complicit if it appears as though now according to national authorities they did not request to work together? There was no additional fuel that was requested for the plane. Does that start to make you think investigators would look less at the pilots, or do they still need to investigate further?

BILL SAVAGE, FORMER 777 PILOT: Well, I would think that the pilots probably were not in concert with whatever plans was afoot here if one of them was about foul play. The thing that is confusing to me is that if only one pilot was doing this, he would have to eliminate the other pilot because nobody is going to sit still for seven hours in that type of airplane and go along for the ride when the other guy announces that I have a plan here.

So the other thing that bothers me is when you look at the flight of the aircraft, that extreme climb to above the service ceiling of the aircraft and the zig-zagging that was going on and the rapid descent --

WHITFIELD: The fluctuating of the altitude - yes 24,000, sometimes 30,000, sometimes 45,000. Okay, continue.

SAVAGE: Well, it went from 45,000 feet down to 23,000 feet as reported yesterday or the day before. And an experienced and well-trained pilot would not have made an excursion like that even if he did have some nefarious plan at work. You would keep the plane as automated as possible, which has several different levels of automation that we employ. But you wouldn't be hand-flying an airplane that way and allow the excursions that were taking place --

WHITFIELD: So then this potentially tells you what? The pilots wouldn't elect to do that, that perhaps somebody else experience enough could be in the cockpit and take control and do these things?

SAVAGE: Minimally experienced enough to be able to hand-fly that airplane. It does take a great deal of training -- I hate to disagree with my colleague here -- but it takes a great deal of training and experience to operate that automation system efficiently and effectively. And it looked to me like the airplane was being hand- flown at some juncture, which meant that one of the pilots or both has been disabled.

WHITFIELD: Okay, Hold that thought.

SAVAGE: The other thing I would point out --

WHITFIELD: All right. Make it quick.

SAVAGE: The other thing to point out -- well, both these gentlemen are evaluated on a continual basis, and they have friends in the crew force that would know of their personal problems or lifestyles or whatever that would lead them to be doing something as crazy as this. And we're not hearing any of that. They were both highly respected pilots among their crew force.

WHITFIELD: OK. We'll continue this after the break because I have a lot more questions, and you all have a lot more expertise in which to share with all of us. Thanks so much. So solving the mystery of Flight 370. We'll ask more questions of these aviation experts about their theories, next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A critical vote in Crimea on a referendum to join Russia is now over. The polls just closed and we are expecting to get results very soon. It is widely expected however the vote will go in favor of joining Russia. And according to exit polls, it appears that did happen. The people already celebrating in the streets in the capital city of Simferopol.

Senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh is live for us now Crimea's capital city of Simferopol and chief international correspondent, Christian Amanpour is live for us from London. So Nick, to you first, clearly people are celebrating there. What are they anticipating this means for them, for their daily lives now that possibly based on real results when they come out, that Crimea would join Russia?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: People are swept up in what Russia has been telling them for the past two weeks, even years. In fact, this means returning to what they consider to be their mother land in some ways. A great majority of Crimea ethnically Russian speaking citizens, and a lot of misinformation is fair to say being sold to them by Russian-backed media about the threats that the new governments in Kiev faces towards them.

So some degree of celebration we are seeing around me here. A rock concert later on with a lot of Russian flags here. People in significant numbers out here because there's been significant support for joining Russia. I should also point out that's only happened because to Ukraine Defense Ministry, there are 21,500 Russian troops in the Crimean Peninsula making that vote possible.

Plus we simply haven't heard from the other side of the argument around this election. Normally it's a contest of opinions. That's not being the case here. What does it mean for their daily lives? Possibly uncertainty. Nobody quite knows how, for example, Crimea gets electricity and mobile phone service if the mainland in Ukraine decides to cut them off.

Now it seems they are pretty overwhelmingly voted to join Russia here. Exit polls just shy of 90 percent. Almost certain what we are going to hear in a minute behind me, the preliminary results that they will be asking Moscow to endorse them in fact joining the Russian federation -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: OK, let me bring, Christiane into the fold here. So Christiane, the U.S. and European nations have said they will not recognize this secession. And that even perhaps in Germany, they may freeze Russian assets. But really what does this mean for Russia or for Crimea if the rest of the world says this is illegitimate?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, it's going to be very interesting to see a lot has been made to the fact that Vladimir Putin said he is not going to make a decision about what to do with Crimea until after this referendum that just happened. So what will he do? Will he decide to annex it? Will he decide to look for some kind of diplomatic solution? We just don't know.

It is, as you say, being called an illegal referendum by the United States and Europe. They say they will recognize such a vote that's being taken at the barrel of a gun, you know, after Russian military intervention with overwhelming propaganda trumped up just the Russian state voice being heard in Crimea.

And almost no independent voice. There have over the last week closed down any kind of independent news and information for the people of Crimea and this trumped up notion that they were somehow beleaguered by Ukrainians and needed desperately Russian help. So all of that is being denied and negated by the west who really views this as, you know, a disaster unfolding in slow motion just like a very, very bad movie.

What can they do? Well, they are going to start with sanctions tomorrow. We'll see just what kind of sanctions they are, but we understand they are going to be at least initially targeted at those in the Kremlin and in the Crimea that have something to do with this referendum and presumably they will be widened or not depending on what happens next.

Will Vladimir Putin annex Crimea and will he after that go into homeland, actual Ukraine proper? Those are two things that the west is watching very carefully.

WHITFIELD: So specifically as early as tomorrow the Senate and the House, you know, could pass the economic aid package that would include some sanctions, but what kind of sanctions would cause any kind of, you know, crippling to Russia?

AMANPOUR: Well, look, Fredericka, a lot of people have derisively said that no amount of sanctions or no amount of isolation is going to make a difference. That's not the view of a lot of business people in Russia who believed that they have been so knitted into the international community that their businesses will be harmed. And by extension as this goes on and on and on, if Russia is really isolated and if there is a direct economic knock that eventually will start to impact people's lives.

Now, obviously, we are talking long-term. We don't know the extent of the sanctions being planned and don't know how they are going to hurt or who they are going to hurt or when. Some people have said, well, Russia can just cut off gas and energy to the west. Others have said, well, actually, they can't really because they actually need the money from those sales. At this point it is very difficult to know exactly what the ramifications are going to be, but the real thing is, does Vladimir Putin want a solution to this or has he really removed himself from the international precedence and parameters and the United Nations, and decided on a long road solo doing what he thinks is good for the greater Russia. We'll have to wait and see about that.

WHITFIELD: All right, and Nick, let me bring you back in, so what about for those people in Crimea who said, no, we want our independence? What happens to them or their vote or would their identities be revealed? Would anybody know which way, if they were to vote away from secession?

WALSH: Well, certainly there was no real choice on the ballots. That remain in the status quo to remain part of Ukraine. The other of joining Russia was to gain independence and Crimea to become their own country. We don't know where those pro-Ukrainians will go. Will they leave Crimea? The Tatars ethnic minority over 10 percent of Crimea has boycotted the vote entirely and some of them we spoke to today are very angry, worried about conflict, deeply disrespectful of the Russian forces here.

I should point out I'm standing in a sea of intense celebration here well-orchestrated and well-funded, but that's simply because there's been an equally well orchestrated and well-funded Russian military invasion into Crimea. No doubt that this seem wouldn't be happening where in not for tens of thousands of Russian troops sending in here backing up the Kremlin's broader plan for the Crimea.

So it's important to point out that these scenes are of pretty intense jubilation around me are actually at the heart of a crisis now, which risks plunging U.S. and Russian relations back to a crisis not seen since the cold war really ended. Deep concerns about what this means here and also what it means in Eastern Ukraine where we are seeing violence in the past 24, 48 hours.

People are dying in clashes between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian crowds, which of course, forces marching across the other side of the Ukrainian-Russian border to perhaps be called in to intervene. The Russian Foreign Ministry saying they are mindful of a balance and mindful of the need to protect their compatriot.

So all of this looks very happy here, but beneath it all is an extraordinarily worrying geopolitical crisis where we have Russian troops moving westwards into parts of the former Soviet Union and deeply concerning diplomats in western capital and many observers of Russia who simply can't believe that the Kremlin has chosen this extraordinarily aggressive route -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Extraordinary developments there from that region, Crimea, Ukraine and Russia. Thank you so much, Nick Paton Walsh and Christian Amanpour. Appreciate that.

And of course, we'll have much more coverage on Flight 370 as well. The other big story we are following today. More on the crisis in Ukraine and the result of today's independent referendum. All of that straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Malaysia is revealing more information now about the investigation into the disappearance of Flight 370. Authorities say they are now examining a flight simulator taken from the home of the pilot. No word yet on what they've discovered. But they will undoubtedly be looking to see if the pilot practiced the same path the jet is believed to have taken. A U.S. official tells CNN U.S. intelligence is leaning toward the theory that the pilots are responsible.

In the meantime, the search area has expanded to cover large areas of land including extremely remote regions. Crews are looking along two corridors. One to the south, the other to the north, reaching all the way up to Kazakhstan.

Let's bring in CNN aviation analyst, Jim Tillman. He is a retired American Airlines pilot. He is joining us from Phoenix. So much of the investigation now is focusing on the pilots, but given some of the new information you've learned about these pilots not requesting to work together and apparently there was not more fuel added to the plane.

Even though they have taken the simulator from the pilot's home, I understand it's not unusual for a pilot to have that. Does all of that information help substantiate the view that the pilot should be examined further or does it rule them out in your view?

JIM TILLMAN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: In my view it is those pilots or others that are enforcing their will on the pilots and making sure they do what they are told to do. I have to tell you, Fredricka, this whole thing has been very well planned and very well executed up to this point. I have no reason to believe that there isn't some end plan, end zone, whatever else, that's the target for them beyond what we have already seen them do. We have been behind them all along, so now if they had a plan, and if that plan included being able to set down some place, refuel a little bit, we are looking at something that we may never see the end of.

WHITFIELD: So if that plane were to land somewhere and refuel, wouldn't there be some sort of record in some way, shape or form? Wouldn't there be, if anything, satellite imagery to show this plane landing at this place at some certain time of day or a day?

TILLMAN: There may be. But how quickly can we study that and come up with that information? By that time, how far is that airplane going to be from the last known point of departure? You know, we are down to a point now where we have to try to think as carefully as we can. And with respect for the intelligence and the planning and the experience of whoever is doing this, I think they have an end game in mind from the very beginning. And they have executed a lot of things that have let us down a road. Are we going to the right place? I'm not sure.

WHITFIELD: Is it conceivable, though, to you that a plan, that a plane can land somewhere and ten days after searching it not be located somewhere on land, but conceivably a plane can be in the water somewhere and over a ten-day period of searching, it still not be found?

TILLMAN: Well, I have to ask myself, why would they be in the water? Was it something that went wrong with their plan? And that's the only alternative they had or are they leaning us toward that kind of thinking knowing full well if they can just stay a little ahead of us, refuel the airplane and keep going, that they are in the city, we will be in a lot of trouble trying to find out where they are. On the other hand, a lot of my contacts say you just cannot hide a 777. That may be true, and then again, it may not.

WHITFIELD: One of the questions that you have at this juncture in the investigation, day ten now that it's been missing.

TILLMAN: One of the questions I have is what it's going to take this to consolidate a lot of things, a lot of what we say we know and create a timeline to give some indication of where they will likely be going. I also have in my mind this whole business asking not the aviation experts, but behavioural scientist, people who look at human behavior and trends and that sort of thing, let them have a crack at this if they haven't already. The NTSB has a human factors group and they are very good at figuring out what pilots are going to do and what they have done.

WHITFIELD: Do you believe that that division of the NTSB would be volunteered to assist in this investigation?

TILLMAN: I'm pretty sure they have been offered. I don't know if the Malaysians have accepted that offer, but if they haven't, they better get on board because we need somebody that can understand the thinking of a pilot and/or the crew to do these kind of things. I have to tell you, if they did this, they did it with help. It would be very difficult to pull all of this off without having some help on the ground and maybe even in the air --

WHITFIELD: It sounds like you are leaning toward these pilots being complacent, not necessarily be forced to be part of this.

TILLMAN: Well, it could be either of those. I mean, they could have been forced. You know, they could have been forced by someone that also had a knowledge of an aircraft and knowledge about what it could and could not do. But I am leaning, really, toward these guys being the ones that are really responsible.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jim Tillman, thank you so much from Phoenix. Appreciate your expertise.

Also up next, live from the White House, reaction to the historic vote in Crimea. Exit polls indicating the Crimeans has voted in favor of joining Russia. What happens now? After this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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(END VIDEO CLIP)

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WHITFIELD: A critical vote in Crimea on a referendum to join Russia is now over. We are awaiting preliminary results now, but according to Russian news agencies, exit polls show a landslide to warrant joining Russia. Throughout the day, demonstrations have been happening around Ukraine. In a city that is Eastern Ukraine, pro- Russian protesters actually stormed an office building. They ripped down a Ukrainian flag and then replaced it with a Russian flag.

And in Kiev, pro-Ukrainian supported waited to see what the outcome would be, Ukraine's government has said the vote is illegitimate and the U.S. and European Union also have stressed that this is illegal. So the White House is already reacting to today's vote. Erin McPike is live for us now in Washington at the White House in the lawn there with more on that -- Erin.

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, White House spokesman, Jay Carney, just issued a statement and as expected said the White House will not recognize this referendum. That they have rejected it and said this vote is not necessary and part of that statement was also condemning Russia clamping down the pressure on Russia. I want to read that part to you.

Jay Carney said, "Russia's actions are dangerous and destabilizing. As the United States and our allies have made clear, military intervention and violation of international law will bring increasing costs for Russia, not only due to measures imposed by the United States and our allies but also as a direct result of Russia's own destabilizing actions."

And what we know so far is that, of course, the United States has already imposed some sanctions on Russia, but in the coming days we'll consider more sanctions and how they can increase that. We know Congress will be discussing that this week, too -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Erin McPike at the White House. Thank you so much for that.

All right, straight ahead, I will bring you all the latest developments on the search for Flight 370 as well. Right after this.

JOE CARTER, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: I'll tell you what, Louisville is playing their best basketball of the season right now and their best basketball is pretty scary good. Of course, tonight is Selection Sunday. The Cardinals have a pretty good chance to be a number one seed, but they can also be a number two seed. Either way, no one, I would imagine, wants to be paired against the Louisville Cardinals in this tournament coming up.

Because right now they put together a remarkable run of late outscoring their last four opponents by 133 points. And last night they beat UConn by 10 and won their conference tournament. I've got to tell you, it's going to take a talented, focused team to dethrown the Louisville Cardinals, the defending championships.

Did you watch the PAC-12 championship? Boy, it certainly felt like a national championship game. It was a thrilling game in the second half specially unranked UCLA pulled off a huge upset by beating number 4, Arizona. Even though Arizona lost yesterday, they are still likely to come away tonight with a number one seed. Now, with the win, UCLA is in the tournament. They should get a nice boost possibly to a high number five seat.

This next video is trending on bleacherreport.com for all the wrong reasons. During the championship game between Albany and Stony Brook, the mascots are duking it out. As a matter of fact, they have bad blood. Who knew, right? Security at one point had to come over to break up the mascot may lay. By the way, Albany won the American East championship game, which means they have earned a spot in the NCAA tournament and so has their rough and tough mascot as well.

That's your "Bleacher Report" update. Back to you.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much, Joe Carter. We'll have much more on this mysterious disappearance of an airline, after this.

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