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Search Includes Vast Oceans, 11 Countries; Past Hijackings And How They Ended; When Did Crucial Tracking System Go Down?; GM Recalls 1.2M SUVs For Air Bag Issue; 4.4 Quake Rattles Southern California

Aired March 17, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Just passed bottom of the hour, you are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Today, new evidence to something very sinister happened on board this Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Was it hijacked? Were the pilots involve?

So we now have this new timeline to guessing suggesting that the last radio transmission the words, "all right, good night" may have been said after a crucial tracking system on this plane was switched off. It's the mysterious 30-minute window investigators are really trying to close.

Take a look at this though because we have this new video of the pilots going through a security check point sometime before they disappeared on this plane full of 239 people, first the pilot here and then co-pilot through that metal detector. Although CNN cannot independently confirm when the video was shot, what we do know is that police have searched the homes of these two men and they have taken this flight simulator from the home of the co-pilot.

We also know investigators are only now beginning to track down the phone records of the passengers to see if any of them tried to make contact.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMAD JAUHARI YAHYA, CEO, MALAYSIA AIRLINES: So far, we have not had any evidence of any telephone company of any member trying to contact. But anyway, we are still checking. There are millions of records to process. It is being done as part of the investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Also new information. I tell you this just keeps coming in and coming in. This is new to us. India's military just admitted radar near the Andaman Island is not watched as closely as others. OK, so that's interesting. Of course, this raises the possibility that the plane might not have been picked up as it flew through the area.

If you are looking at this maps and you are having a tough time sort of getting the lay of the land. I totally get that. We just want to help you out right now as we are all learning about this and what could have happened together.

Tom Foreman joins me now from Washington. And Tom, you know, we are all reading and reading and reading, and I read this quote from someone this morning. He was a U.S. naval commander taking part in the search for the plane. He said, he put it like this. This was like finding a missing person when all you know is there is somewhere between New York and California. Sound right?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that does sound right sadly, Brooke, because this is a huge area we are talking about here. Even as we get these new clues, we bring in the map here and go back to where we were a week and a half ago. We know the plane took off from Kuala Lumpur. We know it flew for a bit less than an hour and then it disappeared up here.

Still a week and a half later, that's about the biggest part of what we know. We know that the search area has expanded and expanded and we know now based on this analysis of satellite data that maybe it is somewhere out in a vast ark that stretches out towards the south this way or towards the north that way.

We don't know it is south or north because this is all based on mathematics and possibilities that it could have been in one of these areas. But take a look at this when we talk about knowing the lay of the land. Move up to the northern section here and look at all of the countries that it came close to or perhaps went over if it went in that direction, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, China, up here passed parts of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kirgizstan and Uzbekistan. All the way up to Kazakhstan if in fact it flew directly along a route like that.

Now bear in mind, we are talking about the amount of time flown, Brooke, in that final hour when we don't know where it was when the last ping was lost. It could have veered off from that path or it could veered off much earlier. We just don't really know or again it could have gone towards the south.

Bottom line is what we have is this plane, this huge plane, 200 feet from one side to the other. This plane managed to make all this movement to go in all these places allegedly if it went that way and the satellite direction is right with no radar picking it up and no people seeing it and nobody seeing it since. That's why this remains so mysterious.

It would be fairly easy if we said it's a big mechanical failure and it disappeared on the spot. It simply went down in the ocean. It is tragic, but we could understand it. What's strange is to say it doesn't seem to have gone down in that spot. All that comes afterwards, an unbelievably vast search area that seems to be getting bigger and bigger the more we look. It's the not the 20 million miles it once was, but it may as well be because it is so huge.

BALDWIN: It's in the age of connectivity, it is mind-boggling that ten days in, no one knows. Tom Foreman, thank you. You mentioned searching the ocean. This massive search operation to find this flight. It's huge. It's complicated with this logistical challenge is going on by air and land and sea.

Let's talk about the searching by water with Rob McCallum. He's an ocean search specialist and a professional expedition leader and our own Chad Myers joins us here as well. So Rob, I mean, listen. There were ships and planes and the countries and the number keeps getting bigger and bigger each and every day. Sometimes when you look at these picture, despite our technology, you have people looking on paper, at maps and using binoculars. Can you tell me just how many sets of eyes are looking at these oceans right now?

ROB MCCALLUM, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: I can't tell you the exact number, but I can tell the more the better. The oceans of the world cover 70 percent of the planet and they are vast. Even in a regional confinement, it's a vast body of water. So to cover that, the more eyes that are out there looking, the greater the chances of finding something.

BALDWIN: Maybe this is a silly question. Obviously they are looking for debris. Something. But how difficult is that to see with the waves and the caps, the white caps. I mean, you must be circling and circling, right?

MCCALLUM: It really depends on what that's made it to the surface. In the case of the Air France 447, the entire tail section of the aircraft was painted in company colors and floating on the surface. That was a very large target. Some of the other things that might be floating on the surface, things like doors that contain the floatation rafts. That sort of thing. They can be pretty small in a vast ocean.

BALDWIN: It's just amazing days out. Air France that was five days when they found something. We are 10 days out and still nothing, Chad Myers.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Do you fly back and forth on a grid. You know, I'm thinking about a movie, back and forth every mile. Something closer than a mile. What's your distance when you are looking out those airplanes, when looking out of a helicopter? How far do you really see over the horizon?

MCCALLUM: Well, it depends on a number of factors. The state of the sea at the time. How rough it is. Also the visibility in the air. Anyone that searched for anything, even your car keys, it's as important to know where it is that you've searched and you can cross off your list as it is to know where you are going to be searching next. Because there is nothing worse than having a search pattern that has been incorrectly executed. At the end of the day, you are not really sure that you can cross off all the areas that are being searched. It's better to be methodical than it is to be fast.

BALDWIN: What about this, Rob, what about I read about this under water locator beacon that was, you know, of course, on the plane that there is a 30-day timetable where after 30 days that battery dies, correct?

MCCALLUM: That is correct.

BALDWIN: We are at day ten.

MCCALLUM: That's true. As you would have seen on the Air France 447 search, the life of the pingers expired and the batteries died. So they went in the end any use to those that we are trying to locate the wreckage. But you know, they are a part of the puzzle. If they expire, they expire. We will have to find it by the traditional means of using sonar through the water to grab the acoustic imagery that is needed to locate the aircraft.

BALDWIN: OK. Rob McCallum, let's hope they find it in those 30 days. Thank you very much, Chad. Thank you.

MYERS: You know, that pinger only goes about 2-1/2 miles. If that plane is more than 2-1/2 miles in the ocean, that ping sound can't even make it to the surface.

BALDWIN: It's salt water and everything. Once they find the box, Chad, thank you.

MYERS: I think there is a better chance of finding it if they are on land. We'll see.

BALDWIN: OK, we'll see indeed. Coming up next, one of the theories, listen, there are a lot out there being investigated. As we've been discussing, a possible hijacking. So we will take a look at history at past hijackings and how they ended those cases.

Plus we will break down the mysterious 30 minutes on board this Malaysian flight just after the plane's last communication signal. How do these satellites work? That's coming up.

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BALDWIN: Was Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 hijacked? It is one of the many theories being fuelled by statements made over the weekend by the prime minister of Malaysia. So these two men who are piloting that plane are now really the main focus of the investigation. Did they deliberately steer Flight 370 off course. It's a question.

CNN's Nick Valencia has a look at some previous international hijackings and how they unfolded.

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NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: This movement is consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than a week after the plane's disappearance, police searched the homes of the flight's pilot and co-pilot. Investigators say nothing has been ruled out. But why would either man deliberately divert the plane? In the case of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 earlier this year, it was the co- pilot who turned pirate, an act motivated by a plea for asylum.

FLIGHT 702: And you have to give us lastly information about asylum because everything is not in English portion. TOWER: Yes, I know. Sorry, but we are still waiting for the response. We are trying our best to get you the response, sir.

VALENCIA: The jet made a safe landing in Switzerland and the co-pilot was taken into custody. In 1950 a similar story. Three commercial planes from Czechoslovakia were simultaneously hijacked by former Czech Royal Air Force pilots seeking asylum. All three planes landed safely at an American airbase in Germany. The hijacker's request were granted.

Throughout the years, deliberate pilot interference has been rare, but there has been numerous attempted passenger hijackings, even post 9- 11. Most recently right before the Winter Olympics in Sochi when a passenger on board a Ukraine flight bound for Istanbul, Turkey said there was a bomb on board.

DMITRY CHERNYSHENKO, PRESIDENT, SOCHI 2014 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: I know that Ukraine and Turkish authorities give those to fix this.

VALENCIA: On Sunday, U.S. officials said there is an increasing focus on those in the cockpit on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. U.S. officials tell CNN they're leaning towards the theory that the pilots were responsible. This much is clear. What happened on Malaysia Airlines 370 was no accident, but over the weekend, the prime minister stopped short of saying the mystery was the result of something sinister.

RAZAK: Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear. We are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate from its original flight path.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Nick Valencia, joins me in the studio. I mean, you look at previous incidents, but yet we have no idea.

VALENCIA: Yes, and this investigation has entered its second crucial week and it has been an agonizing two weeks looking for this plane. But a crucial part of their investigation according to U.S. officials is looking at this pilot and co-pilot and seeing their involvement in the plane's disappearance.

BALDWIN: What about this notion, the possibility that maybe a member of the crew, maybe the pilot was seeking asylum elsewhere?

VALENCIA: Well, what we've looked into and what we can glean from past instances, we know that when a pilot or co-pilot has deliberately diverted a plane, it's because they were seeking asylum. But of course, there was that case in 1999 of an Egyptian airline where the NTSB ruled that the co-pilot or pilot deliberately crashed off the coast of Long Island, New York because there was a suicide mission according to the NTSB.

Now the Egyptian government, they pushed back and they said it was mechanical failure and everyone has a theory about what happened to this plane. Nothing has been ruled out. I think that's the operative statement from everyone that is investigating this case.

BALDWIN: Nick Valencia, thank you so much.

VALENCIA: You bet.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, what happened in the final 15 minutes of Flight 370? We are focusing, speaking of what we know on this satellite. The flight is tracked for seven hours and new information we could glean from technology.

Also ahead, you heard about the earthquake that shook Los Angeles this morning, prompting these news anchors to duck and cover. We will roll out the video when we return.

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BALDWIN: Unravelling the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is a painstaking process. A major question still remain. Investigators are zeroing in on plane's movement. Here's a look at the timeline, this 30-minute timeline is Rene Marsh in Washington. So Rene, what point on the clock, let's put it that way, are investigators really honing in on?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So Brooke, the block of time that we are talking about here is 1:07 a.m. to 1:37 a.m. Now Malaysian authorities, they appear to be back tracking on information they gave about the timeline of events and this new timeline of events they are giving today in the words of one 777 pilot, it makes what happened look less deliberate and perhaps more mechanical.

So here it is. Here is the new timeline. Saturday March 8th, 1:07 a.m., the plane's ACARS system beamed down its last burst of information about the health of the plane, then 1:19 a.m., the last radio transmission, which they now believe was the co-pilot saying all right, good night. Perfectly normal as they were going and doing the handoff from Malaysian airspace heading towards Vietnam airspace.

Then 2 minutes later, at 1:21, the plane's transponder stopped transmitting the plane's altitude, speed, and position. Now 9 minutes later, the civilian radar loses the plane all together, no longer on radar. So here's what's new. I want to you follow me step by step here. The ACARS system was programmed to transmit information in 30- minute intervals. So the next scheduled data burst would have been at 1:37. That didn't happen.

They admit that from 1:07 to 1:37, they have no idea when that ACARS equipment stopped working. It could have stopped at any point during that 30-minute block of time. That's a much different story than what we heard this weekend when authorities in Malaysia clearly stated that the two systems, ACARS and the transponder went off separately and said because they went off separately, it looked like it was deliberate. So now that we are getting this new timeline, people are saying this puts back on the table the possibility that maybe this was mechanical and not the pilot -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So puts that back on the table. Then you have the satellite that track the plane in the air for more than seven hours after takeoff and cause the search crews to be refocused their search. That technology is not used for tracking planes. So how dependable is that information in the first place?

MARSH: Right. So that technology, again, the satellite is out of space. It pings with the plane. The airplane essentially responds to those pings. It's almost as if the satellite is saying are you there? The plane responds yes, I'm here. So now authorities, they are telling CNN, they are confident that this is the plane they tracked in the air for more than seven hours after takeoff because the signal that the satellite is picking up has a unique code that only that plane would have. It's almost impossible to confuse the plane. They are sure it is it -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: We are all learn learning about aviation together. Rene Marsh, thank you so much. Coming up, we will take you inside the cockpit one of these jets and talk to a trainer about the pilot simulator at home and this mysterious 30-minute window that Rene was running through.

Also ahead, an earthquake shook the Los Angeles area today jolting a lot of people awake, perhaps including you. Including interrupting live newscast prompting these anchors to jump under the desk. We have the video for you coming up next.

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BALDWIN: Special coverage of the disappearance of Flight 370 in a minute, but first, General Motors recalling more than a million SUVs for an issue with the air bags. The models include the Enclave, the Saturn Outlook and the Chevrolet Traverse. This news today comes as GM deals with a recall over ignition switches. GM engineers knew about the problem for years, but didn't recall those vehicles until last month.

Folks in Southern California shaken out of bed early this morning with a big jolt of an earthquake. The rumble even caught morning TV anchors off guard. Watch.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up, more problems for an --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Earthquake. We are having an earthquake.

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