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Southern Search Field Narrowed; Letter To Families: Get Tough With Malaysia; Did Fishermen See The Missing Plane?; Survivalist: It's Possible Passengers Are Safe

Aired March 19, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, just past the bottom of the hour. You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Could the mystery behind what happened to Flight 370 be revealed in the flight simulator? Because right now, this is a fact that the FBI is trying to find out. We learned that data was deleted from the pilot's at home simulator. This happened. We also know this. Sometime before the 3rd of February, one month before this ill-fated flight took off.

The FBI now using forensics to try to retrieve whatever was erased. CNN has also learned that the plane's computer was likely reprogrammed to take that course, take that left turn, at least 12 minutes before that co-pilot radio down air traffic controls saying, "All right, good night." A senior official telling CNN that intelligence from the NTSB has now led searchers to the southern part of this ark. More specifically, see the map to the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia.

Joining me now from London, oceanographer, Simon Boxall and also CNN's Chad Myers. Chad, he something brand new for us, something slightly against the grains. We will get to Chad in a minute. But Simon Boxall, the search area, this is where I want to begin with you. West of Southern Australia. Do we know how deep the water is there? Is there any chance at all, if the water is clear, to try to find a piece and parts of the plane on the ocean floor?

SIMON BOXALL, OCEANOGRAPHER: Absolutely none, I'm afraid. The water is two to four miles deep. So we can see through the oceans about 200 or 300 feet. So anything below that that is lost from view. If there is surface debris, I think people assume that we have these magical spies in the sky we've seen in the James Bond films.

In reality, if we are using civilian satellites, that is there at the right time. The resolution is not good enough to pick up a plane. Now in theory if a plane hits the surface (inaudible), but of course, we don't know how much fuel was left in the plane. If it was running on fumes, there will be no oil sleek. This is days after and left on the surface.

Now the aircraft would pick up the debris. The problem is there are so many false positives and there have been lots of this already. That we are looking for a needle in the haystack. That's very, very difficult without much more information as to where the plane might be narrowing the search down.

BALDWIN: And then to add to that list, let's say if there is still debris or something floating on the surface and wouldn't it have floated in the days since the plane vanished from radar?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Certainly, but it depends on the wind as well. If this whatever it is floating up above the water, it has surface area or windage above the water. The wind could actually blow it faster than the current may take it a different direction. This could be scattered now over hundreds of square miles where it was just one football field piece of debris. Now it just could be scattered and scattered.

BALDWIN: I want to come back to you, but Simon, back to where the Australians are searching, they have narrowed this field already. Would submersibles be of any use at this stage of the game?

BOXALL: We need to find the plane first. So the debris could be scattered and we can work out the conditions and the currents. We can work back and back track to a much smaller search area. We then need to use the sticks. The ship would have to use a scanning system to scan the sea bed. Also magnetic anomalies from the metal engines or the metal components of the aircraft.

The problem is that the width at which they were is narrow. So if we are trying to scan off a million square miles, this could take 30 or 40 years. This is the big problem. It's not a trivial task. The oceans, you are looking at an area that even if you can narrow it down, that's the area that is almost the size of the U.S.

BALDWIN: The area they are looking in with this U.S. official that have knowledge of the investigation, says, yes, they are honing in at least on the southern ark. We've been showing this huge ark on TV in the last 13 days. We know that the Chinese are searching on land and others are searching along the northern arks. So Chad Myers, with your map, can we begin to narrow the northern search field as the Australians have narrowed the southern search field.

MYERS: I believe the northern search field turns into a hurricane cone. You know, the cone of uncertainty when we talk about hurricane?

BALDWIN: Yes.

MYERS: Because we will use the same dots and the same pings from MR- SAT that will be going south to the north. I will show you this right now. We don't know the hourly pings, but we know that the search area has been really shrunk down from what would have been all the way to here just in the past couple of days. Why would they do that?

They would do that only if they had some type of knowledge about these pings as they come to the south. As the pings come to the south hour by hour, they would have been in a line. They are believing flight, normal level flight, straight flight, everybody is incapacitated. The plane is flying on its own 560 miles per hour until it runs out of fuel.

Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, once an hour. Get a little bit further to the south, the plane runs out of fuel right in that box. This box, just a couple of days ago, Brooke, was this big. They didn't make it that small for no reason whatsoever. Now just to get the other theorists up here, still involved.

I am going to take you on a tour keeping the pings, the yellow line is the newest and older, older, older, and by that time, you are at 8:11 a.m. I can get you a path that takes you a ping and a ping and a ping. That gets you up here to the hone in the northern ark as well. What they are seeing on the southern ark is a straight line that makes a lot more sense to them than if the plane was not -- everyone is incapacitated and still flying on its own than a zigzag pattern like I've described here.

BALDWIN: We just don't know, do we? Chad Myers and Simon Boxall, thank you so much.

Coming up, these Malaysian fishermen, they say they saw the missing plane on the night it disappeared. So we took a boat out with them to that very spot they say they spotted Flight 370.

Also ahead, the families of those missing on that plane say they are now demanding answers with a slow drip, drip, drip of information from the Malaysian government. Could an independent investigation help find this plane? That's next.

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BALDWIN: Families of the 239 people on board this missing Malaysia Airlines flight, they are getting some advice actually from people who can relate to this just agonizing wait. In an open letter, relatives of German victims on Air France Flight 447, which we have been talking a lot about recently. You know the story, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean, just a couple of years ago. It took them two years to figure out what happened, urged families to get tough with Malaysian authorities.

This letter encouraging families to, and I'm quoting, "approach your respective national government to put pressure on the Malaysian military and civil authorities to speed up the investigations." It goes on to say, that families should demand a neutral investigation by experts of their choosing.

So let's talk about that with CNN aviation analyst, Steven Wallace. He is also a former director of FAA Office of Accident Investigations. So Steven, nice to have you on.

STEVEN WALLACE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good afternoon.

BALDWIN: Let's just begin with that advice. I am getting this independent investigator. How would -- let's say they do it, how would an investigator look at things differently?

WALLACE: Well, I mean, we have independent investigators sometimes come in looking for insurance companies or airlines or manufacturers. So that's not unheard. But to organize and run the entire investigation, that has not been done. I can say this investigation of all the investigations have I seen, the scope got off to a very, very slow start and it's improving. We are so slow and getting the best evidence in front of the best experts who are there ready and willing to help.

BALDWIN: So if they even tried to get an independent investigator, Steven, do we even think that the Malaysian authorities who point out have been slow from the get go, would they even share the information?

WALLACE: I would be very doubtful about that. Again, you know, the National Transportation's Board, the FAA, they sent the best experts on day one. They didn't get to look at the radar data right away. The best analyst in the world and so there has been a consistent pattern of slow movement and information. That would present an even greater challenge to an independent investigator.

BALDWIN: So you can't blame the woman who we keep seeing in this video from the press briefing, you know, screaming and being dragged out of the room just based upon this information. The second question is this. As we keep talking about Air France 447, there were pieces of that plane that were found five days after the crash and fast forward two years, that's when investigators found the main wreckage and the black box on the ocean floor. So what can Malaysian authorities or really any of these entities helping in this search learn from the long search from Air France?

WALLACE: Well, maybe one thing is not to give up. I mean, Air France, the pingers in Air France 447 had long gone silent, of course. Using some underwater, sophisticated underwater, sonar, unmanned vehicles, they found the wreckage. Those recorders are in the tail cone of that airplane. That nearly always survives well enough for those recorders to be in there. So I mean, Air France was quite an element of luck in the fact that they found those recorders two years after the pingers had gone silent.

BALDWIN: Because the pingers only have 30 days, the battery life is 30 days, right?

WALLACE: Right. And you know, it's like any other battery. Sometimes you get a little more and sometimes less, but 30 days is the nominal number.

BALDWIN: All right, we are day 13. Steven Wallace, thank you.

WALLACE: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming, I will talk to a survivalist who said it is important to remain hopeful if you are one of these family members. He explains how if that plane crashed as well the passengers could survive.

Also ahead, could these fishermen be the last people to have spotted Flight 370. CNN went out on this boat with them to find out what they say they saw on the night that plane disappeared.

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BALDWIN: We are following the newest developments today in the search for this Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. So one lead, one fact we are really honing, at least this is according to the fishermen, they say they saw this plane laying low, flying low over the Gulf of Thailand. CNN's Saima Moshin caught up with them in Northern Malaysia to ask them exactly what they say they saw that morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I am just off the coast here in the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. So we know Flight MH 370 made its last known recorded location and shortly after that, it made that crucial turn. Well, two fishermen believed they saw a very low-flying aircraft that evening. I have been out at sea with them today on their boat, talking to them about their sighting. Now, they say this was very unusual.

I asked them, have you ever seen a plane flying so low before? They see planes all the time because they go fishing underneath the flight path. They said, no, I have never seen a plane flying so low. We both remarked, wow, is this pilot crazy? I quote, I then ask them what exactly did you see of this aircraft?

He said it was flying so low, the lights looked the size of coconuts to me. Well, they went home. They told their families and their co-workers and they reported it to the police. It was shortly after that that they discovered flight had gone missing, but we cannot confirm if that was indeed Flight MH-370, but the timing is pretty close, they saw it at 1:30 a.m.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Saima Mohsin, thank you so much. Coming up, my next guest said it's important to keep hope alive. He explains if this plane crashed on water, how those passengers could survive.

Also ahead, we will take you back inside this cockpit simulator and show you how a flight's route is changed. Martin Savidge and his aviation instructor, Mitchell, join me next. This is CNN special coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You are watching CNN special coverage of the search for missing Malaysia Flight 370 and the theories about where this plane could be. They are piling up, but the answers unfortunately are not. The wait for any type of news is absolutely agonizing. These family members of the 239 people who were on board that plane. Some have lost hope with Malaysian officials and the investigation, but I talked to survivalist, EJ Snyder. May be you know him from Discovery Channel's "Naked and Afraid" that TV show and he explained to me why it is important to keep hope alive and to be optimistic that the passengers are safe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) EJ SNYDER, DISCOVERY CHANNEL'S "NAKED AND AFRAID": You never give up hope especially when there is no definite evidence about what has happened here. You put your shoes in the family members. If I'm a family member, I have someone on that plane, I'm going to hang on to every hope, every prayer that the loved one of mine is going to get home safe. It is possible.

There have been documented, historical situations just like this where other planes have gone down in some treacherous places with a crash and had to survive that situation. You have seen boats get, you know, castaways that wind up on islands in the middle of the ocean and they survive. So there is always hope and no one should ever give up hope.

BALDWIN: I know one of the girlfriends of one of the Americans on the plane has the backpack when she gets the call that he is found. I know you have been adamant that these people on board this plane are alive. But do you still now additional days into the search, do you still feel that way?

SNYDER: Absolutely. Never underestimate the human spirit and it's the determination of an individual who wants to live and the will to live is so strong, when these buildings collapses in the earthquakes and you have a baby that has been found weeks after the rubble has been laying over it, that is so amazing about the human spirit. We endure. You see the final evidence that is gone. Until I see that evidence for me, I will sit there and pray and keep optimistic that they will make it.

As a survivalist, you know, the basic needs of survival and a lot of inner instinct in a human will kick in. I have to find something to eat and I need to take care of people that are around me that are injured. When you have a bunch of people together like that and somebody steps up in the chaos and takes charge. That makes the situation better. It is possible.

People can be out in those conditions and survive. We don't give up hope. We stay optimistic and we pray for not only those that are out there trying to survive, but there will be rescuers putting themselves in harm's way and we want them to be safety to the location to give these people the aid they need.

BALDWIN: I hope they find them. It's tough to have hope when the days continue to wane on. We think about the Discovery Channel "Naked and Afraid." Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate it.

SNYDER: Thanks for having me. Keep praying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)