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CNN Newsroom

Mystery of Flight 370

Aired March 19, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And we continue on, hour two. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN's special coverage here of this missing flight.

Let's stick with what we know. We know that files have been deleted from that at-home flight simulator belonging to the pilot of this missing plane. The FBI is now trying to recover whatever was erased. And the question now is what secrets might this hard drive hold. They're looking for that.

Also, another huge development today. CNN has learned the plane's computer was likely reprogrammed to change course, to go course. Right? Remember, it was supposed to be headed toward Beijing, took the left turn, at least 12 minutes with the co-pilot, who we presume to be co-pilot, radio air traffic controllers, saying, "All right, good night."

And for the first time, this search area is not growing. It is actually narrowing to the southern tip of this arc off the coast of Australia. Why? We're told it's based upon NTSB intelligence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN YOUNG, AUSTRALIA MARITIME SAFETY AUTHORITY: The search conditions were good and that the air crews saw marine life as they were flying through. And so we know we can make sightings. But in fact there were no results relevant to the search. Today, the search area has been significantly refined.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And the families. Just look at this, tensions boiling over at the press briefing this morning. You have this distraught mother in the middle of this scrum. She is dragged away after screaming for information on her missing son. Another woman screaming that she is sick of the Malaysian government's -- quote -- "inaction."

But to the evidence here that plane's computer was likely reprogrammed to change course, does that support the theory that the pilots both knew the turn was coming before that "All right, good night" sign-off?

Let's talk to CNN's Martin Savidge. He's back in our virtual cockpit in Canada with our flight instructor, Mitchell Casado.

Martin, question number one is can you guys just show me how would you program a change to the flight path? MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, let's talk about this, because this is kind of interesting, this new information that CNN has, that this change of course was programmed in 12 minutes ahead of time.

I should point out, by the way, Brooke, we are frozen in midair. We have suspended right now the simulator just to make this demonstration for you, because it's key to understand. Remember, this plane programmed exactly as 370 was. We are on the flight to Beijing and we're following the path they were scheduled to follow.

Mitchell, if you will put us in motion, what we want to point out is that we have already entered in the course change, just as they would have done 10 minutes ago. We're now two minutes away in our timeline from the "All right, good night." Maybe this could have entered, say, when one of the other pilots was going to the bathroom surreptitiously. So, maybe the other pilot didn't know this course change was coming up.

Here's the problem with that theory and it's right here on this screen. There are two of navigation screens and they are right up front. Any pilot sitting down in their seat would see this very hook, very dramatic. It's a red warning flag, because, Mitchell, show us what is the course to go to Beijing.

MITCHELL CASADO, PILOT TRAINER: Absolutely.

SAVIDGE: You see this maroon kind of dotted line? That's the way to Beijing. You sit down and for 12 minutes, you are looking at this hook. There's obvious. There is no question about this. This plane is programmed to make a very dramatic, maybe 120-degree turn. You are going dramatically off course.

So, either both pilots knew it and agreed, one pilot might be incapacitated and the other is making the turn. Both pilots could have a gun to their head. Maybe there is some other emergency, but this is going to happen. It's now predestined. And it's right in front of their eyes to see it as without us even touching anything, we now make that same course diversion.

We are going dramatically away from Beijing. And this according to what we know now, is how 370 managed into a mystery. We should point out one other thing. When that course change was entered into the flight data system, that's actually the flight management computer, a signal was sent to the ground.

In theory, Malaysia Airlines also knew 12 minutes ahead of time this flight was not going to Beijing.

BALDWIN: That was my next question, yes, because it's one thing for -- who knows what happened in the cockpit, but you are telling me someone on the ground would have had to have seen that change as well?

SAVIDGE: That's the way the system is designed, we're told. And a message was received on the ground, ACARS is about the only way it would have got there. They would have received it in real time and they too should have known 12 minutes ahead of time that plane was going to make a dramatic turn. We still don't know why.

BALDWIN: That was helpful to see. Martin and Mitchell, thank you both.

But let's focus on sort of part of what you just showed us and also the fact that we now know about these deleted files on the pilot's at- home simulator. Right now, again, the FBI is searching the simulator's hard drive to figure out what exactly was erased. Then the next obvious question is why.

So, joining me now to discuss, we brought him back, commercial pilot Captain Bill Savage, who is also a certified airline accident investigator. And he has flown the 777.

Welcome back to you and also Brian Havel, law professor and director of the International Aviation Law Institute at DePaul University.

Welcome to both.

And, Bill, let's begin with you. I will get to that left turn in a minute, but first this news today about the simulator angle, because we talked yesterday and the news was nothing suspicious was found on it. Now it's a little different.

My question to you -- and I used this analogy before -- listen, I delete e-mails all time just because I either just don't need the information in my inbox or I want more space in my inbox. Might that simply be an easy explanation as to why this pilot deleted this?

WILLIAM SAVAGE, COMMERCIAL AIRLINE PILOT: Well, I would like to put perspective a little bit of this issue of the computer being a simulator.

That's an overstatement. The computerized home versions of these airlines are video games. And even as advanced as the moving simulators at airline training academies, are also video games that are built on hydraulic lifts, but they are built with algorithms that reproduce the actual aircraft movements and conditions that have been through flight testing been tested. Your home computer would be very, very difficult to do that.

I would look at those files. If short field landings were being practiced in those files and then eliminated, that would be a red flag to me, but not the rest of this.

BALDWIN: So, just the sheer fact we know there were deleted files on this, we will call it what you are saying, this video game, are bells going off for you or no?

SAVAGE: If those files indicate practice at short fields that a 777 would be landing at, that would be a red flag for me.

BALDWIN: And that is because that would presume that this pilot was practicing this off-course veer and landing not in Beijing, yes?

SAVAGE: Yes. Correct. BALDWIN: OK.

Brian, I'm coming to you, hang tight me with, because, Bill, I want to stay with you because to the news too that Martin was showing in that simulator, the fact that know at least 12 minutes before that co-pilot -- again, we presume it was the co-pilot''s voice -- radioed in "All right, good night," it appears that it took -- it was prepared to take this left turn. Why would one need to do that? Why would a pilot need to do that?

SAVAGE: Well, does anybody find it interesting that everything that is being noted happened 12 minutes before?

Pilots are not doing simultaneous things at the 12-minute mark. There would be a breakup in the times. So everything happened here at the 12-minute point before the sign-off, "All right, good night," which I'm not comfortable with as a procedural sign-off anyway, but I just find it coincidental that everything is at the 12-minute mark.

BALDWIN: How do you mean everything?

SAVAGE: You have the FMS programming of a new route, which, quite frankly, experienced pilots would just use this route two function, number two function, instead of the primary route one function, if they were either loading or preparing a change to their flight plan.

This could very easily be accomplished by not using the FMS at all, but simply reaching up to the flight control panel, pushing the heading button and turning the airplane. And that's just the autopilot doing a command that you initiate, the pilot initiates.

Somebody else could have been doing that in the simplest form, if they had interdicted the cockpit, could just reach up and take control of the airplane by simply pushing the heading button and turning it. So, I'm not comfortable with this 12 minute of -- all these different functions happening 12 minutes before. It seems a little too coincidental, a lot of things going on at the 12-minute point.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Interesting.

And, then, Brian, to you, more on the legal angle. This is just a possibility that this plane is never found. Can we agree that that is a real possibility? We see this video of the families. What sort of legal options would they have if the plane isn't found? That means they can't necessarily prove it crashed.

BRIAN HAVEL, DEPAUL UNIVERSITY: Well, good afternoon, Brooke.

It's certainly true that if the plane is never found, we're outside the scope of the conventions that normally -- treaties that normally operate in the situation of an aircraft accident in international air transport.

And what will happen in this circumstance, I suspect, if the plane is never found, is that the treaties will go forward. The survived -- the families of the diseased passengers will be able to bring actions in their domestic courts. But they will require a presumption of death certificate from the local court.

But that's not as difficult as it sounds, because in many situations of mass accidents and mass adverse events, such as, for example, Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami in Thailand, or even 9/11, the courts readily granted death certificates, even though the period of time had not passed during which the rule normally would apply the presumption of death, which in the United States, for example, is seven years.

I think the courts would readily move to allow the passengers to proceed under the treaties and to make claims against Malaysia Airlines and any other defendants that they may wish to sue.

BALDWIN: Would they have a strong case, the families?

HAVEL: I think they will have a strong case in the circumstance.

But I think what will happen is that the airline or the defendants, including the airline, will probably wish to settle the case as rapidly as possible. Remember, Malaysia Airlines has already made money available to the families of the passengers.

Under international treaty, there is a provision for advanced payments. Malaysia has done that. It is not required to do that by international law, but it's recommended that each state provide that kind of assistance to the families of passengers, and indeed to the passengers themselves in the event of injury.

What's happening here, I think, is that we have already seen a gesture by the Malaysian airline company. And I think what will happen eventually is that the insurance companies involved here will say, even though the plane has disappeared and even though we could go through a litigation, it is perhaps best in these circumstances to settle the case.

I think the disappearance of the aircraft is probably good for the passengers, in the sense that airlines can no longer raise the defense of negligence in these circumstances to explain what happened.

BALDWIN: OK. Good for the passengers if they are OK.

Brian Havel and Bill Savage, thank you, both, as always, for your expertise.

Listen, there are a lot of questions. You have a lot of questions. I'm reading your questions on Twitter. Keep sending them, because we are about to answer them for you in about 15 minutes. Tweet me. My Twitter handle is @BrookeBCNN with #370QS. And we will have experts to answer them live in about 15 minutes from now.

Flight simulators or games, as Bill is saying, these video games, computer hard drives, forensic scientists and FBI agents are taking a long look here at the electronics of the pilot and co-pilot for any clues into the disappearance of this plane. How do you mine these gadgets for data? Can you find information that has been deleted?

A tech expert will join me with answers there. Also ahead, CNN caught up with the fishermen who say they saw a low-flying airliner off the coast of Malaysia last week. Hear what they told us about possibly this plane. Could it stoke the theory that the airliner was intentionally avoiding detention on radar? Stay with me. You are watching special coverage here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The FBI is reviewing the hard drive of the flight simulator found in the home of that veteran pilot of Malaysian Air Flight 370. This is the simulator that Zaharie Ahmad Shah used in videos such as this on YouTube. And today, Malaysian police said data from the simulator had been deleted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we have found out from the simulator that the data log of the games has been cleared on the 3rd of February. So, the experts are looking at what -- the logs that have been cleared.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's talk about the possibilities from here with our technology analyst Brett Larson.

So, Brett, obvious question number one here is, I have to presume investigators then can recover the deleted data, yes?

BRETT LARSON, CNN TECHNOLOGY ANALYST: Yes, they can.

There a variety of places all over the country that do this data recovery for when you accidentally deleted files, or, in worst-case scenarios, if your hard drive gets damaged or somehow malfunctions.

Data recovery, it's big business and it is definitely a possibility.

BALDWIN: Days, months, do we know?

LARSON: That's the big question.

Where they haven't given us any clarity is when the file was deleted and how it was deleted. If this was a simple -- like you and I do every day, we delete some e-mails.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Totally.

LARSON: We empty the trash. It's par for the course. It's housekeeping on our computer, as you were.

If that was the case, that kind of stuff is going to be easier to recover, because it is still pretty fresh. It's just a matter of, was the table of contents for that specific data set was erased and now that space on the hard drive is available to be written over?

If the data was erased and then he went back and intentionally wrote over it, did a secured or encrypted trash removal on the computer, that's a different circumstance. That is someone who was trying to delete something and also cover up their tracks.

BALDWIN: Could they see all of that once they go to this specialized place that traces the history?

LARSON: The FBI -- I don't want to scare people. You can go back pretty far on a hard drive.

I like to refer to it -- it's like a layer cake. Every time you write something new onto that drive, you put another layer on it. And as you get further down in those layers, the ones and zeros, those bits that make all of this information become harder and harder to see.

This is FBI, so they will have the best technology available to do this sort of recovery. But it could be spotty. It could be that they get enough information. This is a simulator. So, if it's a big, giant piece of data that they're trying to recover, that might be easier to find than, say, multiple pieces of data that could have been written over.

BALDWIN: Somebody is working very hard on figuring out what was deleted as we speak.

Brett Larson, thank you.

LARSON: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: And just a quick reminder to all of you. Keep the tweets coming. Keep tweeting me @BrookeBCNN with all of your questions here on this missing airliner. Make sure you hashtag your tweet #370QS. We will get our experts to answer them now in 20 minutes live on the show.

Next: narrowing the search, this new focus today for rescue crews trying to find this plane. So there is this new area based upon the plane's fuel reserves and how far it could have flown. So, next, we will give you a virtual view of this new search area.

Plus have you heard this report today? Fishermen off the coast of Malaysia claim they saw the plane the night it went missing. Next, hear the clues they are providing that could help find this 777.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It's day 13 in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight, 239 souls on board.

And now we're hearing from some fishermen who believe they saw the plane fly over them the night it went missing. They talked to our correspondent there, Saima Mohsin, and told her that they were fishing when they saw the plane flying low over the Gulf of Thailand. When one fisherman says low, he means under 35,000 feet. He said the plane looked strange and he says he thought -- I'm quoting this fisherman -- "The pilot must be crazy." He filed a police report about what they saw, but no word yet if the report is actually being used by investigators.

I want to show you now though just precision, as precisely as we possibly can where the search for the plane is happening right now.

I bring in Tom Foreman to walk me through this virtual set. Exactly how big of an area, Tom, are we talking in terms of just sheer size?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, the big complete area is still enormous. You're still talking about an area around the size of the United States.

But the area that they are focused on most today is about the size of Arizona. Remember, we have talked about the two arc out here, the northern and southern arcs. This is along the southern arc. And they specifically focused on this area, about 1,400 miles or so away from the west coast of Australia.

This is a moving target, by the way. This was bigger yesterday. We put it on the floor now. And it was a little bit further to the west. But because of drifting patterns and things like that, they adjust it with the hours. This is all based on something from mathematics called Bayesian theory, which is basically saying, as all of your parameters change hour to hour and day to day in a search, you adjust the probability of where you will find it.

Now that equation has led them to focus most low on this area. One of the reasons we know they are focusing on it so far, or so hard right now is this, this airplane. This is the P-8 Poseidon. It's made by the Navy. Or the Navy has them out there. This is the result of a $35 billion program and each plane cost about a quarter of a billion dollars.

Many people consider this one the most effective sub-hunting plane in the world now, because when it looks down at all this water, which you and I would look at with our eyes, we would see sunlight glinting off it, making it hard for us to see things. And we might see whitecaps and all sorts of things that make it visually hard to see something.

It uses radar to scan many, many, many miles of this, thousands in a day, to spot even little tiny items. The fact that this plane, this quarter-billion-dollar plan has been moved down to search that specific area shows you that their sense of possibility that it could one of the more important search areas has risen substantially.

It doesn't mean they will find anything, but it means they think they might find debris on the surface. But, Brooke, I want to point this out because it's really important. Remember, even if you find something on the surface, even if all of the calculations by NTSB and everybody else says it should be down here somewhere, if you find something, the bigger challenge lies ahead, because this plane vanished over about 200 feet of water. But if you fly into this part of the Indian Ocean and you keep going down below the surface, look what you get. You get the kind of typography that you would get on the surface, a geography of hills and ridges and valleys and all sorts of places where that pinger that they might search for could be difficult to locate.

So, Brooke, even if that advanced plane or the teams down in this area could find something in this area about the size of Arizona, that's a big search area. All that does is then put them below the water to begin the very laborious job of trying to pinpoint where the actual wreckage would be underneath that if this plane crashed -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Hopefully, that highly specialized plane, hopefully, it is a good sign. We watch and wait. Tom Foreman, thank you for that.

Coming up next, we have been promising, we are answering your questions live about this missing flight. A lot of people have been tweeting me. My Twitter is nonstop here, @BrookeBCNN. You are asking all these great questions and thinking of all kinds of things. Make sure you use this hashtag, #370QS. We're posing your questions to an expert live next.

Also ahead, five things we are learning about the pilot of this flight through his social media accounts -- what we learned coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)