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Search Continues for Missing Boeing 777; China Releases Images of Possible Airplane Debris in Indian Ocean; Russia Masses Troops Along Ukrainian Border

Aired March 22, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: I hope Saturday morning has been good to you so far. Thank you for sharing your time was here. I'm Christi Paul.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. It's 10:00 here on the East Coast, 7:00 out west. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

PAUL: The breaking news we've been following for you already this morning, the search for flight 370.

BLACKWELL: China has new is a light images and they're showing a large object, here it is, floating in the southern Indian Ocean. Here is what we know. So this object is 74 feet by 43 feet, about 77 miles from where previous satellite images spotted two large pieces of debris, maybe, but we're calling them objects floating there. China plans to send out ships to try to find this new object.

PAUL: In the meantime, the search for those other two pieces of -- or these other objects, I should say, goes on. We're talking about six planes scouring the area for a third day today. No traces were found, however. They came back, at least a couple of the planes, and said they hadn't found anything significant. Weather is deteriorating though in the search area. Australian official says the operation is going to continue despite that.

BLACKWELL: And there's also this multinational flotilla forming a search in the southern corridor. A Norwegian cargo ship is already there, diverted from its original end point. Australia, Malaysia, China, also sending planes to one of the planet's most remote areas.

PAUL: The revelation of these Chinese satellite images which we just showed you, they came as flight crews wrapped up, as I said, this third day of searches as they look for the other two pieces that we were talking about, those spotted by an Australian satellite. But we're in a whole new phase of this now because, as you said, we're 75 miles away looking at something different.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And is it still in that position. This was four days ago when that picture was taken by the Chinese officials. CNN's Andrew Stevens is at the Royal Australian air force base in Perth where the search flights have been taken off and landing. Andrew, what did searchers have to report after they came in after a day of looking in those waters? ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Victor, we just got an update, actually, and it's an interesting update, too. The search coordinators are saying that one of the commercial flights involved now in this search spotted what it described as small bits of debris on the sea. They identified one as a wooden pallet, but that's all. So the search team diverted one of the New Zealand long-range surveillance planes to that area to take a look for himself. It reported seeing nothing, unfortunately. He said all they could see were clumps of see weed down there. But they did drop a market buoy in there, and one of the commercial ships of the two commercial ships that are now in that zone is going to investigate further tomorrow. So we should perhaps by this time tomorrow have a better idea of what those small bits of debris are.

As far as the Chinese satellite picture, this new news coming out, it looks like that satellite picture came about two days after the Australians released theirs. So this piece of debris can't be the same as Australian satellite images because it could not have floated that far in just two days. So that is another interesting lead which will be pursued tomorrow. It's not that far away from where the Australians reported their two large objects, so it is in the search zone. Perhaps a little surprising that it's being picked up by the flights around the region so far.

But all flights will be back out tomorrow. In fact, the whole operation is ramping up. We've now got two Chinese military aircraft actually on the runway here at Pierce airbase just outside of Perth. They're going to be taking off tomorrow. They bring additional optical equipment plus good old-fashioned spotting through human intelligence, if you like, actually using the eyes, and which the Australians are saying becoming more crucial here. It's OK to identify these objects from a satellite but you've got to get very close up to see whether they are, in fact, linked to MH-370. We may get more news on that in the next 24 hour or so.

PAUL: All righty.

BLACKWELL: Andrew Stevens there for us in Perth. Andrew, thank you.

PAUL: Thanks, Andrew.

The U.S. is combing through its satellite data to try to find fresh images itself that made aid in the search for flight 370. Satellites all over the place from all countries looking at this.

BLACKWELL: That's true. And the Navy is also looking at how military undersea technology might help find the plane. Let's go to CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. Barbara, tell us more about how and what will be done to try to locate this suspected object that was tracked by China satellites.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Andrew really pinpointed the problem here. When the satellite image shows something basically passing underneath the satellite's field of view it's very hard to go back then and figure out where that object may be several days later. The seas are very rough down there, the current, the wind, the movement of the water. So a satellite image several times now only gives you really a basic area to start in.

That's why they're sending aircraft out and why, as today, when they spotted something else, they drop a marker in the water. And it has a GPS system on it that allows for that very precision tracking while the aircraft has to go away. They have to follow it somehow, a ship can come back, find the GPS location, and hopefully find what they're looking for.

It's the eyeballs that are going to do the trick here, many people believe, because they have to get up close. They have to see exactly what it is and whether there's even some remote chance that it's part of the airplane or just some debris floating through the ocean.

PAUL: Barbara, we know there's been a lot of shared resources here, and U.S. military undersea technology is, as I understand it, possibly the next step to try to find something?

STARR: Yes, you know, you're right. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Malaysian minister of defense and transport spoke yesterday on the phone. And the Malaysian minister asked Secretary Hagel for help with undersea surveillance technology. Hagel now has ordered some of his top commanders to look into what is feasible, what the real need is, what equipment the U.S. has.

It's going to be a little bit tough. Undersea surveillance technology is some of the most classified U.S. military technology. It simply cannot be handed over to another nation. And they probably, in all candor, wouldn't have the ability to use it because it's so classified and so particular to U.S. military systems.

So the question is, what are the Malaysians really need in undersea surveillance once they find the wreckage, if they do, hopefully, to conduct a salvage operation and bring it up, and even before that, an undersea acoustic technology. So when debris is found and then they can start from that point looking for the data recorders, they want the technology to be able to help go look for the data recorders. But that's a long way off right now.

PAUL: All righty, Barbara Starr, we thank you so much for the report. Good to see you this morning.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Barbara.

U.S. just one of 26 countries assisting in the search and the investigation, and even with so many teams from around the world, searching this area is still incredibly difficult.

PAUL: Yes. We're talking at one of the most dangerous, treacherous parts of the ocean in the world that has been described by many experts this week. CNN's Alexandra Field gives us a better idea here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: On the horizon a small window of opportunity opening in one of the world's most remote and punishing regions. And 20-foot waves forecast to subside this weekend as searchers scour a daunting swath of the south Indian Ocean for any sign of Malaysia airlines flight 370 and its 239 passengers.

TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: It's about the most inaccessible spot that you can imagine on the face of the earth.

FIELD: And 1,400 miles off the coast of Australia, the aerial search can last just a few hours at a time before pilots have to head back to refuel.

CHRISTINE DENNISON, EXPEDITION LOGISTICS EXPERT: That is really in the middle of nowhere. And so they're working with weather patterns that can really hamper any operation, any sea operation.

FIELD: A NASA simulation shows currents and turbulence. If the two floating objects spotted by satellite are part of the missing plane these water conditions could push them farther east and likely farther apart. Some oceanographers estimates the objects, some of the strongest leads in the case, could be anywhere from a 15,000 square- mile area. That's roughly the size of Belgium.

Below the water surface an even murkier picture. The seafloor sits more than 9,000 feet down, deeper than most submarines can go, the mid ocean ridge, rising from it, making the search even more difficult.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The depth is a factor here. The terrain is a factor. Describe what it would look like down there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like the Rocky Mountains.

DENNISON: It's so challenging. And for so many people it's so hard to get, wrap your mind around what they are doing and how difficult this is.

FIELD: If the objects in the satellite images can be found, if they're from flight 370, if researchers can use the ocean's currents to zero in on the plane's data recorder, finding it among those peaks and valleys could be even harder still.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it's in one of the deeper channels, that's going to be more of a challenge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: Right now the focus though is on finding nose floating objects, and a lot of that really depends on the weather. All the waves were forecast to die down a bit as the search party headed out in Australia on Saturday morning. Searchers now tell us they were met with dense fog when they did head out. We know now the conditions are expected to deteriorate by the time they head out tomorrow. That's when a cold front sweeps in, so that means they will be dealing with wind and some rain. Christi, Victor?

BLACKWELL: Alexander Field, hopefully this weather clears soon to continue this search. Thank you.

PAUL: We're going to continue obviously this conversation as we wait, too, today for -- to hear from Chinese officials about the satellite image. They said we were going to get an update. We're waiting on that right now.

But also, watching what's happening with Russia. They've sent thousands of troops to the southeast Ukrainian border now. Why U.S. officials are concerned that they might be planning further incursions into that country.

BLACKWELL: Plus, we're tracking the breaking news in the search of missing flight 370. As you heard just a moment ago, a suspicious floating object spotted by Chinese satellites. Up next, what search crews are up against.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Time is working against these search crews in the hunt for flight 370. The beacons on the plane ice flight data reporter has 15 days of battery life left.

PAUL: Yes, and once the juice runs out basically the devices that send those ping to help locate the faith plane, they're going to fade. That really compromises the search.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk about two elements here, the investigation and the search. Let's bring in former FBI agent Foria Younis. She worked on the TWA flight 800 investigation, and Aviation lawyer and veteran pilot Arthur Rosenberg. Welcome to both of you.

FORIA YOUNIS, FORMER FBI AGENT: Thank you.

ARTHUR ROSENBERG, AVIATION LAWYER: How are you, everybody?

BLACKWELL: We're doing very well, thank you. Let's talk about this suspicious object detected by Chinese satellites. How difficult is it going to be to find this in these rough seas? I want to come to you first, Foria, considering that we just got this report of a sighting of some small objects with the naked eye, but when someone went back they found a wooden pallet. There's a lot of stuff there in this south Indian Ocean.

ROSENBERG: Right.

YOUNIS: Victor, as a former investigator, you know, the families and finding the plane is the number one priority. But after that you look at airport security matters and look at what can investigators can doing back on Malaysia's mainland and looking at all of these passengers closely. And this may be something that is nontraditional. It may be a nontraditional form of political terrorism. It might be a form of suicide terrorism. All of these things will eventually need to be looked at.

Finding the plane, very important. The families need to be, you know, at peace about what happened here. You've got to also keep in mind it took over two years for the Air France black box to be found. So this is not something that I think is going to happen fast.

In the meantime, the investigators should be working extremely hard talking to the families of every single pilot and passenger on that plane, looking at that computer hard drive that we talked about earlier. That's where there's going to be evidence if any of these individuals on that plane were planning to do something and if they were, what were they planning to do and for what purpose.

PAUL: All right, so, I want to ask you, Arthur, you know, I mean, as an aviation attorney, as a veteran pilot, when you look at where we're looking in the middle of the Indian Ocean, what do you believe might have happened to get that plane all of the way down there? We've looked at everything from zombie planes this morning. There are so many theories out there, that in your gut, what do you believe, especially when we see these new satellite images coming in and more objects. We want to call them suspected objects. We don't want to call them debris because we don't know that. As you see more of this information come in, what does your gut tell you?

ROSENBERG: Well, that question is probably going to require 15 or 20 minutes for me to answer. But be that as it may, let me just focus on the debris first. The report is this thing was 45 feet long by 43 feet wide. So I went back. I looked at the 777. The wings are about 200 feet, 100 feet on each side. The wing root where the wing kind of joins into the fuselage that we all see, that to me looks like it's about 40 feet. So this piece doesn't fit into that. The horizontal and vertical stabilizer in the back of the plane, they're about 35 feet long, and that piece doesn't jive with that. The fuselage I think is about 20 feet wide. So what we're looking a really doesn't match up to any section, wing stabilizer of the airplane. So I'm not really sure what it is.

PAUL: Can I ask you something quickly? Because we did get somebody on twitter who said that aircraft skins are built to flex when pressurized. This could be the fuselage folded out flat. Is that a possible or no, are you saying no?

ROSENBERG: I say no.

PAUL: OK.

ROSENBERG: First off, fuselages expand, but you're talking about it's a composite metal structure. There's a skin on the outside and on the inside they have metal ribs. So, yes, sections of them could float. Sections of the wing could float. Some of them made of composite with honeycomb in between. They're airtight. But the dimensions of what this thing is really doesn't match up.

And I just want to say one other thing. This satellite imagery released by the Chinese is, again, information that's really too little too late. This is four days old. What were they doing? I mean, we're playing catch up throughout this entire investigation.

And just to get back to the original sense of your question, this recovery effort is in one of the most treacherous waters on our planet. It's two to three miles deep. We're out there with all of these assets and resources, with radar, with sonar equipment looking for these pings. The pings from the cockpit voice recorder, digital flight data recorder, only go for about two miles. So if this thing is laying at the bottom of the ocean two to three miles dos down, it's going to be almost near possible to find it, in my view.

BLACKWELL: Foria, when the acting transportation minister from Malaysia this morning read out this note just handed to him, of course reporters had follow-up questions and he said this is all I've had. I've been accused of holding back information so I'm reading what I have, and with good cause. We learned during the investigation that the Malaysians had information on day one or two that wasn't released until day five or six. So Foria, my question is to you, are we at the point or is there a point soon in which you see that maybe China, maybe the U.S., maybe France, countries with experience conducting these types of investigations can go to the Malaysians and say, it's time for us to take over?

YOUNIS: Yes, Victor, that's a great question. I mean, you know, just like Americans we're very proud about who we are. The Malaysians you can presume are almost very proud people. And for the government, you know, not to be producing the information at the rate that we expect them to, we may have put them in a defensive position.

Now, Malaysia Airlines, the leaders of the Malaysian government, maybe they are now very defensive. What we should do at this point is give them all the assistance they need. Later on, if somebody else needs to take over this investigation, that's something that they can look at.

One thing we need to keep in mind as Americans and sometimes we look at all of the road in terms of our own eyes. Malaysia hasn't had any big disasters, so they may not be as up to date on reacting to a critical incident such as this. They do work with the Americans. We do offer training. We do a class on critical incident management. And clearly it doesn't seem like -- they might have missed out on some opportunities to do a better job at the earlier stages.

At this point I think we should offer them the assistance that they need. And I know they have asked for technical assistance related to sonar and underwater searches. And I'm sure that our embassy and our FBI office in Kuala Lumpur is working very closely with the Malaysian government. It does appear that they are on the defensive in terms of some of these issues now.

BLACKWELL: Yes. We know that U.S. resources including the FBI, we spoke with our Barbara Starr about military resources going there to help in the search and investigation. Foria Younis, Arthur Rosenberg, thank you both.

YOUNIS: Thank you, Victor.

ROSENBERG: Thank you for having me.

YOUNIS: Christi.

PAUL: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Still to come, CNN's Martin Savidge is in that flight simulator. PAUL: And the thing is he's tackling one of the really most frightening theories that are out there about what happened to flight 370. Hi, Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Christi. Yes, your right, the beauty of the simulator, we can try over and over different theories. The theory we're going to show for you now is the one where the pilots are the heroes and how all of that could have happened with a fire on board, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: It's 25 minutes after the hour. And as we continue to monitor this morning's breaking news of this floating object spotted by Chinese satellite in the search for flight 370, of course, we also want to look at some of the theories about what happened to this jet 15 days ago.

PAUL: Everywhere you go somebody's got an opinion, somebody's got a theory. CNN's Martin Savidge is live in a flight simulator in Ontario right now. Martin, I know that you are going to walk us through one of the theories that some people just think could it be possible because it sounds so far-fetched.

SAVIDGE: Right, right. And that's, you know, the great thing about this simulator is that we can take every one of those theories, and there are many, and put them all to the test to literally see if they will fly. I've got a lot of people who think, Martin, must be sick of it by now. Trust me, I'm not. This is a fascinating room to sit and experiment.

So let's give you one of the those experiments. And essentially what we've done, set this flight up just as 370 was now 15 days ago, taken off from Kuala Lumpur on the route to Beijing. And we're about 45 minutes into the flight and we've reached 35,000 feet. So as the pilot, I would do this. You get that familiar sound which is that you can now get up and move about and there would probably be an announcement. This simulator has everything. And this essentially telling the passengers we reached cruising altitude and you can move about and relax.

However, up in the cockpit this simulator and this theory goes that there could be something like this. This is the fire alarm. Instantly the pilots would know we've got a problem. Our computer screen would read out and identify where that fire was. In this particular place, it would be listed as the cargo hold. So knowing that, we would quickly look up here to the fire panel and discharge the fire bottles back there, essentially the fire extinguishers. So you have fire retardant dumping down there and you are hoping this is enough to extinguish the blaze.

In the meantime Mitchell would already be starting to turn us back either to where we came from or to the nearest airport. We want to get down low and we definitely want to start talking on the radios to get us into an emergency landing because fire is about the worst scenario. However, it's possible that the co-pilot could now be down below in the electrics bay trying to unplug whatever it is that is causing this fire. That's why the transponder went out at one point and that's why the ACARS system goes out at one point. They struggle, they fight, they work to try to bring this plane under control. And under this theory, they do. They eventually are able to get the plane level and to get it back on autopilot.

But the blaze continues to burn. The smoke bellows into the cockpit. Remember, you can't open the window when you're up in altitude. Their oxygen only lasts only 15 minutes. They pass out. But the plane now on automatic pilot will fly itself, and it's got six hours left of fuel. And remember, it was turned south to go back and it just kept on going.

So that's the scenario. Some call it the zombie plane but it's also the heroes in that these pilots lots did everything they could until their very last, and even after that the plane flew on until it ran out of fuel. It's an interesting theory.

PAUL: Yes, and good to point out if it was a case like that they are heroes, it is not a zombie plane. Martin Savidge and Mitch too at the controls, thank you both so much.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, guys.

PAUL: So what we're talking about this morning that has everybody abuzz is this new satellite image from China because it may be the strongest clue yet in the search for flight 370.

BLACKWELL: Yes. But if it is not it means that 370 is still out there somewhere. And will crews be able to find it before the beacons go silent? We'll look into that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: So grateful to have your company this Saturday morning. I'm Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. And of course we're following the breaking news this morning from China. Chinas has released satellite photographs showing a large object floating -- here it is -- floating if the southern Indian Ocean.

PAUL: This is 74 feet by 43 feet we're being told. Seen about 75 miles from where previous satellite images spotted two other large objects in the ocean there. China is planning, we should point out, to send out ships to try to find this new object. But it is nighttime there now.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And this search will have to resume at least from the air tomorrow.

Meantime, the search for those two pieces of whatever they are, these two items, go on. Six planes scour the area for a third day today, but no traces were found. And the weather there, it's deteriorating in this search area. But Australian officials say this operation will continue.

PAUL: A multi-national flotilla is forming to search the southern corridor there where really we've been focusing here now, especially after the satellite images came out. A Norwegian cargo ship is already there having been diverted. Australia, Malaysia, China, all sending ships to what some people are calling the most remote areas on the planet.

BLACKWELL: The FBI is examining the flight simulator taken from the home of the plane's captain along with the hard drives from the pilots and copilots' computers.

PAUL: So we want to bring in Tom Fuentes in Washington, a CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director.

BLACKWELL: And Luca Centurioni of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography also joins us now from California. First, let's talk about these new satellite images being released. They were taken on Tuesday. I want to ask you, Luca, how far could whatever was spotted by the satellites have drifted by now?

LUCA CENTURIONI, SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY: Probably a few miles to hundreds of miles. At this point whoever is coordinating the search operation will have a critical idea of what the possible trajectory would be.

BLACKWELL: Let me follow-up on this quickly. You said that it's possible that in four days it could have drifted hundreds of miles. Is it possible that considering there were some objects seen on the 16th by Australian satellites that on the 18th this could be the same, whatever it is, the same object 75 miles away?

CENTURIONI: It depends really on what the ocean currents and the wind were doing. You would start with essentially concentrated debris which would disburse over time. And the ocean currents and the wind, they can change considerably over distances of tens of miles. So it may move a little bit and another object which was nearby may move much more. And that's why we put all the information together to understand how the debris can disburse.

PAUL: OK. So, Tom, let me ask you because we're also hearing this morning that some pilots spotted other debris out there like a wooden pallet, some smaller debris is how they characterized it. That was not, as we understand it, what was seen on that satellite image, but it was in that general search area, even though they didn't see it. Does that -- does that tell you that perhaps this could be debris from one thing like a plane or, as, you know, a lot of people on Twitter have been asking, how much stuff is just floating around out there?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning Christi. I think from what we've heard a ton of stuff has been floating around. It's very turbulent waters in that part of the world. And cruise ships and cargo ships frequently dump trash overboard and flush their tanks and do things they shouldn't be doing to the environment, much less that accidentally hamper a search to try and find an airliner. So there's a lot of things floating in that area out there. And you know, the pilots that were following up on the satellite imagery put up by Australia, they had perfect weather for three days and couldn't find anything. Now you have cyclonic weather, really bad weather happening. And I think it only makes it less that they're even going to find this object or the other objects.

BLACKWELL: Tom, I want to get you thoughts on what we learned from U.S. officials about their search of this hard drive from the pilot and the captain, also the flight simulator. Officials tell CNN more deleted files were found on the captain's hard drive after February 3rd as the Malaysian site or they that was the last time files were deleted. First, is it too soon to know if that valuable, and, second, what would you be looking for?

FUENTES: First, it is too soon to know if it's valuable. Secondly, I would actually -- the flight simulator information of where he practiced going, you know, he could have practiced going to the North Pole just for the fun of it, just for recreational purposes. He could have checked out other landing areas all over the Indian Ocean for professional purposes. They fly the routes of Malaysia Air, take it to every major city in Australia, every major city in China and throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, when they go to a destination that they know, they have to pick alternates in case of a fire emergency or others where they have to land immediately.

So just looking at the sites that he practiced going to would not be enough. I would be more interested in an investigator is what were the websites that both pilots looked at, what did they t get from them, what did they download. That may reveal more about their personalities, their interests, let's say, than just knowing where he flew to as a practice.

PAUL: Luca, we've seen searches drop buoys into the water there. But this is such treacherous territory, and Tom talked about and the weather there is not going to be very helpful to them. Is that the best we can do right now with those buoys?

CENTURIONI: It's not the best. There's yet another tool that you want to use. At this point because of the complications connected with this search, you really want to deploy all the buoys to nail down what may happen to the debris in the best possible way. So it's another tool. Everything is important, anything you can put down to find some answers at this point. That's what they need to do.

PAUL: With those buoys, is that real-time information they're getting from them?

CENTURIONI: That's true. All the items they deploy, they all send positions and other information in real-time.

PAUL: All right well, Luca Centurioni from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, so appreciate your gentlemen's perspective on this. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, both. FUENTES: You're welcome.

CENTURIONI: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: U.S.-Russia ties, they are growing cold. And Washington is worried about whether Russia is planning any more sudden moves in Ukraine or in the wider region. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: The crisis in Ukraine is still simmering. This weekend international monitors sent by Europe security authority, they're on their way to Ukraine.

PAUL: And this a day after President Putin officially made Crimea a part of Russia. So monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation are going to keep an eye on the human rights situation in the region for at least six months. They will do this though without physically entering Crimea.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Erin McPike is at the White House. President Obama will meet with leaders of the G-7 next week to discuss Ukraine. What's on the agenda?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, President Obama has said that he wants to discuss with European leaders taking more severe actions against Russia. And that's because there are new signals that Russia is building up bigger troop movements that could move into Ukraine through its southern and eastern border.

Now, a senior administration official told CNN's Jake Tapper just yesterday that, quote, we're very concerned but it's by no means certain. But the reason for that concern is that U.S. intelligence suggests there are 20,000 Russian forces that are mobilizing in Russia near the border that could move into Ukraine without detection by other countries and do that very quickly.

Russia so far has said that all of its military moves are merely military exercises, and U.S. officials suggest that Russia would justify some of the movements by saying that they're trying to protect transportation lines and energy lines and Russians in Crimea. But National Security Adviser Susan Rice cast some doubt on all of that just yesterday in a briefing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: It's not clear what that signals. The Russians have stated that they are intending military exercises. Obviously given their past practice and the gap between what they have said and what they have done, we are watching it with skepticism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCPIKE: Now, Susan Rice also said yesterday that she believes sanctions are having an effect, and the reason for that is major rating agencies have downgraded Russia's creditworthiness in the last 24 hours. And also on Friday, Moscow's stock indexes were down sharply. Now, that effect, however, has not had the effect yet of changing Russia's response to all of this. And we're waiting to see what might happen in the next coming week, Christi and Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, Erin McPike, at the White House, Erin, thank you.

Quick break and we'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Searching for flight 370 in this south Indian Ocean, that space, it's difficult enough. But add rough wave, high winds, and a cyclone warning. Those are really the harrowing conditions that search crews are up against as they scour this area for flight 370.

PAUL: You've seen the pictures. There's nothing there. There's no land mass close to where they're searching that would give them a buffer to the winds and everything that's creeping up there. Jennifer Gray, our meteorologist here joining us from the CNN Severe Weather Center, what does it look like, I guess, as we get these new satellite images, what are they in store for as they try to get out to that area?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's definitely not pretty. It is a very, very tough part of the world. You're right, there's no buffer. It's very, very deep. And so you get these monster waves, high seas. You get very windy conditions. And so that's what we're going to be dealing with over the next 48 hours.

This is our CNN exclusive high resolution model. We are tracking a cold front that is going to sweep through the area where they are searching. This is Sunday, 8:30 eastern time. So as we get close to nightfall on Sunday, near Australia, we are going to see that cold front move through. It is going to bring showers to the area. But not only that, it's also going to increase the winds. That just adds insult to injury.

You can see close to 50-mile-per-hour winds as we go through the day tomorrow. So they will be increasing as we get later in the day, which is bad news, and then they will start to weaken a little bit as they get into Monday.

The other area -- the other part I want to mention, though, are these currents, because we're searching these objects in the ocean, and while they are in areas with not much current right now, anything can move them into these areas with much stronger current, anything like strong winds, a storm to roll on through. So it looks like it's going to be extremely hard to find these objects even if we get out there in the near future.

This is the west Australian current. Of course, this moves at one foot per second. And so this could also make for trouble conditions out there as well. I want to show you this as well. This is also looking at those currents. This little dot right here is where they're searching. And this is not in the west Australian current. It's more of an area where there aren't many currents at all. You can see the darker shades mean weaker currents. The brighter colors mean stronger currents. If you look closely there are little swirls out here all around. These are eddies. These are basically currents within the area, smaller currents.

And so any of these factors can draw the objects from one place to another. It can cause it to drift faster, farther to the south, farther to the north. So guys, when you find out they spotted an object and three or four days have passed, you can imagine these objects can be probably nowhere near where they were originally spotted. So that's why time is of the essence here when you're looking for things out in the Indian Ocean, especially.

BLACKWELL: It's a starting point without a starting point.

GRAY: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Jennifer Gray, thank you so much.

PAUL: We're going to be right back. Stay close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Did you know that today is world water day? And Chad Pregracke and his nearly 70,000 volunteers have removed more than 7 million pounds of garbage from rivers?

PAUL: Seven million. While doing that work, of course, 2013 CNN hero of the year accumulated what he believes is one of the world's largest message-in-a-bottle collections.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHAD PREGRACKE, 2013 CNN HERO OF THE YEAR: This is the message-in-a- bottle collection we have collected over the years. It's pretty cool to find them because you never know how far they came, where they came from, who they came from. Each one tells its own story.

This one is pretty cool. It's from the '93 flood, had a flag on it. This is a bunch of lottery tickets, I don't know if they're winners or not -- obviously not. Here's one. This one is cool, picture of Bill Clinton, pretty neat.

Some of them had been found three or four times and passed on and it will keep going down the river, down the river, people will sign them and date them. This one had money in it with postage so you could send it back to them. That's kind of cool. I haven't done that yet. Probably should. Stamps went up since this was sent. This is a voodoo one. Better not be for me, but it has like nails in it and it had a note in it with a string tied on it, and said, you are bound now, you are bound now. There's actually a lot of them that are pretty heavy that are written to a lost loved one. I didn't want to keep it because it was meant not to be kept.

It's just fun to find them. It's fun for the volunteers. But it's a pretty unique collection because I don't know who else finds this many messages in a bottle. So it's pretty cool.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: And doing such good work in the process.

BLACKWELL: Absolutely.

PAUL: If you know someone who deserves to be a CNN hero we want to hear about them. Go to CNNheroes.com.

And we are so glad to have had your company today. Happy Saturday to you. We're going to turn it over now.

BLACKWELL: Yes, turn it over to our colleague Randi Kaye in New York in today for Fredericka Whitfield. Randi, good morning.