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Searching for Signs of Flight 370; Ukraine Pro-Russia Forces Storm Crimean Base;

Aired March 22, 2014 - 13:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Randi Kaye in today for Fredricka Whitfield. Glad you're with us.

In a few hours search planes will return to the skies to scour the southern Indian Ocean for any sign of Flight 370. And this time they'll be looking for three unidentified objects.

Images of the third object were captured by a Chinese satellite captured four days ago and released to the public just today. The object is about 74 feet by 43 feet.

Right now China is sending ships to try to locate it and determine if it's wreckage from the airplane or something else. The object was found about 75 miles from two other floating objects spotted by a commercial satellite a week ago.

The search for all three could be complicated by bad weather on top of it. Conditions earlier today were good, though, and crews managed to see several small items in the ocean including a wooden pallet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FLIGHT LT. RUSSELL ADAMS, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE: We had really good opportunity, I think, to see anything out there, and for the task that we had today, the conditions were outstanding, Unfortunately the conditions back here precluded us from staying out as long as we've liked. However, there are a few other aircraft out there, P-3 as well as the United States Navy p-8 Poseidon. They're right out there still searching and with any luck we'll find something shortly.

We've got a lot of -- a lot of hope and the conditions remain as they are, hopefully we'll find something soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is ordering the Navy and policy experts to investigate whether U.S. military undersea technology could help find potential wreckage. Malaysian officials asked the Pentagon to contribute the equipment to that search operation.

There is a lot to talk about here, of course, and we've gathered a great panel of experts so they're going to be staying with us now for the hour. Joining me here in New York, Clive Irving is a contributor for the "Daily Beast," who has written extensively about Flight 370, Arthur Rosenberg is a pilot, aviation engineer and aviation attorney, and Christine Dennison is an ocean explorer and expeditions logistics expert. And in Washington, Tom Fuentes is a CNN law enforcement analyst.

So welcome to all of you.

So let's begin with you, Clive, if we can. You have written extensively about the debris and we've talked quite a bit about the debris and what it might be. So sort of take us through if you can what might float and what might not float. What can we be looking at.

CLIVE IRVING, CONTRIBUTOR, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, the first thing to remember is the plane is not designed to float so what happens to it is very dependent on the dynamics of the angle at which it hits the ocean and the speed at which it hits the ocean. The only thing we have to go on that's any kind of guide to this is what happened to Air France 447 when it sank into the South Atlantic.

And in that case what it happened was that the plane hit the water almost as though it was landing at an airport, relatively stable latitude so the rear of the aircraft hit the water first and then the nose sank and there was a huge what's called a vertical impact and yet so -- the impact was so huge that it went up through the cargo hold into the cabin, compressed the seats in the cabin and compressed the spinal cords of the passengers on that flight.

We know this from the examinations that were done afterwards.

KAYE: Right.

IRVING: So the dynamics are very complicated. How -- first of all, how the airframe itself breaks up. The most likely thing is the wings -- the engines hang onto the wings as we know and they're designed to separate if there's any kind of stress, and so they would go first and they would fall like bombs through the ocean to the ocean floor because they're very intensely heavy.

On the other hand, the wings that they have just left are potential floatation devices and if this happened at the end of the flight, there are gas tanks in the wing and they would be empty, so they would be like buoyancy things inside the wings and so the wings would tend to float.

This is why there should be a very accurate correlation between what these satellites are picking up and what we know the dimensions of the plane itself. In the case of 447 the first thing we saw was the vertical stabilizer which had Air France markings on it. So that was a very -- relatively easy thing to spot. And that wreckage was spotted after three days, the first piece of wreckage. In this case it's going to be much, much tougher.

KAYE: Christine, talk to me about that ocean in particular, because I actually -- I did a story on the Swiss Air flight which went down, Swiss Air Flight 111 went down about some 15 years ago and that plane I was told by the investigator broke up and -- you know, they recovered two million different pieces.

So in terms of how this ocean works and where all of these pieces, if it's in the ocean, can travel to, what should we know about that?

CHRISTINE DENNISON, OCEAN EXPLORER: Well, first of all the area that they're searching at the moment and supposedly will be continuing working is very, very hostile. It's what I would refer to as no man's land. You're looking at an area that is 1500 miles from Perth, Australia, and about 3500 miles from Antarctica, so you're in this center of nothingness, it's just a very open, exposed area for search operations to go on and at this time it's also not going to the best time, they're going into the fall.

You have a couple of days now that they've had some good weather so there's some hope there but they're still working against very difficult environment in this particular area of the south Indian Ocean.

KAYE: Right. Let me -- yes?

ARTHUR ROSENBERG, AVIATION LAWYER: If I could jump in.

KAYE: Sure.

ROSENBERG: I just want to add something to what Clive said. You know, I took a look this morning when I saw the dimension of what this debris as reported by the Chinese. First off this information is four days old already. You know, we've been playing catch up from day one. But when you look at the size of this debris as it was reported, 74 feet long by 43 feet wide, if you look at the dimensions of this aircraft, the wing span is 200 feet. That means each wing is 100 feet.

If you look at the horizontal and vertical stabilizer they're each about 35 feet. So what I tried to do is match up what the satellite photograph showed dimensionally with what we know to be the dimensions of the aircraft.

KAYE: Where it failed.

ROSENBERG: It doesn't look like it's a section of the wing because the root cord where the wing attaches to the fuselage that point looks about 40 feet long which doesn't match up to anything here. The horizontal vertical stabilizers being about 35 feet, well, they're smaller than this. Could it be a section of the fuselage? The fuselage is about 20 feet across.

IRVING: Yes.

ROSENBERG: If you took the -- half a radius you're going to get about 30 feet. I don't know that even if that matches up. So, you know, as Clive pointed out, when the airplane hits, it's structural chaos, compressive forces, tensile forces, torsional forces, pieces get ripped, they get compress, but dimensionally I just don't see this as matching up with what this is.

IRVING: I agree. I agree. And this raises another mystery. You'd assume that the people who analyzed this satellite information are basically military people who are used to looking, finding a very small object and seeing that it's a missile launch or something like that, that's what they do for most of their time.

So I can't understand why, having gone through that intense process of scrutiny, that they would release the images which -- which as you've just said anyone with any basic understanding of the proportions of the aircraft, the first step you would do would be to match what you see on the image to the proportions of the aircraft. And it doesn't seem to -- this happened with the first Chinese satellite pictures.

KAYE: Why are they -- and let me bring Tom in here.

Tom Fuentes, why do you think there is such a delay in releasing these images? I mean, they were taken four days ago.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Randi, I think the delay has already been established that even our satellite photos were four days late. It just takes a long time to go through thousands of photos and look at them individually and then find the piece and then get that to the authorities. So I don't -- I don't have trouble with the delay. I have -- because it seems like that's just typical.

I have a greater trouble with, if they're putting out information that they could clearly determine as probably not the aircraft, but putting it out with the -- with the idea that it might be. Now on the other hand, they have hundreds of people in Beijing attending the meetings with the authorities screaming at their government that the government is not doing enough, that the governments of the world are not doing enough, and I think that encourages China to just go ahead and put these pictures out there and say look, we are doing something.

We are sending ships. We are sending airplanes. Maybe it doesn't look like it could be the object of an airplane, but doesn't matter. We're going to put this out and show you that we're doing something.

KAYE: I guess, you know, what I'm curious about, are there limits to this search? I mean, if it moves -- you know, we've already watched it swing, you know, a pretty wide range here. I mean, can they just keep searching everywhere or are there limits?

ROSENBERG: Right. Well, I mean, from the get-go we had everybody -- you know, the Malaysian government release inaccurate information. They had everybody looking in the South China Sea. I think, you know, they were probably embarrassed in some part by the fact that this plane flew from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing, flew east across the Malay Peninsula and we get into the sequence, flew back west across the Malay Peninsula.

Went through three military radar zones with primary hits on the airplane. Whether it took them time to figure out what was going on which I had a hard time digesting or they were embarrassed, didn't know what -- how to handle it, I think at some point, and we're not there yet, I think certainly for the life of the pingers on the digital flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder, I think you're going to see a massive continuous effort.

KAYE: Yes.

ROSENBERG: I think at some point, you know, 30 days I think those pings can actually go for about five additional days. I think after that happens I think we're going to start to see a scale back. But maybe later on we could talk a little about what's going on in the northern route.

KAYE: Yes. Right. We have -- I know you're fascinated by this northern route. I know. We were talking earlier about it and there is still so much more to talk about with all of you. So stick around. We'll get back to you in about the half hour or so.

Much more when we come back. Ahead, we'll have an inside view of the exhaustive search for Flight 370.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: The search for Flight 370 is expanding and becoming more intense. Countries from across the globe are combing for clues by air and by sea.

CNN's Will Ripley is at an air base in Malaysia where the international flight crews are taking off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Every day more planes are arriving here at Subang Air Base. We've got the Malaysian Air Force, we've got the U.S. Navy, we have planes from Korea. I see China, Italy, Japan. Right here the Indian Navy as well. All of these crews are out here every day trying to help out, trying to assist in the search for Flight 370.

And it is such a grueling task. You're talking about long hours out over the ocean scanning looking for any evidence and so far crews have been coming up empty. Yet they continue to come back here each and every day, putting in these very long shifts.

Space is limited on this plane so I'm going to take a camera with me and try to give you a perspective of what it's like looking out the window scanning the ocean searching for clues. Maybe today will be the day that we find something.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: And Will Ripley is back from that flight and joins us live in Kuala Lumpur.

So tell me, what was the mood of the search crews after all these days and grueling hours?

RIPLEY: Well, I'll tell you the first off the bat. We didn't find anything, which really sadly wasn't a surprise because that's what's been happening every single day. These crews are tired. They were told when they left their base in Okinawa that they would spend four days here in Malaysia. Here we are 14 days later with really no end in sight even though there is some developments down near Australia.

Still there were other areas that need to be searched as well within the southern corridor and that's where we were today flying over the Indian Ocean. We have some video to show you that we took from the airplane. There were some weather problems. You know, that's one big factor in this part of the world this time of year. We had to fly around a tropical cyclone, we flew through lightning on the way home, so that's one challenge that's facing rescuers.

And the way this works, I was surprised, they're using radar in these P-3 Orions but most of this is basically by sight. They have people, crew members lining the windows along the side of the plane with binoculars trying to keep an eye out, looking over the water to see what they can see. And sometimes your eyes actually play tricks on you. If you look out there long enough you might think you're seeing debris, when in fact it's just a cap on the wave.

And when, in your mind you're hoping, hoping that you're going to see something, it's certainly disappointing when you don't see anything -- Randi.

KAYE: Yes. Certainly. Will Ripley, fascinating. Thank you so much.

And we want to bring back our guests here, Clive Irving, contributor for "The Daily Beast," who's written extensively about Flight 370, Arthur Rosenberg, pilot, aviation and engineer and aviation attorney, and Christine Dennison, who's an oceans explore and expeditions logistics expert.

We want to bring you guys right back in because Will was talking about the southern corridor where he was. But I know all of you are pretty fascinated with the northern corridor, so Clive, let me hand it to you first.

What is it about the northern corridor and the search in that area that fascinates you?

IRVING: Well, it puzzles me that they were even thinking of it because if you take that course it flies into 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning on the early hours of that Saturday morning. It's a major traffic corridor from east to west between Asia and the Middle East and Europe. It's also covered as we can expect by a lot of military radar, the military defense systems of China, Pakistan there. So it's about last place you would steer a plane if you're trying to evade detection.

KAYE: Arthur?

ROSENBERG: Well, let me put a different perspective on it, OK? I've actually been advocating not to abandon the thought that the plane took a northern route for the following reasons. First of all, after the transponder got turned off, for all practical purposes, this plane became invisible. Even though the plane was on the east side of the Malay peninsula, it flew west across through three Malaysian military zones with impunity. They saw it, what they were doing, if they were sleeping at the scope or doing something else, they missed it.

The Thai radar at 2:15 also saw a hit. I don't know what was going on there but they missed it. So this plane could have taken a northern route. Now one of the big points for not believing the plane took the northern route was because of the Indian and the Pakistani radar which is considered very effective.

OK. So now -- just hang with me on this.

KAYE: OK.

ROSENBERG: The Inmarsat satellite, we've heard this with this handshake ping, it gave us a northern corridor and a southern corridor. Meaning, the one ping we got at 8:11, the last contact with this plane, this aircraft was someplace on an arc defined by its distance from this satellite. OK. Now we kept saying, well, what if the Inmarsat satellite had given us the other ping data?

There was six other points. Well, Slate published an article yesterday where that information was actually revealed, so what does it all mean? I'm just going to put this together and say it as simply as I can. When you put it together if you think as the corridor now as a rim on a wheel, the last radar hit being the inner rim of the wheel, and the 8:11 hit being the outer rim of the wheel, between 2:15 a.m. and 8:11 a.m., this plane was traversing in between those two points someplace on the rim.

KAYE: Right.

ROSENBERG: But the significance of that is that this corridor, this path again just following the northern route takes you away from India and Pakistanian radar and puts you over Myanmar and Bangladesh, areas which from what I've been told do not have the best radar facilities, and we already know the plane evaded radar with reasonably good radar facilities so this plane could very well have made it through this northern corridor in between the inner and outer rim of this radar, this satellite wheel undetected.

KAYE: Right.

ROSENBERG: And I'll just finish by saying there are lots of airports in that neck of the woods where this plane could have landed. That's as far as I'm going to go.

KAYE: All right, I know you want to weigh in.

DENNISON: OK.

KAYE: And you want to weigh in, too. But we do need to take a break and then we'll come back and we'll talk more about it.

Searching the Indian Ocean is what we've been talking about for any signs of the plane certainly poses a daunting challenge. And we're going to have a virtual look at that for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: We're following new developments in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. A Chinese satellite captured images of an object in the southern Indian Ocean and that poses a daunting challenge for searchers trying desperately to find this plane.

Our Tom Foreman has a virtual look.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Nothing tells you how important this area remains to the search more than the hardware that is there. Almost half or more of the entire fleet of planes and boats out there have now converged on this area throughout the entire search zone and that includes a strong presence from China which of course what many citizens on board the plane has a lot to be concerned about there.

It also includes things like the P-8 from the U.S. Navy, the most advances subhunter in the world. So it's not only a lot of assets, it's some of the most robust assets they have in the entire area for searching out there. Still, it's a very, very big job. Think about this. When you get to an area like this, you're still searching on the surface of water and that's incredibly hard.

Every glare of sunshine, every white cap kicked up by a storm, every errant piece of trash simply floating around can be a false lead or keep you from seeing what you're trying to see. This is still a gargantuan task. And if you go below the water it's even tougher. Everybody keeps saying, why aren't they listening for the pinging of the flight data recorders because it's really hard to hear those.

This is an ultrasonic sound that only goes about two miles in the best of circumstances and if it's being interfered with by some kind of underwater mountains or valleys, if in fact this plane has tragically gone down, then it goes a whole lot shorter distance, it's much harder to hear. What they need is that surface clue and again the biggest sign that they think they might be able to find it is the continued presence of all those people and all that hardware in the zone.

KAYE: Our thanks to Tom Foreman.

I want to bring back Christine Dennison, she is an ocean explorer and expeditions logistics expert.

So, Christine, we were talking about one of the most dangerous and treacherous parts of the ocean. If the plane is there, will it be found?

DENNISON: I would -- it's all speculation and just to go back to something and I'm going to go against Arthur on this one a bit just because we are talking about the northern arc as a possibility as well. If there was a point of impact in the northern -- northwestern area of the South Indian Ocean, that was two weeks ago. You still have the possibility and it's very likely that debris that would be the point of impact up in the north, you would still have debris making its way down over the course of two weeks, which is what they could be picking up on satellite.

KAYE: Right. And we're looking at right here. Some possible -- some of the possible objects here 14 miles apart.

DENNISON: Yes.

KAYE: This debris would float you think?

DENNISON: This debris would float and it's going to keep moving. So they've been tracking this and trying to get a visual. This is what they're doing as far as operations at the moment. It's all visual and unfortunately they'll have good days and bad days but they're still trying to make eye contact and see what this is. That's the first one.

KAYE: And that's the thing, though. They are actually using their eyes. I mean --

DENNISON: They have to.

KAYE: Why? Why do they have to go with the eyes instead of the radar?

DENNISON: Because the radar aren't going to give you the detail that they need. They need to really physically see this, capture it. And say --

(CROSSTALK)

KAYE: We have Clive and Arthur chiming in here.

(LAUGHTER)

DENNISON: They do but you really a set of eyes that are close to the object that can really tell you, this is what I see.

IRVING: Yes.

IRVING: This is how -- it's very hard to grasp what is floating on the ocean and how far under the water that would be until you can actually see it and get close enough to it and that's going to sort of open up a whole different area of this operation. Time is of the essence, we're 15 days into it, we've got 15 days left, looking for these black boxes if we'll find them.

I'm sort of open to both. I started off believing that it was up in the northern arc and that it could be on land. I'm not closed off to that but I am following everything that we're discovering day by day. It's changing so I'm keeping an open mind and I'm hopeful, too, I think like all of us.

KAYE: Yes. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to bring you all back right after the break and talk some more.

Crews certainly now focusing on that third object that's been spotted in the Southern Indian Ocean. The continuing search for clues in the disappearance of Flight 370 coming your way next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 now entering its 16th day and there is a new potential clue. Here is what we know at this hour. A third object has been spotted in the Southern Indian Ocean. A Chinese satellite captured images of it four days ago. It's about 74 feet by 43 feet.

The object was found about 75 miles from two other floating objects spotted by a commercial satellite a week ago, but search planes didn't spot anything today other than a wooden pallet. Crews have been looking for the first two mystery objects for three days now with absolutely no luck.

CNN's Andrew Stevens has the latest on that search from Perth, Australia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Day three for missing Flight 370 and another blank for Australian search and rescue. Saturday's first search aircraft an Australian at long range P-3 Orion returning from a grueling 12-hour flight, not only empty handed but with worrying new information about weather conditions.

FLYING OFFICER PETER MOORE, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE: Weather conditions were less than ideal again today as we've seen on the last few days as part of the search. We did achieve -- managed to achieve in a lot of conditions 100 percent area coverage, however, we weren't able to find any evidence of any wreckage or survival equipment from the missing Malaysian aircraft.

STEVENS: It was the same story as the other flights returned. Still, the search continues to ramp up, two Chinese IL-76 military transport planes arriving at Perth airport early Saturday morning. They then flew the short hop to Pearce Air Force base staging post for the search. Australia's acting prime minister Warrant Truss welcoming the new additions.

WARRANT TRUSS, AUSTRALIA'S ACTING PRIME MINISTER: Well, we welcome these additional assets, including the Chinese aircraft. They have a capability to that will be important also to the search. I'm told that they're a good platform for visual observations. It is more likely that a pair of eyes are going to again identify something floating in the ocean and much of the technical equipment that's on board the aircraft.

STEVENS: The Orions continue to be the backbone of this aerial search operation. A Japanese P-3 is expected on base here on Sunday. But corporate jets like these are being drafted in, giving added range and critically important, more time over the target zone, five hours, twice as long as these military aircraft.

As daylight faded the talk here in Perth was the next big obstacle these crews will face. Bad weather is forecast for the target zone making a tough job a whole lot tougher.

Andrew Stevens, Pearce Air Force Base, Perth, Australia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: We want to bring back our panel now to pick up the conversation. Here in New York I'm joined by Clive Irving, contributor for "The Daily Beast" who has written extensively about Flight 370, Arthur Rosenberg, pilot, aviation engineer, and aviation attorney, and Christine Dennison, an ocean explorer and expeditions logistics expert. That's a mouthful.

And in Washington, Tom Fuentes is a CNN law enforcement analyst and Rick Castaldo is an aviation surveillance engineer.

Welcome to everyone.

Clive, I want to start with you because one of the things that you've written about in the "Daily Beast" is this idea of a zombie plane. Explain your theory there.

IRVING: Well, it only works if you assume what this search is assuming, that it's ended up that distance away from where it left. So it's assuming that it ran out of gas because it would run out of gas if it was in that part of the ocean. So then you have to work back to what conditions on the flight deck could have created circumstances in which this plane would be flying itself basically on autopilot, and there are precedents for this of pilots being disabled by a lack of oxygen because of decompression or by some kind of toxic fumes.

So this leaves a very fascinating gap between when it last made contact, and sinister motives being given to the crew because they tapped into this new course, which I don't find sinister at all. If they had an apprehension that something was wrong technically but not urgently wrong, but they needed -- which a prudent pilot would do, change course and direct themselves toward where the nearest airfields were, then that would be part of that process.

Now given that scenario, they could in the few minutes that followed that decision be overtaken by what it was that they suspected was going on technically and there are so many different ways in which that could happen. I mean, for example, we keep saying the transponder was switched off and the ACARS were switched off, but that doesn't mean they could have failed. That they could have failed for various reasons, loss of electrical power could have done that.

KAYE: Right.

IRVING: So there's nothing necessarily sinister about that. So what I'm saying is really between whatever event happened on that flight deck and it ending up this far away, it's capable -- the plane is capable of flying itself until, as long as it's got the power of the engines to maintain the airspeed --

KAYE: Right. Even all those hours. IRVING: You know --

KAYE: Right.

IRVING: It's on autopilot and most of the planes fly now over the Atlantic which are --

(CROSSTALK)

KAYE: Which is why it's so important and I want to ask Tom about this. Why it's so important to try and find those transcripts from the air traffic controllers? Because, Tom, I mean, as you know, there were some of these transfers that were -- that were being discussed and officials are saying, you know, there's nothing sinister, nothing suspicion there.

How do we really know that and do you buy that?

FUENTES: Well, Randi, you know, the transcript that we've been given is an English transcript that was transcribed or translated into Chinese and then translated again back into English so we don't know if it's accurate and we don't know if it's authentic. The only thing we really will be able to tell from that is when we actually hear the voice conversation from the time they were on the ground until the time they stopped communicating.

I think that to me is more important. We'll be able to tell if they were using really the right, accurate term analogy that they should be using, whether there's stress in their voices, you know, how they communicate back to the tower. These transcripts don't give us that and we don't even know if they're accurate or authentic.

KAYE: All right. We're going to leave it here for just a minute because we do have some news as we've been watching today out of Ukraine. So we'll come back to all of you in just a moment but just ahead more coverage on the search for Flight 370.

And next two more bases in Crimea fall to pro-Russian forces and the White House gives Moscow a warning about these attacks. We'll have it all for you coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back. We'll have more on the search for Flight 370 in just a few minutes. But first, important new developments on the crisis in Ukraine.

The White House is warning Russia it will be held responsible for any Ukrainian troops hurt in Crimea.

This is what the White House is worried about. Two more bases fell to pro-Russian forces today in Crimea.

We're joined now by Ivan Watson in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and Erin McPike is at the White House for us.

Hello to both of you.

Erin, what else does the White House have to say about what they're seeing there now?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Randi, I was just e-mailing with Laura Lucas Magnuson, and she is the spokeswoman for the National Security Council at the White House and what she said to me is, "As we have said the Russian military is directly responsible for any casualties that its forces, whether they be regular uniformed troops or irregulars without insignias, inflict on Ukrainian military members. Reports of continued attacks against Ukrainian military personnel and facilities highlight the dangerous situation created by Russia and belied President Putin's claim that Russia's military intervention in Crimea has brought security to that part of Ukraine. Russia should immediately begin discussions with the Ukrainian government to ensure the safety of Ukrainian forces in the Crimean region of Ukraine."

And obviously in the last few days we've seen increasing concern from the White House over this -- Randi.

KAYE: So, Ivan, you heard there, I mean, they're demanding that discussions begin. What do you think the chances of that are there, and also, what hasn't Ukraine evacuated these troops yet?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's a really good question, and it's one that Ukrainians are increasingly asking when I talked to them out on the streets. Why isn't there some kind of evacuation plan?

Part of the problem could be that the Russian government doesn't officially recognize any government here in Ukraine to negotiate with. Another problem is that the Ukrainian government's official position is that Crimea was, is and will continue to be Ukrainian territory. But that doesn't really answer the problem that thousands of Ukrainian troops in uniform are facing at a number of different bases spread out across the Crimean peninsula.

They've been left one by one to fall under pressure and in some case under the use of force from the Russian military on the ground that have encircled those location as well as from pro-Russian militia in the case of one airbase today, an armored personnel carrier which filmed bashing down the gates of that airbase, after the Ukrainian commander vowed to stay at his post, and then the very humiliating images of Ukrainian military personnel basically forced to walk out of their own base under the watch of Russian military personnel.

The Ukrainian troops moving out, humiliated, carrying out their possessions from their own barracks, their own installations, their own homes in effect. So that's how it has unfolded on the ground where there has not been any formal policy set by the Crimean national government on what the forces should do from base to base, and today a Ukrainian submarine, the only submarine in the Ukrainian fleet, it was also handed over after Ukrainian military commander refused to defect to the Russian military side -- Randi. KAYE: So -- so, Erin, as we see what's going on there, I mean, there are reports now of the Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border. Is the White House worried about this? And I guess, you know, are they talking about doing anything? Are you getting any sense at all that they're talking about doing anything besides issuing statements today?

MCPIKE: Well, yes, Randi, the White House is very concerned, senior administration official did say they are concerned about that very thing, about additional troop movements to Jake Tapper just yesterday but President Obama plans to meet with European leaders in the coming week and he said that he wants to discuss more severe actions against Russia.

I would point out, though, that National Security adviser Susan Rice did brief the press yesterday and she said that these the sanctions that are already in place are at least having an effect on Russia's economy. She said of course that major ratings agencies have downgraded Russia's credit worthiness in the last 24 hours, so there's an obvious impact there. Also on Friday, Moscow's stock indexes were sharply down, so there is an effect. But it's not producing the kind of results that the White House wants to see just yet -- Randi.

KAYE: All right. Erin and Ivan, thank you both very much.

Search teams, meanwhile, are doing everything they can to find Flight 370. Ahead the very latest on the search effort.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Now for an update on mortgages. Rates are up from last week's, take a look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Turning back to the search now for Flight 370. Chinese ships are headed to an area in the Southern Indian Ocean where a satellite spotted a large object in the water. The U.S. is also using its satellite data to try to find fresh images that might aid in the search for the missing plane. And the Navy is also looking at how military undersea technology might help find it.

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is joining me now.

Barbara, hello to you. So tell us more about what's being done here to try to locate this object that was tracked by China satellite, I guess picked up four days ago.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Randi, that may be the big problem right now. Four days ago from a satellite. Going to be very hard to find it. I mean, we see the image. We know the longitude and latitude four days ago. But the ocean current, the winds, all very rough weather out there. So it will have moved some distance and that's the challenge.

They have to now send aircraft out to look for it. Ships might take awhile to get to this exact spot and they have to look around in several places. If aircraft can spot something, they will try and determine if it's actually from the plane. But we talked to an aviation expert who says this satellite image, it might be nothing, it might be something, but I t may also be several pieces of debris, objects, some from the plane, all wrapped together in the ocean current.

Have a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL WALDOCK, EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY: Anything from the interior cabin should be floating. Most of the cabin furnishings, for example, are made out of a variety of plastics, thermoplastics. And some composite materials, things like the overhead bins, the seat cushions, the cosmetic bulkheads, all of those typically should still be floating. In a lot of cases, they're going to be actually intermingled with wire and other debris. So you may have a lot of smaller pieces mixed in which might look like a larger piece from a satellite in the air.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: So a hint, we don't know if it's from the airplane, but a hint of what this satellite image might, might be representing.

But when you go back and look at it, Randi, you can see it's very low resolution, at least publicly released by the Chinese. So it's hard to tell what it really shows -- Randi.

KAYE: Yes. And Barbara, what about undersea technology? I mean, the U.S. military has it. Do they need to narrow down that area even more before they would put that into use to try and find the plane?

STARR: Experts in the U.S. military and the Navy tell me that's exactly right. You can't just send that stuff out over several thousand square miles. They have to find debris, first, verify it's from the airplane, verify it's from this flight, then you know mark it. They'll throw some markers into the water, essentially, with GPS coordinates on them so they can continue to track the debris as it would move around the ocean.

And then they will have to try and use some undersea salvage technology or even undersea sonar, if they can narrow down where those data recorders might be -- Randi.

KAYE: It is a complicated process, no doubt.

Barbara Starr, thank you very much for that.

And before we go, we want to check in once again quickly, with our panel, Clive Irving from "The Daily Beast," pilot and aviation engineer Arthur Rosenberg, ocean explorer, Christine Dennison, and in Washington CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes and aviation surveillance engineer Rick Casaldo. All right, here's a challenge for all of you. In one sentence, I'd like you to try and tell me where you think the plane is and what it happened.

Clyde, to you first.

IRVING: The real trouble is that after two weeks nobody knows where it is.

KAYE: And neither do you?

IRVING: Nope, I don't know where it is.

KAYE: All right. Arthur?

ROSENBERG: I say look at the concentration of assets today for the best chance of finding the plane. But do not abandon the northern route.

KAYE: Still stuck on that north route.

(LAUGHTER)

That northern corridor.

Christine, what about you?

DENNISON: I think -- I think we have to keep looking at the ocean. I'm not sure, obviously, but I would suspect at this point we might be looking at the bottom of the ocean floor.

KAYE: And Rick?

RICK CASTALDO, AVIATION SURVEILLANCE EXPERT: I agree, you should look at the northern route and perhaps use some unmanned aerial surveillance with superior cameras to search in these areas that are limited by flight, fuel, reserves and what not fly from Australia and China.

KAYE: And, Tom, what about you?

FUENTES: I agree with all of them. Could have went this way, could have went that way.

(LAUGHTER)

KAYE: That's about what all the maps look like, too. If it wasn't such a sad situation, it would be sort of comical, but it's certainly not.

All right. Well, our thanks to all of you here in New York with me. And to Tom and Rick as well. Thank you all so much and thank you, everybody, for watching.

CNN's coverage of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues in just a minute. John Berman picks up from New York with the latest on the investigation and a look at how tough weather conditions in the Southern Indian Ocean could hamper efforts to locate this missing plane. So be sure to stay with us.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm John Berman in for Fredricka Whitfield today and we do begin with a new developments in new hope, at least a little bit of new hope for crews searching the seas for Flight 370.

A third object has now been spotted in the Southern Indian Ocean. This was picked up by a Chinese satellite. It captured this image four days ago. That piece, that piece of debris, possible debris you're looking at, they say it's about 74 feet by 43 feet.

Right now China is in a shift to try to locate it and determine if it is in fact wreckage from Flight 370. Now this object was spotted about 75 miles from those two other floating objects that were spotted by a commercial satellite now nearly one week ago.

Crews have been looking for first mystery objects for three days now but they have not been able to find them.

Today, they did spot a few items of debris from the sky, including a small, wooden palette. Although they say no reason for that to raise too many hopes.

More ships and planes from several countries are headed to the search area. Earlier today Australia-backed in Australia's acting prime minister talked about the significance of the satellite images.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN TUFFS, AUSTRALIA'S ACTING PRIME MINISTER: We can't be sure at this stage, whether the debris that's been sighted by the satellite imagery is related to the loss of the aircraft. It is the most promising lead that's available in the national aid. There are a number of other explanations about what might have been sighted as a result of this satellite imagery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Crews also continue searching in the northern corridor. And seven countries in that area have told investigators they did not pick up any kind of signals from the plane on their radars after it lost contact with ground control.

There was a lot to talk about with these new developments. We got together a great panel back first to stay with us for the hour. Here in New York.