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MH370 Search Crews in South Indian Ocean; Russian Forces Take Over Crimean Air Base; Ukraine Loses Military Base in Crimea; Mystery of Flight 370; New Leads in Hunt for Flight 370

Aired March 22, 2014 - 16:00   ET

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Sciutto, in today for Don Lemon. We are following the latest developments in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 and we are also on this story. Confrontation in Crimea, Russian tanks crashed the gates and take over a Ukrainian military base. Gunfire has erupted. We'll be live from Kiev.

But first, in about two hours as the sunrises on the Indian Ocean, fresh leads may reinvigorate the global hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. At daybreak in Perth, Australia, search crews will head out with several new clues in mind.

I want to show you this image, a potential piece of the jumbo jet. A Chinese satellite spotted this object floating in the search area on Tuesday. The object appears to be very large, 74 feet by 43 feet. The new object was spotted roughly 75 miles from possible debris that appeared earlier on an Australian satellite image. And this could be another break, a visual spotter on an Australian plane reported seeing several small objects including a wooden palette floating in that same search area, just a possible clue.

Now families of the missing 239 people on board are frazzled, they're exhausted, they're frustrated and demanding more from Malaysian authorities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Malaysian officials are now promising to do more for desperate families. Here's their response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HISHAMMUDDIN BIN HUSSEIN, MALAYSIA'S ACTING MINISTER OF TRANSPORTATION: I pledge to all the families wherever they are we will do everything in our power to keep you informed. I will not give up hope and I will continue as from day one, and I am given more hope to get closure to this by the support that we are receiving from so many countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCIUTTO: We have teams of reporters covering every angle of the global hunt for Flight 370. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in Beijing, in Perth, Australia, we want to get you the very latest now and we're going to go live to the ground. CNN senior international correspondent Sara Sidner in the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.

Sara, we're just hours away from that crucial time of day in the hunt, daylight breaking over the south Indian Ocean. The start of Sunday's search. What kind of resources are going to be up in the air today, particularly as we have this new Chinese satellite photo?

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, we know that there's also a cyclone in the area, so that may make things much more difficult, Jim. But almost all of the assets at this point are in the southern Indian Ocean. The ships, most of the aircraft, 25 to 29 aircrafts in that area are going to that area.

So we know about these two satellite images. One from Australia and one now from China. The latest picture coming from China, both are very important right now to the search. They sound like very similar size pieces. One of them 22.5 meters by 13 meters. The other one that Australia reported earlier, 24 meters. There's no telling whether or not this is possibly the same bit of debris. Nobody knows that yet. The important thing is that the debris is found. Because once it's found, they will know, yes or no, whether this has anything to do with missing MH Flight 370 that disappeared now 15 days ago with 239 passengers and crew aboard, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Reading the daily report from the Australian searchers, they say that the planes that were up in the air yesterday were in the same area as this new Chinese satellite photo and didn't see anything. It's a big ocean out there, the weather conditions always changing and the currents move things. But is that considered a discouraging sign?

SIDNER: Well, I think that what they have said that this could take a very long time. Malaysian officials using the words "this is going to be a long haul." So it gives you a little bit of an idea that it is very, very difficult. They have to go square meter by square meter to try and find this. They blocked those out in blocks as far as they can go with as many resources. But the issue is when they have to fly to these areas, they only have about two hours because of flight time to actually search the area. And then they have to fly back and then fly back again.

So that is making things more difficult. Also the weather has changed. It was quite good, nice and still, nice and sort of like a glassy surface. Much easier to see. Then the cyclone shows up, so that is making things much, much harder for people who are in this search and rescue. But we do know that it's going to be difficult. No one has said that this was going to be easy. This is a vast, very, very deep ocean and in order to find these pieces, it's almost like finding a needle in a hay stack, Jim.

SCIUTTO: A constantly moving hay stack, the seascape changing every moment. Thanks very much, Sara Sidner in Kuala Lumpur. We're joined now by CNN's David McKenzie. He's in Beijing. David, I wonder what the reaction from families is because, you know, a little more than a week ago we had the disappointment with that first Chinese satellite photo that put some wreckage to the east (INAUDIBLE) peninsula very close to where the plane lost contact. That of course, turned out to be a false alarm. Is there hope here or a little bit of skepticism among the families?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think there's a great deal of skepticism, Jim. The families here are really raw with emotion. Every day they get these leads and these leads are then dashed. But certainly with this image being released by an official state agency here in China. Yes, we have seen that before, but China is certainly putting more official word behind this. The foreign minister saying that they alerted pretty quickly the Australian authorities to look for this object. And as Sara said, they didn't find it out in that region today, but certainly the search will continue.

The families, they are kind of hunkering down through this period and very angry with Malaysian Airlines authorities, with the Malaysian government. They say that they want the information and they want it quickly. It does seem that the Malaysian authorities are trying to manage that process a little better asking the families to submit questions in writing.

But at this stage, they don't want to do that. You have seen those angry scenes through the days in the conference room here in Beijing as family members really point the finger at these searches and the authorities because they just want some kind of clarity, some kind of closure in what must be an incredibly difficult time. Jim.

SCIUTTO: No question, every day the uncertainty just adds to the torture session, I imagine, for them. Thanks very much to David McKenzie in Beijing, Sara Sidner in Kuala Lumpur.

Joining me now to discuss the latest developments, we have Les Abend, CNN aviation analyst as well as a 777 pilot himself. He's here with me in New York. David Soucie, CNN safety analyst and author of "Why Planes Crash" and Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst.

Les, if I could begin with you. You know, we looked at these images now. One of the big questions - because this question came up when you had those first Chinese satellite images a week ago, more than a week ago, closer to the place where the plane disappeared. And a lot of pilots were telling me then these pieces are too big to be from a plane that hit the water. What do you think when you see these, something like 70 feet x 40 somewhat feet?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I mean, can't make that assessment until I have my eyes on it, but I mean, it's conceivable. It's very conceivable that it's a wing. And my assumption is that with the departure that took place with this wing or with the flight that the wing tanks, the center wing tanks were empty which would provide air space. That would allow them to float. But who knows at this point whether they are still submerged or partially submerged.

SCIUTTO: Another pilot and analyst raised the possibility that this was rather than being one contiguous piece of the plane that it was a collection of pieces maybe wrapped up in wire. You picture something hitting the water at that speed is like hitting concrete that you could have a collection of debris like that.

ABEND: Yes, sure, if it was still partially attached, but I think currents depending upon the size of the pieces would throw it in different directions. We're talking over two weeks now.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And every day makes it more difficult.

Peter, I want to bring you in because, you know, a lot of these latest clues are coming based on satellite data. I mean you look at these satellite pictures they are pretty grainy. I mean, we have to imagine that they have been, you know, pixilated a bit to hide perhaps Chinese capabilities. When you look at these satellite pictures, what do you think of the quality and how much they indicate?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's a little bit outside my area of expertise, Jim, but, you know, we're still looking here for a motive. And obviously that's a very hard thing to ascertain, but it's interesting to me that we have had not only one very non-credible claim of responsibility from a terrorist group and now we have had nothing.

So terrorism seems to be less and less likely, which leaves you then with pilot suicide, which we have seen in the past. Some kind of piracy motive perhaps, some kind of economic motive perhaps which also seems quite unlikely given where these images are happening. And finally, some kind of idiosyncratic motive which seems the most likely. People do strange things. Therefore, idiosyncratic reasons we have talked in the past about the Turkish Airlines flight that was hijacked by somebody who was trying to avoid Turkish military service and who actually managed to hijack the plane to Italy where he wanted to speak to the Pope. So it's that kind of motive seems to be the most likely now, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Peter, that's what I have been hearing from intelligence analysts very early on that they did not have terrorism on this. And they haven't seen one since then in the 14 days. They have been saying the longer it gets away from it if they haven't seen the sign, the less likely it becomes. But you started a good process there as you looked at the possible explanations, terrorism looks less likely.

I wonder, David and I'll bring in the rest of the panel as well, as we look at those possible causes, you know, the idea of a political statement, for instance, analysts have said well, if someone wanted to make a political statement they would make it clear that they brought the plane down, which was not the case in this case. So when you look at mechanical failure, fire, depressurization, the longer we look at this, David, where are you leaning in terms of what's most likely?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: It seems to be that there's more evidence towards the mechanical. Initially I had ruled that out sim simply because for this to have happened would be highly irregular with that aircraft. The 777 has three buses, triple redundancy in every system, every electrical system, any item within that cockpit can be transferred from one of those buses to the other. The other three primary generators, you have an external ram generator that can be deployed, you have so many redundancies that the opportunity or the chance that the transponder went out and then the acars went out, in that order and yet somehow continued to allow the sat com system to be charged with power and continue to ping against the radar.

It would be a very, very strange scenario in my mind. Nothing in my investigation history that I have seen anything like it. So it would have to be a really strange set of events to explain this from a mechanical perspective.

SCIUTTO: Les, I was speaking to a long-time pilot yesterday, and the subject of fire came up. And he made the point to me that the longest a plane has stayed in the air with a fire was 23 minutes before getting to the ground. So the idea of a fire and then the plane continuing on for hours and hours to him seemed farfetched. Does that make sense to you?

ABEND: Well, if he was referring to Swiss Air, you know, that we have been referring to a lot. Well, I can see where he makes that assumption but we don't know. This is a 777.

SCIUTTO: Different kind of plane.

ABEND: Different kind of airplane. So we don't know if there was a fire, what components started the breakdown. There may have been enough components to keep that airplane level with the auto pilot. So it's hard to make speculations.

SCIUTTO: Comparing apples and oranges, different kinds of planes.

ABEND: Possibly. Yes.

SCIUTTO: (INAUDIBLE) different kind of fires.

ABEND: Absolutely.

SCIUTTO: Peter, if I can come back to you before we finish up and I know we're going to have the opportunity to discuss this a couple of times over the next several hours as we dig deeper on this, but when you look at a terror case still, or some sort of terror nexus, as analysts look at this, they never want to close down a lead, right? Because you could get new information. They could find the wreckage, for instance and see evidence of soot, right? That would indicate an explosion.

I mean the intelligence community, can explain how they would be sitting now. They haven't found any clues yet. They want to keep those, that path open. They don't want to eliminate anything. How would a terror analyst approach this at this point, two weeks after the fact?

BERGEN: Well, I think the big advance, Jim, is the Chinese saying that they found no evidence of any of their Chinese nationals having any kind of terrorist leanings or background. And I mean that eliminates a majority of the passengers and the Chinese, as you know, Jim, take a very aggressive stance on the issue of terrorism originating from their Uighurs separatist movement, which is the one group that might have a motive here.

So once you have eliminated that, then you're left with Al Qaeda- influenced groups, but it would be strange for them to attack an airline of a Muslim majority nation, and then you're left with terrorist groups that we don't - then you're left with kind of universe of unknown potential terrorist groups or individuals. And you know, they are unknown. And so you have eliminated the two most likely candidates based on motive and you're left really with not much.

SCIUTTO: Well, that's the confusion there and it really shows the importance now of finding that plane. Because that will be the next big clue right? To get a sense of what brought this plane down.

Thanks very much Les Abend, David Soucie, Peter Bergen, thanks for joining us. Les and David, we're going to see you again in a little bit to talk about this more.

Now, meanwhile, take a listen to this.

(Ticking)

Search crews are listening for that sound right now. We're going to tell you after this break why it's so important and why they need to find it within the next few days.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York.

Now, whatever this newly spotted object turns out to be in the end, it has certainly energized the enormous search mission that has so far turned up no sign of Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

Our Rene Marsh is here. She is our aviation correspondent in Washington. Rene, I know you're looking today at how planes break apart. This has been one of the key questions because even going back to the first satellite images, a lot of pilots will say that's too big a piece of a plane to have hit the water. What are you hearing when you speak to experts?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, there are a lot of people who are playing it safe and saying you just really don't know. We'll get to why in just a second. I mean, looking at those images that we have been talking about, Jim, you know, they have to go out there and they have to go inspect it. Because without any hard evidence to prove otherwise, this is something that they have to either prove or disprove.

So the latest satellite image, it shows something in the water. It's estimated size about 72 feet. Now if MH-370, Flight 370 went down in the ocean, the size of the debris is really going to depend on how the plane hit the water. If it was going at a high rate of speed and it makes a nose dive did, much like Alaska Airlines Flight 261 did in 2000 when it crashed into the pacific, in cases like that, you're going to get a lot of shatter. And it will be really like a shatter effect. There are going to be thousands of small pieces of debris crashing into the water at that speed is kind of really like crashing into concrete.

But if this was a midair explosion, much like TWA flight 800, you may have larger pieces of debris and a wider debris field. The third scenario that we could point out here for you is if somehow the pilot tried to make a controlled landing on the water, well the plane would break up in larger pieces.

Now what sinks and what floats it really depends on what part of the plane we're talking about and really what kind of material it's made out of. The metal pieces they're going to go and they're going to sink. The engines are going to go straight to the bottom. The fuselage is going to go to the bottom. But on this day 15, there are some parts of the plane that would still be on the surface of the water and that's why they are taking a look at the latest satellite image.

Take a listen to this expert as to what would potentially be on the surface of the water on this day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL WALDOCK, EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY: Anything from the interior cabin should be still floating. Most of the cabin furnishings, for example, were made out of a variety of plastics, thermoplastics and some composite materials. Things like the overhead bins, the seat cushions, the cosmetic bulk heads, all those typically should still be floating.

In a lot of cases, they are 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 the satellite or the air.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right. So the bottom line is, Jim, the longer the search goes on, the more scattered the debris field is going to be and the harder it is to track down that plane.

SCIUTTO: Les Abend, you know, our aviation analyst and former 777 pilot just made the point at the end of a long flight when those wing tanks would be empty, that's a very buoyant piece of the plane. You got a lot of air in those wing tanks. Just a possibility again, as you say, depends on the speed at which it hit the water.

But I also want to ask you about this pinger. You know, this is the sound that searchers are listening for right now. We have an example of that sound and the rhythm it makes. Maybe we could play that again just so our listeners can hear it.

It's a lot simpler than I was expecting, Rene. I don't know about you. I was expecting something kind of louder or higher pitch, easier to hear. But is that very simple kind of rhythm and click what I imagine the searchers are designed to pick up?

MARSH: Right, absolutely. To be perfectly transparent, I thought it would be a little more, a louder sound as well, but that is it. And the manufacturer of one of these pingers, they were able to work with us to get that audio. But you hear how simple it is. And you hear how low it is.

Now consider the noises within the ocean, the crashing waves, you have animals that are there, wildlife that's in the water that's going to be making noise. You're going to have ships that are in the area as well. It's competing with all of that. Don't forget about the depth of the water. It just makes it that much more difficult for this to be detected. Add on to that, you can only hear it in a two-mile radius, so it's a tough job that these crews have ahead of them. Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I remember seeing that some of the Australians searchers, they actually can see from the air as well flocks or herds of dolphins, right? And they make noise too, so you got these cacophony of noise that it must be difficult to pick that up but I'm sure the equipment is designed to do just that. But thanks very much to our Rene Marsh in Washington.

Coming up, we're going to tell you why this robot could hold the key to finding Flight 370 if the plane is indeed at the bottom of the ocean.

Plus Russian forces storm a base in Crimea. We're going to take you there, live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: We'll get right back to the new developments in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in a moment. But we have to update you on something very important going on in another part of the world and that place is Ukraine where it appears that Russian military forces today are taking whatever they want and going wherever they want on a piece of land they now claim belongs to Russia.

As you hear there, shots fired in the air as Russian armored vehicles smash through the gates of an air base in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol today. A separate military base was also taken over and the Ukrainian flag lowered in the process replaced with the Russian flag.

We'll go now to Ivan Watson. He's in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine right now. Ivan, as we look at those scenes there, shots fired in the air. There were reports of a Ukrainian soldier injured today. This is exactly the kind of dangerous and volatile combination of events that many were worried about as Russian forces flex their muscle there. Can you tell us how tense the situation is on the ground? And what's the level of concern there both in Kiev and in Crimea?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, in the one case of this Belbec (ph) military air base, which was controlled by the Ukrainians, we actually talked to the commander in the base about an hour before the Russians made their assault. He said, "Listen, we're surrounded by pro Russian militia, by cosacs (ph) and then Russian military units in the back of those kind of civilian groups. And he vowed to fulfill his oath to his country, to his service. He said he was going to try to use fire hoses to keep the crowd back. Well, then what clearly happened according to security camera footage that was feeding out remarkable live images was a Russian personal armored carrier basically bashed down the gates of the air base and then the Russian troops stormed in.

Now fortunately, there have been no reports of loss of life. Instead what we saw was the humiliating scene of the Ukrainian troops basically having to bring their flag down and walk out of their barracks with their belongings abandoning it to the Russian military. That's a scene that's played out again and again, day after day at different Ukrainian military points across the Crimean Peninsula as the Russian military not only has annexed that entire peninsula but now is just summarily pushing the Ukrainian military out from one base to another. It's really dramatic. There has been one loss of Ukrainian life so far, a soldier who was shot to death while in his guard post in a guard tower. That was a couple days ago -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Ivan, we've been watching pictures as you were speaking there of those Russian armored personal carriers breaking, busting through the gates. I mean, it looks like an invasion, a military takeover.

I wonder as discussions continue over, you know, gradually escalating sanctions against Russia, what's the reaction of Ukrainian people there in Kiev and beyond? Do they feel that they're getting the support that they expected from the Europe and U.S.? Do they feel abandoned? What is their level of concern now?

WATSON: It's huge. I mean, I've been hearing for the past week talk of war. We have been watching Ukrainian men of all ages signing up to either be in the reserves or in active duty in the armed forces in the national guard. The government has called up for 20,000 more troops in the armed forces, and another 20,000 in the national guard.

And I've been hearing the men who were signing up saying I have to protect my country from this enemy and the enemy they say almost all of them is Russia. It's remarkable to hear that considering the close cultural, economic, linguistic ties between these two countries that Ukrainian men are saying, listen, we're going to have to defend our country against this much larger, much better armed, better funded military across the border that has built up its forces right along the frontier, creating such worry about the possibility of an invasion.

As to support from Western governments, certainly, Ukrainian government officials will privately tell you, yes, they were hoping for more. They were hoping for tougher sanctions and for more economic aid for this cash-strapped government -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: It's really sobering read. Thank you, from Ivan Watson in Kiev.

And a reminder to our viewers, Ukraine is right in Europe. It is not a million miles away. It's part of Europe just to the eastern end and some real volatile situation on the ground there now.

Thanks very much to Ivan Watson.

Now, satellite images of possible plane debris sparked hope.

And the other major story we're following, the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, but now, there's the daunting task of finding those objects, spotting them from the air, days later. Why this part of the ocean has made it so much tougher on investigators, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York.

Now, sunrise is just a few hours away in the south Indian Ocean. And that means the research for missing Flight 370 can resume another day, provided the weather cooperates.

So far, we have seen four tantalizing satellite images. The first was the day right after the incident. Vietnam released this image of something in the Gulf of Thailand. China followed with images of several objects in the South China Sea. China later said releasing those images which turned out to be a false lead was a mistake.

The search then shifted to about 1,500 miles southwest of Australia, really the other side of the world, with these images released March 20th of objects from an Australian satellite. And now, this one seen by a Chinese satellite in the same part of the Indian Ocean, including the possibility it might be the same objects in both those Australian and Chinese satellite pictures.

My guest now, retired astronaut Chris Hadfield who commanded the International Space Station for five months last year. He's also the author of "The New York Times" bestseller, "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth."

Also with me here in New York is veteran explorer, Christine Dennison, whose own intrepid travels have taken her to some of the most report places in earth, including the kinds of the places that we're talking about now with this search.

Looking at this search area, southwest of Australia, I mean, it's closer to the Antarctic really than anything. I mean, this is kind of a dead zone of the ocean so far away from anything. How difficult to search there? I know the weather was good yesterday, but they are talking about a cyclone coming through. What are some of the challenges down there?

CHRISTINE DENNISON, OCEAN EXPLORER AND EXPEDITIONS LOGISTICS EXPERT: Well, as you said, this is really the middle of nowhere. It's no man's land. You're 1,500 miles from Australia. You're approximately 3,500 miles from Antarctica.

So, they're working in an area where there's very little they can run to in the event they need to.

SCIUTTO: And not a lot of traffic there, too, right? DENNISON: It's not a heavily trafficked area. It's not an area you really consider passing through or needing to go there except for this terrible tragedy, if that is the case. At the moment, they had very good weather, so they have a time window. They are working against time. As people point out that the clock is ticking, we're 15 days into it. We've got 15 days left to pick up the ping from the black boxes.

And you have weather, which they are also going into a seasonal change.

SCIUTTO: And also over time, I imagine floating objects could sink.

DENNISON: The floating debris which may or may not be plane wreckage, there's a large possibility it could be ocean junk, for lack of a better word. And, unfortunately, we won't know that until we have eyes at sea that are going to pick this up and be able to identify it and let us know this is what we're seeing.

SCIUTTO: All right.

Chris, I want to bring you in. Basically, you have two steps to this. They start with something seen from miles above the planet and space, and then they send planes to get a closer look to see if they are indeed parts of the plane. Take some time to find those things.

I know you've talked a few days ago at a conference about a fleet of microsatellites that could be released from space that might help in a search like this. Tell our viewers more about that.

CHRIS HADFIELD, ASTRONAUT: Jim, there are various ways to look at the earth from orbit, from space. The space station itself has some cameras, but it's just one eye in the sky. It only has maybe one or two glimpses of this area, a day and maybe day, maybe night, maybe covered in cloud.

But last month, the space station deployed the first part of a whole fleet of small satellites. They're small. They're just not much bigger than a shoe box. There are 28 of them in orbit right now. But they're just getting checked out, because they're brand new. But what they will give us, and what they are starting to give us now is permanent eyes in the sky that are available just through a company in California through Planet Labs.

Once we get all 100 of them deployed, it's going to be a really good sort of resource to see the world and look for small changes, look for debris in the ocean. Maybe even look for an aircraft from satellite to satellite. So long as it's daytime, so long as clouds are in the way, it will be one of the best ways that we get to know our world and see when we're looking for something like this.

SCIUTTO: One issue with the search has been coverage because this is not a part of the world where a lot of satellites are focused, because there just isn't much down there. There's a lot of ocean. It's my understanding and I spoke to people from Digi Globe that one issue with the clarity of the satellites is that these pictures are likely taken from an angle. That these aren't satellites directly over that part of the world, they are taken from an angle and therefore you don't get as clear a view.

Is that your understanding as well?

HADFIELD: Oh, boy, if you go a little bit from the side from space, when I was on the space station taking pictures with the camera, if you can take the picture straight down, you only have a little bit of atmosphere in the way. But as soon as you start tipping the camera up, you're looking through so much more air and distortion that it becomes harder and harder. Not just with the distance, but to see the resolution of what you're looking at.

So, it's a really difficult place to see. I have flown across the southern Indian Ocean hundreds and hundreds of times in the space station. And it's generally cloudy, it's very stormy, and it's completely empty. It's a difficult place to see anything unfortunately.

SCIUTTO: That map we just put up kind of shows you, you have to turn the earth almost on its side just to get a look at what we're talking about here. That search area. Thanks very much to Chris Hadfield, Christine Dennison here in New York. And we're going to see both of you again just in a few minutes to talk more about this search.

While search teams from around the globe are scouring the oceans for any sign of flight 370, investigators back home are examining ways to keep this from happening again and one way would involve doing away with the famous so-called black boxes. More after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Much of the information about what happened to Malaysia Air Flight 370 is lost along with the plane and even if the plane is found, it could take years for this information to be recovering. But could that be prevented in the future with new technology?

Joining me here now, CNN technology analyst Brett Larson.

Brett, I want to talk about the cloud and this whole idea. I mean, we're used to this. A plane disappears, you've got to find the box, whether it's on the bottom of the ocean, it's in a jungle somewhere.

BRETT LARSON, CNN TECHNOLOGY ANALYST: Right.

SCIUTTO: Meanwhile, you know, my phone and my BlackBerry are sending data, you know, everywhere all the time very quickly. Why can't planes do the same thing? And you never need a black box again.

LARSON: It is a very legitimate question. When you turn on the computer, your address book is automatically synced with everything else. Part of the reason is cost. That would be something that's very expensive.

Technically though, this is very doable. It's something we should definitely be doing research on, especially when you think about Air France, it took two years to find that black box. You know, these contain critical information to figure out what went wrong so that they can prevent future accidents.

So, it seems something like this would make a lot of sense.

SCIUTTO: That's a good point, because, you know, one reason they explore e these accidents is to prevent the same mistake from happening in the future. That's made a real difference if you wait four years, or whoever many years, that's for six years of flights that have happened without making that change.

LARSON: Right, without a critical change. You know, like we found with the Air France, it was actually something that had gone wrong with the part on the plane that they were able to fix.

I know the concerns here are when you have thousands of airplanes in the sky, you've got to get that data information. But from a technical standpoint, we're not talking about streaming video that's hundreds of gigabytes at a time.

SCIUTTO: Speed, direction --

LARSON: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: Whether the engines are on fire. I mean, how much -- is that really an overload?

LARSON: That's not -- that's barely a megabyte of data that you're sending. We send, you know, when you upload pictures to Instagram, that's more data information going through the system than what they would be sending. I know there are some privacy concerns of, you know, we don't want our conversations in the cockpit heard at all time, but again, just like with the black boxes, they are not listening unless there's a reason for them to listen.

SCIUTTO: There's always that channel when you were on the plane to listen to flight communications?

LARSON: Exactly. On United, if you listen to Channel 9, you can listen to the cockpit and all the conversations that they have with air traffic control.

So, this is something that needs to happen. The equipment is there, the technology exists, and it's -- we should be doing it now.

SCIUTTO: Is there any sense of cost? Because I've heard cost mentioned as a barrier to this.

LARSON: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Is this a major fix or as simple as putting a particular kind of router on the plane?

LARSON: It would definitely require a satellite connection, especially for the internal flights that are going over water. But this is the same equipment they are starting to put on for things like the in-flight Wi-Fi and streaming television channels to our seat backs.

SCIUTTO: That's important stuff.

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: It's an interesting point. We had a lot of conversation about whether you can make cell phone calls on planes, which requires a certain amount of investment and equipment. So here's something that has safety in mind.

LARSON: Right, exactly. And it would also have that side effect of now this you have put the satellite equipment to communicate data, now your passengers can communicate their data. And those two things aren't going to conflict the --

SCIUTTO: I know from speaking to members of Congress, including on the Intelligence Committee, this is already a change that they are looking at as a possibility in response to this crash. I'm sure this is a conversation we're going to continue.

LARSON: Good. It needs to.

SCIUTTO: Thanks very much, Brett Larson. You're going to be back -- we're going to drag you back again before we let you go tonight. Thanks for joining us.

Coming up, we're going to focus on the 239 souls aboard that flight. Their families in emotional anguish simply not knowing what happened to their loved ones.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We aren't satisfied with the Malaysian government's inaction. We have no information at all. They only say keep searching from South China Sea to Malacca Strait to Andaman Sea. I just don't know where the plane has gone to.

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SCIUTTO: We want to take a moment now, a quiet moment, a difficult moment to get to the heart of why we care so much about this story. Not for all that's unknown or the unprecedented global search, it's about the 239 people who have not seen, hugged or talked to their kids, their soul mates, their partners, family or friends in two weeks since the flight was lost.

Here now a snapshot of some of the lives so tragically interrupted.

Wife and mother Chandrika Sharma is the executive secretary of the International Collective in Support of Fish Workers. She was headed to a conference in Mongolia. Her husband let CNN read the note he wrote to friends and family to thank them for this crucial support in this time. And that note says, "I remain focused on what we have at hand by way of information and stay with the knowledge that Chandrika is strong and courageous. That her goodness must count for something somewhere. I carry firmly the faith that the forces of life are eternal, immutable and ever present to keep the drama ever moving. In the ultimate analysis, I'm neither favored nor deserted. No one is." That's the end of that note.

Like Sharma, others were traveling on business. Hollywood stuntman Ju Kun was reportedly headed home to Beijing to see his two young children and pick up material for a new project.

Paul Weeks, a mechanical engineer from Perth, Australia, was on his way to a mining job in Mongolia. He's a father of two young sons, the oldest is just three years old. His wife told us he left his wedding ring and his watch behind in case of the worst.

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SARA WEEKS, SISTER OF MISSING PASSENGER: I had a bit of a car accident earlier on, actually just a year before. And sort of discussed what they wanted to do and for some reason before he left to go to Mongolia, he decided to leave them both behind. And he said to Danica that the oldest child should get his wedding ring and the youngest should get his watch if something happened to him.

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SCIUTTO: There were others on flight 370 traveling just for pleasure. Mukesh Mukherjee and his Xiaomo Bai had been on vacation in Vietnam heading home to Beijing to their two young sons.

Norli Hamid and her husband Muhammad were taking a honeymoon they promised themselves for a long time.

There were also the Lawtons on the left, and the Burrows on the right, two couples, four friends who are out seeing the sights together.

And three Americans were on board including Philip Wood, an executive from Texas and father of two. The other two with U.S. passports are young children, brother and sister both under the age of 5. But it's not clear who they were traveling with. Authorities say, without waivers from the girls' families, there's nothing they can tell us about the children except they are among those 239 missing.

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