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New Developments and Updates In Mystery Of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Aired March 23, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye in today for Fredricka Whitfield.

We are following new developments today in the mystery of Malaysian airlines flight 370. We have updates on the search and also intriguing information about the last data sent from the plane.

First on the search, Malaysian authorities say France gave them a third satellite image today showing possible debris in the Southern Indian Ocean. Chinese and Australian satellites have also spotted objects there. Today, eight planes and a ship searched that area of the ocean but they didn't find anything.

Crews did find something yesterday. They found a wooden pallet with strapping belts floating in the water. Pallets are used in the airline industry but they are also used in shipping so it's not clear where that's from.

And Malaysian authorities clarified today what was in the last transmission from ACARS communication system at 1:07 a.m. Officials say it showed nothing unusual and the plane was still heading for Beijing. Now, that debunks the idea that the plane's computer was reprogrammed to take a different route before that 1:07 a.m. transmission.

Now, first, I want to go straight to CNN justice reporter Evan Perez. He's in Washington for us.

Evan, hello to you. So now, you've been all over this part of the investigation. But, what can you tell us about this very latest development?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well Randi, the latest information released by Malaysian authorities on flight 370 is changing our understanding of what happened and when.

Today, the Malaysian government said last transmission at 1:07 a.m. from the jet's ACARS communication system showed, quote, "normal routing to Beijing" and, quote, "nothing unusual."

This is important because it appears to undercut the theory that the flight path reprogramming took place before the copilot says all right, good night. That's the flight's final transmission with air traffic control at 1:19 a.m. Now, this reduces but does not rule out suspicions about the foul play in the cockpit. And Randi, all this just adds to the mystery that riveted all of us about what happened aboard flight 370 two weeks ago.

KAYE: So, you are saying that we can't rule out anything, though, at all from this?

PEREZ: That's right. I mean, the light -- the investigators here in the U.S. and in Malaysia still have many theories they are wrestling with partly because they have so little information to go on. There's still a possibility of a hijacking. There's still a possibility of terrorism. There's still a possibility there might have been some catastrophic failure of the airplane's systems and the pilots may have been trying to return back to Kuala Lumpur and maybe there might have been some pilot error involved.

So all of those things are still on the table. And you know, until we find the wreckage or until we find the airplane, these questions will remain unanswered, Randi.

KAYE: All right, Evan Perez, thank you so much.

We want to talk more about this because it is so fascinating. So let's bring in the panel of experts who will be with us for the hour. Joining me here in New York is aviation attorney Justin Green. In Washington CNN law enforcement analyst, a Tom Fuentes, and Terrence McCoy, a "Washington Post" reporter who has written about flight 370. In Atlanta, we are joined by Kit Darby, commercial pilot with 30 years flight experience.

Thank you to all of you.

Kit, let me start with you. What does this new information mean?

KIT DARBY, COMMERCIAL AIRLINES PILOT: Well, there was a theory, like you said, that the programming occurred in advance, which would be a premeditated act. Regrettably this takes away the information we would have about that preprogramming. As pointed out earlier, it is possible to put an alternate route in this flight, manage with system, and not activate it until you need it. Only the active route is communicated by the ACARS. So, we don't know for sure if any preprogramming occurred. All we know for sure is it wasn't preprogrammed while the ACARS was working.

KAYE: So Justin, let me ask you. Because, obviously, you've done a lot with commercial airlines and certainly on the aviation part and the legal end of that. But you were one of the lead investigators in the 9/11 case. Does this say anything about whether or not somebody could have entered that cockpit if now, we know, that maybe according to the latest information that they were still en route to Beijing?

JUSTINE GREEN, AVIATION ATTORNEY: Well, you know, what's interesting is (INAUDIBLE) cockpit door actually points the finger in a sense at pilots because you can't imagine in today's day and age passengers being able to get through the cockpit door, into the cockpit before the pilot could make a radio call, before the pilots can change the transponder to indicate a hijacking. So that to me is the only real kind of suspicion about the pilots. If they had, in fact, programmed the route before making the last call, that would have been almost a smoking gun because you would have expected them to tell air traffic control what they are doing.

I never really took gave much credence to that part of the information because it didn't seem reliable to me. And now it really is off the table. So to me, it's taking off a major piece of information that if it were true, which apparently it's not true, would have pointed a finger at the pilots.

KAYE: Tom Fuentes, what do you make of conflicting statements now?

THOMAS FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I agree. I didn't put much stock in the original statement when they said the basis for thinking that was preprogrammed was how smooth the plane turned. I thought, well, that's kind of, you know, nebulous to base that kind of fact on.

You know, sometimes, Randi, in a criminal investigation investigators can get too much information. Because then, they have to go chase every possible lead and get distracted from the ones they really need to focus on. On this particular situation of what was occurring in that cockpit what, when, and when they turned dials to change direction of the plane, we just don't know.

So really doesn't tell us whether somebody got in that cockpit or not. We assume that the cockpit door was still closed and locked and barricaded so no one else can get in. But we don't know that for a fact. And we don't know how lax Malaysian air pilots are when it comes to that cockpit door security. That's still up in the air.

So there's many unanswered questions about what might have occurred in that cockpit that still are just, you know, we're guessing at right now.

A foreign affairs reporter with "Washington Post," you've done quite a bit of investigating in terms of pilot behavior when it comes to pilot suicide. We don't have a lot of examples of that. How would you relate that to this new information.

KAYE: And Terrence is a foreign affairs reporter with "Washington Post." You have done quite a bit of investigating in terms of pilot behavior when it comes to pilot suicide. We don't know of a lot of examples of that. Btu what have you found and how would you related in this new information?

TERRENCE MCCOY, FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Well, let's say that there are no a lot -- it is actually, what you just said right now, is that there are not a lot of cases of pilot suicide. There's only been 24 cases in the last two decades of known case of pilot suicide.

What we've just heard just now, though, is that post 9/11 it was known a lot of airlines tried to change cockpit doors in some ways to mitigate against risk of some sort of hiking. But what was just said right now is that Malaysian airlines does have pretty rigorous standards for their pilots. Every six months if a pilot is over the age of 40, they need to go through a lot of health sort of prognosticators and lot of health risks to try to figure out if those pilots are at risk for crashing a plane in any sort of way.

KAYE: So Kit, I mean, if this plane was in trouble, if the pilots knew that there was something happening, mechanical failure or smoke or depressurization, whatever was happening, would this be normal behavior to just continue on their way and make this turn to the west?

DARBY: Well, it would lead credence to the fact they were returning for help. And the fact that they communicate, although it is on the list, it on is the bottom of the list. Flying the plane is first. I mean, they are in it, too. Believe me they are highly motivated to control this airplane and they navigate it where they want it to go.

When that is under control, then they will tell somebody. It doesn't surprise me at all that they don't squawk or they don't call. Their hands are full. And until that problem is under control, that's the last thing they are doing to do is talk.

So there are many scenarios that would place them at risk. And therefore, made communicating the last thing they would do.

This new information, I really don't think -- the problem we had before was misinformation. I find the new information simply takes us back to we don't know.

KAYE: But I think the idea that there's this control, that is where I think it still, and Justin, still points back to the pilots because they were in control or at least the plane wasn't going wildly in all different attitudes. It seemed to be in control. So that is why they are looking at the pilots.

GREEN: Right. But as Kit just said, it could be in control in responding to mechanical issue, could be in control responding to a pilot, you know, trying to commit suicide or do something very strange or it could be in control of hijackers. So, the fact that it was in control doesn't really tell us that much.

And as Kit said, as pilots, we are taught aviate, navigate, communicate. But if they didn't have enough time to communicate, whatever was happening was happening very, very fast.

KAYE: Right. You want to get there safely before you start telling people about your problems that you are having.

GREEN: That's right. But you would get to communicate pretty quickly in that circumstance. And there are mechanical failures that could actually happen so fast that by the time the pilots get to that step, they are either unconscious or unable to communicate because of system failures. But it is a mystery.

KAYE: Again, here we are on Sunday afternoon, and 17 days later into the search and we're still asking all these questions.

We will have much more with you and with the rest of our panel in just a minute. So be sure to stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back to coverage of flight 370.

We want it bring back panel of experts to continue the conversation. First, I guess, I'd like to start with the fact that crews are scouring the Southern Indian Ocean looking for any signs of flight 370 and a look at how the weather, of course, is affecting that as well. We're going to get to all of that.

But let me start with Terrence McCoy, the foreign affairs correspondent for the "Washington Post" on this one.

Terrence, tell me. You've done investigation in terms of pilots using an airplane to commit suicide. Now, I think I understand from your reporting that it's usually one pilot or one copilot in the cockpit when this happens. Now, in the case of Malaysia flight 370, both of them, as far as we know, were in the cockpit.

MCCOY: And that's one of the most unusual facets, is that if there's any reason to believe that it was pilot suicide, and right now there is zero reason to believe that, but if there is anything that has happened before the pilot has always been alone inside the cockpit.

A few months ago a plane went down in (INAUDIBLE), Mozambique airplane, in which the pilot seemed to isolate himself inside the cockpit after his copilot went to the bathroom. And he could through the voice recordings that there appeared to be some sort of pounding on the doorway which leads people to think that that pilot was alone, I say we have no way to figure out if that would happen here because there has been no crash and there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that there was a pilot suicide. But we do know so far is that when incidents of pilot suicide could occurred, the pilot did to seem to be alone.

KAYE: And let me turn to Kit Darby, retired commercial pilot. Kit, there is something that the pilots can use, right, sort of secondary route where they can get at the press of the button if there was some type of emergency.

DARBY: Yes, Randi. If they were planning route and left it in the secondary flight plan, then it would simply be available to them. They could preprogram it. It's only the route, the active route that has transmitted by ACARS when you go over reporting point, which they just did. That it would tell this point and the next point and one after that. it all showing their route.

But a whole new route can be programmed at any time and be available to the pilots with a push of one or two buttons.

KAYE: And Kit, just staying here for a second. Would a pilot do the same thing, I mean, whether there was trouble in the cockpit from somebody who may have stormed the cockpit or they were experiencing some type of mechanical emergency. Would it be the same type of procedure? DARBY: Well, it would be the same type of priority. I mean, if there was a cargo smoke, there would be a procedure for that very different. But if somebody is trying to get into the cockpit, which is not impossible, it is very difficult but not impossible, it takes time. And their mission would be to defend the cockpit. So they would get the crash acts or fire extinguisher. One of them would fly the plane and the other would defend that cockpit for all it's worth.

KAYE: Tom Fuentes, tell me what you think, I mean, with this new developments, and just case you're just joining us, what we're learning today is now the communication showing that, which is different from what we're told last week by Malaysian authorities, communications is now showing that the plane was still on its route to Beijing at that last communication at 1:07 in the morning. That they had not been reprogrammed or there weren't any turns preprogrammed into that flight path.

So Tom, what does this tell you about the sinister aspect or lack of sinister aspect to this investigation?

FUENTES: Actually, Randi, it doesn't tell me anything. Because it still leaves all options open and all possibilities open. In terms of defending the cockpit, as Kit just mentioned, you know, if you have one or two -- either one of the pilots get up and leave the cockpit to go to the bathroom or if there are lax and leave the door unlocked for some reason, you know, one could be out of the cockpit and locked out by the partner. And the only reason we know what's occurred in previous flights is from the voice cockpit recorder which we were able to listen to and hear the captain try to get back in or shouting at the copilot and the copilot chanting as in the case of Egypt air crash.

You know, we just had a pilot a month ago or so hijack his own airplane. The copilot decided instead of going to Rome, he was going to Geneva, Switzerland. He locked the pilot out, and flew the plane there, and then crawled out the window and asked for asylum.

Now, you know, luckily in that circumstance, he didn't kill anybody, including himself and he is now in jail in Switzerland. But again, it showed how easy it is for one or the other to wait until they have an opportunity to take over the airplane from the other pilot, lock them out.

KAYE: Yes. It's a fascinating discussion. And we'll continue that as well. We'll also continue to tell you about the search in the Southern Indian Ocean as we get word of debris today and what the weather is doing in terms of challenging that search. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: New French satellite images may help searchers today as they look for flight 370. Malaysian authorities say France gave them a third satellite image showing possible debris in the Southern Indian Ocean. Eight planes and a ship searched that area of the ocean, but didn't find anything in the midst of terrible weather conditions. Andrew Stevens takes us inside this search.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dusk on day four of the Southern Indian Ocean search and the international effort continues to build. A Japanese military P-3 Orion, one of two touches down at Pierce air force base Sunday, the latest addition to a growing multinational force.

Collaboration is key here. The Japanese joining crews from Australia, China, U.S. and New Zealand. But still no sign of any debris that might link this most inhospitable part of the planet to flight MH 370. And the weather deteriorates day by day, crucially visibility is getting worse.

FLIGHT LT. RUSSELL ADAMS, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE: Unfortunately we didn't find anything of interest. We went out there, assessed the weather conditions. Unfortunately they have deteriorated since our last. (INAUDIBLE). At times we were completely enclosed in clouds.

STEVENS: Leads continue to come in here at search headquarters on the other side of the country in the national capital, Kembra (ph). But for the moment they remain just that, leads with nothing concrete to back them up. And nothing new to another small debris field where spotters have seen a wooden pilot that may, just may be linked to 370.

MIKE BARTON, AMSA: The use of wooden pallets is quite common in the industry. They can be packed -- they usually packed into another container, which is loaded in the belly of the aircraft. But within that container, it's quite common to have items on pallets and then put in to the other items.

So, it's a possible link. But we will need to be very certain that this is a pallet because pallets are used in the shipping industry as well.

STEVENS: At 10:00 p.m., the final Australian flight of the day touches down after 12 hours in the air, another blank. And even though this grueling mission still has nothing to show for it, the crew's spirits remain high.

FLYING OFFICER PETER MOORE, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE: Crews are highly motivated in these search and rescue operations to achieve an outcome of whatever it may be. Quite experienced in search and rescue operations. I can confidently say on behalf of my crew and myself that we're going to at least try and achieve some answers for the family and friends of the miss egg 370.

STEVENS: Andrew Stevens, CNN Pierce air force base outside Perth, western Australia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Dawn over Indian Ocean is just a few days away at this point. And that means another day of searching for that missing jet. This time crews will have a new satellite image of possible debris to work with. But searchers also have to contend with that rough weather conditions and ever changing currents.

Chad Myers joins us from Atlanta along with Alistair Dove, the director of research and conservation at the Georgia Aquarium.

So Chad, first, what do you think of the latest search efforts and conditions there?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, we have a cyclone, which is essentially a hurricane but it was called a different thing because it is in a different ocean. We have up here. This the cyclone up here. And it's making, generating waves on the way down here.

Tell me, Alistair, what do waves do to a search?

ALISTAIR DOVE, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND CONSERVATION, GEORGIA AQUARIUM: It makes things a great deal more complex because just spotting things against background of white caps and breaking waves is very difficult. And then it makes things even more complicated again when you go to deploy some kind of search assets like a remotely operated vehicle you might use to search the ocean floor. You need really good conditions to be up to deploy something like that.

MYERS: You have searched for things in the ocean yourself. Let's say the swells are 10 feet but they are ocean swells, OK? And you're in a ship. Your ship is here and it's floating. And you're on top at the rail. Does it help at all when under the circumstances this wave action, where you can see inside the wave. Does it help or hurt?

DOVE: No, it is typically it hurts. I mean, you like the idea that, you know, when you're cresting the waves, that maybe you get for a period of a better view. But actually, the pitching of the boat, constant pitching of the boat, and the fact that you can see something and then you can't see it and that happens over and over again, not to mention sea sickness, even the most experienced sailors can get sea sickness in the conditions like this.

MYERS: Luckily, this isn't over our search site. There may be nothing left at all. This is 120 miles per hour cyclone, but it is still generating swells up here. And those swells will get all the way down for the search area.

DOVE: It is a very long way away from the search area. But there is also nothing in between the cyclone and the search area to interrupt any kind of swells that might be generated.

MYERS: Hundred and twenty-five miles per hour, I mean, you can get 30 footers, even if they settle down to 20 footers by the time they get down.

DOVE: You know what, even at the best of times that area is pretty hairy, the weather can go all the way around Antarctica without interruption. And that leads to big waves, big wind, and big sea.

MYERS: You said you're from Canberra. DOVE: I am.

MYERS: So tell us what it is like. That is over there, but not that far over there.

DOVE: It is on the other side. This is a very remote part of the ocean. Between Perth and the search site, there is one of the deepest parts of the Indian Ocean, we call it the Diamond (INAUDIBLE) trench. And then when you get further towards the search area, you are talking about a fairly flat featureless bottom of about 12,000 feet.

And here is the trench here. You can see it here. That's about as deep as Mt. Everest as tall and then you get into the spreading zone around the Southeast Indian ridge.

MYERS: And this is pretty flat down here.

DOVE: Yes. It is pre-featureless on the bottom. Everything is probably covered with thick, sticky ooze that is made from the bodies of all the plane --

MYERS: You keep calling it ooze. Is it really oozy?

DOVE: It is. It's quite sticky and quite dark because there is not a lot of oxygen down there either and that leads to sort of black mud.

MYERS: What if things were sinking? Would they sink into the ooze?

DOVE: Yes, they would. The would, over time, they would become covered with it as well. So, if the search really goes on for a very long period of time, eventually, things are really reclaimed by the bottom of the ocean.

MYERS: So we have some winds today and tomorrow, maybe at 15 or 20 miles per hour. Is that enough to blow the top of the wave off and make white caps?

DOVE: It can be, yes. It is going to make visual searching very difficult. And they are going to rely a lot, continuing to rely on these remote sensing tools that they get from satellites.

MYERS: We also have to talk about this, at least we have about 10 seconds left. If the pinger is down here, 12,000 feet from the surface, that is equal to two miles going that way. And so, you almost have to drive right on top of it -- Randi.

KAYE: All right, Chad and Alistair. Thank you both very much.

Well, we'll get the latest developments and bring back our panel of experts in just a minute. So stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: We are following some new developments mystery of Malaysia airlines flight 370. Malaysian authorities say France gave them a third satellite image today showing possible debris in the Southern Indian Ocean. Today, search crews in the area did not find anything. But yesterday, crews did find a wooden pallet with strapping belt floating in the water. Now, it's not clear where that came from.

Malaysian authorities also clarified what was in the last transmission from ACARS communication systems that came at 1:07 a.m. Officials say it showed nothing unusual and the plane was still heading for Beijing. Now, that appears to undercut the theory that the flight path was changed before the "all right. Good night" message at 1:18. And it reduces but doesn't rule out suspicious ideas about foul play in the cockpit.

ACARS stands for, by the way, Aircraft Communications, Addressing and Reporting System. It's the computer on a plane that collects information about what the plane and the pilots are doing and it sends that information to the ground.

We want to talk much more about that. So let's bring back our panel of experts, here in New York I'm joined by aviation attorney Justin Green, senior law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes is in Washington along with Terrence McCoy, "Washington Post" reporter who has written extensively about flight 370. And in Atlanta, we are joined by retired commercial pilot Kit Darby.

Thank all of you for joining us today.

And Kit, let me start with you on this new information. How much weight should we give it?

DARBY: Well, to me, it was confusing. When it first came out, it confused my possible theories. I'm so glad it's gone. Because to me it didn't make sense in the beginning. And now, that it's ruled out, a lot of the normal progress, things that normally occurred seem to be -- it was normal up to the point that we lost contact. No one was preplanning or meditating something that would be nefarious.

KAYE: So, we were thinking, obviously, it started to point some of the focus on the pilots, if investigators thought possibly this flight path had been preprogrammed in there.

So Tom Fuentes, where does it take the investigation next?

FUENTES: I think it doesn't change the course of the investigation. Because, you know, from the aspect of the criminal investigators, they would have been looking at all possibilities. And still I work in all possibilities of what occurred in that cockpit and who might have been at the controls of that aircraft when it changed direction and flew off into the Indian Ocean or on the northern route.

I think from the other standpoint, the other aspects have changed frequently. And you know, I don't know what to say about that. The technicians and experts who read radars and know about ground communication systems and the Immarsat satellite systems, you know, that's where a lot of data has changed over the first three weeks of this investigation.

KAYE: Justin Green, an aviation attorney is here with me in New York. And I guess I know that you worked extensively on the Egypt air flight 990 where there was a pilot suicide. Do you see any similarities at all here?

GREEN: Well, not at all. Two things. In Egypt air, which I was just a young associate at the time, but in Egypt air we had cockpit voice reporter pretty soon after the accident. We had indications in the pilot history that indicated something was going wrong in his personal life.

And here, I'm not hearing anything about either one of these two pilots. I don't fault him for having a simulator in his house. I know of a lot of pilots who have simulators in their house. I know non-pilots with simulators in their house. It's a hobby thing.

So I haven't heard any piece of information whatsoever that would point the finger at them. And someone like Tom, that part of the investigation is really the only part that really we can investigate at this point. Because until we have the airplane, it's like trying to prove a murder when you don't have a body and you don't have murder weapon. Until we have the airplane, until we have the black boxes, until we know more, I don't think we are going to solve this one.

KAYE: So Kit, what about the transponder -- I mean, is that still off at this time. And can that -- I mean, can't it go off on its own or does it have to be switched off?

DARBY: It took fail. There's a second one, a back-up, just a flip of a switch that could be easy to reengage if you wanted it. The fact that multiple things went off of what appears to be at the same time leads me to either an electrical source or catastrophic event.

But multiple electrical sources we've been talking about, you know, backups on backups, they would have to go out all at once or someone would have to turn the transponder off. And that, of course, would be the pilot or someone directing the pilot in the cockpit.

KAYE: It seems as though, though. this plane continued, you know, wasn't flying wildly at least as far as we know. I mean, it changes every day.

But Kit, you're a retired commercial pilot. I mean, what does that tell you, that the fact that it was still seemed to be going smoothly on its path?

DARBY: When it initially turns, I believe that is clearly an autopilot turn, and airplane remains on autopilot flying straight. I don't have much altitude information. I'm not sure about this altitude variations that were reported by military radar. I know military radar is designed to give you a track and an altitude. And it should be accurate but I have no additional information there.

So, is seems to me that it was a controlled turn on the autopilot made by the pilot or someone directing the pilot what to do. But then after that, it doesn't make sense. I mean, if you were going to land back because you had a problem, then, you would descend. That descent didn't occur. Then, all strange possibilities like zombie plane become possibilities after that. Very confusing, like I said. Without information, very hard to say what happens next.

KAYE: Yes. Justin, you want to weigh in.

GREEN: I think that's absolutely right. Like I said before, until we have the airplane, unless somebody comes back and finds something out that hasn't come out about the pilot or copilot or somebody can come out with this was a terror attack. But in every terror attack, in every case that I have involved in that is in terror attack, we know pretty soon after the accident or is it terror attack that once a terror attack. Pan Am, we knew right after. 9/11, obviously we knew that day. So to go two weeks and not really have a lead on terror aspect, it seem to me that kind of diminishes the possibility that it was terror.

KAYE: Yes. Still, so many questions.

So be sure to stay with us because our coverage of the search for flight 370 continues in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Back now to our flight 370 coverage. Malaysian officials and families of the passengers met behind closed doors. That's after some recent public briefings, turned in to scenes of hostility with families expressing outrage and lack of information about their loved ones.

CNN Pauline Chiou has the story.

PAULINE CHIOU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was much quieter as the Chinese families of the passengers have met with high-level delegation from Malaysia. There were not as many fireworks as we saw on Saturday.

Now, today, the Malaysian government sent a new team, a technical team from the civil aviation authority. They were here to answer questions about the airplane itself.

Now, we spoke with some family members as they left this briefs room. There's still a high-level of frustration and concern. We spoke with one grandmother whose daughter was on the plane.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): This is my first day here. I said what I needed to say. I'm too angry. Every day I watch television and I'm going to go crazy soon. I'm very emotionally unstable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHIOU: Now, she speaks for so many of the relatives. They are just emotionally exhausted. Now, you heard her say this is the first family briefing. That's because she spent the last 16 days taking care of her daughter's kids, her grandchildren. They are 4-years-old and 8-years-old and they are still wondering where their mother is.

I also spoke with another relative about the level of hope in that room. He said it's split about 80/20, 80 percent of the family members are prepared for bad news, he says, 20 percent feel optimistic they will find their relatives alive.

Pauline Chiou, CNN, Beijing.

KAYE: More coverage on the search for flight 370 in a moment.

But first, a check of some other stories.

People trapped in Washington state mudslide could be heard crying for help overnight. A wall of mud hit the town of Oso, northeast of Seattle Saturday morning. Three people are dead, at least 18 unaccounted for. But that number could very well go up. A rescue helicopter in the air today did not find any survivors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JAY INSLEE, WASHINGTON: To a significant extent mother nature holds the cards here on the ability of ground personnel to enter the slide area. It is essentially a slurry. And when these rescue personnel did take some risks yesterday, and I'm very appreciative of their efforts, they rescued at least seven people, both being through airlift and through on the ground efforts, but some of them who went in literally got caught and up to their armpits and had to be dragged out by ropes themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: By the way, a slurry is a thick mud. At least six houses are destroyed and many more damaged. Residents said it happened in an instant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was coming down the hill, I just saw the darkness. Like somebody grab you. Everything was gone like three seconds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: The fire chief described the scene as quicksand, and says they are still trying to figure out how to reach people trapped in the mud. Eight people rescued and taken to the hospital.

How did this happen without any warning? It has a lot to do with ground saturation.

CNN's Jennifer Gray explains. JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We've been talking so much about how California has been so dry over the last couple of months. While that's happening, the exact opposite has been going on in the pacific northwest. The reason California has been so dry is that the jet stream has been riding very far to the north. It has been bringing the storms that normally role on shore in California up to the northwest.

So, it's been giving them a lot more rain than they normally see. In fact, a lot of areas outside of Seattle are experiencing one of their wettest months on record. And some areas are in the top ten. So, it has definitely been very, very wet.

And so, what happens when you get more rain than you should right around these mountain ranges it becomes very, very heavy and the soil begins to soak and gravity just pulls it down. And when you get those very steep slopes, too steep to support it, the slope falls, and that's where you get your mudslide. And that's exactly what has happened.

The northwest will stay dry over the next couple of days. By the time you get into the middle part of the week, another storm system rolling through. So not good for the pacific northwest. They have gotten a lot more rain than they should this season.

KAYE: Jennifer, thank you.

As Russia moves to solidify its hold on Crimea by expelling Ukrainian forces and military bases throughout the peninsula, pro-Russian demonstrations took place in several Ukrainian cities and Russian forces been gathering near Ukraine's eastern border.

Meanwhile, Kiev says the 40 basis in Crimea, only a handful remain in Ukrainian hands. The government says it expects to issue a statement within the next 24 hours on the status of its troops in Crimea.

Coming up next, the waiting is unbearable for the families of those on flight 370. We'll hear from one woman who knows exactly what they are going through next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Relatives of the passengers onboard flight 370 are demanding answers. They are meeting with Malaysian government officials in Beijing lasted more than six hours. But with little new information, the relatives are beginning to unravel.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux has the story of a woman who is familiar with this heartache.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anguish Heidi Snow knows all too well.

HEIDI SNOW, ACTRESS: He was a strong young hockey player. MALVEAUX: She lost her 24 year old fiance, Michelle (INAUDIBLE) in the crash of TWA flight 800 on July 17th, 1996. She waited for weeks in JFK's Remata (ph) Plaza hotel for any information.

SNOW: We had people who were quiet. We had people who were crying. People who were screaming. I was just extremely sad and just really wanted to talk about him a lot. That hope is what I held on to.

MALVEAUX: Snow's hopes were dashed five weeks later when the airline confirmed her fiance was dead. It would take four years for the NTSB to wrapped up this investigation. The crashes of TWA flight 800 and value jet 592 in the Ever Glaze in 1996 led to tougher laws in the United States to protect victim's families starting first with the flow of information.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The family assistance act was passed and that gives families the rights to have briefings from the NTSB in the beginning of the investigation, daily briefings sometimes twice a day.

MALVEAUX: When possible families are granted access to the crash.

SCHIAVO: It gives them rights to view the site when the plane was found right to be the accident site. It requires the airline to help them out financially and take care of them. It gives them access to personnel and to information.

MALVEAUX: And most importantly U.S. laws provide protection during the agonizing grieving process.

SCHIAVO: The NTSB in the briefing room, so it has a separate room for the families so they don't have this horrible scene like today where the poor families being dragged away from the press.

MALVEAUX: For Heidi Snow, it is in the state of limbo where the families are most vulnerable.

SNOW: We were all just in a state of grief at that time. We want as much information as possible. And patience begins to wear thin as the days go on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: And Randi, Heidi told me that once she got word of her fiance's fate, it took a long time to get through it because she really didn't have him. And he is the one person that she needed to go through this kind of get a sense of this awful loss and this process to go through with.

And so, she founded a nonprofit called aircraft casualty emotional support services where access to help others gets through this experience. She has got 24 hot line volunteer grief mentoring program, all of these things, Randi, meant to really help those during this really critical time.

KAYE: It is so terrible, Suzanne, to see what they are going through. I mean, is there anything that these families can do it all? I mean, since these Malaysian flight is not bound by U.S. law?

MALVEAUX: Well, there are three things that the U.S. has in place to better help families get through this tragedy. We have more extensive law to protect them. Agencies, they know their perspective roles when something like this happen. And of course, the U.S. has a lot more experience when it comes to plane crashes.

So, the victim's advocate groups that I have spoken with, they say that the relatives of this Malaysia flight they could do a number of things. First, demand a neutral investigation, demands some sort of financial aid and essentially lawyer up. I mean none of this, obviously, is going to help with the grief or the agony that pain of losing a loved one. But it will help with the practical, very practical matters that will come up like providing some sort of assistance for the children of those loss or just getting things done faster -- Randi.

KAYE: Suzanne Malveaux. Thank you very much, Suzanne.

We will get the latest developments on the search for flight 370 and we will bring back our panel of experts in just one minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back everyone.

We want to bring back our panel of experts for one more conversation.

All right, guys, in one sentence, I want you to answer this question. What is one aspect of the story that isn't being talked about enough when it comes to flight 370?

Tom Fuentes, I'm going to start with you on this one.

FUENTES: Hey, Randi. One is that a year ,ago we had the Boston marathon bombing and no one other than the two brothers knew that they were going to do it. No wider conspiracy, no chatter, no anything. Their best friends of the younger said he was an all American kid. Go on to parties, full rider scholarship, captain of the wrestling team, no clue that they did it before the act and even the day after the bombing, the younger brother was going to party.

KAYE: All right, Kit, what about you?

DARBY: Well, you know, such a lack of information and so much speculation. But right now we are running different scenarios. And as information comes in and changes, we are dealing with that.

You know, I personally believe that probabilities are high. That there is some type of event he that the pilots we are dealing with that could have turned it into the zombie plane. And we ought to go back to look at accidents like this, Saudi Arabian, I think, it was 163 that basically landed with everybody on it, aircraft under control rolled out and not a single person got off.

It doesn't take long to disable everyone on the plane in the absolute worst situation.

KAYE: Terrence, what are your thoughts?

MCCOY: Well, I wanted to read earlier a metaphor that I heard today and that this is like trying to solve a murder without a body or a gun. And we have a situation like that. There isn't really a lot you can do. On a lot of conversation so far that really speculative. Without any information whatsoever to go on what happened that night with the crash or the plane, is really not anyone can say about what really happened there.

KAYE: And Justin?

GREEN: Well, I think every day that goes by we are going to be less and less likely to find the airplane. And what you will end up having is passengers will never know what happened to their love ones, never have their bodies to come back to bury. They do have right under the law against Malaysia Airlines. But my concern would be you have a 777 that may or may not have mechanical problem or design problem that causes one to go down and what should be investigators do. They are going to have to look at every possible mechanical problem that could have caused this and try to fix it because unless they know what exactly cause it, they are going to have to assume any possible thing caused it.

KAYE: All right. Justin, Terrence, Tom and Kit, thank you all so much.

And we have much on the search for flight 370 in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM. It starts right now.