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Malaysian Airlines Search Ongoing; Shadow Plane Theory; New Developments in the Mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370

Aired March 23, 2014 - 16:00   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. We are following new developments today in the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Malaysian authorities say France gave them a third satellite image today showing possible objects in the southern Indian Ocean.

Chinese and Australian satellites have also spotted objects but eight planes and a ship searching there today did not find anything. Crews did find something yesterday though a wooden palette with strapping belts floating in the water. Paletts are used in the airline and the shipping industry. But it is not clear where that palette is from.

Also today Malaysian authorities clarified what was in that last transmission from the 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.

I want to go straight to CNN Justice reporter Evan Perez. He is in Washington for us today. Evan, you have covered this angle from the very beginning. What can you tell us about this latest development?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Randi, the latest information released by Malaysian authorities on Flight 370 is changing our understanding on what may have happened and when. Today, the Malaysian government said that the last transmission at 1:07 a.m. from the jet's acars communication system showed "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 co-pilot said "all right. Good night." That is the flight's final voice transmission with air traffic control at 1:19 a.m.. This reduces but does not rule out suspicions about foul play in the cockpit. Randi, all this does is just add to the mystery that has riveted all of us about what happened aboard the Flight 370 two weeks ago.

KAYE: And Evan, we've also learned that Malaysian authorities are not a hard drive belonging to the pilots and what are they finding?

PEREZ: Well, the FBI and British authorities were given copies of the hard drives that were taken from the homes of the two pilots and in particular the one belonging to the captain, we have learned that there were additional deletions than what the Malaysian authorities first announced. They said that on February 3rd there were some data that was deleted from the hard drive. Now this contained the flight simulator that they have been examining to try to see if they could learn anything from.

What this tells us is perhaps either some deletions were done after the Malaysian authorities began examining this or perhaps someone might have done additional deletions during the time that authorities didn't enter the home. It's really hard to explain this. I think the FBI is trying to figure that out right now, Randi.

KAYE: Certainly a lot of focus at this point in the game and a lot of concern that there is only two weeks left in the battery life for the pingers or the beacons that would help searchers find the flight date recorders. What happens at the end of those two weeks?

PEREZ: Well, you know, that is actually a big concern. Because one of the things you want to do is you want to find the field of debris perhaps if that is what happened to the plane, if the plane crash. So that you can in case the batteries run out on these pingers as they are called. You know, they don't go immediately out. Basically it works like any battery-operated device. It basically just gets weaker and weaker.

Right now there is about two nautical mile that you can pick up. As time goes on that gets less and less. And so what they are racing against time is trying to figure out where they might find the debris. They don't need to recover the black boxes immediately but they do want to find where - a general area where they can search so that they can then recover this, Randi.

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

I want to chat much more about this now with aviation analyst, Miles O'Brien. Miles, so nice to see you. Obviously, first your reaction to this new information coming out that maybe it wasn't reprogrammed that this communications systems wasn't reprogrammed and to make that turn to the west before that last communication.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It is a game changer to say the least, Randi, in the way that we should do this. Right now we have no evidence the crew did anything wrong and in fact, now we should be operating with the primary assumption being that something bad happened to that plane shortly after they said good night.

Was there some sort of - was it a bomb? Was it a fire that caused some sort of rapid decompression event in the cockpit? Which caused a lot of confusion, to say the least, power failures, communication failures. Just difficulty for the flight crew communicating with each other. The right thing to do would have been to lower your altitude break quickly. Make a turn to land.

Now we know they made a turn. We're not so sure what their descent situation was because we don't have altitude information at that time. But I think at this point when we start talking about this event we have to put at the top of the list the possibility that either there was some sort of pampering or bomb on the plane. Or there was some sort of mechanical failure.

In the case of the latter, that's a significant thing that needs to be addressed quickly because a lot of 777 is flying around the world right now. If there is some fundamental problem, it needs to be addressed.

KAYE: Right. But I guess, you know, I guess a lot of people wonder well if there was a problem why wasn't there any communication back to the ground telling them we need help.

O'BRIEN: Well, you are at 35,000 feet and a bomb goes off and chaos ensues, to say the least.

You know, we have this expression in flying you aviate, you navigate and then you communicate. They have probably about between 30 seconds and 60 seconds of useful consciousness before they get their oxygen masks on. What happens if they put those oxygen masks on and that same problem fire or bomb, destroyed the oxygen system in some way.

Then all of a sudden they got 30 to 60 seconds maybe to initiate that turn, begin that descent maybe. We don't know for sure. But maybe they don't have the capability of issuing any sort of radio call or maybe they switched the audio panel for the 777. It is actually very complicated. Got a couple of dozen buttons on it for various modes.

One of the things you do when you have rapid decompression is you ensure that the first officer and the captain have good communication with each other. They might have switch the communication boxes in such a way that they were not transmitting out when they thought they were transmitting a call on may day. It is very difficult in the chaos of those moments it's very easy to second guess what might have happened. But there is a scenario that you could build where this could happen.

KAYE: And you're saying that this is possible for all of the systems to shut down at once.

O'BRIEN: It is. You know, think about it as kind of - it's almost like if you had a perfectly placed device, for example. It is almost like a decapitation of the aircraft. The question remains how long did it really fly. We had (INAUDIBLE) how reliable is that information? Howe reliable are those primary radar blips that we have?

Again, I keep saying it over and over again, we are not getting this data from the Malaysian authorities and the public view which leaves us unfortunately, sort of speculating this (INAUDIBLE). I wish they could settle some of these issues for us publicly.

KAYE: All right. Miles, Chad Myers is going to talk about shadow plane theory in just a moment. So stick around because we want you to be a part of that conversation as well.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAYE: With no concrete evidence in hand, theories on what happened to Flight 370 continue to grow every day. One of them is the so-called Shadow Plane theory, that Flight 370 was somehow obscured by another aircraft on the radar.

Chad Myers and Miles O'Brien are with me now. All right. Guys, can you walk me through on how this works.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I can do this on the map and Miles, you chime in any time.

Flight 370 takes off and flies to the northeast. AS it does that, it is wasting time. That's all it is doing out here because it is about to make a left hand turn. It's going to make that left hand turn. This is all theory. Because the Singapore Airlines 68 is going to leave Singapore and fly right up the Malacca Strait and when it does that, this plane continues, 370 continues and right there connects with the two flights. The planes are the same right now.

Now, Malaysia here or this airline has its transponder off. So this plane can't really see it. Visually you can see it but the alarms aren't going off that say "Hey, there's a plane. There's a plane." So this (INAUDIBLE) airplane flies here. We don't know what the pings look like for 370 but we do know what the pings would look like for 68, the Singapore Airlines flight.

So I plotted them here. They're approximations but they're close. So the ping would be here, one hour later, it would be here. Another hour later, it would be here and another hour later, it would be farther to the north and that eventually all the way out to the very last ping, very close to where this red line is.

And that's a little bit scary that when things line up. Now if this is exactly the same pattern as the inmarset (ph) pings from 370. We have a smoking gun. If the pings are off by 100 miles or even more, this is completely a debunked theory but I have talked, we have e-mailed, communicated with (INAUDIBLE). He has brought this theory to light on Twitter and it certainly looks like it could happen if you (INAUDIBLE) miles and you turn off the transponder, the transponder, the secondary radar does not see 370, it only sees a big circle. It sees a big blob, a big hit that only comes back squawks, SQ-68.

O'BRIEN: You know, at this point I'm not going to rule anything out. However, the difficulty, we're not talking about fighter jets, two FA team running on each other and when it comes time to tuck in, you might have to like the after burners to catch up with the guy you are following, it would be an amazing, actually astonishing piece of airmanship and timing to make that work as you claim. You know, Flight level 350, 35,000 feet at night trying to tuck in formation with a plane that doesn't even know that you're doing it and thus at a steady speed, would be a - you have to remember when you're flying on a commercial airlines at altitude, it is pretty close to its fire wall, its maximum as far as speed.

And so it is not like there is a lot of extra speed for the Malaysia guy, the Malaysia flight to catch up. So you would have to make sure that you were ahead and see it coming behind you, maybe slow down a little bit and the tuck in. I don't know, I couldn't do it. A lot of pilots I've talked said that would be quite a stunning piece of aviation. Could you practice that in that simulator, over and over again. I don't know if it would be the same because you have wind correction issues, all kinds of things would be different.

MYERS: Turbulence from being behind a very big - this a heavy flight. There's a lot of (INAUDIBLE).

O'BRIEN: When you get in the weight turbulence of that, you know it.

KAYE: All right. You know -

MYERS: I don't think we settled that one. Did we?

KAYE: No. I don't think you guys did but it was an interesting conversation. But I don't think we got an answer yet. We don't know. We don't know a lot.

MYERS: We don't.

KAYE: We are figuring it out slowly day-by-day. Chad, thank you very much.

Miles, stay with us because we got a whole lot more to talk about with the search for Flight 370. So let's bring in the rest of our panel of experts who will be with us for this hour. In Washington, I'm joined by John Magaw, former undersecretary for the TSA and a former director for the U.S. Secret Service. And in Atlanta, we are joined by Kit Darby, he was a commercial airline pilot for 30 years and has more than 24,000 flying hours. Thank you all for being with us.

Well, Kit, as the commercial pilot here in the bunch, what do you think of that theory, that shadow plane?

KIT DARBY, COMMERCIAL AIRLINE PILOT FOR 30 YEARS: Well, it would be an incredible piece of airmanship as they said. I can't say it's impossible. I'm from the North Atlantic and we frequently fly with 1,000, 2,000 foot separation right behind the airplane, in front of us or just ahead of one. It is theoretically possible. It's not something you practice or would have any experience with, doing it right the first time and not getting caught at it, not someone not seeing you, would be quite a feat.

KAYE: John Magaw, let me bring you in, as the former undersecretary of the TSA, I mean as far as I understand it, you have a lot of questions, but the first thing you want to know is what, who had access to this plane?

JOHN MAGAW, FORMER UNDERSECRETARY, TSA: Well, access to the plane, that is all gone by the wayside now. We talked about who had access. You know, everything from the caterers right on to the baggage handles, to any one, the mechanics. But as I've gone along and looked at the on again, off again projection systems turned on, systems turned off. The thing that stays with me now for the last nine, 10 days is this is pilots - pilots taking this aircraft. If it went to 40 some thousand feet back down to 30 some and then to 20 some and down to 5,000, one of the two pilots I believe is the person who committed this act and the other one was either incapacitated or locked out of that cockpit because you can't get back in once you're out of that (INAUDIBLE).

So, I still with all the changes, adjustments, no may day, no type in of any kind, it takes two or three key punches, no debris from an explosion, the height, climbing and all the kinds of things that occurred after they thought it might have exploded, it just doesn't fit to me as an investigator. So I'm still believing it was the pilot.

KAYE: And Miles, I know you disagree with that.

O'BRIEN: I do. I don't see any clear evidence right now that would impugn the pilots, that would indicate any nefarious activity. Now that we've taken this waypoints which set it off to the west, off the plate. It was on its way to Beijing when this happened. Everything that Mr. Magaw discussed and those altitude changes, that is based on some pretty sketchy information as best I can tell.

Let's assume that the altitude changes did occur as has been reported. We have had a lot of bad information, that certainly could indicate an aircraft in distress because of some major mechanical malfunction or perhaps some sort of terrorist activity. So I don't think we have the evidence to impugn the pilots at this point. And I think it's unfair to do that especially, you know, we talked about the families sitting (INAUDIBLE) what about the families of the flight crew too. Let's consider that.

KAYE: Absolutely. Kit, what fascinates me is something that you mentioned which is this some - the fact that a secondary route can be punched in without anybody really knowing it.

DARBY: Yes, ma'am. It's designed to allow the pilot for flying purposes if it might land on one runway or another, he can put in both routes. You typically copy your normal route to that as a backup. So it's used on a regular basis.

So it can easily be programmed. I don't think it has any additional implication to the pilot here. I'm just saying just because we didn't have a report over that subject or reporting point telling us we're going to Beijing and now it's been changed, we don't have that. But it doesn't mean it's wasn't re-programmable into the FMS system, the flight management system.

KAYE: And Miles, what about the fact that we are what now, two weeks into this, more than two weeks into this search and we don't have a lot of time left on those beacons and pingers, how concerning is that?

O'BRIEN: Well, it is. But you know, ultimately they did find the Air France black boxes without any use of the pingers. As a matter of fact, it was two years after the crash. So, you know, it is possible if the wreckage is discovered that eventually those boxes will be found. But that's a big if right now because I don't know if we're necessarily searching in the right place. Seeing some wooden pallets floating in the southern sea is not what I would call evidence of an aircraft. So I think it's quite possible that it could be in another place entirely and maybe the search needs to be re-evaluated.

KAYE: John, do you agree with that? Do you think that maybe - I mean we seem to be searching in the ocean. Has anybody searched on land? And should they be?

MAGAW: Well, I think last week there was quite a bit of search down on land. They were even concerned about the forested areas and helicopters flew over there for any breakage of limbs or anything like that. I think in all of those countries at least eight or nine of them had radar that would have picked up. I think it is in the ocean. That is my judgment.

KAYE: John, Miles, Kit, thank you all very much. Appreciate it.

Well some certainly find it odd that no one made a phone call to loved ones if something really terrible was happening on that flight. Could that be an indication of what did happen to the missing airlines. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: It is one of the many unanswered questions surrounding Malaysia Airline Flight 370. In a time when it seems like all of us are always in touch, there's no record that any one on that flight tried to make a phone before or after that plane changed direction.

Our national correspondent Suzanne Malveaux looks at some possible reasons why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On September 11th when hijackers commandeered four planes headed to New York and Washington, passengers and flight attendants on board started making calls.

BETTY ONG, FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Our number one got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. Nobody knows who stabbed who and we can't even get up to business class right now because nobody can breathe.

MALVEAUX: Using cellphones and airphones, those onboard reached out to loved ones sought help and ultimately warned others of the impending terrorist attacks but for the missing Malaysia Flight 370, silence, no phone calls, no texts, no tweets.

One theory that the cellphones didn't work because of the plane's altitude.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 25,000 feet was much too high for a cellphone service signal to be received, right?

ALLAN FRIEDMAN, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: You're just not going to get any consumer-grade technology that would talk to the ground from that kind of height. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And so your cruising altitude 25,000 feet would it be possible to receive a signal from that point.

FRIEDMAN: Occasionally possible but very rare.

MALVEAUX: Another possible reason, no nearby cell towers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was a point that the plane had been flying over Malaysia and there was at least a couple of cities, major cities and there were some towns and villages, is it possible that those signals could have gotten to a cellphone tower?

FRIEDMAN: Again, if people are awake and trying to use their phone and they were flying that low, it is certainly possible that they got to that tower. However, it is also possible they weren't able to officially communicate. Because it's not just sending the radio waves, we have to actually be in touch long enough to have a conversation.

MALVEAUX: Those onboard 9/11 flights were able to have conversation because the planes were very flying low in densely populated areas when their calls were received.

But experts say, most of those calls were not made from cell phones but airline phones which use radio or satellite technology.

A technology that has been phased out for the most part because of its high costs. But Malaysia Flight 370 did have airphones in business class. They might have been deliberately disabled along with the transponder and other communication systems.

But CNN aviation analyst Mark Weiss says the more likely scenario is that no one called even when the plane reversed course.

MARK WEISS, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The lights would have been dimmed. There would probably have been little or no cabin service, it was almost an hour into the flight. It was a very tranquil night. I understand the weather was good. So probably it wouldn't have been turbulent. Nobody would have noticed anything. It would have been business as usual.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: And Randi, another reason passengers may not have called is that the cabin was depressurized, either by the pilot of someone else who may have wanted to sabotage those flight at 30,000 feet passengers would have passed out within seconds. Or if they had their oxygen masked, they would have lasted 15 minutes or so.

Our aviation analyst Mark Weiss, who I spoke with, he doesn't put a lot of weight behind this scenario but there are others who are saying that so much still to investigate. They are not ruling this out at all. Randi.

KAYE: It doesn't sound like. So if you believe though, Suzanne, that someone onboard was trying to take down this airplane and deliberately knocked out the airplane phones in the business class section of the plane, how difficult would it actually be to do that? I mean, who would even know how to do such a thing, right?

MALVEAUX: Right. Well, you know, according to aviation analysts who I spoke with, they say it would be relatively easy because the communications equipment including the airplane phones could be disabled through the inflight entertainment system. So it is just a matter of flipping the switch, turning it off. It's something that the pilots could do but it's also the kind of thing. It is usually located outside of the cockpit. So it has easy access to the flight attendant, the crew, other people.

So if that is turned off, passengers would also not only be able not to make phone calls but unable to track the plane's flight or even notice that this plane had turned around, Randi.

KAYE: And of course, we don't know what was going on up there with all the systems if any of them or all of them were even working or not.

Suzanne Malveaux, thank you very much.

And you can join the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 on your computer. Thousands of people are trying to find the missing airliner by combing over images posted by Digital Globe. The Colorado-based company owns one of the world's most complex satellite networks. But volunteers are needed to search through the thousands of miles worth of images.

To learn more about how you can help, all you have to do is go to cnn.com/ impact. And be sure to stay with us now. We'll have much more on the search in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back, everyone. We are following new developments today in the mystery of Malaysian airlines flight 370.

The Malaysian authorities say France gave them satellite data today showing possible object in the Southern Indian Ocean. That is in addition now to satellite images from China and Australia, also showing objects. But today, search crews in the area found nothing,

Malaysian authorities also 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. That appears to undercut the theory that a flight path was change before the "all right, goodnight" message at 1:19 a.m. And it reduces but doesn't rule out suspensions about foul play in the cockpit.

Martin Savidge is live in a flight simulator , just outside of Toronto for us and pilot trainer Mitchell Casado is along with him.

So Martin, hello to both of you. If you would, take us through the significance of that last ACARS transmission, apparently showing that there was no routing change at all.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. I mean, certainly what it was being said that there had been, you know, a 12 minute window of which it appears that a course correction had been some sinister taken away and but only take away some of the aspect that whether it is criminal or not.

And let me explain what I'm talking about. The ACARS system is located in the cockpit up on this screen. ACARS does a number of things. But for this particular story, what it does was it communicates every half hour. One thing our friend is doing, automatically, the pilots, they will trigger in. It doesn't require input for the pilots. It just sends out of burst every half hour. Here is where the plane is at. Here is where we are flying. Here is what (INAUDIBLE). All of that basic information.

If that course change had been preprogrammed, it would have been not with the ACAR system but this which is the flight management system. Think of it like the GPS management for your car. You got a bunch of keys that you can input. And very quickly, to make that course change. So the idea was they programmed it in about 12 minutes ahead of time and then, boom, the plane made the turn.

And that apparently didn't happen that way. That is not to say they couldn't turn the plane. I can do it right now and I'm going to warn you. I'm taking it off of auto pilot and then, you know, just stir the wheel (ph) and that is the way that this turn could have been made. Because we still believe a turn was in fact made. I will put it back in here in your capable hands.

Another way that this turn could have happened would be through the automatic pilot, right? That in other words, you wouldn't have to touch it here. What would you do to get the automatic pilot to through the aircraft?

MITCHELL CASADO, COMMERCIAL PILOT INSTRUCTOR: Very simple. There is a heading select off here. So, we have out heading cockpits. We choose the heading that we are on right now. And all we have to do is choose the heading that we want and we press this bottom here and they are pinned automatically.

SAVIDGE: You can feel the aircraft as it makes it's turn. So, the fact that it wasn't programmed, this is very interesting but it doesn't necessarily rule in or rule somebody taking control of the aircraft and deliberately pushing it up for us.

KAYE: What would have happened -- I mean, would we have seen the same result? I mean, what would have happen if the plane had lost all the power?

SAVIDGE: just a couple of -- well, this is the scenario that Mitchell and I have talked been a number of times. It is hard to imagine, really, in this sophisticated aircraft, that it would lose all of its power and the reason for that is there are five or six back up power generators. Each engine on each wing, they have the generator. Each engine has backup generator. That is now four power generators.

The APU, the Auxiliary Power Unit, in the tail. CASADO: That's right. We also have what is called a (INAUDIBLE) turbine which is group of power, things that spin. They break generators so this things just fix out of air flow. The air flow has to makes some spin and then you get the basic electricity enough right now.

SAVIDGE: With all of those systems it is hard to imagine where everything goes out. That if you did have something that took the six systems, then you got to figure that is so catastrophic, it is one of the aircraft would have survive at all. So, it is hard to imagine a scenario where all the power goes out and yet the plane can be still operated or that it is flyable shape.

KAYE: All right, listen. We want to bring in our CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien because I know has been listening here and has a lot of questions for you.

But Miles, why don't you pick one of them.

O'BRIEN: OK. Here is the scenario. I want to run this by Mitchell and Martin. The audio control panel on the 777, I counted 16 buttons on them. Now, in a scenario, first leg traditionally, there is the audio control panel. It's a complicated piece of equipment, all right? Granted you get used to that as time goes on. But it is very easy. To think you are talking to air traffic controller and instead you are broadcasting to the folks in tourist.

So you have a high time captain who would have been flying and certainly would have, if he wasn't the flying pilot in this case, using the light goes to the captain. But if he wasn't, he should have taken over if there was some sort of decompressions scenario.

And you have a lower time first officer, only about 200 hours in the aircraft, in a very chaotic situation, where it is very important. Time is very limited. You have to get oxygen masks on. You have to begin a rapid descent. You want to turn toward land. All of these things have to happen in rapid sequence. The first officer should be handling the communication. The two things he probably should be doing, is number one, trying to get a may day call. He also should be telling the passenger to put their oxygen mask on.

So, you got this 16 button panel. He may or may not have been able to communicate to either the passengers or at air traffic controller. Maybe he thought he was broadcasting a mayday and he wasn't.

The other thing he should do is go to the transponder and squawk 7700 indicating a problem and there is a scenario where he could have turned the darn thing off in the panic of the moment. So, I just -- I want people to keep thinking about scenarios like this as they wonder why things went quiet.

KAYE: Martin, you want to pick that up. You and Mitchell, you want to weigh in on that.

SAVIDGE: I'm sorry. So, if I understand the question, Miles, it is essentially that this communication system here, in some sort of comprises, could have been inertly accidentally shut off and so, that is the reason that we had absolutely zero communications, is that it?

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, all I can say is, you can imagine in a rapid decompression scenario, whether it is a small bomb or a window just broke or whatever, you are going to have a cockpit that is chaotic to say the least, possibly dark, limited useful consciousness at 35,000 feet. A lot of things happening very quickly.

The need to get toward land quickly, the need to get down quickly, and you got a high time captain with the low time first officer who may or may not have that, you know, that absolute muscle memory familiarity with that audio control panel or for that matter, the operation -- the transponder, that would have been the responsibility that would have fallen to him while the captain was trying to muscle that airplane around to safety. That is just a scenario that is worth thinking about.

SAVIDGE: Right. Well, Mitchell go ahead. I mean, do you think there is a way that this would have been?

CASADO: Well, say that the first officer, first of all, was low in time, I would have to disagree. (INAUDIBLE) hour, there is a lot of time to be spending in an airplane. This man had 737 time. (INAUDIBLE) in the 777 and the level D (ph) simulator that certified, you know. It is very unlikely that he would have it stop in an emergency. Before they get in to an airplane like this, they are trained and trained again, I highly doubt that.

O'BRIEN: All right. Well, he is a young guy and he have only 200 hours on that particular in the aircraft. So yes, 3000 hours is nothing to sneeze at.

KAYE: Yes. And you make a lot of good points there.

Let me bring in the rest of our panel though, to join the discussion.

Our panel of experts, John Magaw, former Under Secretary for the TSA and a former director for the U.S. secret service and Kit Darby with the commercial airline pilot for 30 years.

So Kits, I'm sure you have been listening to this conversation. Why don't you weigh in with all your years of experience on this.

DARBY: Well, certainly. I'm a currently an instructor as well and we do train these maneuvers. And mistakes can be made and certainly not impossible. But we do train to proficiency these exact maneuver. So, he would be familiar with what is needed for an emergency descent. In the studying the control panel is possible. It may to me be possible that communication is not the first thing on their mind, if it fumbles bad enough.

Both pilots are working together to solve the problem before they communicate. So they may not even be attempting to communication in the beginning. Only when they had time when they try to talk. We might also add that if you take the scenario and they can perhaps do that in the simulator next time is to put on the oxygen mask. It sounds like a simple task but it is not that easy. It can disturb your microphone, it can disturb your glasses. You are now looking out of a full face mask. It is difficult to talk and it is difficult to fly.

So once you put an oxygen mask on, the entire problem, whatever it might be, it is a lot more difficult.

KAYE: And John, what about you? I mean, what are your thoughts on the chaos that might have been happening inside that cockpit, even though, I know, you still haven't let go of the theory that this was pilot error here or possibly the pilots were involved in bringing this plane down on purpose.

MAGAW: I don't think there is any chaos at all. And you could tell it by his voice that there wasn't any chaos then and didn't occur quickly after that.

But one of the things I would like to say here is that I have great empathy for the family. I have great empathy for anyone on that plane. And for someone to indicate in the last session that I didn't have that. I would want to correct that quickly. Because I have said that time and time again that you have to be concerned about the family. And I'm looking at the facts and I'm looking at the things that I see. And I was very structured in the beginning of saying who touched that airplane. I believed that the pilots, one or the other, not both, but one or the other, took control of the plane.

KAYE: John Magaw, Kit Darby, Miles O'Brien, thank you all very much.

One terrorism expert says there is still a possibility that those on the flight 370 are still alive and survived. Find out why coming up next.

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KAYE: The focus right now is on a recovery mission. And our next guest says the fact that no one is talking about a possible rescue mission would infuriate him if he was a family member.

Jeff Beatty Is a terrorism expert and he joins me now from Boston.

Welcome to you. So, you think that it is possible that those on flight 370 may have survived.

JEFF BEATTY, TERRORISM EXPERT: Well, I would say it is possible. And one of the things that would influence that and I know Martin and Mitchell would be doing a great job, about this 45,000 foot level, talked to a Boeing captain who told me it was possible to remove some -- to take out some circuit breakers that disengage them and then insidiously induce a situation where the people in the back of the airplane would become hypoxic and then pass away.

So, I would be curious if they can represent that because that would give us an opportunity to look at these different theories and take a little bit of the evidence and put it in the right context. Because when I look at this theory analysis table that I have been using, Randi, I find that some of the scenarios, not at majority of them, but some of the scenarios still offer the possibility that there might have been survivors from this horrible accident.

And as somebody who was in the crash that we were all kind of given up, we are dead, I kind of like to focus on people rather than on the equipment. And I was pleased to see the Australians the other day talked about a rescue, not just a recovery.

So when you look at the imagery that the Chinese satellite showed up and the size of that, it is approximate the size of one of those large evacuation rafts that are on the size of the large Boeing aircraft. You know, maybe that is what we are seeing. Maybe any resources that we have out there in the area should be ready if in fact we do find a survivor. And I think that there is more that we could be doing to prepare for that possibility, although not a probability.

KAYE: Like what? What else need to do and look for those --?

KAYE: Like what? Well, for example, the Australians have a ship on the way that has a great capability. It can land helicopters on the deck. We have the ability to refuel helicopter. They have the ability to refuel helicopter off that deck. Get some eyeballs out there. If they are in a large area search, there needs to be inability to airdrop some emergency supplies to people, who will have been in the water for 16 days on a raft, perhaps. You can survive that long. We have examples of that. Great book out now, "Unbroken" on the "New York Times" bestseller list. A 40-plus states survival on a raft at sea. Pan Am ditch an airplane in 50s in the Pacific. Everyone survived because they were able to get into the rafts and they were rescued in short order.

So having the right equipment able to drop it on folks or even maybe drop some swimmers into the area, if we in fact find survivors, it is something we ought to be prepared for. It would be horribly ironic to find the raft with a couple of folks in it who passed away because we were not able to get them the help they needed, even after we identified them as a raft for in time to help them.

KAYE: You know, we always get those emergency briefings when we take off on any flight. But I guess, you are saying that certainly pay more attention to those, do you really think that somebody would have known what to do? I mean, the flight attendant certainly, if they survived. But what about those who, you know, aren't professionally trained who might be on raft or might be in the water?

BEATTY: Well, the good news is there is instruction in the life rafts. The life rafts will deploy automatically. And again, I'm not saying this is a probability. I'm saying it is a remote possibility. But until we know that everybody is unfortunately passed away, I think we have to do everything we can even if it is going to be to rescue, you know, just one or two people.

KAYE: All right. Jeff Beatty, appreciate that. Appreciate your time and your thoughts. Thank you so much.

We'll bring the panel back for one more round after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAYE: And before we go, we want to bring back our panel of experts for one more conversation.

All right, guys. A lot of developments today in all kinds of areas on flight 370. So in just a few sentences, tell me what is your final thought for right now on the story? Kit Darby, we will start with you.

DARBY: Well, being the pilot here, I guess, I will have to defend the pilots a little bit. I mean, certainly it is possible that these pilots could have done this directly. I find it very unlikely. In addition, they could have been dealing with the problem headed for home and something else had gone wrong. It could have been a big problem with a small pilot error, a small problem with a big pilot error. But there are also many other scenarios that believes the pilots at the will of the flame in the circumstances. So, rather than say what I think it is, I'm going to say I don't believe it is the pilots.

KAYE: All right, John Magaw.

MAGAW: I would just say, it is time for an (INAUDIBLE), more discussion on transparency in the cockpit, ragonized (ph) cameras, not allow them to lock it anymore from the inside and not be able to get in from the outside in emergency situation. They have had discharge of firearms in the cockpit. They have flown by airports. I think there are six times for more transparency.

KAYE: All right. And Miles, we will finish with you.

O'BRIEN: I just want to add one more element to the scenario I brought out before. This idea , some sort of rapid decompression, for whatever reason, chaotic cockpit, difficulty in communication, and then what if, just what if, those that whatever caused that decompression also damaged the oxygen system that was designed to feed the pilots and keep them alive in that scenario. What if they put on those masks and there was no oxygen? Suddenly you have what we have been calling the zombie plea.

KAYE: And I know you believe that is very possible. A lot of folks here.

O'BRIEN: I'm a pilot too. And you know, and also I firmly believe that people are innocent until proven guilty. And I don't see evidence that pilot did anything. And if the crew, did anything (INAUDIBLE) at this junction.

KAYE: Well, we will continue to dig on this story and continue to watch the details as they come out and rapidly change pretty much every day.

Thank you all and we'll continue our coverage on the Malaysia airlines flight 370 in just a moment.

I'm Randi Kaye. Thanks so much for joining me. Don Lemon picks up with the latest on the investigation. Stay with us.