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New Search Area -- Hostile, Moving Target; Planes Try to Find Possible Debris Field; U.S. Still Not Ruling Out Terrorism; "Partial Ping" Possibly Triggered as Plane Hit Water; NLRB Says Northwestern University Players Can Unionize; Daughter's Tweets Track Families' Agony; Candy Crush IPO Down; Obama Arrives in Rome

Aired March 26, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're trying to get there to find this up close. That's why people are excited about that.

That said, Brooke, here are the many cautions here. We've had false alarms about this already, many times.

Plus, the searching process for this remains highly complicated. If you think about the plane coming toward this area, if this is, in fact, what happened, and you think about the big grid that they have to build out into the ocean there basically, they have to on paper basically say this is the area we have to search, it is still immense.

That area you're talking about is small. That's about 12.5 miles by 12.5 miles. That's relatively small in the ocean, so they can target it just as they do with the whole gridded area there. They try to say some areas are more important to search than others.

But even if they determine that this debris is from this plane, and we may be a long way from that yet, even if they do that, it doesn't tell you where the bulk of the plane would be.

Because it may have crashed early in this process, in which case, the search then would push up toward the north of the bigger 621-square- mile search area, or it may have glided or had the fuel last longer, and in fact, the search area, the main area, may be much further down to the south, a much further distance away.

We don't know because we don't know what happened to this debris before it wound up where it is.

So there are a lot of ifs still in place, and bear in mind, in the bigger search area, remember, the plane itself would be no bigger than a pinpoint in that great big grid that we're showing you right there.

So, Brooke, this is very encouraging news. It is far from definitive yet. And there's every chance it turns out to be nothing.

But for the moment, hopes are high that maybe if they can find this stuff and get it in their hands, they'll know if they have some kind of answers in this long and tragic tale.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: The best lead yet, that's what we're hearing. Tom Foreman in the Virtual Room, thank you.

Let's talk to an expert. Leo Romeijn, let me bring you back in. He's our satellite imagery analyst.

So, let me tap your knowledge here, sir, once again, because you and I had discussed in looking at the pictures here that some of the objects appear to be shiny.

So, with your trained eye, Leo, is there anything else in this picture that might suggest some link to a commercial airliner? Here it is.

LEO ROMEIJN, SATELLITE IMAGERY ANALYST: No, not yet. First, I have to recover some of the debris out of the ocean, and then they physically make evaluation of what's out there.

Currently, it's s very fortunate that the Pleiades 1B satellite collected that at this angle because they have a 47-degree inclination angle.

The sun was at the perfect location to shine good, so all the debris physically displayed perfectly, and so now they need to find it and bring it on board and check it out.

BALDWIN: Thank goodness for the sun shining down. We see the reflections to get the images, what are pretty amazing, considering how far away the satellite is.

But, you know, Leo, we have seen satellite images from China. We've seen them from France. We've seen them from Australia.

Are we to believe there are no American satellites over this neck of the woods or perhaps it is more likely the U.S. government maybe has something, but they're not telling us?

ROMEIJN: Oh, no, DigitalGlobe has five active satellites. They have been scanning the whole area, the WorldView-2 satellite collected some of the first images available.

And it is the collection angle of this collection with the Pleiades satellite sensor that really shows up the debris, and this really is definitely a big plus point.

And, hopefully, they'll be able later on today to collect or be at the debris field, and so then they can start physically calculating the route back, and combined with the Inmarsat data, they'll be able to get closer to searching for the plane.

BALDWIN: 3:30 in the morning there. I know talking to reporters on the ground, they say a couple more hours before they send those planes out to try to figure out where precisely this is.

But you know, we had talked earlier, Leo, about satellite coverage of the area, the southern Indian Ocean. Let me show this, because this is the Google Earth image. It is now about two hours old.

All these little dots around the world are little satellites. And you said there's adequate satellite coverage down there. You also seemed optimistic that perhaps they're getting close.

So, given this picture which shows us -- once again, this is a picture taken from Sunday -- do you think they'll find them when the search resumes in just a couple hours from now?

ROMEIJN: They should. They have a better idea, because the picture itself, the debris at that particular collection date and time will have a position accuracy of about 10 -- less than 10 meters.

So, once they know where the debris is and they can calculate the course of the debris because of the currents and also the prior satellite images with the debris, they'll be able to pinpoint a more accurate location to it.

BALDWIN: I like that answer. I like those odds, finally.

Leo Romeijn, thank you so much, satellite imagery analyst and expert. I appreciate your expertise here.

A senior Malaysia official has just given CNN information on their investigation into both the pilot and the co-pilot.

So, we will tell you what they have found almost three weeks investigating their backgrounds. That's ahead.

Also, we have been telling you about reports of this partial ping. What does that mean?

That's the plane's final signal before disappearing, so how could that happen?

We'll take you inside this flight simulator to show you exactly how and tell you why it could be significant.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: And welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We learned today the U.S. is not ruling out terrorism as a possible cause for the sudden disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370's sudden disappearance.

Here is Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK HAGEL, DEFENSE SECTREARY: I don't think at this point we can rule anything in or out.

I think we have to continue to as much as we are, and you know the United States continues to stay committed.

We have aircraft in the area working out of Malaysia and Perth.

As you know, we moved two of our most sophisticated locaters to the Perth area, so until we have more information, we don't know. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So that happened today.

Also today, we heard from the FBI. We now know the FBI is looking at hard drives from the pilot simulator kept in his home. FBI expects that to be done in a couple of days, both actually with the pilot and co-pilot computers at home, as well.

To the Pentagon we go with out correspondent there, Barbara Starr. And, so, Barbara, when we talk about investigations and we talk specifically about the pilot and the co-pilot, what are you hearing from your sources?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Secretary Hagel really articulated the real bottom line here, which is none of us know, nobody knows at this point by all accounts what really happened here.

So, why is he not able to rule out a terrorist attack? One reason is, as we work through all of this, sources tell us there's been no claim of responsibility. And you would expect to see that in a terrorist attack. That is typically what happens. No claim of responsibility after all these days.

But they do increasingly coalesce around the notion that this was a deliberate action from somewhere within the cockpit. Is this a fact? No. Is it a theory? Maybe not a theory, but it is an idea an awful lot of people that we speak to are coalescing around.

And why do they say this? The way the plane flew. This plane made deliberate turns, as we know, made that left turn before it got to Vietnam. It made another turn wide over the Indian Ocean and then flew for hours in some sort of controlled flight.

You know, we talked to one very experienced 777 pilot who said, yeah, there's lots of catastrophic accidents, but planes typically don't just fall out of the sky, so even industry people are sort of looking at this notion.

It has to be said, Brooke, there is no evidence, no evidence at this point, as far as anybody knows, that ties the pilot or co-pilot to this. There is no stated motive, none of that.

But this is certainly an idea that we are increasingly hearing people are investigating, considering, and looking at.

Brooke?

BALDWIN: As we talk about theories, coalescing in the cockpit could be key to get those files, the hard drives with the FBI in just a couple of days.

Barbara Starr, thank you so much.

STARR: Sure. BALDWIN: And some of the most critical information may actually come from the pings that the plane sent after it dropped out of radar.

And we know that there was this partial ping, this is what we're talking about today, this partial ping that the plane sent out. So, that was its last communication.

So, back to the flight simulator we go to Martin Savidge. He's inside a 777 cockpit simulator. And, so, can you just give me, Martin, just some background on a partial ping.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's interesting now that the very small details could actually turn out to be very big clues as to what may have happened in the final moments or where this aircraft may have finally ended up.

The pings we're talking about are a result of the ACARS system. The ACARS is located here in this particular cockpit of the 777. It's actually this screen you would use to access ACARS.

ACARS is an alternate means of communication for the plane. You have your radio systems, but this would be a way to send texts to the ground, the ground to send texts up, even navigation ideas.

It's also a way for the aircraft to sort of send out an automatic message, in this case, every hour. So, after the plane disappeared on March 8th after it went off radar, the ACARS system sent six more pings, one every hour.

It didn't transmit any information. It was as if somebody called you on the cell phone but didn't speak.

So, the plane did that, and then the very last ping came just eight minutes after the one previous, which was odd, because it was hitting once every hour, then you get one eight minutes later.

So, what was going on? That's what they're trying to figure out.

They're also trying to figure out where did the last ping come from because it is believed that may have been the last place where the aircraft was, trying to narrow down the search, figure out where that partial ping came from, and then you can zoom in and begin to send all your aircraft and all your search assets there.

The other thing is, why a partial ping? Now, that's a real mystery, too. There's one theory that, when the plane ran out of fuel, when the engines stopped, the electricity stopped. Everything electric in the plane stopped, shut down.

But there's a little propeller in the back that pops out and makes electricity by the wind, so the aircraft just descending without power would generate electricity. Bingo, everything turns on again, including ACARS.

So, it is theorized that maybe the plane had ran out of fuel, eight minutes later, this little RAM is generating electricity again, and this ACARS system decides to send one last ping before the plane presumably hits the water.

That's the theory, Brooke. We're still working on trying to test it here in the simulator.

BALDWIN: OK. Martin Savidge, thank you very much.

And from the partial ping to the families, we can't begin to understand what they're going through here, almost three weeks since this plane took off.

But the Twitter account of a teenage girl whose father was on board that plane offers this glimpse into how her emotions are playing out, from fear to hope to heartbreak.

And now people from all around the world are offering support.

We will share some of her tweets, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Got some breaking news in the world of college athletics. It could be a game changer.

This is what we have from the National Labor Relations Board in Chicago. They have now ruled that football players, specifically at Northwestern University, are school employees and can unionize, so this could mean that these student athletes have the right to fight to get paid here.

How will this effect student athletes and college scholarships moving forward? This is specific to Northwestern University. What kind of ripple effect could it have with other student athletes in other colleges across the country?

Those are all questions that I'm will be addressed in the coming weeks and months here, but once again, National Labor Relations Board ruling that football players at Northwestern University are school employees and can unionize.

Let me move along here, back to this missing plane, this uplifting yet just absolute tear-breaker here because the Twitter account of one teenage girl tracks the agony of Flight 370 since it first began close to three weeks ago.

So this is a tweet. The Twitter handle is "Gorgxous." This is her handle. This is the tweet she sent about the missing plane.

She called directly to her father. Andrew Nari is the chief steward on board MH-370, and she tweets, "Come home fast, Dad. It's the only thing I want."

She continued, speaking directly to him, her conversation online, "March 8th, Daddy, you're all over the news and papers. Come home fast so you could read them. Don't you feel excited?"

Later, she's watching soccer. She tweets, "Daddy, Liverpool is winning the game. Come home so you can watch the game. You never miss watching the game. It's your very first time."

To which there was actually a response from Liverpool's team replying, "This has touched our hearts."

Fast forward to March 12th, Gorgxous stays positive tweeting, "My dad must be busy serving the passengers food and drinks," she says.

But by March 20th, nearly two weeks since Gorgxous has seen or hugged her father, she tweets, "How I wish to wake up every morning hoping that it is just a dream. But sadly this is, sigh, reality. May God protect them all."

A day later, Gorgxous ends her tweet with a teary face. "Where are you?" she writes. "I miss your smile, your laughter. I miss you so much. Sigh."

Then in one more tweet, her desperation to see her father grows. This is what she writes next. "It's late midnight. I can imagine him standing at the stairs saying, Don't sleep late, OK. Sigh. Goodnight, daddy." She ends with a teary smiley face and a kiss.

And then Monday, March 24th, the families of Flight 370, hear this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: That according to this new data, Flight MH-370 ended in the southern Indian ocean.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Gorgeous, whose real name is Mira, writes, "We love you, but He" -- capital H -- "loves you more. Hugs."

One of her 105,000 followers tells her, "Take your time to cry but remember one thing -- he" -- her father -- "is in a lot better place than us in His arms. He smiles when he sees you from heaven."

And Mira is taking comfort in the arms of the tens of thousands of strangers who are reaching out to her tweeting her.

So, today, she writes, "I receive love from almost the whole world. I'm so touched. I don't know how to thank all of you. Supports, prayers, God bless you all.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. Coming up full on the Big Board, here you go, the Dow down 80 points here, five, four minutes away from the Closing Bell.

Here's some news. The maker of Candy Crush -- maybe you play it a little too much -- it's a company called King Digital, actually rang the Opening Bell today. The stock offering its IPO this morning and right now King is down about 15 percent there. Now to this, we saw the president just a couple hours ago speaking in Brussels in Belgium, and we now know he is flying on board Air Force One and should touch down shortly in Rome where tomorrow he is to meet with Pope Francis.

Guys, tell me in my ear, are these live? Yeah, live pictures here, this is Fiumicino, the airport in Rome, Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome where he should be landing momentarily.

So to Rome we go to CNN's senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman. He's actually at our Rome bureau which overlooks the Vatican.

So, Ben, as we watch and wait for Air Force One, how excited is Rome to welcome the American president?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The flight's about 15 minutes late, Brooke, so we haven't seen it touch down yes, but Rome is bracing for the visit of President Obama. We are expecting some massive traffic jams tomorrow.

In fact, some Italian newspapers, warning people about chaos. He's in one part of town, and to get there he needs to drive really through one of the most busy parts of Rome to get to the Vatican.

And after the Vatican, where he will meet with Pope Francis in the morning, he will be having a working lunch with Giorgio Napolitano, the Italian president. Then he meets with the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi. Then in the afternoon, he goes to the Coliseum.

So, it's going to be somewhat difficult for the residents of Rome as the presidential motorcade makes it around the capital. So we shall see.

Brooke?

BALDWIN: So, you have the traffic chaos to deal with, and then you have, of course, the big news that the president will be meeting, as you mentioned, with the pope.

Do we have any idea as far as what the two will be discussing tomorrow?

WEDEMAN: No clear idea, but I think we've got a suggestion of what they'll be discussing in January when Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Vatican counterpart.

They discussed a lot of international issues, including Syria, the Israel/Palestine peace negotiations that, of course, the United States is trying to push forward.

There may be discussion of more sensitive topics like abortion and contraception, which the Vatican is not happy about, the fact that it is included in the Affordable Care Act.

But given that the Italian national health service provides both abortion and contraception free of charge, that's probably not going to be a large issue.

Beyond that, they will, of course, be discussing things like income inequality, which is something that both men have been touching on quite a lot in recent years.

Brooke?

BALDWIN: We'll watch for the photo-ops in the coming minutes and, of course, tomorrow with the pope.

Ben Wedeman for us in Rome, thank you so much. And, remember, the pope will be coming to the U.S., sometime next year.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me.

Jim Sciutto in for Jake Tapper, "THE LEAD" starts right now.