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Ships Retrieve Objects in Search Area; Benefits, Challenges of New Search Area; Challenges Involved in Salvage Operation; Rain Hampers Washington Landslide Rescue; Ships Retrieve New Objects In Search; Families In Anguish Waiting For News

Aired March 29, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We've got much more straight ahead in the CNN Newsroom. It is the 11:00 eastern hour of the Newsroom which begins right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

WHITFIELD: All right we're following breaking news at this hour. For the first time now ships scouring the southern Indian Ocean for Flight 370 have retrieved objects seen floating in the search area.

Here's what we know right now.

Two ships: one Chinese, the other Australian, have recovered several of the objects but we don't know yet if they are plain debris or just ocean trash. Chinese search planes spotted three new suspicious objects today. China's official news agency says one is red, the others are orange and white.

And that's in addition to about a dozen other objects seen in the search area yesterday, including an orange rope and a blue bag. It's unclear right now if they are connected to the plane but seven ships are trying to track all of this debris down.

And most of the passengers on board Flight 370 were Chinese nationals. And many of their family members staged a protest today in the streets of Beijing demanding more answers from the Malaysian government. Other families in Malaysia voiced their concerns directly to the country's transportation minister. And he met with them today and promised that he will do, quote, "whatever it takes to find their loved ones."

Well, now, everyone is wondering if those families will finally get some answers from search crews that are chasing down these mystery objects in the Indian Ocean.

Will Ripley joins us from Perth, Australia, where the search operation is based. So Will, what have you learned about these items? How long it will take for them to figure out what they have retrieved?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, this is a pretty interesting process, Fred, because we actually have some video of it that's just come in from CCTV. They're out on one of the ships as they are trying to recover these objects, bringing them on board. We know as you mentioned the three mystery objects, white, orange, and red. The video particularly shows a good view of the red object.

And -- and what's going to happen is basically is that these ships are going to retrieve this debris, they're going to take them here to Australia and then the Royal Air Force here will await instructions from Malaysia about how to handle this. They have experts that they are bringing in who will be able to determine exactly where these -- where these objects came from, are these objects sea trash, are they debris from a jetliner are they from something completely unrelated? Those are all questions that we can't answer right now.

But it's certainly is encouraging that now these planes after weeks of coming home empty-handed are now flying over this area. They're spotting items that have the potential to be jetliner debris. They're flagging them, they're dropping down buoys and marking the location and then these ships, seven ships will be ready when the sun comes up to start looking and tracking these items down.

WHITFIELD: And thus far, Will the weather, seems like it will cooperate even when these other ships make it to the area come sun up?

RIPLEY: At least for the next 24 (AUDIO GAP) forecast is good, although there are some changes in the forecast that could bring rain, that could drop visibility down.

So literally every hour counts here and as soon as the sun rises you can bet that those planes will be up in the air over the search area. The ships will be out trying to maximize the daylight hours to search. And we actually spoke with one pilot just after he landed, explaining how this process works.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSSELL ADAMS, PILOT, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE: The objects that -- that were potentially sighted yesterday, they've been -- their position is being recorded. They've dropped drift buoys in the area to try and get an assessment of what the drift is doing for those objects and other aircraft in the area are attempting to relocate those.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: So we definitely need to point out that these are objects that are not confirmed to be jetliner debris but keep in mind these planes that have been flying for weeks now they've seen a lot of debris over the past weeks that they just were completely able to write off immediately as not connected to the disappearance of Flight 370.

So the fact that they're flagging these items actually have the ships in place ready to retrieve them it's certainly a promising sign but still a lot of work ahead.

WHITFIELD: All right, Will Ripley, thank you so much. Keep us posted.

Let's talk more about the retrieval of these objects and what happens from this point. John Goglia is a former NTSB board member and aviation safety expert. David Soucie is a CNN safety analyst and John Magaw is a security analyst and a former TSA undersecretary. Good to see all of you, gentlemen.

Ok so John, why don't I begin with you? How encouraging is this to you that there are these objects? We know at least about the color of the objects, them being white, orange, red. But no real confirmation of what they have retrieved.

JOHN MAGAW, FORMER TSA UNDERSECRETARY: Well, the --

JOHN GOGLIA, FORMER BOARD MEMBER, NTSB: Well it is encouraging.

WHITFIELD: I'm sorry, John Goglia.

MAGAW: Oh I'm sorry.

GOGLIA: It is encouraging that we are getting some debris. And I hope that it is from the airplane so that we can start narrowing the search down. But given all the effort that's put into this I have no doubt that we're going to get to that airplane.

WHITFIELD: All right I'm sorry that. I forget we had two Johns here. John Magaw in your view, you know with the retrieval of these items, tell us, you know, what the sequence of these ends will be, once they collect them how does anyone discern what it is, what it means, what they're looking for in order to identify these objects?

MAGAW: Well you would bring in all the personnel from Boeing who understand every piece of that aircraft and each part of the aircraft is marked. Not only with a number but also the Boeing on it so it can be identified.

Back in TWA 800 when we put that back together, I happen to be the director of ATF at the time and we worked very closely with the FBI and with all of the NTSB, all of the agencies involved and piece by piece put it back together. If we're that lucky this time, then we'll be able to, just as we were with TW 800, say that it was a spark in an empty fuel tank or an almost empty fuel tank. We would be able to pretty well decide what caused this craft to go down.

WHITFIELD: So David, what makes this further complicated is because you have so many jurisdictions in governments and entities that are involved here. We heard from our own Will Ripley there who said you know those items may have been retrieved, plucked from the water, they are taken to Perth, Australia there the Royal Air Force will be involved and await instruction from Malaysia.

Explain to us how this will work. Who has the lead in an investigation like this when you're talking about international waters?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well Malaysia has the lead in the investigation. However, Australia has been real clear about the fact that all the parts need to be taken to Australia to be centralized not only if it's a China ship, it doesn't matter which of the countries involved. They have to take it all back to Australia. So Australia is in charge of the gathering, the information gathering.

WHITFIELD: And so John Goglia, do you see potentially there being a real problem with these countries working together because at the very beginning we did see some tensions between countries being revealed about working in the early stages of the investigation. Now if we have items, do you see a greater cooperation between countries?

GOGLIA: Well, now that we're starting to follow the IKO rule which all of these countries that are involved in have signed on to, it's a treaty, now that we're following those rules it makes things a lot easier because those procedures have been in place for more than 50 years. They've been well vetted through a number of international accidents. And if we just follow them we will have a good outcome.

WHITFIELD: And John Magaw, you know, are you feeling like there is progress here? I mean are you feeling like even though we don't know what these items are that this is bringing us closer to something concrete as it pertains to this investigation or is it your fear that this really is sea junk?

MAGAW: Well, I don't know whether it's sea junk or not. We'll have to wait and see on that. But Fredericka, it does give me very positive feeling that everything they find now is going to go to one place. And that is so important. And that's what should have been happening long before now, from the very first days.

But it's going to go to one place and then the experts from around the world will be examining it and seeing what they -- what they find and what kind of a case that they can build. Just like I said, TW-800 we were able to tell right where that explosion took place in that aircraft.

Now, you have to get a lot of parts in order to do that. But this is -- this is a good start. Everything to Australia and I can't see anybody now not doing that because they're not giving away any of their secrets.

WHITFIELD: Yes, so a good start now three weeks into it. Your feeling is there was some time wasted?

MAGAW: Oh, absolutely. A lot of time wasted. Probably 14 or 15 days when you take them piece meal and put them -- and put them together. And if you think back from the very first day, all the changes, all the adjustments, all of the -- no, this really didn't happen but this happened and no, that didn't happen either. And you didn't have any central command.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

MAGAW: Which -- which should have been from the beginning.

WHITFIELD: And so David, do you agree that a lot of time was wasted because doesn't it seem as though at least in the first prior -- first couple of weeks perhaps it was all about discovery and trying to figure out which direction to go, trying to understand the trajectory or potential trajectory of this plane. So how was time wasted in your view?

SOUCIE: Well, you know, I don't feel like it was time wasted. I feel more about the fact that any investigation team takes time to gel. I don't care if it's all just in the United States or if it's across multiple countries, especially across multiple countries. It takes time for the team to understand and negotiate with each other and figure out what they're going to share, what they're not. It's -- it's -- it's typical of an investigation to have those types of delays. It is a long time though but remember, there's not a lot of information.

So unless you have confidence in information it's really hard to move forward and with this little and as sketchy as it has been it would be really hard for that to happen.

WHITFIELD: All right David Soucie, John Square I guess I could say since I've got two of you here.

John Goglia and John Magaw thanks to all of you gentlemen we'll talk to you a bit later on in our programming. Thank you.

MAGAW: My pleasure.

WHITFIELD: All right. So this new search area allows planes to fly longer but does it also mean better weather? Meteorologist Alexandra Steele compares the positions for us.

And once searchers do find wreckages from the plane what will it take to retrieve it? I'll talk with a salvage expert next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The aerial search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has wrapped up for today. The new search area is now closer to land and that means the planes can actually search for longer period of times and overall weather conditions are actually less volatile there.

Meteorologist Alexandra Steele joins us to talk more about that. So how do the conditions compare now to the old search location?

ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know, they're much more beneficial on really three notes: weather, water, and waves. And beneficial is the wrong word -- it's more like less detrimental.

Let me show you. Now, this was the old search area. And the key thing here is within what we call the roaring 40s which is the 40- degree latitude mark. And there we have very strong westerlies, big storms, big winds, big waves. And the storms move through completely unencumbered.

Now, farther north now, 700 miles north, the new area and the weather here is certainly a lot easier in terms of the waves. On average here, wave height in the new area, about six feet. On average farther south, 700 miles south, they're about 16 to 19 feet. Big difference when you're out there on the water and the white caps. So also in terms of the water, the depth of the water, farther south it's a lot less chartered, a lot less mapped. So it's really as we look toward the farther northern area we know the topography of the sea surface and below the water much better.

Here's the difference, old surface area, new surface. You know, of course, it's much closer to Perth where all of the flights are emanating from before they were spending an hour and a half searching. Now they get to spend between three and four hours searching -- less flying time and more search time.

Here's the size of this, the search area -- about 123 square miles, about the size of New Mexico. So the search area is massive. No question about that. But look at, also, kind of this delineation of blue. This is the bottom of the water. It's the broken ridge versus the plateau. On the northern portion of the search area it's much more shallow. It's less rough. Southern portion, it is much rougher and about four miles deep compared to one or two miles deep into the water.

In terms of the weather, we've had two nice days; next storm coming in Sunday night into Monday. So, Fred, it's bringing more rain, lower visibilities come back, 30 to 40-mile-per-hour winds coming back, and about two to three inches of rain. It all adds up to really trouble. We've had a nice break but that will change.

WHITFIELD: Right. Ok. Well, I'm sure they appreciate the break but they know they got to seize the opportunity when they can.

STEELE: Right, absolutely.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Alexandra. Appreciate that.

Ok, so once searchers find debris that is linked perhaps to Flight 370, that might help investigators locate the area where the plane may have gone down. Then another phase of the salvage operation will begin.

Kerry Walsh is a salvage master with Global Diving and Salvage. He's joining us now from Los Angeles. Good to see you.

All right. So when crews find objects --

KERRY WALSH, SALVAGE MASTER, GLOBAL DIVING AND SALVAGE: Good morning.

WHITFIELD: -- and they confirm that, yes, it is connected to this plane, help me understand what the next step will be.

WALSH: Well, the next step is going to be to try to locate the place where the plane actually crashed. The challenge here is going to be if we think back to the Air France incident that happened in 2009, I know that you probably had this on the program. But it's important to note that in the Air France incident it was a very similar plane, very similar size. It crashed and the next day the searchers were out in the field, in the ocean. They had the area defined to 40 square miles, 40 square miles. Right now the current is I think it's something like 97,000 square miles, something like that.

WHITFIELD: Right. It's colossal.

WALSH: So they had it narrowed down to 40 square miles. They had people on-site one day later picking up pieces of the plane that were positively identified. They recovered bodies from the ocean. They knew where it impacted and it still took two years to search and locate for the wreckage and recover the black boxes -- two years.

WHITFIELD: And that is remarkable. Yes. And we're talking about an ocean which has greater depth and currents compared to that of the Atlantic where that Air France plane went down.

So if it comes down to finding debris and then mathematically being able to pinpoint because perhaps they're not going to be able to rely on the ping, you know, device coming from that flight data recorder and they are able -- investigators are able to locate some concentrated area of wreckage, that's where you and your kind of expertise would come in.

How would one go about retrieving something in the depths of the ocean because, clearly, retrieving the stuff on the surface is far different than retrieving that that may be at the bottom? How do you go about that?

Well, yes, actually the very first step is locating the debris obviously. But that search is going to be part of what our companies and our industry, the salvage industry does. We do that work. And we would search with side scan sonar, (inaudible) rays, we'd have autonomous underwater vehicles that are basically torpedoes programmed to do search patterns that would be out running around. They would be looking on the seafloor for anomalies which would be indications of the non natural pieces on the seafloor.

If we saw something like that we would turn around and go back and identify it. Based on those images, you would have to come up with a plan based on what you saw in the sonar. You would have to look at that, analyze the sizes, the pieces that are on bottom based on the three dimensional sonar data you developed and you would have to make up a plan to go recover that.

Obviously the first order of business is going to be getting the black boxes. So those -- that piece of the debris if it was on bottom would be located and accessed by remote operated vehicle from the surface that would be able to go down and get on the wreck and use manipulators to open the wreck and recover those boxes from the wreck itself.

WHITFIELD: And you're talking -- you're talking about a lot of apparatus here. So are all of those things -- those kinds of assets already in the region or on the way just in case some of these items are located because, you know, time is always of the essence and it sounds as though it's going to take time to transport all of these things.

WALSH: Well, I think that -- it's my understanding that the U.S. Navy provided a pinger locator, that that is on location and they're probably towing it. Now, that device can go to depths of 20,000 feet and the pinger itself has a range of about three miles. So it needs to be passing nearby that thing and the pinger needs to be operating to be effective.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: And are there barges that would be involved in retrieving, collecting debris or pieces of any kind of plane wreckage? How do you do that?

WALSH: The water depths are too deep for barge operation. So you would use a vessel that would support the operations with the remote vehicles that would have dynamic positioning. That means that it's able to stay on spot. You'd get it over the location and turn on the dynamic positioning and stay within ten feet or so of that position throughout the operation.

WHITFIELD: All right. Kerry Walsh, very comprehensive situation. Thank you so much for helping us get a clear understanding of what's at stake and what may be ahead.

WALSH: You bet.

WHITFIELD: Thank you.

WALSH: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Coming up, a quake hitting California. We'll tell you how big it was and how bad the damage is today. And we'll go live to Washington State, there the search for survivors continues after one of the deadliest landslides in U.S. history striking one week ago today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. We'll have more of our continuing coverage of Flight 370 in just a moment. And here are some other important headlines that we want to tell you about right now.

An earthquake that hit California Friday night was about ten times stronger than the one that struck the same area on St. Patrick's Day. A 5.1 magnitude earthquake caused no major injuries, just a lot of major clean-up. It threw items from shelves, let a couple of thousand people without power and then even broke some water mains. It also triggered a rock slide that led to this car flipping over. Nearly two dozen aftershocks followed.

And it's what caused Washington's killer landslide and it's what is slowing rescuers down today. I'm talking about rain. Again, it is falling in Oso, Washington area where a gargantuan wall of earth simply dropped one week ago today.

Before and after pictures tell the story. What used to be green valleys are now drowning in mud and at least 17 people were killed. CNN's Paul Vercammen is live for us in Arlington, Washington. Paul, I understand that some water is receding and teams are able to get to some areas that were once inaccessible to possibly even search for, what is it, 90 still missing or unaccounted for?

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Fredericka. That's the number that's been given out daily.

And Fredricka, you were talking about the water receding a little bit but those workers were able to get a little progress and now, look today, the river behind me -- we are just downriver from the slide zone. The water is moving fast again. And this is just going to compound the effort by the search crews. They talked about wading in waist deep mud. Another talking about it taking four hours just to fill four buckets of mud -- this has been a very challenging and difficult time. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARY HAAKERSON, SNOHOMISH COUNTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: I believe that the crews are finding bodies in the field. It's a very, very slow process. It was miserable to begin with and as you all know it's rained heavily the last few days. It's made the quicksand even worse. I cannot possibly tell you how long this will last or when or if they will find more bodies. We hope that we do. But right now there's no telling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And they will be back at it again today. Don't forget they're also dealing with a witch's brew of materials, propane, gasoline, septic tank stuff, all of it mixed together as they continue that grim task, Fredericka.

WHITFIELD: Yes, so this is very dangerous for all those involved, potentially dangerous. Thank you so much -- Paul Vercammen.

All right, still ahead, ships recovering several objects from the search zone. And a search plane spots new items. Could it be linked to the missing Malaysian jet?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: We are keeping a close eye on the hunt for Flight 370. There are several new developments this morning. Here's what we know right now. Two ships, one Australian, the other Chinese, have recovered objects seen floating in the search area. We don't know yet if they are plane debris or just ocean trash.

But the fact that crews didn't immediately discount them like they have with other objects just might be promising. Chinese search planes spotted three new suspicious objects as well today. China's official news agency says one is red, the others are orange and white. You're looking at new video of those objects.

And about a dozen other objects were seen in the search area yesterday including an orange rope and a blue bag. But again, it's unclear if they are connected to the plane. Seven ships are trying to track all of that down.

Meantime, family members staged a protest today in the streets of Beijing demanding more answers from the Malaysian government. Other families in Malaysia voiced their concerns directly to the country's transportation minister. He met with them today and promised that he will do, quote, "Whatever it takes to find their loved ones."

All right, several countries are working together to find and retrieve the objects from the water including the U.S. Our Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon. So to what extent, Barbara, is the military helping out in this new search zone?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are those U.S. Navy P-8 long range surveillance aircraft, Fredricka. They're able to stay up in the air for several hours. And joining the hunt, this has been the big challenge. As you were saying a moment ago, now that at least they've been able to bring some objects out of the water, the experts can assess whether or not those objects actually are part of Flight 370.

If they are, then two key pieces of U.S. Navy equipment swing into action. One is the so-called pinger locator. This will be on a ship. It is essentially an array that is towed in the water and will listen for the data recorder's ping, a pinger locator. There also will be a small Navy submersible, sort of a mini-sub, an unmanned drone underneath the water.

It will be able to map the ocean surface and look for any objects under there that may be part of the debris. But all of this first depends on finding debris from the plane, verifying that it's from the plane, and then the oceanographers will work very quickly to look at the current, look at the wind, and figure out where this debris may have come from in the last several days.

Essentially, work their way backwards, where might it have gone into the water, and then all that technology swings into action and starts looking there -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Very complicated. Thank you so much, Barbara Starr. Appreciate that. We're going to bring back our panel in a moment and talk more about that effort and what will be done with the debris that's already being collected. We'll have much more straight ahead after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back. On board a Chinese ship right now off the coast of Australia we understand item retrieved from the new search area, but still unclear whether those items are indeed part of the plane wreckage.

I want to bring back our panel now to talk more about where do we go from here? David Soucie, John Golia, Kerry Walsh and John Magaw. Good to see all of you again, Gentlemen. So John Magaw, you first. You know, with these items on this Chinese ship, what do you suppose is -- how are they being handled right now?

Is it likely there are some dialogue taking place between the crew on board the ship, are there photos being taken, perhaps transmitted to someone for some sort of quick identification? What do you guess is happening on that ship right now?

JOHN MAGAW, FORMER TSA UNDER SECRETARY: All of those kind of things as you just mentioned, plus a very detailed description in writing. It is exactly the time and where it was found and all the details, which would then make this a piece of evidence that could be later used in a court of law. So all of that recording, you pick it up and the first thing you're trying to rush it to Australia and keep records. Every place, so that it doesn't lose its chain of custody.

WHITFIELD: So, David, I wonder, why wouldn't that ship perhaps just stay in the area, awaiting some instruction on other items that may be spotted, because we understand other items now have been spotted in that same area, so that all of this material can be collected at once as opposed to going back and forth because it seems because of the currents things are going to move, right?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Yes. They have multiple ships out there, remember. These crews can't last forever. You've got to rotate crews. You've got to put the right people at the right place. You've got to fuel the ships. Remember, trying to get out there in a hurry at flank speeds, they could burn up their fuel really quickly. There are things like that they've been trying to get from position to position. There are reasons to bring it back.

WHITFIELD: And, Kerry, what are your concerning about how these items might be handled? There are so many ships representing different countries that are in the area, but not all of them may be specific to retrieve all of potential evidence. What are your concerns about how they would be handled, how they would be contained while in transit, Kerry?

KERRY WALSH, SALVAGE MASTER, GLOBAL DIVING AND SALVAGE: I think that's really not in my area of work. But my concern would be that they would document very precisely the size, the location of the pieces of debris that they recover off the surface so that we can hind cast that back and look through the set and drift data to figure out where the plane actually impacted. That's very important.

WHITFIELD: And John Golia, what are your concerns, if any, about how items might be retrieved, how they're investigated, how they're handled, how they're transported?

JOHN GOGLIA, FORMER BOARD MEMBER, NTSB: Well, every step of the way they have to be documented as was mentioned earlier. When we recovered TW-800 and Egypt Air and even the John F. Kennedy accident, every piece of material was brought up had to be identified, carefully handled, and then examined again in a laboratory to make sure that there was no trace evidence left anywhere in case there was something like a bomb or any other flaw.

So it all has to be very carefully coordinated. You know, the Malaysians are controlling this so they're calling the shots. They're the ones that allowed Australia to collect this evidence. They're the ones controlling where the ships go.

You know, it's not really 50 countries out there. It's Malaysia out there and these countries are operating as an extension of the Malaysian government. They are under the control of the Malaysian government.

WHITFIELD: So, John Magaw, Malaysian authorities want to take the lead on this investigation, but clearly there might be some other countries including Australia or the U.S. who may have better technology in which to investigate or retrieve the items. How do you see Malaysian authorities working in concert with these countries, particularly at this stage?

MAGAW: Well, I believe that the Malaysian authorities are now going to work very closely with all the entities because of the different situations they've had that they weren't productive. And so I believe that they will work closely and, like was said, these parts all going back to Australia, that gives me an indication that they are. What we have to be careful of is that we don't have 40 pieces on 40 ships and as they're coming back to Australia, they're not catalogued.

WHITFIELD: And, David, does it seem as though there is a new pace that we're seeing because over the last couple of days we talked about different satellite imagery. Now we're talking about airplanes that are flying some 300 feet above surface that are spotting things, taking pictures, and now we're seeing almost a more rapid pace of the attempts to retrieve items. Is this --

SOUCIE: Yes, absolutely.

WHITFIELD: Are you encouraged by this? Does this seem rather typical or does it seem as though suddenly there's a keener interest or keener eye being placed on this investigation and location?

SOUCIE: Yes, this investigation is going to have ebbs and flows like every investigation does. And right now, yes, I see that there are some movement forward. Again, because I think that this group, this investigative team, the Malaysians have started to accept and understand the importance of having the other experts involved. I think it's very important to get that information.

One thing I wanted to mention about the parts you were talking about is there are some things even without being expert that would be very important on this aircraft. One is in the cargo compartment of this aircraft it's distinctively green when most aircraft are still painted white over.

So that and these parts as John Goglia mentioned before are all identified with a 200 part number or 300 part number. There's some identification that can be done in the field before they bring it back to Australia.

WHITFIELD: All right, Gentlemen, thank you so much. We will talk more about this. Of course, David Soucie, John Goglia, Kerry Walsh, John Magaw, to all of you, thank you.

Families of Flight 370, passengers, they're of course expressing a lot of frustration and concern over this investigation. We'll meet someone who understands their anguish. She has been through it herself.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOE CARTER, CNN SPORTS: Hi, I'm Joe Carter. If your March Madness bracket is busted, here's a story anyone can root for. Brothers, Archie and Sean Miller if they continue winning could face-off in the national championship game. Now, Sean is the head coach of the top ranked Arizona Wildcats. While Archie leads the Dayton Fliers, of course, this year's surprise team.

Now, these two brothers have never faced off against each other as head coaches, but wouldn't it certainly be something to see them go head to head in the national championship game? So tonight, two teams will earn a spot in the final four. Both games can be seen on our sister network, TBS.

In the early game, this Cinderella story Dayton faces the number one overall seed Florida. Huge match-up between the Wisconsin Badgers and the Arizona Wildcats. Recap what happened Friday night, Kentucky, Michigan, Michigan State and UConn won and advance to play Sunday in the Elite 8. Stick around more news after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Families of Flight 370 passengers have been demanding answers for three weeks now, tensions have been boiling over and this week, dozens of family members walked out of a meeting in protest. One even accused Malaysian authorities of hiding facts. CNN's Davis McKenzie was with family members in Beijing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The trauma of waiting. For weeks, hundreds of family members of those on board Flight 370 have been stuck in a hotel in Beijing. A pressure cooker of grief and emotion. When they were told the plane went down, some via text message, it was overwhelming. Then grief boiled over into anger. These families have banded together and leaders like Steve Wang have emerged. Without physical evidence, he believes his mother could still be alive, but the wait is weighing on them all.

STEVE WANG, MOTHER WAS ON FLIGHT 370: It is a hard time, all of us are exhausted, both mental and physical. We just have to wait so it's really a hard time.

MCKENZIE: Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gordon Peters has deep experience helping families deal with trauma, he calls the situation terrible.

DR. GORDON PETERS, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL SOS: They're not even able to say let's deal with this, let's discuss it. They still have confliction of is my loved one alive are they dead? The sense of loss just keep perpetuating.

MCKENZIE (on camera): Often family members are stock inside this conference room for hours each day, many tell me that they still believe their family members are still alive, even if logically, the chances seem quite remote.

PETERS: They go to bed at night and probably logically know it's happening, but they don't want to give up. They want to have the good moments with their life. They want to continue to hope for the best.

MCKENZIE: And in a culture where family is everything, they are refusing to give up because the consequences are just too great.

WANG: Well, my mom used to say that where there are people, there are family. But one's lost, so it's a disaster to my family.

MCKENZIE: David McKenzie, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The grief of losing a loved one can be devastating, but not knowing their fate can be even more traumatic perhaps. Heidi Snow knows this as well as just about anyone as she lost her fiance in the crash of TWA Flight 800. She started a support group for victims of air tragedies called Access. She joins me now from San Francisco. Good to see you, Heidi.

HEIDI SNOW, FOUNDER, ACCESS: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: This is clearly torturous for victims' families, at week three now, still no plane, no bodies, no confirmation of plane wreckage, so do you believe most loved ones that are still hoping that there are passengers and crew that are alive?

SNOW: I remember so well this point in time, we were gathered at the family assistance center similar to how they are, just holding out hope for answers, some sort of confirmation. For me it took five weeks before his remains were actually found and in that time, I kept going back and forth, I held out hope. All of us at Access, we have got thousands of calls for help at this time, from hundreds of different air disasters dating back to 1950.

Everyone goes through this hope phase, the next hour, we hold on to hope and really believe that maybe they are gone, but it's so hard to even imagine facing a life without our loved ones, with a future that's planned and what's really difficult is usually the people who are in grief over this have lost the person that they would turn to during a time like this.

So if they're in crisis, this loved one that they have lost is the person they need most. I remember that, really needing him to get through it, yet he was the person that was gone. And so many people say that in our book. I have interviewed hundreds of people and they all speak of the fact that it's so difficult because the person they really need during the hardest time of their lives is the person who's gone. I feel for these families and I just remember being at the site, we had people who were angry, we had people who were sobbing, we had people who were just completely in shock, even this many weeks out because there are no answers.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

SNOW: And I just remember waiting to hear, did they find my loved one's remains? And the hardest part was we actually had to leave the family assistance center and go home, which is going to happen at some point with these families with nothing. So I went home and tried to resume my life, but I still didn't have any confirmation that he truly was on board.

WHITFIEL: Just listening to you reflect, it almost seems as though this new experience, this search, is making you kind of relive everything you thought and experienced as if it has just happened again to you, am I reading that right?

SNOW: Yes. I mean, we're finding that our phone lines have really heated up since this first occurred from people from past air disasters who are all reliving their losses and wanting to talk about their loved ones again. And a lot of people have come forward to volunteer and be there for others, because they remember it so well and really want to help these families and be there for them.

So it really bringing us all back to day one. And I'm seeing the footage on TV, I really recognize and remember so well what it felt like to be there and just not have confirmation and to be waiting and to be all together with holding out hope, but at the same time, at this time, it starts to dissipate a little bit. And that transition is extremely difficult as well.

WHITFIELD: And then, you know, Malaysian authorities admit, they said all are lost, they said that just days ago, if not a week ago, the plane ended, but then today, when meeting with families, officials said they remain hopeful. And are they doing this out of a need of the victim's family members, or does this continue to confuse them or does it indeed comfort them?

SNOW: I think at this point, there's nothing concrete, so any kind of answers they're given or beliefs they're given, none of is it tangible. So without any remains confirming that their loved ones are actually gone, and without any physical pieces of wreckage, none of these words really make a difference. They're going to hold out hope right now and then going back and forth on the reality that they could be gone.

WHITFIELD: Heidi Snow, thank you so much and your organization, Access, for those who want to check online and hope to get a better understanding of what you and other victims of plane crashes have been going through. Thanks so much.

SNOW: Thank you, Fredricka.

All right, what happens if searchers find the black boxes from Flight 370 and what happens if they're damaged? Can that vital information ever be recovered? We go inside a lab to find out.

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