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Ships Retrieve Objects In Search Area; Australia Asserts Control Over Search; Navy Technology; Navy Technology Will Help Find, Identify Debris; Kerry, Lavrov To Meet On Ukraine Crisis; How Is Data Recovered From The "Black Boxes?"; Missing Flight 370: The Legal Case

Aired March 29, 2014 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, again, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Welcome to the CNN NEWSROOM. It's the noon Eastern Hour. We begin with a potentially promising new development in the search for Flight 370. Today for the first time, ships patrolling the Southern Indian Ocean got their hands on floating objects that could possibly be plane debris.

Here's what we know right now. Two ships, one Chinese, the other Australian have recovered several objects. We don't know yet if they are plane debris, but the fact that crews didn't immediately dismiss them as trash, could be a hopeful sign. Chinese search planes spotted three new suspicious objects today.

China's official's news agency says one is red, the others are orange and white. That's in addition to about a dozen other objects seen in the area, in the search area yesterday including an orange rope and a blue bag. Again, it's unclear right now if those items are connected to the plane. But seven ships are trying to track all of that down.

And anger over Malaysia's handling of the crisis spilled into the streets of Beijing today. Family members staged a protest accusing Malaysian officials of keeping information from them. One father actually refusing to give up hope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WEN WANCHENG, FATHER OF PASSENGER (through translator): They're all still alive, my son and everyone on board, the plane is still there too, they're hiding it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Other families in Malaysia voice their concerns directly to the country's transportation minister. The minister actually getting choked up when discussing the crisis calling it the most difficult part of his life right now. He promised the families he will do whatever it takes to find their loved ones. Search crews scoured 97,000 square miles of the Southern Indian Ocean today alone. The search picks up again tomorrow at daybreak.

Rob McCallum is a 30-year veteran of ocean exploration. We now have plane spotting objects as opposed to just satellites now. Ships have been able to retrieve some of those objects that I mentioned still in clear whether it is indeed plane debris. So help us understand what is taking place here. How much more encouraging is it that ships are -- and planes are spotting and then picking up these items for further investigation?

ROB MCCALLUM, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: This is a huge step. Up until now, the searchers relied on, you know, the reinterpretation of the original hand shake data and then the extrapolation of information from satellite imagery. But to actually have some tangible evidence, something that you can put your hands on, you know, if this is linked to MH-370, this is a huge step forward.

The reason why is that because for the first time it gives us a real start point, up until now, we have been looking around to -- we want to get our search equipment into the ballpark. Up until now, we have been looking around to find out which state or which county the ballpark might be in. But this would be the first start point, if you like, for a retro navigation exercise and an underwater search area.

WHITFIELD: And what are all the things that are taking place as it pertains to these items that are retrieved because it's not as simple as retrieve those items, put them on a ship, take them back to, you know, Australia, and then figure out how they further investigate. But there also has to be note taken as to where those items were retrieved and how significant that might be to connect other debris floats in the area or whether there may be other sunken material in that same vicinity, right?

MCCALLUM: That's correct. Because not all material is equal when it comes to drifting around on the ocean currents and as a result of the weather conditions. So for instance, something like a seat cushion or something like insulation is going to be up on the surface of the water, propelled by waves and by wind. Something like a wing tip or a tail is going to be pretty much submerged and propelled mainly by current, less so by the wind.

So all of these objects will have different drift patterns, different drift rates which is very handy when you want to apply some retro navigation to work your way back upstream or upwind to where the stuff would have originated from, from the initial impact site.

WHITFIELD: OK, so Rob, I want to bring in other members of our panel right now, David Soucie is a CNN safety analyst. He joins me from New York and Ric Gillespie is a former aviation accident investigator and the author of "Finding Amelia." He is in Oxford, Pennsylvania.

OK, so Gentlemen, let's continue this conversation, when Rob is talking about different drift rates, which helps explain why debris, if it is related to this wreckage, would be scatter about.

But my question too is as you retrieve these items that have so far been collected on an Australian as well as the Chinese ship, how important will it be for experts to go back to that same location to see, David, whether there is sunken material in that same vicinity where material may have been plucked from the sea? DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: As you mentioned, it's really important to document where it comes out of the water. I'm curious with the ocean experts that we have here, if it might be worthwhile to leaf some of those objects in the water and see what track they're on from that point forward. Is that something that might help going back to the facts so maybe he could address that?

But as far as getting the objects up on the ships and getting them examined, it is an incredibly tedious process to make sure that they're documented properly. The important thing is to get them back to the Boeing experts because I've been amazed at how a small, small piece of that aircraft can be identified as to what it is and where it came from.

WHITFIELD: OK, well, Rob, how about we pose that question to you that David is posing there. Is it ever wise not to retrieve floating objects?

MCCALLUM: The last significant aircraft that went into the sea, Air France 447, there was a lot of modelling using both real material and also artificial material, which had been created to mimic the original material. Again, it gets us into the ballpark, but it won't give us the actual search area that we need. That's probably more the domain of oceanographers and perhaps if we could go back to the satellite data to go track this data back to its start point.

WHITFIELD: OK, and then Rick, let me bring into this. David is, you know, bringing up a lot of great points that are helping to spawn some new questions as it pertains to how Boeing will help identify potential parts that may be retrieved from the sea. So is it your understanding that Boeing will already be in Australia, be able to identify some of these markings right away or is this something that comes down the line after retrieval of several items that might be in another country? How do you see this happen? What would be the sequence of events?

RIC GILLESPIE, FORMER AVIATION ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR: It would depend a lot on exactly what type of wreckage, debris was recovered. If these are parts of the airplane, I would expect the Boeing people to be able to identify it as part of a Boeing airplane, specifically a 777 quite quickly. If it's other material that was aboard the aircraft that happens to be floating, that makes it a lot more difficult, did floating debris come from this airplane or did it fall off a ship?

That's pretty tricky. So it will depend a lot on how big the pieces are, what they're pieces of and the complexity of the piece that's there. I spent all day yesterday at the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio doing exactly this exercise with a piece of metal that we think may be from Amelia Earhart's airplane, which is a much colder case than this. But you would look for the type of aircraft that it came from.

WHITFIELD: So David, you know, lot of chefs in the kitchen potentially. I mean, you've got Boeing officials, you've got government officials representing different nations, Australia, even the U.S. military and now Malaysia and then of course Rolls Royce having to do with the engines of the plane, if it turns out that there are engine parts that might be retrieved.

Is there an issue of who takes the lead on this or is it just simply an understanding that all these people, all these representatives will have to work together because typically that's what happens in any plane crash investigation?

SOUCIE: There are some conventions between the countries that force them to work together. But more importantly, the -- currently right now, the Malaysians have handed over the responsibility of gathering this material to the Australian Civil Aviation Authority and what they have done is they have made a clear announcement to everybody that's in the search, whatever's found has to be returned to a singular point, a singular location.

That's where I would suspect that they would have these Boeing experts to be able to determine because remember, Boeing has been part of the international team that helped them determine where the new search area was so they are on site.

WHITFIELD: Then, Rob, there's the issue of the shapes of these items, the shapes can tell you a lot about whether it is indeed plane wreckage or other components as you say that may have been on the plane or not that could immediately discount whether this debris is legitimately from wreckage, correct?

MCCALLUM: Yes, that's correct. I mean, you know, with the Air France crash, we really lucked out initially with the finding of the tile that has the air carrier's monogram on the tail, so there's no doubt at all what you're dealing with. If could find something like a seat cushion or a door with a serial number on it, then that gets us down the track quite quickly. And I think that that's likely over the next few days if this is indeed from MH-370, then, you know, the search area zones in on this particular area, and you'll start finding a lot of stuff quite quickly.

WHITFIELD: All right, Rob McCallum, David Soucie, Ric Gillespier, thanks to all of you, we're going to of course talk further on all of these potential developments.

All right, and there are only a few labs in the world that can actually take part in the handling of the recovery of data from a damaged black box, we'll take you to one of those labs and show you exactly how it might be done.

Plus new details on the search for Flight 370. Crews retrieving several objects, what next in Australia?

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WHITFIELD: All right, we are waiting to hear if several objects, floating objects, retrieved today in the Southern Indian Ocean are connected to Flight 370. Will Ripley joins us now from Perth, Australia where the search operation is based. So Will, when will we know something about those items? WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, step one is that the ships that are in the area, seven ships at this hour that will be working to recover objects throughout the day. Those objects will be taken on board those ships, taken to a central location in Australia lab where experts will analyze them.

We know that the objects that were recovered just in the search efforts from earlier today, those items are on two ships. They are on a ship from China, the Haishin, and a ship from Australia, the "Success" and as far as we know from authorities that are speaking to reporters here, no items yet have been verified to be connected to Flight 370.

But we know that a number of objects were spotted from the air today. You know, specifically we had some video that came in of three objects, a white object, orange and red, that was spotted by a Chinese plane, we don't believe that those objects have been recovered yet, but a buoy was dropped down to mark that area so when sun rises the ships will be able to go there and look for it. Some of the crew members are talking now. We have some new sound from them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After entering the search area, the air lifter flew for about 20 minutes. We found an L-shaped debris in orange color right below the plane's right wing. Then within around 3 minutes, we found a strip shaped object. We immediately reported our findings to the captain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: OK, so you heard it there, describing the objects that were found, and so the step will be now for the ships to go into that area and recover them -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: And so Will, you mentioned the two ships, Australian ship and Chinese ship that have already retrieved the items and they've got to get to land. We understand there might even be video being made available to us shortly about the items on that Chinese ship. So we can't wait to be able to look at that and share that with everyone.

Meantime, you mentioned, come daybreak is when ships will be able to go back out and search planes can get back out and conduct their searches. What is the forecast? Because as we know the forecast has been standing in the way of other searches in other parts of the ocean, but what about this new search area for tomorrow?

RIPLEY: The encouraging thing about this new search area is that because it's closer to the Australian coastline, it's also farther north than the search earlier, which the weather was very volatile and could literally change in a split second. It's still volatile in the area where we are searching now, but we have had some pretty good weather and at least for the next 24 hours or, the forecast continues to be good.

But then there are some changes in the forecast that could reduce visibility in this area, so this really will be a critical time tomorrow. Eight search planes will be up. They plan to start taking off around 6:00 a.m. local time, so about six hours from now. Those seven ships are now in place. They were arriving sporadically throughout the day. There were two Chinese ships that had been there from the sun rise yesterday morning.

But we had five other ships that were moving into place. Now all seven ships are in place, eight planes will be flying overhead and spotting. So we are really positioned in a good point now that if something is spotted, a ship should be able to get over in that direction and pick it up. We hope other objects will be recovered so we can determine where they came from.

WHITFIELD: All right, Will Ripley, keep us posted. Thanks so much from Perth, Australia. All right, The U.S. military is ready to help if and when those objects are linked to Flight 370. Our Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon, so to what extent would they be assisting?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fred. Well, as Will was saying, if they can pick up objects from the ocean, if they can verify that they come from flight 370, then the next step will be this, oceanographers will very quickly begin to calculate the ocean currents, the wind, the drift, the number of days elapsed and they will calculate a new search box, if you will, on the ocean, where to go look for actual debris on the ocean floor, where to go look for where the data recorders may have sunk.

This is the key thing now. They need the debris to begin to work backwards and calculate it. If they can do all that, the Navy will step in with two key pieces of technology, it has that pinger locator system, that is essentially a piece of equipment that will be put in the water, towed behind a ship and it will listen for any beeps, any pings from the data recorders.

Time is running out, but there is still time, so they will put that in the water in this new search area, they will calculate and listening for any pings from data recorders. They also will have a small unmanned robotic vehicle that they will put into the water. It can map the bottom of the ocean floor and it will able to look and calculate if there are any large significant pieces of debris on the ocean floor, anything at all that they can recover from the plane. Those are the next steps everyone is waiting for -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Barbara Starr, thank you so much from the Pentagon.

All right, later on this hour, we know the Flight 370 families are dealing with a lot of grief and anger, and our Sanjay Gupta has details about how the stress and the sadness just might be impacting them.

Plus, heightened tensions along the border of Russia and Ukraine, we head there live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: All right, keep it here for continuing coverage of Flight 370. But first, let's tell you about some other stories right now. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart today to discuss the crisis in Ukraine. Kerry is now headed to Paris, ahead of a meeting early next week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Russia reiterated today that it has no intention of invading Ukraine, but it's buildup along Ukraine's border has created a tense situation. Our Karl Penhaul is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dim lights cast long shadows over this border checkpoint. Just beyond, thousands of Russian troops amassing. The U.S. fears it's old cold war foe may be ready to roll into this corner of northeast Ukraine.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It may simply be an effort to continue in the Ukraine, or it may be that they've got additional plans

PENHAUL: A short drive into Ukraine, Vladimir Fedorok, is marshalling a self defense militia made up of civilian volunteers. They know western powers have no stomach for war. They're digging trenches of where they may be the last line of defense if Russian tanks invade.

VLADIMIR FEDOROK, COMMANDER, SELF-DEFENSE MILITIA (through translator): If we don't learn the lesson of Crimea then we will be a nation of idiots. The Russian hoards are coming. We are in the middle of a geopolitical struggle.

PENHAUL: Most of the men here say they have had some military training, they picked up second hand uniforms from surplus stores, but they're short on real weapons. Fedorok showed me a stash of Molotov cocktails, he hints they have explosives too.

FEDOROK (through translator): We are preparing for guerrilla-style war and we'll divide into five-man squads. Our government is too passive and we can only hope for the support of ordinary Ukrainians.

PENHAUL: It's clear they are winning that support when you see passersby donating supplies.

OLEK PAMFIL, VAN DRIVER: Our troops need some help, so I have a decision to bring food for our troops.

PENHAUL: Up the highway, a detachment of Ukrainian troops, they say they're on high alert. A tank and personnel carriers pointed to the nearby bridge, the order, defend it or blow it up. In Ukraine's Crimea region, the army did not put up a flight. Not clear if things here would be any different. Intelligence experts still don't really know if the Russians are coming. Moscow insists they are just doing drills.

(on camera): Among the Ukrainian soldiers here, there's very much a sense of disbelief. They said that during soviet times and afterwards, they trained alongside the Russians. They still very much see them as brothers in arms, but now they're facing them down the barrel of a gun.

(voice-over): Dangerous times of high thrills for boys from the nearby village. For now it is only they who create havoc and let slip their dog of war.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Karl Penhaul, live with us now. So you've got new information I understand about the buildup, what are you hearing?

PENHAUL: Yes, well, we have spent the afternoon driving along the Ukrainian-Russian borders through some of these small potato farming villages to see what we can find out. A few moments ago, we came across a Ukrainian military listening post. It was grizzling with radar communications equipment, sophisticated listening and observation devices.

And we were able to talk to one of the majors commanding that small post and he said that for the last few days now he has been watching this Russian military buildup on his radar and on the various pieces of equipment he has. He says just across the border, about 15 miles from where we are in fact, there are many, many troops.

But he says also worryingly they have attack helicopters. They have tanks and in his words they also have missiles and artillery pieces as well. When I said to him, is this just a drill? Is that just a normal military exercise on the other side of the border? He shook his head and said I can't get involved in political affairs.

But it was quite clear from his gestures and his comments that he really believed the military presence of the Russians on the other side of the border is simply too big for a drill. He maybe thinks an incursion could be coming.

WHITFIELD: OK, keep us posted on that. Karl Penhaul, appreciate that.

All right, more objects have been spotted in the new search area for Flight 370. But are any of those objects linked to that missing plane. We'll look at what just one of those ships collected next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A potential new clue in the search for Flight 370. Here's what we know right now. A Chinese ship and an Australian ship have recovered objects seen floating in the search area. This is brand-new video of some of the objects being scooped up from the water we understand from the Chinese ship.

We don't know yet if the objects are indeed plane debris or just ocean trash that you see there. But then soon, these objects will be handed over to experts at a lab for analysis in Australia as we understand, for starters. Meantime, Chinese search planes spotted three new suspicious objects today, separate from what you're just seeing in that video. China's official news agency says one object is red, the others are orange and white. About a dozen other objects were seen in the search area yesterday including an orange rope and a blue bag.

But again, it is unclear if any of these objects are being connected to that potentially doomed flight. Seven ships are tracking down the objects in the ocean as we understand it, there in the Indian Ocean.

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 not abandon the search.

So if these latest sightings in the new area pan out, it could help narrow a desperate underwater search for the plane's black boxes, the data and voice recorders. Time is running out to find these locator pings coming from the boxes, but if they are damaged, the boxes, can the data still be recovered? Here's CNN Athena Jones.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fred, there are only a handful of laboratories in the world that are capable of retrieving data from a black box that's been damaged. Here's an inside look at one of those labs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE KOLLY, NTSB DIRECTOR, RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING: This is one of the more advanced labs in the world and for that reason that's why we tend to help other countries.

JONES (voice-over): Here at the National Transportation Safety Board state of the art laboratory, a demonstration of what it takes to get vital information from the all-important black boxes. This is what the pinging of one of the data recorders sounds like, once it's made contact with water. Even after a prolonged period in salt water, data from these devices is still retrievable.

ERIN GORMLEY, NTSB, AERONAUTICS ENGINEER: We have had a good success rate with recovery. All of the recorders go through different stresses, but overall, we have had a very good success rate with water recovery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ever not gotten data in a water recovery in.

GORMLEY: I can't think of one.

JONES: Recorders found in salt water are first bathed in fresh water and later carefully dried and taken apart to reveal this. The device's memory card. Even a damaged card can be useful say recorder engineer, Erin Gormley.

GORMLEY: The data does jump from chip to chip, so even if you have one corrupt chip because it has cracked or it has gotten some sort of corrosion on it we still should be able to build the information back.

JONES: Information from the flight data recorder's memory card, which keeps track of data like the plane's pitch, altitude and speed is downloaded on to a computer system where teams make sense of the data. To us it just looks like zeros and ones.

GORMLEY: We get information from the manufacturer of the aircraft that has a data map, and that data map translates all the zeros and one into actual parameters.

JONES: For the cockpit voice recorder, a team of six to eight people helps transcribe the devices for channels, which pick up not just voices, but everything from a door opening to a seat shifting. The work they do here is difficult, but it's key to understanding what went wrong in airline disasters.

GORMLEY: We want to make sure this never happens again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: The director of this NTSB lab says it's incredibly rare for them to come across a black box too damaged for them to be able to access the data. And it's not water, but a high intensity fire that's likely to make that information irretrievable -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, thank you so much, Athena Jones. So again now, we have new images that have just come in from the Chinese ship, there were two ships that apparently had retrieved some items in the Indian Ocean in this new search zone, and now you're looking at the video, night time video that we have just received, you see a net being scooped into the water there and retrieving what appears to be a very small object in relation to the net and the hand there.

It almost looks like a piece of plastic, but then you also see right there the examination of this paper or plastic item, perhaps there are words on it. You see the Chinese officials there aboard that ship looking at it. But again, we understand this material will make its way to Perth, Australia and potentially into a lab where other experts will further examine it and see whether this is just trash from the sea or whether it is information that is connected to potential plane wreckage of Malaysia Flight 370.

Let's talk more about this find, this little bit of video with our panel, which is back with us now, Rob McCallum, David Soucie and Ric Gillespie. David, I understand you were able to watch with all of us there, that video, Ric or Rob, you're unable to see the video, so we're going have to rely on your expertise based on our explanations of what we're seeing from that video.

So David, what does that say to you, this video? Because right away, it almost looks to be trash, but of course, there could be potentially valuable information on it. The writing, does indicate anything that may be common place on a flight such as 777? What do you surmise when you see this video?

SOUCIE: Well, Fredericka, as an FAA inspector, I look at the processes than I do the actual material and what concerns me a great deal there. I can't get much about what it looks like without inspecting it closely. But what concerns me a great deal is the method that they use to pull it out, which is a net that is acceptable.

But from that point on, evidence especially paper or thin evidence like that needs to be kept in salt water until it can be appropriately cleaned and put into fresh water. That concerns me that they're already touching it. They're contaminating that evidence. It needs to be taken out, carefully stored and put into an evidence locker of some kind, a change of custody, all of these pieces are very important and I'm very concerned about how it's been handled right now.

WHITFIELD: So you're seeing a real conflict with the intention of this crew to retrieve this information, but they don't have the expertise on board in which to properly handle it. That might be a concern on the Australian ship or any of the seven ships that are in the area for that matter. So how would that be policed or controlled, David?

SOUCIE: Well, the Australians are in charge of the actual gathering of this material. It surprises me they haven't done some kind of training how to retrieve these items from the ocean. There's some basic things there that concern me a little bit and hopefully, if they hear this broadcast, they'll start taking more care in that.

WHITFIELD: OK, Ric, I know you're at a disadvantage in that you're not able to see the video that we are replaying right now. But based on our descriptions, what are your concern about how material might be retrieved from the sea, the apparatus used, the handling of it and whether in any way, potential evidence is being compromised in its transport?

GILLESPIE: Well, fortunately, CNN has been able to e-mail me screenshots so I have seen me of this.

WHITFIELD: Great.

GILLESPIE: And my concerns are the same as everyone else's. There are hands here touching things that's not being put back into salt water, conservation measures aren't being taken. It's a simple matter of just putting on some latex gloves to prevent contamination. At some point, if it gets to the point if somebody is looking for contact DNA, to see if we have a passenger identified on one of these things, it's contaminated, these people are touching it. So, yes, it's a problem.

WHITFIELD: So Rob, is that contamination immediate, as soon as these hands are on it or is there a period of time in which -- set in of these objects while it's being transported to the coast, to the lab?

MCCALLUM: You know, it's always important to try and maintain the chain of evidence, particularly when you're dealing with stuff that's been in the sea a long time. You know, recovering something like evidence from the Titanic or whatever, it deteriorates quite quickly when it's brought to the surface. WHITFIELD: Quickly as in hours or days?

MCCALLUM: It can be minutes, in the case of something that's exposed to air, but this is very new material. So I think the dangers are less, but what's interesting to me, is whether the objects and I can't see the objects, whether the object is floating below the surface of the sea or whether there's a portion of them that's sticking out in the air. That's very useful to us later on when we're trying to backtrack.

We really want to know if every single item, was it propelled by the wind or was it propelled by the current because by knowing that we can work our way up current or upwind and depending on the object, those will be different pathways back to the original source.

WHITFIELD: And I think it's extraordinary if these are representations of the items being transported, it's remarkable, that as small as they are, that they could be spotted by the naked eye or by any other means, because you're talking about some of these search planes flying 500 feet over the surface of the water. It's extraordinary to be able to spot something so small. So Rob McCallum, David Soucie, Rick Gillespie, thank you so much. We'll talk further on this as we continue to try to examine and extrapolate based on the video that we are seeing.

Also up next, searching for justice, one father who lost a son on that flight moving forward already with a lawsuit and it could be just the beginning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back. Lawyers have initiated a lawsuit against Malaysia Airlines and Boeing over the disappearance of Flight 370. A Chicago-based law firm filed the petition on behalf of a man whose son was on the plane. It's a discovery action which means the lawyers are trying to get information, specifically they want to find out the manufacturers of various plane components.

They also want to know the company or the person who last inspected the fuselage and provided maintenance. The lead lawyer says other potential defendants could be named in days to come. Experts say this could be just the start of a long legal fight by families.

Let's bring in our legal guys to talk more about this, Avery Friedman, a civil rights attorney and law professor in Cleveland, and this week, we have aviation attorney, Arthur Rosenberg with us from New York. Good to see both of you, Gentlemen.

So Avery, why don't I have you comment first on this legal action that apparently a Chicago firm is already involved in, premature or is this the way it goes?

AVERY FRIEDMAN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: No, it's right on the money, Fredricka, the importance of trying to develop initial discovery at this juncture, because there are so many questions unanswered, at least ry to find out what we do know. So they're zeroing in on product issues, on Boeing. So it is that start as you say of very long road. We have a long to go, but it is a critical first step in how to approach this absolutely tragic situation.

WHITFIELD: And interesting, and now Arthur, let's re-examine this information that we have just received, this video from this Chinese ship, which is showing the potential retrieval of items from the Indian Ocean and it's unclear whether these items were indeed from Flight 370. But say a lab says, yes, it looks like this information that is being retrieved by way of this net here, what appears to be some plastic or some sort of paper, you see the fingers on it, you see the flash light now.

Will attorneys, will families be able to make a case or say the mishandling or the fact that this potential evidence isn't handled in the most optimal way could impact the overall investigation about what happened to this flight? Could that argument be made? Do you like the way this information is being handled thus far?

ARTHUR ROSENBERG, AVIATION LAWYER: What you're talking about is the change of custody, how this evidence is being taken out of the ocean, it's going to be tagged. It's going to be identified. Each element of the path or the travel of that piece of wreckage or whatever it is from the ocean to its depository is going to be well identified and marked.

I want to go back to something that Avery said, I could not disagree more whole heartedly that this lawsuit started by the firm in Chicago is nothing more than a grab for publicity. We don't even know the accident scenario yet. We don't know if there was mechanical malfunction. We don't know if there was some nefarious act by someone in the cabin.

We just don't know. This was a pre-action discovery for every single document, basically, that go into a Boeing 777. If Boeing complied with this, this law firm if they had enough money could build a 777. This is nothing more than a grab for publicity.

We don't have bodies. We don't have wreckage. It is premature and irresponsible and it just does not bode well or look well for the legal profession and I couldn't disagree more wholeheartedly with that they've done.

WHITFIELD: Potentially might it kind of set a tone on legal cases that are likely to come involving this as a result of whether it's premature or in one view or just simply early or timely in another?

ROSENBERG: Right, well, here's the bottom line, we have two years to file an action under the Montreal Convention, two years, there's plenty of time. And after we file an action, there are going to be issues where is this action could be brought. Who the passengers were, what did their tickets say? Was it the place of ultimate destination? The principal place of business, can it be brought only in Malaysia, in the United States, possibly in Australia, where this wreckage is going to be gathered and collated and put back together.

WHITFIELD: All right, so real quick, Arthur. Avery, you have the last word on that.

FRIEDMAN: Very simply, they have everything to gain, nothing to lose. From the stand point of the victims, starting this discovery is an appropriate thing to do. I actually think under the convention, here we have another example of technology doing better than where the law is, time to amend that 1999 convention so that there is a possibility of getting to the truth.

WHITFIELD: All right, Avery Friedman, Arthur Rosenberg, thank you so much, Gentlemen. Appreciate it. Much more straight ahead.

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WHITFIELD: We can't forget, March Madness is in full swing. And later today, two teams will punch their ticket to the final four. The Dayton Flyers are this year's Cinderella. The 11th seed has already pulled off three upsets to make the Elite Eight. But to make the final four, Dayton will have to achieve their biggest upset yet and beat to the number one seed, the Florida Gators. The Gators have won 29 games in a row. Tipoff is 6:09 Eastern Time.

The other game tonight, number one seed Arizona takes on number two seed Wisconsin, that's at 8:49 Eastern. And we'll be back in 75 seconds.

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WHITFIELD: We'll have much more coverage on the search for Flight 370 in just a moment. But first to check the other top stories we're following. A quake that hit Southern California last night was about ten times stronger than the one that struck the same area St. Patrick's Day. A 5.1 earthquake caused no major injuries just a lot of major clean up.

It threw items from shelves, left a couple of thousand people without power and then broke some water mains as well. It also triggered a rock slide that led to this car simply flipping over. Nearly two dozen aftershocks followed.

And we're following new clues in the search for Flight 370, including objects pulled from the waters of the Indian Ocean. We'll have the very latest moments away.

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