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Search for Flight 370; First Look at Objects Found by Ship; Families of Flight 370 Passengers Grieving; Silence Marks Moment of Killer Landslide

Aired March 29, 2014 - 13:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, I'm Fredricka Whitfield. And here's the top stories that we're following at the CNN NEWSROOM.

New developments in the search for Flight 370. Let's get straight to it. Australian officials will soon have in hand several objects recovered from the Southern Indian Ocean. A Chinese ship and an Australian ship picked up those items today.

This is brand-new video of some of the objects being scooped up from the water, we don't know yet if they are considered plane debris or if it's just ocean trash, but experts will analyze them.

And Chinese search planes spotted three new suspicious objects today. China's official news agency says one is red, the others are orange and white. About a dozen other objects were seen in the area yesterday including an orange rope and a blue bag. A crewmember described what they looked like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WANG ZHENMU, SEARCH CREW MEMBER (Through Translator): 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 three minutes we found a strip shaped object. We immediately reported our findings to the captain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: It's unclear if those items are indeed connected to the plane. Seven ships are trying to track them down.

And family members staged a protest today in the streets of Beijing, demanding more answers from the Malaysian government. Other families in Malaysian voiced their concerns directly to the country's transportation minister. He met with them today and promised he will not abandon the search.

All right, let's bring in -- now a discussion, Jim Tilmon is a CNN aviation analyst and a retired American Airlines pilot. Robert Arnot is an award-winning journalist and a veteran aviation consultant and Arthur Rosenberg is an aviation lawyer, engineer and a pilot, and Dr. Alan Diehl is a former accident investigator for the Air Force, he's also the author of the book called "Air Safety Investigators." All right, so, gentlemen, we're getting a look at these new images from the Chinese ship that apparently has retrieved some objects, again, no confirmation as to whether these objects were indeed related to Flight 370.

But, Jim, to you first, from what you're able to gather here, and it looks like it may be paper products or plastic material, you see the hands there taking them out of the net, then you'll see by way of a flashlight, another hand looking over what may appear to be some writing on those objects.

Jim, what strikes you as interesting here?

JIM TILMON, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, just the fact that the flights have been much more fruitful. I mean, let's face it, this is the first time we've actually put our hands on objects that we have found out there on the sea. I have great hopes that we're going to find that yes, indeed, these are things from that particular flight.

WHITFIELD: And Bob Arnot, these items are making their way to Perth, Australia. We understand it will then go into a lab but along the way we've have heard other experts say they hope that what we're not seeing in this video is that these materials are being put in salt water, some kind of containers, since that is what has kind of preserved them potentially. And that if not in that water, the evidence might be compromised.

Do you agree with that? Or do you have any concerns similar to that?

BOB ARNOT, FORMER PILOT: Really depends on the kind of debris that they're looking at here. The interesting situation is, you know, are they seeing light plastics, are they seeing life vests, for example, that float on the surface to make some kind of sense of this. And as you know, you have prevailing westerly winds but there have been easterly winds as well. So it's going to be a little less of a trace in terms of where that aircraft actually ended up.

What we're more interest in is stuff that sits just down below the surface because that's going with the ocean swell and it's easier to retrograde trace back to where the heavy parts of the aircraft are such as the landing gear. Of course the cockpit which we like to look at to see whether there's any, you know, sense of (INAUDIBLE) there.

But I think the big question is, do we really believe this data? After all they've been wrong three times before. And there's a very, very good article in the "Wall Street Journal" this morning saying that there's been very poor sort of transparency in terms of data. You know, the NTSB, FAA, Boeing, all on the field that they're getting the information that they want. And the Malaysians of course are pulling their hair out because every time they tell them something, it's leaked to the news media.

So, you know, what we need is we need data integration and that means that when you look at the three pings at the Kuala Lumpur airport, when you look at the three more pings in that rapid turn, then you look at the radar that picked it up, Thai radar, Malaysian radar, that has to be integrated. You know, and I'm just not very convinced that there's been a -- you know, a world class effort here integrating all these efforts.

Inmarsat, of course, has done these calculations based on 19th century physics but it took them almost two week to come up with. So bottom line, you know, these poor families are right, the data has to be shared. There has to be data transparency and connectivity so we really know that this is not another false start.

WHITFIELD: And, I guess, Alan, you know, part of the problem is, you know, trying to verify, get a better understanding of what this data is, in order to integrate. So if you're looking at information here, Chinese ship collects this kind of information, it will, so to speak, kind of integrate by taking that information to Australia and then authorities will there examine further.

Are you seeing the level of cooperation today that perhaps we didn't see in the early stages because this caught everybody by surprise, so to speak.

ALAN DIEHL, FORMER U.S. AIR FORCE ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR: Well, Fredricka, this has been pretty much bungled. I used to be with the NTSB. When we lost -- the short answer is no. When we lost that 767 over the Atlantic, the Egyptian President Mubarak immediately called Bill Clinton and aid give me a full go-team. That's what the Malaysian fundamental mistake there --

(CROSSTALK)

DIEHL: They're playing in the big leagues and they don't have the ability to know what to ask for. So yes, the Australians are doing a great job of jumping in there, they have great investigators, I helped train them years ago. But this is not an integrated investigation as Bob just said.

WHITFIELD: Arthur, how about you on this? Is it your view that perhaps in large part because this is an airline that's owned by the Malaysian government and perhaps it, the Malaysian government, wanted to kind of avoid the embarrassment and instead wanted to be very secretive about their own investigation?

ARTHUR ROSENBERG, CNN AVIATION ENGINEER: Yes, well, look, coming out of the starting blocks, I don't think there's any question, no credible argument that Malaysian was behind the 8-ball and was slow to get this thing on right track. But at this point, with the Inmarsat data, with its most recent refinement with the help of the National Transportation Safety Board, the AAIB from Britain, from the Australians, they have, I believe, refined this data to the best that they possibly can.

And if you look at what's happened, the physical evidence and the mathematical calculations of where we believe the wreckage is has kind of coalesced into this area now. I think this gives us some tantalizing opportunities to retrieve the record. Now we've had some false starts before. Hopefully this will be fruitful. But I think at this point, the investigation is on the right track. WHITFIELD: OK, maybe a new kick start, so to speak.

Arthur Rosenberg, Bob Arnot, Alan Diehl, Jim Tilmon, thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it.

All right. The U.S. military is waiting to find out if the objects are indeed related to that missing plane.

Our Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon.

So, Barbara, at what point will the U.S. military be involved if, say, the items retrieved by the Australian ship or maybe even the Chinese ship today could be related to this flight?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you just hit the key right there, Fredricka. If any of these objects can actually be verified to be from Flight 370, that's when the U.S. Navy kicks in with some very high tech gear that it's put in place.

As one of your guests was saying, they will look backwards, they will find verified debris, then they'll look back where it could have come from in the ocean, where could the plane have hit, where could it have gone in to the water. Where might the data recorders be, where might the heavy parts of the plane be.

When they calculate that new search area, where it all may be. Then the Navy moves in with two pieces of equipment. The pinger locator we've been talking about, it is in Australia, in western Australia. That is this device that gets towed in the water behind the ship and listens, if you will, for the pings from the data recorders. There's only, you know, a few days left before that runs out. So that's a ticking time situation at the moment.

But they have another piece of equipment on hand, a small underwater robotics device, if you will. It will go into the water and it will start to map and calculate where those pieces of debris may be on the ocean floor. So finding this first piece of where it may be floating on the surface, only the first step. Then the rest of this kicks in to go ahead and look for the data recorders and begin to calculate where you might really find parts of the plane -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Barbara Starr. Thank you so much.

All right, the families of the passengers on board Flight 370, well, they're not the only ones who feel Malaysian officials are mishandling this investigation. One ex-Malaysian Airlines official believes the same thing. Find out what he said.

And one teenager's Twitter account tracks the agony of Flight 370. She's the daughter of the chief steward and her tweets will simply break your heart.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The families of the Flight 370 passengers and crew are getting more aggressive about speaking out against the Malaysian government.

Sarah Bajc, the partner of Philip Wood, one of the three Americans on board the plane, says she doesn't trust Malaysian investigators. On CNN's "NEW DAY," she questioned their credibility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH BAJC, PARTNER OF PASSENGER PHILIP WOOD: We haven't seen any evidence of transparency or full confidence so far. And given the symptoms, at least that we could see of what appears to be a bit of a cover-up activity, whether that's to avoid embarrassment or to relieve a liability, I don't know. But in the end I don't trust that there's not some intentional effort to not find the real answer. So we almost have people working against us at this point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And just days after saying all lives are lost, today Malaysian officials left relatives with a thin sliver of hope considering the search is not over for them.

Here's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Three weeks ago these two Iranians traveling on stolen passports triggered Interpol's investigation of Flight 370's passengers. Now in a statement surprising for its frankness the international law enforcers are lambasting Malaysian officials for lax controls.

The truth is that in 2014 prior to the tragic disappearance of Malaysian Flight MH-370, Malaysian Immigration Department did not conduct a single check of passengers' passports against Interpol's database, the agency said in a statement, and they are not alone in their criticism.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: The idea that somehow governments don't want to quarry the Interpol databases because it takes too long is frankly just plain absurd.

ROBERTSON: Opposition politicians here are also heaping on their criticism.

R. SIVARASA, OPPOSITION POLITICIAN: It's quite clear that the impression given earlier by the government that it's not practical, it takes too long to check the database of 40 million is obviously not an acceptable answer.

ROBERTSON: It comes as Malaysian's government is increasingly taking heat for their entire investigation.

HISHAMMUDDIN HUSSEIN, MALAYSIAN ACTING MINISTER OF TRANSPORTATION: I don't think we have done anything different from what we've already done. And I think, like I said in our earlier press conference, no matter what has been thrown and labeled at us, history will judge us as a country that has been very responsible.

ROBERTSON: But still there are unanswered questions, a lot of them. For instance, the Transport minister wouldn't disclose the altitude of Flight 370 over the last six hours. Despite acknowledging it flew faster earlier in the flight. Key because it could indicate if someone was in control of the flight. And while the Australian government said it was immediately shifting the search location based on the new speed data, the Malaysian government spokesman said it would continue to review all satellite imagery, especially debris identified by French and Thai satellites spotted hundreds of miles away.

JIM HALL, FORMER NTSB CHAIRMAN: The Malaysian government is incompetent to handle this investigation. And so you have to ask when any of this information comes out what's the factual basis behind it?

ROBERTSON (on camera): One former Malaysian Airlines executive told CNN while he is proud of Malaysian and proud of the airline, the investigation is tarnishing the country's image and could have and should have been handled in a much clearer way.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And coming up, her Twitter account is being called the saddest ever. The daughter of a Flight 370 crewmember has been tweeting the world about the dad that she misses so much. Her story straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: For exactly three weeks now, the families of these passengers and crewmembers have not been able to hold, kiss or speak to their loved ones. And that includes the husband of this flight attendant, a mother of two. Her husband told CNN the children keep asking for her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I even promised them I'm going to bring her home. But I really don't know where she is now and now I'm not sure whether I could bring her home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Another Flight 370 family member is sharing her grief in a different way. Not through reporters but Twitter. And she's been tweeting her thoughts since the first day Flight 370 went missing.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Maybe you think of Twitter as a superficial, silly way of communicating but not when it's a teenage girl using it to talk to her dad, missing aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Her Twitter handle is @gorgxous and she's the daughter of the plane's chief steward, Andrew Nari.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Air traffic controllers in Southeast Asia have lost contact with a jumbo jet.

MOOS: She began tweeting her heart out that first day. "God, the only thing I want is my father. Nothing but my father. I want my father back," punctuated with a crying emoticon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No wreckage has turned up.

MOOS: By day two, she was pleading with him directly. "Daddy, you're all over the news and papers. Come home fast so you could read them. Don't you feel excited?"

Immediately, her tweets were met with supportive replies from strangers.

By day six.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, OUTFRONT: Breaking news, the Chinese government has released new satellite images of what could be missing Flight 370.

MOOS: She wasn't imaging him in a plane's wreckage. "My dad must be busy serving the passengers food and drink."

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: The airliner disappeared 10 days ago now.

MOOS: That Sunday, she was watching her favorite soccer team. "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."

The club itself tweeted back, "This has touched our hearts."

Gorgxous, her real name is Myra, remained amazingly upbeat, even signed a card, "Pray for MH307." But on day 18 --

BURNETT: The Malaysian government says the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean killing everyone onboard.

MOOS: She tweeted, "I don't know what to say, what to think. I feel so lost, so blank." Liverpool's football club tweeted back again, "You won't walk alone."

Myra's tweets have echoed the plane's final transmission.

SCIUTTO: The last words ever heard from the cockpit, "all right, good night".

MOOS: On Tuesday, she wrote, "I am still hoping for a miracle. But hmm, good night, daddy."

For the world, it's a mystery. But for @gorgxous, it's a dad who's not there to tweet her back. Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Now for an update on mortgages. Rates are down from last week. Take a look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. We're following major new developments as the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 moves into day 23. Today several floating objects were retrieved in the Southern Indian Ocean. It's the first time items have been picked up in this new search area.

Will Ripley joins us now from Perth, Australia where the search operation is based.

So Will, what's the timeline as to when the images that we just saw from that Chinese ship, when those items, and perhaps there are more, will make its way to a lap in Australia?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly what the plan is, but right now there's more searching to do, and we know that eight planes are here right now getting ready to take off at first sunlight and we have seven ships also on standby in this area.

The planes were out yesterday, a number of them spotted potential objects that they think could possibly be jetliner debris. Of course we have to emphasize possibly because we don't know just yet and the objects that were retrieved that were on those two ships, one ship from China, one ship from Australia, we were told specifically there's no confirmation yet of any connection to Flight 370.

But this search is taking on a new sense of urgency, one because we know the pinger in the flight data recorders is running out of battery life but also because there are families who right now still are holding on to hope that their loved ones may still be alive. And so whatever is found in the Indian Ocean, it's more than an object, for these families it could finally bring closure.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RIPLEY (voice-over): Search planes are spotting more objects in the Indian Ocean, but we still don't know if any of them are from Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

RUSSELL ADAMS, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE PILOT: The position has been recorded. They've dropped drift buoys in the area to try and get an assessment of what the drift is doing for those objects.

RIPLEY: More ships are moving into the search area. Their mission, find the objects, bring them on board and determine if they're sea trash or jetliner debris.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN (Through Translator): They're all still alive. My son and everyone on board. The plane is still there, too.

RIPLEY: Three weeks into the search families of the 239 people on Flight 370 are holding onto any sliver of hope. Even after its own prime minister announced there are no survivors, Malaysian's acting transport minister struck a different tone Saturday.

HUSSEIN: I told the families, I cannot, because -- and the best we can do is pray and that we must be sensitive to them that as long as there is even a remote chance of a survivor, we will pray and do whatever it takes.

RIPLEY: Changing weather could limit the search in the coming days. So crews are doing everything they can to hunt for clues in the vast Indian Ocean, clues that could finally bring answers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIPLEY: It is heart breaking to imagine the anguish that these families are feeling right now because there has been no physical sign of this plane recovered yet, nothing tangible that they can look at, that they can say, OK, now I know what happened. They don't know what happened and so that's why search crews are working so hard, Fred, to try to get them the answers that they so desperately need.

WHITFIELD: Yes. Still incredibly mysterious. Thank you so much, Will Shipley.

All right. Let's bring back our panel now to talk further on one thing retrieved from the ocean, or perhaps what's not. Jim Tilmon, Robert Arnot, Arthur Rosenberg and Doctor Allan Diehl.

Welcome back to you.

All right. So the images that we're seeing that Will is helping us to see by way of the Chinese vessel, clearly it would seem that there have to be other objects, bigger objects, more significant objects that would be retrieved from the ocean spotted from a plane to take back to the lab.

So I wonder, to you first, Dr. Diehl, do you feel like this cannot be the only bit of evidence collected? Do you think this is just a sample of many more items that perhaps this Chinese vessel has?

DIEHL: Well, who knows what's aboard the Chinese vessel. But you'd think they would notify the Australians if they had found more objects. But the real issue is find the pingers and we're not looking very hard for those. The resources assigned to the pinger hunt have been totally inadequate in my opinion.

The U.S. Navy has over 100 of these P-3s. I don't know how many are still operational. But they could certainly spare a couple dozen of them to look for the pingers. The Navy also has fast attack submarines, Los Angeles class. They're going to start towing that array, which by the way travels at three miles an hour, these nuclear subs travel at 30 miles an hour, it can cover a lot more area. WHITFIELD: But I guess that's part of the problem, Dr. Diehl, is we don't really know what kind of resources are being poured into this. There may be some U.S. submarines that are used in this, in search for the pinging devices, but because generally submarine localities are kept secret, we wouldn't know. So is part of the frustration is just that there may be a lot more to the search for this ping, but just publicly we're unaware of it?

DIEHL: If you're asking me, the answer is of course yes. I would -- I would just hope that the White House would inform the Australians and the Malaysians that we have these resources available and that if you want them, we'll send them.

WHITFIELD: OK, so, maybe, Bob Arnot, if you could chime in on that, there might be a lot more to this search whether it be for the black boxes or perhaps even for the debris, but perhaps, you know, that information wouldn't be made public because they still would await some kind of confirmation or would there be fear that publicizing that kind of end of the search would compromise any kind of potential developments?

ARNOT: What's amazing about this, you know, is that the National Security Agency here, the CIA, all attributes of the federal government really have been on the case, they're very interested in this, they really wanted to deploy those assets. I spent almost a year with Fifth Fleet in Bahrain looking at all the various resources and it's tremendous. And as you point out these Los Angeles class subs could be tremendous, tremendous asset here.

You know, the thing that's so interesting to me here is that, you know, in any one corporation people are very sort of suspicious about sharing data. And there has been tremendous suspicion here. You know when the Malaysians came out and said, we know it has gone down there in the Southern Indian Ocean, the FAA and the NTSB were pretty much out of the loop. Boeing and the FAA, in terms of all the performance they've been looking at, feels -- still feel that they're not getting the data.

You know, when an airplane like this travels down into that part of the ocean, it traveled by what it called waypoints. They're usually -- they're five-letter identifiers, it could be palio, or any likid (ph), or any variety of -- so was it actually going to these waypoints? You know, Inmarsat has never given us the latitude and longitude. A lot of smart people out there, lots of people could crowd source this in terms of looking for the data trying to get a sense of what this is.

To have a differential in the airspeed this late in the game, that is, when you look at those hourly pings there, it should be fairly easy to figure out the airspeed. And it's either pack Mach .89 for a long- range cruise or Mach .89 would be high speed cruise for that airlines. So I think the bottom line is we're very late in the game to be looking at this data. And it should have been shared a long many more --

WHITFIELD: OK. ARNOT: -- classes and agencies earlier to get a real handle on where this airplane might be.

WHITFIELD: OK, so I wonder, I guess, Jim, let me bring you into this because there's very little that can be done about maybe those missed points or missed opportunities, but now as we look at perhaps this video coming from Chinese authorities as of what they may have retrieved, we don't even know if this is a microchasm of other things, other items, but as you look at the items retrieved at this point forward and what the lab will discern, whether this is valuable or not, whether it will help us determine whether there is wreckage in the area, are you all disappointed in this kind of video, that it doesn't seem very significant? Or might we be able to glean a lot more from even this simple, you know, plucking of a paper or plastic from the sea?

TILMON: As long, Fredricka, as we get something, anything, that says this came from that airplane, that's going to be a major thing so far as I'm concerned because to this moment, we don't know, we really don't know anything about what happened to that airplane. We're guessing. We are making assumptions, one assumption after another. And many times they are based upon information that was sketchy at best.

So we need something concrete. We need something we can hold on to, we need something we can examine, anything at all, just to say yes, this did happen. Now we can move forward from there. But I can understand the families because they'd rather be saying we don't yet know for sure that it crashed.

WHITFIELD: Right. And it's extraordinary, here we're talking about week three and still nothing concrete to, you know, appease you all, the experts, and certainly the family members of the passenger and crew.

Arthur Rosenberg, Bob Arnot, Dr. Alan Diehl and Jim Tilmon, thanks so much. We're going to talk to you again. We're going to take a break for now and we'll talk more about how more than 20 countries are working together in this search. Apparently politics have been put aside for the most part we understand. But will that cooperation now help advance this investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The massive three-week search for that missing Malaysia Airlines jet has brought together several countries that don't always get along.

CNN's Jim Clancy takes a look at the politics of the search.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The search for Flight 370 compelled rivals across Asia to come together as partners. HUSSEIN: In an area in Southeast Asia when we were fighting over a rock in the middle of the sea, now working together, I think that is a great achievement.

CLANCY: From the Sea of Japan to the Malacca Straits, disputes over the island, oil and gas riches and fishing rights are being crushed in the 24-hour news cycle, social media burst as a vanished airliner with 239 passengers captivates the world.

PROF. JAMES CHIN, MONASH UNIVERSITY, MALAYSIA: Basically I think all the governments in the region think that this tremendous pressure put on by their public to do something about locating this plane.

CLANCY: Do something. Planes and ships Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the United States are searching, steered by satellites in space. While its own technology and resources fall far short, Malaysian is using diplomacy to bring two dozen nations into the search for Flight 370.

MANAN MANSOR, V.P., MALAYSIAN PILOTS ASSOCIATION: I think never in the history of Malaysian we have got these 24 countries helping us out. Very encouraging indeed. If you go to Subang, it's like an international airport of various military aircraft now parking down there.

CLANCY: There have been problems, China, whose citizens made up nearly two-thirds of the missing passengers, openly criticized Malaysia's handling of the crisis. Repeated protests had government approval at the very least. Malaysian officials reminded Beijing, its own satellite photos squandered precious search time. Chinese tourists known for the cash they spend while traveling even threatened to boycott.

Not everyone offered full cooperation. National security kept some from giving up their military radar records, even as they joined the search.

CHIN: We also saw a level of distrust among many countries of the region, countries close to Malaysian like Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia and Vietnam. They all have radars but they all refused to share the data in the first initial hours, where it was crucial in finding out which direction the plane was flying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. That's Jim Clancy reporting.

Let's bring back our panel now, Jim Tilmon, Robert Arnot, Arthur Rosenberg and Dr. Alan Diehl.

All right, so Arthur, you -- you know, you first, when at first it appeared as though there was a lack of cooperation between neighboring countries at the early stages of this investigation, are you comforted or are you hopeful that now the coming together of some 20 nations this is likely to be a very full, thorough, impressive investigation? ROSENBERG: Well, I would say at this point the cooperation in the Asian peninsula is unprecedented between China, Japan and Malaysia. But I just wanted to comment on one other thing. You know, in Malaysia, the ideas of a free press, the dissemination of information, authorities being challenged is somewhat alien to that culture. In this instance, for the -- for the Malaysian government to be challenged on the release of information, timeliness, possible military secrets with this plane flying over the Malay Peninsula, it's somewhat unusual for these people.

I think that what they should do is show the world the radar data, that key radar data when the plane flew westerly back across the Malay Peninsula. Let us share the information. We know the NTSB, the Australian authorities and the British have been working on this. But I think it would go a long way to an open transparent investigation if they would put it on the table.

WHITFIELD: Well, I wonder if, Dr. Diehl, that is something that's forthcoming but right now the priority is finding any semblance of the wreckage and getting to the bottom of what happened?

DIEHL: Well, obviously if we found the wreckage, any part of it as Captain Tilmon just said in an earlier segment. That would be important. We'd know the airplane is in the water. But then we still have to work all the current and the wind algorithms to try to find a general location for the -- fore the pingers. Those -- keep your eye on the price. Those are the prize because they're going to get us to the wreckage.

And there's three reasons why we need to do this, Fredricka, first of all obviously the humanitarian reasons. Secondly, we have over 1100 worldwide of these 777s flying, if there's a problem with this aircraft, and I'm not suggesting there is, we need to know about it. And lastly, Boeing has just brought out a superversion of this called the 777x, and airlines are ordering it. Two or three years from now we're still wondering about whether or not this plane has a fundamental flaw. This could cost Boeing billions and America thousands of jobs.

WHITFIELD: And, Jim, is it an issue of prioritizing this kind of information dissemination or is it an issue of all the tests to be done simultaneously, to Dr. Diehl's point, that there are flights that are in the air and if there's a problem with this flight, or if there was a problem with this flight, people need to know so as to avoid another calamity?

TILMON: Fredericka, this is uncharted territory. Just like that Indian Sea is uncharted, this whole process is uncharted. We're going into some areas now, diplomacy between countries and all. We're also going into a problem that is inherent in that. We don't know crucial things about this. We don't know how long, what altitude, how steep, what speed, we don't know the heading that that airplane ended up on once it made its first turn.

So -- and we don't know how many turns it did make before it was over. We need to be going along several lines at one time. We need to be concentrating on, OK, is this salvageable, something from the airplane? Is this a situation where it's the pilots who had some real responsibilities they didn't fulfill? Was this a bona fide accident? Is there something wrong with the 777?

All these kinds of things we can't get to because we keep getting into something, when we find out later we didn't have all the facts, we didn't have all the information.

ARNOT: Right.

WHITFIELD: All right, gentlemen. Thank you so much. Sorry, Dr. Bob Arnot, unable to get back to you on this segment, but gentlemen, to all of you thank you, Arthur Rosenberg, Jim Tilmon, Dr. Bob Arnot and Dr. Alan Diehl. Thank you.

And we'll keep you updated on the search for Flight 370. Also ahead, new talks and increased tensions over the crisis in Ukraine. Top diplomats prepare to meet as Ukraine's military prepares to fight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. We'll have more of our continuing coverage of Flight 370 in just a few minutes. But first let's tell you about some of the other stories that we're following for you today.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry headed to Paris today for a meeting on the crisis in Ukraine. The State Department confirms that Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet tomorrow morning. They'll discuss ways to diffuse the situation in Ukraine.

President Obama and President Vladimir Putin agreed in a phone call yesterday. That Kerry and Lavrov would meet.

And Russia reiterated today that it has no intention of invading Ukraine but its troop buildup has increased tensions along Ukraine's border.

Here's the latest on that. Ukrainian border guards are increasingly nervous about the Russian troop buildup. Civilian volunteers are forming a self-defense committee. A military officer tells our Karl Penhaul that he has also detected Russian attack helicopters and tanks near the border.

And a popular opposition figure today pulled out of the race for president of Ukraine. He says he'll support billionaire businessman Petro Poroshenko, seen right here.

All right. In the U.S., a quake that hit California Friday night has about 10 times stronger than the one that struck the same area on St. Patrick's Day.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A major earthquake, at 8:00. We have one that was about only a 3.6. This felt like about it was about a 10. I have never felt one -- (END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Actually, the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.1 and obviously it rattled nerves but caused no major injuries. It did create a mess, throwing items from shelves, leaving a couple thousand without power and then breaking some water mains.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything's fallen over. There's cracks inside our building. The floor separated from the walls. Everything fell off. Our kitchen is a mess. It got worse as it went on, I didn't think it was going to be as bad as this. I didn't think there's going to be so much damage.

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WHITFIELD: The quake also triggered a rockslide that led to this car flipping over. Nearly two dozen aftershocks followed.

And just minutes ago, a moment of silence took place in Oso, Washington, to mark the instant hillside collapse that killed at least 17 people one week ago today. The memorial comes as the search for survivors and bodies continues, and rain again is hampering rescue teams.

CNN's Paul Vercammen is live for us in Arlington, Washington, where a command center has actually been set up.

So, Paul, tell us briefly about that vigil and what could potentially happen today.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, first off it's almost been exactly one week to the minute that the slide hit, and behind me you see the river is moving. By all accounts they say the river looked like it stopped after the slide came down. We're just up river from the slide, or down river, I should say.

Now in a moment of silence, the governor said that everyone should stop and reflect and think about this just a short time ago. People throughout Washington state took time out and just quietly, somberly, reflected about what happened here, and as you pointed out, it's raining again here in Washington state. We're into some record rain here.

And that is just absolutely compounding the recovery efforts. It's so difficult for these workers who have been wading through waist-high mud on their hands and knees, using gloves, to sort of scoop out the mud literally, if you will, in their effort to recover bodies. They are really having a tough go of it and the mayor talked about that. Let's have a listen.

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MAYOR BARBARA TOLBERT, ARLINGTON, WASHINGTON: I can't even express to you how difficult it is. They are searching for friends, and they're searching for families, and it's very tragic.

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VERCAMMEN: And later on today, they will have a press conference. They intend to update the number of people officially dead. They've had that set at 17 for a while. We know that there's bodies that have been found, but not identified. They say they're waiting for the medical examiner's office to make all this official.

The death toll, about 25 right now, but sure to rise, Fredricka, as there are so many people missing in this tragic landslide.

WHITFIELD: Gosh, terribly tragic. Thank you so much, Paul Vercammen, Arlington, Washington.

All right. Straight ahead, more objects have been spotted in the new search area for Flight 370. We're getting our first look from one of the ships.

Also the race to get to those black boxes. Is the technology used for detecting underwater devices dated? Our experts will be weighing in.

And CNN did some investigating about how the industry might change in light of this disappearance. It could impact how all of us fly.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Much more in the NEWSROOM straight ahead.

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