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Mystery of Flight 370; Multiple Quakes Rattle Southern California; More Ships and Planes Deployed in Perth; Kerry to Meet with Russians ROVs to be Deployed for MH-370 Search

Aired March 29, 2014 - 19:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: The objects retrieved from the ocean. Do we know anything about them?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We know that that two ships yesterday retrieved objects that they pulled from the ocean, a ship from China and Australia, and those objects are sitting on the vessels right now waiting to be examined by experts here in Australia. What will be happening today, planes will be flying overhead, looking for more objects. There were some objects that were spotted and marked yesterday and the crews know the coordinates, and that's where they're going to be heading this morning, now that the sun is out. They're going to be looking for those and planes are going to be searching for additional objects.

We need to stress -- we don't know if they are going to be connected in any way to flight 370, but there are a lot of objects frankly floating around in the Indian Ocean. But what is new now that hasn't happened before is that planes that have seen a lot of debris as they have been searching for the past few weeks are now looking and seeing these objects and thinking that they look suspicious enough, they look different enough that there just might be a chance. So, we see objects that are white, orange, red, blue -- we saw as well.

And all of these have been marked, the ships are going to try to locate them, because it is one thing to take a picture from the airplane, but another to have them, and have the experts take a look at them and determine if there actually is a connection to the Flight 370, because we just don't know right now.

LEMON: Will Ripley, thank you very much. Appreciate your reporting.

Joining me now, CNN aviation analyst, Miles O'Brien, and CNN aviation analyst and pilot Les Abend, and ocean search specialist Rob McCallum.

Rob, I want to start with you. Are there certain parts of the airplane that tend to be found first during search operations?

ROB MCCALLUM, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: Yes, there are. And usually, it's a larger ones, simply because they are easier to see. You know, sometimes, you'll get a collection of flotsam, particularly things like insulation, which is buoyant, things that cluster together, but the real hits are found with something like a tail or a wing tip. In the case of Air France 447, it was the tile section, huge target, easy to spot.

LEMON: So, Les, you know, you saw the objects there the crews pulled out of the water there, I don't want to get too much speculation here, but does it look too much like an aircraft from an aircraft to you? You can't tell or --

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It's hard to tell. I mean, you know, to me, initially, we were talking before the break, that it was currency to me, but it could very well be one of the seatback, you know, exit manuals. It is possible.

LEMON: It could be that. It could be a magazine, page from a magazine. It could be anything.

ABEND: Which is still -- which still could be a part of the airplane.

LEMON: Really?

ABEND: Well, a magazine may be, you know, in-flight magazine may be attributed to that particular airlines.

LEMON: Very interesting. Miles, you know, new search area, calmer waters, easier to reach, do you think this will help crews get more done in the daylight time that they have except for the weather, you know, they're up against the weather as well.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: That's the big thing. You know, you sort of have a double-whammy and you have to worry about the sea state of course, and this is better, because they are not in what is the roaring 40s and the most treacherous waters in the world. So, if they have moved north in latitude, that helps quite a bit. But when you are flying with low visibility, and the low ceiling, there's just no way around it.

They have to have visual contact. It's not like you can use infrared technology in this case because it's not -- there's that's warmer than the sea itself, so you have to see it with either optical enhancement or the human eye, and that's limiting.

LEMON: So, Miles, again, as we look at these objects, right -- we don't want to call them debris, because we don't know what it is, but it could be anything -- this is a great lesson on anything that is the trash that's in the ocean, because we don't know what it is, and just how unclean, shall we say that the ocean can be.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I have been thinking a lot about the 2004 tsunami in Banda Aceh. I wonder if it is some of the -- you can imagine the huge amount of debris put into the ocean then, and the way that the ocean currents go, what we are seeing in the southern site might well be attributable to that -- you know, that's just going to swirl around there for nearly forever.

LEMON: Rob McCallum, and Miles bringing up a very good point as you have been searching, and you have done searches before, and dealt with this, and again, we don't know what it is, but initially, initially, what happens when crews find things like this? I'm sure that there is initial excitement, and they are excited about getting it back and then all of the sudden, the real work starts in the laboratory, I would imagine?

MCCALLUM: Well, the real work will start at sea in terms of plotting the position of all of the items recovered and what's really important is to know what item was recovered at which place. So, you know, as I have said before, some items are propelled by the current, because they are fairly well submerge. Other items are propelled by the wind and the waves because they float on top of the water, something like a seat cushion for instance.

But if you plot all of the things on to a chart, then you can start to see a pattern, and that aids the oceanographers when they run the navigation exercise to work that to a single point of impact.

LEMON: Yes.

Les?

ABEND: Well, the question I have is whether the investigation team is permitting the -- because they are part of the effort -- whether they are permitting the Chinese to give out the information, because so much that is misleading to the, you know, to the poor folks that are the families of the passengers. So, I'm wondering if they know what it is, and they are waiting to confirm it. I think that would be a smart move.

LEMON: Miles, as someone has said here earlier, you know, there's so much misinformation coming out, and what we need to come out with, the families need, but what the families need right now is for the next bit of information to come out to be solid rather than speculative. So, I think that Les brings up a good point fit is indeed something or nothing, I imagine they would be holding it close to the vest to figure it out exactly?

ABEND: Well, that's certainly fitting the pattern, because they tend to hold a lot of information close to the vest and certainly more than any investigation that would be occurring here in the NTSB-led here in the U.S. So, that seems to be their cultural reflex anyway. But, you know, clearly, if they have made a confirmation, they're going to have to let the world know pretty quickly here.

LEMON: All right. Guys, stick around, because I need to get to some developing news that's just into CNN, and it's in southern California.

Southern California went to bed last night and woke up this morning to multiple earthquakes, but it did not end there. Just a couple of hours ago, another aftershock rocked the area, a magnitude 4.1 centered in the Roland Heights area of L.A. County. It all started with last night's 5.1 quake in Orange County near La Habra.

Well, joining us now to talk about, CNN's Stephanie Elam.

Stephanie, this quake, you know, it woke people up in the middle of the night, and now you have another one. STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yes, and the one last night, Don, you know, even my daughter was still awake, and it was not that late. But it was definitely enough to know that it is definitely a quake. It was a long rolling one, and when you're a Californian, you know the difference. And the one today, I understand was a jolting one, but I was out walking around and I did not feel that one today.

But overall, like 100 or so earthquakes since yesterday, and many of them are really tiny, very small, and not as big, and the biggest one being that one yesterday evening last night. And people are a little spooked out about it, because it's really been a long time since there has been a sizable earthquake here in southern California.

I know that people like to think of us shaking and quaking all of the time, but it's not always that pronounced.

LEMON: Yes.

ELAM: So there seems to be a lot of movement as of late, and there's a good reminder for people out here to get prepared, because they say that all of the activity could be a precursor to something much bigger. But, obviously, we don't know. We do see these little quakes all the time, we don't just always feel them, Don.

LEMON: Yes. And we saw the one last week where the news anchors were on television, and everybody talked about it, because it frightened them as well. But so far though, no serious injuries to report, right, Stephanie?

ELAM: Right. No serious injuries. There were some little bit of damage evening. You know, there may have been some basements that fell and broke or that sort of damage. But small structural, but I thought today while there is a shelter that opened up near the epicenter of yesterday's earthquake, it shutdown today, and everybody went back home. So, nothing really huge.

I mean, for Californians a 5-point-something earthquake is definitely noticeable, but it's not the biggest thing out there. It's just a matter of understanding the levels of when it is a really big deal, it can cause the drama.

But a lot of the buildings out here are prepared and shorn up for earthquakes and that is one good thing that the buildings maybe prepared. Now, if we could just get all of the Californians prepared as well.

LEMON: All right. Thank you very much, Stephanie Elam.

If there are developments, we'll get back to Stephanie out in California.

I want the panel to the stick around, because we are going to be talking later this hour about the missing Flight 370.

But, first, remember the pictures from a year ago Air France Flight 447, and another plane that was on radar and then suddenly, it wasn't. So, after another flight vanishes from -- will anything change? That's our next question, that's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back, everyone, to the continuing coverage here.

When Air France flight crashed in the Atlantic Ocean, it took two years to find the flight data recorders. Back then we asked, will this change how the airlines keep tabs on their planes so this never happens again. But here we are now, wondering if this will be change anything. Will it be business as usual for the airlines after Flight 370, or could we see new technology to track planes?

Steve Wallace is a CNN aviation analyst and a former director of the FAA's accident investigation.

And, Steve, aside from this technology -- the upgrades here -- what should the airlines do differently to keep their planes safe?

STEVE WALLACE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I think that we will see, Don, a combination of the simply applying what are already the best practices, but applying them universally across the world's airlines as well as some new technology, and I think it will focus on three areas.

One is preventing the accident, what comes to mind here very quickly, not that there is a connection to the accident, demonstrated -- but this airline apparently did not scan the passports against the Interpol database, and we have no connection to the accident at this point, but they were very lax apparently about access to the cockpit. So, in this country, like the NTSB is the main lead of making the recommendations, they will not wait for the probable cause to be determined. If they see an area for improvement, they will make a recommendation right away.

So the focus, and when you started on is that we lost track of the airplane. Well, certainly, the requirement that an airplane continuously report the altitude and the position, and that that capability be unable to be disabled, and you know, you cannot turn that off, I think that we will certainly see that, and that could be done easily with what is on the aircraft already, just modifying it so it cannot be disabled by anyone. And, or it could be an additional piece of equipment.

And, you know, if you like, we could talk about the conduct of the investigation and particularly the caring for the families in this horrible situation.

LEMON: OK. Very good points, all three of your points there. And so, the question is that when you said that it is going to be some overall sort of universal access of what to do to make the airplanes safer across the world, you said, let's talk about many Americans are wondering just how safe am I on a jetliner after this? Obviously, it could happen anywhere, but on the American jetliner, are our planes as safe as they could be? WALLACE: Well, I could just tell you that I was the scorekeeper at the FAA until a few years ago when I left, and per -- we count fatalities per 100 million people carried. And after World War II, that number was about 1,400. And in the '50s, it got down the 500, and in the '90s down to 50. And in the last five years in the United States, it's below one.

I mean, flying is just so incredibly safe. So, you know, this is obviously a frightened, frightening set of circumstances, and people who have anxiety about flying, this certainly can't help, but statistically flying in the entire developed world is extremely safe.

LEMON: You know, Steve, we thought it was impossible now, but how soon do we get to the point where, and I'm sure that the technology exists, and the technology installs to make a disappearance like this impossible.

WALLACE: Well, I think that we can certainly, the tracking equipment is easy. I mean, a back packer, and you can't put anything on the plane inexpensively because the approvals are so complex, but a backpacker can buy a device for $150 that can track him on the satellite, and the family can watch him on the Internet. So, this technology is not complicated.

Ultimately, Don, we would be look looking for telemetry where the data from the airplane is sent down constantly to the earth as it has been since 1981 to 2010 on the space shuttle, and limited parameters. There are issues of bandwidth and how the data may be used, but I think that they are all challenges that can be surpassed.

LEMON: Steve Wallace, appreciate you. Thank you very much, sir.

WALLACE: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: Texts, e-mails, attempted phone calls to loved ones -- this information could still be on passenger cell phones and provide a lot of information about what might have happened if the plane is ever found. That data could be retrievable. We're going to tell you how after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: With so many questions of what happened to the people aboard Flight 370, one certainty, many of them had the cell phones with them in the cabin. Did the passengers send farewell text, try to goodbye voicemails, anything like that. With the best leads yet in finding a debris field, what information, if any, will a cell phone under miles of water be able to give?

Our Ted Rowland gets some answers for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Paul Weeks left his wife and two sons at home in Australia to start a new job and boarded Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Now, his family and others are left wondering if their loved ones tried to use their cell phones to send a message before the plane went missing.

But so many questions still unanswered, texts and e-mails could provide crucial details about what happened to Flight 370 and all of that information could possibly still be retrieved.

CHAD GOUGH, PARTNER, 4DISCOVERY: Absolutely. I'm sure there's test messages. I'm sure there's drafts of e-mails. I'm sure there's video testimonials that people made.

ROWLANDS: Chad Gough is a partner at 4Discovery, a computer forensics company in Chicago. He says even after several weeks or even months in the ocean, unsent texts, e-mails and videos can still be retrieved from electronic devices.

GOUGH: It's a matter of finding the devices, determining what kind of damage was associated with them and handling them properly.

ROWLANDS: Handling them properly is the key just like retrieving a flight data recorder, a cell phone or computer would have to be kept in water until it's ready to be analyzed. Even if a device has been smashed, as long as the data cards are intact, the information is still there.

COUGH: It's getting them out of the saltwater but actually keeping them wet and putting them in special solution that would dissolve the minerals in there, dissolve the salt and clean off the components.

ROWLANDS: Finding the devices will likely be the most difficult part of the equation. It took two years to locate the flight recorders off the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean from Air France Flight 447 which crashed in 2009. No cell phones were recovered.

But if Flight 370 wreckage is found over the next few months, passenger texts, e-mails and videos could possibly help solve the mystery of what happened on board, while also providing some grieving families a final message from a loved one.

Ted Rowlands, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: So, why don't we take -- take a closer look at how this technology would work is CNNMoney tech correspondent Laurie Segall.

What type of information can be retrieved here?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNNMONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: Well, so much. I was thinking if a phone is in the water for so long and how would you get anything off of it? I spoke to a cell phone company called H-11 and he gave a list of all the information you could actually get.

We're talking longitude and latitude, if the device had GPS, constantly looking for signals, time line information, photographs and video, text messages, and call history, e-mail, social media and if someone was using Facebook, if someone is trying to make a last call, and this is all information and go ahead and say, it is going to be very difficult to actually find these devices let's say in the middle of the ocean, but this is all information that could be available and could be recovered potentially.

LEMON: And we still don't know.

SEGALL: Don't know.

LEMON: And one never knows and sometimes things pop up that you don't expect. And they would need some tech tools in order to be able to get this information, what do they need?

SEGALL: Absolutely. When you look at different, Samsung, Apple, Nokia, they all have different ways of storing information and so, there are so many ways to extract information from a really damaged device, a combination of tools.

You know, if you actually were able to find a device that was in water for a couple of months, one big thing is transferring it to a place and not further damaging it. So they have something called a silicone-based dehumidifier that allows you to do that.

And then if the device -- if there's something really wrong with it, if it's really damaged, they have a technique called a chip off technique, which is exactly what it sounds like. You take the chip, and clean it up, and then put it in a similar device, and then you can start to try to extract the data. You know, it is will almost like a little bit of the puzzle, an manually putting together different types of data, you know, if -- these are all different photos of phones that have been actually really damaged and actually able to find lots of data on them.

So, you know, we will be able to find the devices, and sure, that is going to be really difficult, but if they were, there are different types of ways to get this data.

LEMON: Rob McCallum is here listening, Miles O'Brien also listening as well. Miles, you are a tech the guru yourself, and what do you make of what Laurie and Ted Rowlands -- they're both reporting here?

O'BRIEN: Well, I am struck by the fact that there are more data in the phones potentially at the bottom of the ocean than the airplane, itself. And, you know, we are all used to the notion of being able to track down our phones electronically. We assume that anybody can find us now, and the fact that this 777 has vanished, it's such a strange contradiction in all of it that needs to be addressed.

And when the aviation world says they will get around it to, we really have to hold these regulatory agencies accountable for this. It should never happen. There should have been, frankly after 9/11, this should have happened, but certainly after Air France 447 in 2009, somebody should have said that we need better capability for tracking the airplanes, themselves, that would be at least equivalent to the cell phones that the passengers are carrying on board.

LEMON: Rob? MCCALLUM: Yes. It's certainly possible that the phones may be lying around the wreckage site. One of the things that will occur when the wreckage is eventually located is that the remote operated vehicle, an ROV, will go down with high definition cameras and painstakingly video and photograph the entire debris field, mainly to give the accident investigators a good lay of the land, if you'd like, because they can read a lot into the pattern, but you never know what you will find on the sea floor, and certainly cell phones are possible.

LEMON: Yes. And then we were talking about how that is more technology here. And thank all of you.

Stick around, Miles. Stick around, Rob, as well.

You know, it is morning in Australia, which means a new day of searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Live report from Australia, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Ten search planes are soon to be in the air looking for any physical evidence of missing Malaysian flight, airways Flight 370. Planes scour a section of the Indian Ocean 23 days after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared. Ship crews finally retrieved objects from the search area today after three weeks of looking for possible objects that never materialized.

And I want you to look at this, but to be clear -- no link exists between the objects and the missing airliner. It could just be sea trash.

So, let's bring in now, our correspondent Atika Shubert at the Pearce air base in Perth, Australia.

Atika, have the planes taken off or are they still waiting to go up into the air?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are preparing to go up in the air and I believe, the schedule is that a 9:00 plane, a Chinese (INAUDIBLE) is supposed to depart from the Perth airport. There will be a total of 10 planes up in the sky today, but more critical might be the ships on the water, because they are the ones who can actually pull in any objects, chase them down and see what they are.

Unfortunately, as you pointed out, they were able to the find some of the objects yesterday, but they were all sort of just trash from either fishing vessels and one of the things was a fishing buoy, for example. So it is going to be taking a while yet before we really are able to get under way and see what objects are out there floating around.

LEMON: And so the objects that we saw that were retrieved, right, they're picking up in the net, how long before they can get that to a place on land where they can examine it?

SHUBERT: Well, they are examining them on the ship right now, and now if they get something that looks like it might be debris from the plane specifically, then they can examine it on the ship, and they'll likely bring it back here to Freemantle, which is the port here in Perth. But the thing is that it is still 1,800 kilometers out to the search site so that means we're looking at at least a day, possibly two before the ships get back here. So it's a long process. It is going to take more time.

LEMON: Yes, Atika, we are hearing the weather conditions, and it was sunny this morning a little bit, when Will was there, Will Ripley and he said that the clouds were rolling in, and the weather conditions may deteriorate there today in that search area, and what do you know about the storm as we look at the radar here live. What time will the rain start?

SHUBERT: Well, we don't know exactly. So far, what's been happening is the mornings start relatively clear, but then the weather starts to deteriorate, but what we understand from the Australian coordinating team is that even if the weather gets worse today, they are going to try and press ahead with the search.

And when is spoke to one oceanographer who said basically, this is the way it's going to be for the next two to three months, because it is autumn now here in Australia. It's getting into winter, and the weather is just going to get worse and worse and at some point it's going to mean that ships and planes are simply not going to be able to handle the weather conditions out there which is why it's critical to do as much searching as we can while the weather is still relatively good.

LEMON: Atika Shubert, appreciate your reporting. Thank you very much.

I want to talk about the objects now. Let's focus on the objects pulled from the Indian Ocean, and how that may affect the air search. Joining me now, aviation analyst and 777 pilot Les Abend, aviation analyst and pilot Miles O'Brien, aviation analyst and former FAA accident investigator Steven Wallace and ocean search specialist Rob McCallum.

So Steven, I'm going to start with you. An Australian navy ship set to depart from Perth later today after being fitted with a black box detector and an unmanned underwater vehicle. Do you think that they may have the signal that they have found something promising in the ocean?

STEVEN WALLACE, FMR FAA ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR: I don't know. I mean, we have all looked at the same photographs of the wreckage, and we can't draw any conclusions here. As far as the conversation that you just had with Atika there, on the ship, they will certainly have people who are capable of making a fairly good judgment about it. They get something that they think is likely to be part of the aircraft, I would assume they would photograph that.

I mean this could be as simple as a baggage tag with some identification on it, or a Boeing part number on something.

LEMON: Anything. Rob, to you now. You saw the objects retrieved today, and do they look significant to you or just ocean trash or can you tell from the pictures?

ROB MCCALLUM, PROFESSIONAL EXPEDITION LEADER: You know, it is really difficult to tell from the pictures that I saw. You know, they certainly could be, but more significant are the photos that were taken from the aircraft, and they show a significant sized parts. So, you know, here is hoping, because we really do need to find something that's linked to that aircraft in order to be able to start thinking about how we would go about searching.

LEMON: Miles O'Brien, 10 search planes expected to fly today, but weather is of course getting worse. Rain. How do the search crews maximize the time they have available, and how much rain can searchers handle before calling it a day?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, these guys will push it as far as they can, but there are limits as far as the ceiling and the visibility, and at a certain point, they are wasting their time out there. And this goes back a little bit to what I've been talking an awful lot about.

You know, 10 planes relative to the size of the search zone is just not enough in my view. There should be a much bigger fleet of planes involved in this search, and perhaps an aircraft carrier, the "George Washington" is about away in Japan, and could be there, and the U.S. carrier, but, you know, the aircraft on board there are not optimized for search like a P-8 is which is a land-based aircraft, but there are helicopters, there are E2s, C-2s and it's more eyeballs on the scene. And given what Atika is just saying the weather window is going to close here pretty soon, and it is a huge area, and I fell like a full court press is in order.

LEMON: To Les Abend now, the FBI is almost done with the review of the hard drives belonging to the pilot and the co-pilot. U.S. officials telling CNN that nothing is jumping out to them. And it is time to rule out any theories about pilots with nefarious, possibly nefarious motives?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, we're not going be privy to all of the information, I'm sure, but you know, just by everything that has happened, it is just for me personally gut feeling is that it just does not add up. I mean, I'm looking at a captain that seems professional, that seems to be a family man, that enjoys aviation, enjoys geeky things like showing people how to set up an air conditioning unit, and everything after the last verbal contact seems to the say to me that everything was normal.

LEMON: Right. So Miles O'Brien, similar question, you know, we've been looking - you have to look at every single possibility, but in some instances, you know, the pilots' names have been dragged through the mud here, but still no evidence that they did anything wrong.

O'BRIEN: And you know, they have families, too. Let's not forget that, what a horrible thing to indict the crew without any evidence. It is just - you know, listen, they are on the list, and you can't rule it out, and that is just the way that these investigations go, but to take it to the next step and start reading things into, you know, a young man bringing some women into the cockpit, you know, a 27-year- old first officer showing off, you know, or a guy who is interested in flight simulators, and there is nothing in that that tells me there is any shred of guilt that should be obvious there. So this is the worst kind of speculation in my view. And I think that, you know, we just don't know. And these are human beings with families who are suffering right now.

LEMON: Yes.

Rob, you know, this is everything that adds to sort of helps to put the puzzle together. And sometimes you may be looking at things that are really small, and I think that most people are looking for some big object, and maybe tail or wing or what have you. But I want you to dig into a little bit more about it could be the smallest possible thing, and one of my guests earlier said that it could even be a magazine page from an airplane or something as small as that can be an indication of what happened to this flight.

MCCALLUM: I mean, at this stage, almost anything that links any debris to MH-370 would be valuable. Simply to validate all of the work that is being done by the analysts of the satellite data, and the people who have been reworking the handshakes and the crews of the ships and the aircraft that have been out there looking, we really need to find something in order to validate all of that, and to know that we are in the right place.

LEMON: All right. Thank you, guys. Stick around, we're going to talk a little bit more about this, and also we want to talk about the partner of an American businessman who was on flight 370 opens up about her pain, and the connection she still feels to the man she loves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not too many people get that in life. And even if he doesn't come back, that won't change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Her very emotional interview just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We will get right back to the latest developments in the hunt for Flight 370 in just a moment.

But here is some other things what we're watching for you this hour. Quick update on the still simmering dispute between Russia and Ukraine. Secretary of state John Kerry will meet tomorrow in Paris with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. Word of their planned talks came right after Lavrov told a Russian interviewer that Russia has, in his words, absolutely no intention or interest to cross the border of Ukraine. This official tells CNN that Russia has mass as many 40,000 troops along its border with Ukraine. The Russian military build-up has caused growing concern in recent days among both U.S. and Ukrainian officials. A week ago today, a massive landslide virtually wiped out two rural Washington state towns. This morning at 10:37 the exact moment that the slide hit, rescue crews and residents stopped what they were doing for a moment of silence. 17 people are confirmed dead, but officials say the number will climb, 90 people still unaccounted for.

Our Gary Tuchman spoke with a woman who lost both her mother and daughter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Natasha Huestis is now staying at a friend's home after she lost her four-month old daughter and her mother in the Washington state landslide.

(on camera): Your first child?

NATASHA HUESTIS, LOST DAUGHTER AND MOTHERS IN LANDSLIDE: Yes.

TUCHMAN: And your mom?

HUESTIS: First grandbaby.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): This is Natasha's baby, Sunowa and Natasha's mother, Cristina (ph).

And this video of the two of them with Natasha's stepfather. This past Saturday Natasha went to yoga. Her mother was babysitting Sunowa in her home when the landslide hit.

(on camera): When did you find out that your mother and daughter were missing?

HUESTIS: When they started to talk about that there were houses in the road and there is nothing left where our houses were.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Natasha's mother body was found almost right away, baby Sunowa's body was found five days later. Sunowa was put in Natasha's arms.

HUESTIS: When I went out there, and I got to hold her, and I maybe dropped but a couple of tears, because I was so excited that we found her, and all I could do was to grin, because we found my baby. And this is, you know, it might not be the best time to smile and it might not be the best time to laugh, but sharing memories about my mom, and holding baby out there was perfect. Coping in a way that my mom told me to stand up and be strong for myself and told me to, showed me, and not told me, but showed me after spending 26 years of showing me how to walk tall and proud and search and try hard and love and be loving and be kind.

TUCHMAN (on camera): I think that you are an amazing woman.

HUESTIS: Thank you.

TUCHMAN: And we give you our condolences and we are so sorry for you. HUESTIS: Thank you. You know, part of the reason that I'm able to stand up here so tall and proud is because there's people supporting me. There is people on my side. There is people that I don't even know right now searching for other people that helped find my baby.

TUCHMAN: What do you do next?

HUESTIS: Go and help them. Go and help the people that helped me, because I don't know how else to return that favor, because it means so much. I'd spend the rest of my life up there shoveling mud if it were to help someone else, because they helped me.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Gary Tuchman, CNN, Arlington, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: We will go live to Washington state in just about 30 minutes here on CNN for another report on the story. Coming up, a piece of underwater equipment known as an R.O.V. may solve the mystery of Flight 370. An exclusive look at this underwater vehicle built to specifically work in deep seas. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The tough task of locating the potential debris field of Malaysia Flight 370 just the beginning now. If it is ever found it could be thousands of feet below the ocean's surface. A high-tech water vehicle could make all the difference in recovering crucial evidence like the data recorders. Here's CNN's Rosa Flores.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This could be the key to solving the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-370. An underwater piece of equipment that works in the deep sea called a Remotely Operating Vehicle, R.O.V., for short.

It is what the Malaysian government has added to its fleet of resources in hopes of recovering some of the most critical pieces of evidence from the deep sea.

WALLACE: While the two key pieces of evidence that outweigh all other evidence are the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.

FLORES: (INAUDIBLE) off shore, gave CNN an exclusive look at the R.O.V. Triden XLS.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you getting the signal on the R.O.V. beacons as well?

FLORES: It is a multimillion dollar machine it's tethered to a vessel, dropped into the water by a cable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have an altitude at 28 meters.

FLORES: And slowly remotely lowered to the sea floor by pilot in the control room located inside the ship. The R.O.V. is equipped with cameras.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two cameras here, on the pilot monitor and the co- pilot monitor.

FLORES: Meaning an R.O.V. like this one could lay the first eyes on the wreckage site of MH-370.

WALLACE: The wreckage can tell you how it impacted, or how it came apart. It could certainly tell you if certain parts were burned. It can tell you a very complete story

FLORES: Metal arms and jaws are controlled by a joystick.

MARTIN STITT, ROV SUPERINTENDENT: (INAUDIBLE) close the jaws. (INAUDIBLE) like a black box not a problem at all for an ROV to pick it up in a basket and recover it back to the vessel.

FLORES: But before the data recorders are recovered, the wreckage must be located, a task as daunting as the Indian Ocean is deep.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Rosa Flores joins me now. It's fascinating. How long can these machines work on the ocean floor?

FLORES: These particular ROVs can be down there for days. They are tethered to a very sophisticated vessel that has a helipad, so these - the crews are on two 12-hour shifts and they are able to deliver food to these ships by helicopter. One of the key things, Don, that I should point out is that these ROVs, as you saw, have arms and they have jaws.

So in the case of MH-370, for example, if the data recorder is under debris, if it's trapped somewhere, you can rig these ROVs with cutting equipment, with lifting equipment, to be able to get that data recorder from wherever it is. From whatever the debris is. The ROV then puts it in a basket and lifts it up to the basket.

LEMON: Stand by, Rosa. I want to get our experts to weigh in on this. Miles, the video, that's exactly what people are sort of waiting to see, obviously, from this recovery, that video of something and then retrieving it at the bottom of the ocean.

O'BRIEN: Yes. No, this is, you know, it's kind of encouraging to see it, but, remember, the range of these pingers, these devices that make noise on the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder is about two miles under good conditions. So the depth there is about two miles. So you've got to get that thing down pretty low and you've got to identify the location of the wreckage field, of course.

And in retrospect, people who investigated Air France 447 in 2009 actually took a device similar to this, if not that device for all I know, over the wreckage. Where, in fact, they later found the black boxes, and there was no pinging, so we can't be guaranteed that there is a ping. We're getting toward the edge of the guaranteed 30-day life span, but for all we know, it never pinged at all. LEMON: Yes. Good point. And Rob, you know, had an expert on last night, Dave Ramirez said he believes the time for pinging, he believes we've lost that time, sadly. But this information that Rosa Flores brings to us, I mean, it's really good information. As I said to Miles O'Brien, this is what people want to see. Obviously to find something, at least something that they can figure out exactly what happened to this flight. To see that video, to see that search and the recovery of it.

O'BRIEN: Yes, absolutely. And that will be the last step in this whole story is when the ROV eventually gets down on to the seafloor and hopefully recovers the data recorders. If they're not able to be located then starts to bring back to the surface some fairly large and crucial pieces of equipment of the aircraft that can be forensically analyzed. But let's hope for the black boxes. That would be the ultimate goal.

LEMON: Rosa?

FLORES: Now, one of the things we can add is if the pingers stopped pinging, these ROVs are equipped with high-resolution cameras. So if we're able to find the debris and science is able to backtrack and give us a narrow search of where this wreckage is, we could send vehicles like this, not only AUVs which we discussed earlier, but ROVs. AUVs can take a picture of it, it's a sonar picture. These pieces of equipment have real-time cameras. High-resolution cameras that can do the same grid so you'd be able to see exactly what's in the ocean floor. Identify if it's wreckage and then, of course, do a mission to be able to retrieve these data recorders.

LEMON: Rosa, thank you very much. Miles and Rob, stick around. Much more to talk about.

Just ahead, a live report from Australia where a search is on, about to resume, I should say, for the missing Flight 370.

Plus an emotional interview with the partner of an American who was on that plane. She opens up about the moment when Malaysian officials say all the passengers and crew were dead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: You know, it's been more than three weeks after waiting for the loved ones of passengers and crew aboard Flight 370 and the news is nothing but grim.

CNN's David McKenzie sat down with Sarah Bajc. Her partner, Philip Wood, was one of the three Americans on the plane. Although she says she has to move on, she can still strongly feel his spirit. David?

DAVIC MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, throughout these weeks, there's been scenes of frustration, anger, and grief from the families, but also strong voices have emerged. Like that of Sarah Bajc. Her partner from Texas, Phil Wood, was on the plane. I asked her what it was like to get the news that the plane had gone down by text message. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARAH BAJC, PARTNER OF PHILIP WOOD: To me, it was the message that it was over, that everybody was dead, and all of this hope that I've been putting forward and all of the energy I've been pushing forward to be positive and hopeful had just been wasted and it was done. You know, so I think I crashed into a point of crisis.

And then I was listening to the press conference, itself, and I'm thinking, wait, he's not really telling us anything. You know, I started to have a little bit of - a little nugget of disbelief already. I have to keep moving forward. I mean, life has to go on. And I want life to go on with Philip back in my life, but the reality is life has to go on even without him.

MCKENZIE: So, Sarah, do you still feel his spirit, his presence?

BAJC: I do. That hasn't changed. It's particularly strong when I'm by myself in those little daily patterns of life. You know, I've continued to keep up with doing yoga every morning and he's definitely next to me. When I'm doing that.

You know, going to sleep and getting up in the morning. But, you know, whether that's the piece of his soul that's connected to mine that I hope would always be there no matter what, or if it's his - if it's his reach to me to help me keep strong because he's still with us. I don't know where it's coming from, but I still feel it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE: You know, I got to know Sarah pretty well through these weeks and she's a strong woman who's determined to move forward. She's gone to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. She says she'll move forward with her life and settle there no matter what. Don?