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Four New Objects Found In Indian Ocean; How Technology Tracks Suspicious Objects; Malaysia Criticized For Plane Investigation

Aired March 30, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And we'll have much more ahead in the NEWSROOM, and it all starts right now.

Hello again, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Search crews scouring the Indian Ocean for Flight 370 are following a new lead that officials are calling the most promising so far. Here's what we know right now. Four orange objects about six feet long have been spotted today in the search zone. Australian officials say they are worth investigating, and ships are on the way to the area right now. Several other objects picked up by ships yesterday turned out to be fishing equipment and other trash.

And one fact on all the searchers' minds: the battery life left on the data recorder pingers is now running out. There's only about a week left. And because of that critical deadline, an Australian ship carrying a U.S. pinger locater and underseas equipment leaves for the search zone shortly and is expected to arrive there Thursday.

Meantime in Malaysia, families of those on board Flight 370 voiced their frustrations with the way the crisis is being handled during an emotional news conference. Our Paula Hancocks is in Kuala Lumpur.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was an impassioned press conference in this Kuala Lumpur hotel. The Chinese relatives of the passengers of MH 370 had only arrived here just hours earlier at the airport Sunday morning. They said they had to come to Malaysia because they just simply weren't getting the answers they wanted from Beijing. They were wearing T-shirts that read "Pray for MH 370's return home safely." And about a dozen men were chanting, "We want evidence, want the truth, want our families," saying they are sad and desperate.

This relative said "We want Malaysia to apologize for the information that caused confusion in the first week, which delayed the search mission. And we want the Malaysian government to apologize for irresponsibly enacting on the March 24th that the plane had crashed."

And the families are also saying they don't just want to meet with the acting transportation minister, with Malaysian authorities, with the airline. They also want to meet with technical staff from Boeing and anyone else affiliated with this aircraft, saying no one from those companies has yet approached them and does that mean they have something to hide? Paula Hancocks, CNN, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. Let's talk more about this ongoing search for anything as it relates to flight 370. Let's bring in the panel. With me here is Captain Kit Darby. He is a retired commercial airline pilot and the president of Kit Darby Aviation Consulting. And in Washington, I'm joined by CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes. Clive Irving is a contributor to The Daily Beast and a senior consulting editor at Conde Nast Traveller. And Steven Wood is a CEO of All Source Analysis and has 25 years of experience analyzing satellite imagery. Good to see all of you, gentlemen.

So, let's begin with what might be hopeful today, the sightings of these objects, these orange objects that could be six feet long. Tom, to you first. You said that you were hopeful but not optimistic about what other officials are calling promising leads. What do you mean?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: They have been calling leads as promising or identifying them as promising for weeks. So until we get an actual piece out of the water, that will be the promising lead. When we identify a piece of that aircraft and then can really zero in on where they expect it to be on the bottom of the ocean as opposed to now, just fishing out trash of the ocean day after day is just what it is, fishing trash.

WHITFIELD: Steven Wood, this clearly highlights a big problem that our environment has, that there's clearly so much trash floating around in the sea -- at least from satellite imagery or even sometimes these plane spotters. It may appear to be big enough to be a plane part, but then come to find out it's not. So, how do we trust satellite imagery? How do we use this as a continuing tool in this search for any kind of plane debris without losing hope?

STEVEN WOOD, CEO, ALL SOURCE ANALYSTS: Right. First and foremost, Fredricka, I think this kind of highlights two different interesting things. One is as the satellite search is continuing on, in fact, I think in about six-and-a-half hours, a variety of imaging satellites should again be in position to continue to search for the missing Malaysian airliner.

But to me one of the things that came to mind this morning is frankly, one of the outcomes of this whole event using this new type of technology in the hunt for the missing airliner is if we look back in the past week and what the satellite images are actually revealing, we've seen from the United States, we've seen from the French, the Chinese satellites, the Thai satellites they are able to detect objects, debris. Very much like Tom was discussing, for the moment it's been junk, trash, flotsam, jet sum, if you will.

I think one of the unintended benefits that may come out of this entire crisis is we're able to actually start tracking down the junk, the debris. Perhaps one of the silver linings that comes out of this entire episode is now we can begin to clean up the ocean by using remote sensing technologies to salvage and clean up the junk out there.

WHITFIELD: That would be great if this were to be that silver lining. But I wonder, to you, Clive Irving, then, for the immediate concerns to be addressed, trying to find debris related to this plane, trying to find the pinger or the black boxes, now that we have an Australian ship with a U.S. pinger on board that might be arriving to this particular search zone come this Thursday, do you feel like that's enough time to use that kind of technology to its best use here?

CLIVE IRVING, CONTRIBUTOR, THE DAILY BEAST: I think the hope is rapidly fading the pinger will be affected. Because after all you've got to, as one of the naval people said, you've got to find the impact point. Debris is really the starting point, the endpoint. The key part is to find impact. It's only there where you'll have any chance at all of finding crucial information.

WHITFIELD: Captain Darby, help us understand how this technology would work. You were describing to me that -- you're talking about technology that can detect this pinger if it's 20,000 feet away. However, you've got to be right on top of it. It's not the idea of it just has to be in the vicinity and direct it and hopefully somewhere along the way, it can detect the pinger. You have to know where the impact point is, or at least that black box is. You've got to be right on top of it. So how might this be useful right now?

KIT DARBY, FORMER COMMERCIAL PILOT: Well, it's not unlike the sound. We're trying to listen basically. We're underwater. Obviously it can be suppressed by layers of different temperatures of water. It's certainly suppressed by the depth. So the deeper it is, and we don't know where it is, we don't know how deep it is. But about 20,000 feet would be the limit of this at full capacity. Some of the waters there are that deep. You'd have to be right over top of it.

When we lowered the amplified listening device down from the military, I don't know what its capabilities are. I'm sure it can do better. But the search pattern is very narrow in a very wide area. It also moves very slowly. You heard the captain say he can search 50 square miles. We have hundreds of thousands of square miles to search. So, we've either got to get really lucky or we've got to find some better information on where to locate the airplane before we begin searching.

WHITFIELD: All right, thank you so much, gentlemen. We'll resume this conversation momentarily.

Meantime, tensions are rising in Ukraine. And U.S. secretary of state John Kerry is meeting with his Russian counterpart as we speak right now. We'll go live to Paris next for the latest on that meeting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: U.S. secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov are in Paris right for a closed-door meeting. Our Jim Bittermann is in Paris, and he's joining us now. So Jim, they are meeting to try and dial back tension over Russia's moves in Ukraine? JIM BITTERMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's what it looks like, Fredricka. This started with a phone call that took place on Friday between Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, and Putin had initiated that phone call. What came out of it must have been something pretty interesting because John Kerry was on his way back to the United States from the Middle East. And he had stopped in Shannon for refueling - Shannon Ireland -- and he turned the plane around and came down to Paris and Lavrov came to Paris as well.

So the two men are meeting. We're expecting to get a readout from that meeting probably in another hour or so. We're not real clear how long this is going on for. And we're not real clear what the agenda is, either. I think it is a sign both sides are trying to do something to dial back the tensions. And Lavrov said before he left Moscow that it is not the Russians' intention to invade the Ukraine. However, he said the wanted the lawlessness in the Ukraine to end. This is what the Russians have said all along, that they had to protect Russian citizens from the kind of lawlessness that's been going on in the Ukraine, the kinds of attacks they have been facing under the hands of the Ukrainian government. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: And is anyone believing that claim, that explanation given the kind of troop buildup that's taking place?

BITTERMANN: Not in the West. They are not going to get very much. In fact, I think just the opposite. They are very skeptical about that. Basically, I think what really the concerns are are those troops you talked about. According to American intelligence, about 40,000 Russian troops amassed along the border of the Ukraine with another 25,000 on standby sort of as possible follow-on troops in case Russians were to decide to come further into the Ukraine.

WHITFIELD: All right. Jim Bittermann in Paris, keep us posted. Thank you so much.

All right. Search crews are following new leads today in that ongoing hunt for Flight 370. It took off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing 24 days ago. 239 people on board, most of them Chinese nationals. Well, today, searchers spotted four orange objects in the southern Indian Ocean. I want to bring in CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh in Washington. So Rene, this ocean shield ship, as it's named, is heading out shortly with a U.S. pinger locator on board. But deploying that device will be rather challenging, won't it?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it absolutely will be, Fred. That pinger locater is a critical piece of equipment used to find black boxes where the data recorders. That has been loaded onto that Australian Navy ship, and the ship will leave on Monday. But it won't arrive to the search area until Thursday. And it still cannot be used until crews find the debris field. And that's simply because the strength of the signal from the black box is only about a mile or two radius. So you must really be in the right area to have any chance of detecting it.

And what really complicates matters is the signal is getting faint as these batteries die down, and eventually, the signal will stop altogether. That could happen around April 6th, if that hasn't happened already. However, the navy has a plan b in the event the black boxes stopped emitting that signal. Undersea search equipment. That has also been loaded onto that ship. That equipment will map the ocean floor. So take a listen what they believe it will be able to do in assisting them in finding these black boxes.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CMDR. WILLIAM MARKS, USS BLUE RIDGE, 7TH FLEET: So, we do have maybe a week or two left on this pinger on the black box. And if that runs out, you then have to use a site scan sonar. So, we've also put one of those on an Australian ship. So, those two pieces of equipment can work sequentially there on that -- on the Australian ship. But like I said, without good visual confirmation of debris, which we really have not had yet, it's tough even to go in a general direction.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MARSH: All right. We can tell you there are some three million parts to a Boeing 777. So you would think if it did indeed go down in that search area, something would be floating. If and when wreckage is discovered, we know that the Australian search crews, they will hold it on behalf of Malaysian investigative team. That is simply because Malaysians, they would lead this investigation since the Indian Ocean, that's considered international waters there. So, they would be in charge there. So, search crews in Australia would wait for their further instructions.

Now, if and when those black boxes are recovered, it will be Malaysians who will decide who gets it, who will analyze it. Will those black boxes be sent here to the United States for the NTSB to analyze it? Again, that will be a decision that the Malaysians will make. Fred?

WHITFIELD: All right, Rene Marsh, thank you so much. We'll get back to more discussions about this investigation and ongoing search.

But we're also going to talk about this. The latest on earthquakes taking place in California. What do the latest ones tell us? We'll find out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: In Southern California, at least 100 aftershocks reported after Friday night's earthquake. Take a look at this map from The L.A. Times. It shows Friday's 5.1 magnitude quake plus two smaller ones and all the aftershocks that have come since then. The biggest quake rattled a few buildings, but no one was seriously hurt. Still, building inspectors think some homes are too unstable to people to actually come back.

So, is this a sign of something bigger to come? Joining me right now is geophysicist Don Blakeman. He works for the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver. So Don, is 100 aftershocks normal after earthquakes like these? DON BLAKEMAN, GEOPHYSICIST, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVERY (on the phone): It's very normal. Depends what size of aftershocks you're looking at. As you look at smaller and smaller magnitudes there are more and more quakes, which is a good thing. We don't want a lot of large aftershock.

WHITFIELD: OK. And then after this weekend's activity, are you any closer to being able to predict what might happen next?

BLAKEMAN: We can't predict in the sense of identifying where, when, and how large quakes are in a particular area; we simply don't have the science to do that. We can tell you, you typically get a quake like this, which is shallow in the crust as all California quakes are, most California quakes. When you get a quake like that, we expect an aftershock series just exactly like we're seeing right now.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: How long does that generally last?

BLAKEMAN: But we can't predict any particular aftershock. We know we'll have more of these.

WHITFIELD: So aftershocks, does that do over a period of hours or days?

BLAKEMAN: It depends on the quakes. Typically the aftershocks last much longer the larger the quake is. So in this case, I would say it probably -- it definitely would be days and it will probably actually stretch into weeks. But as time goes by, less and less aftershocks, fewer and fewer aftershocks and they become smaller and smaller. Basically they fade away.

WHITFIELD: So is there anything to attribute to this kind of activity? A shift in weather, climate, anything that provokes this?

BLAKEMAN: No. In the past, there have been a lot of studies looking at correlations with things like the moon-induced tides and air mass distribution as weather systems change, that sort of thing. There have been no correlations found with that. The only thing we know, and this is a very basic concept, is the plate tectonic movement continues to happen. And so as we all know, California will continue to be a seismically active area.

WHITFIELD: And then any correlation between the activity there in southern California versus the activity in Yellowstone that I understand some quakes today, quake activity today?

BLAKEMAN: That's something, those kinds of correlations are typically very hard to demonstrate. I will say when we've seen what we call triggering, a large quake causing another substantial quake somewhere else, that usually only happens in very large quakes and not always in those cases, either. A quake this size we don't typically think of triggering in other areas.

WHITFIELD: Don Blakeman of the U.S. Geological Survey. Thanks so much.

All right. We'll get back to the ongoing mystery surrounding Flight 370. That plot deepens. Is it possible we'll ever know why that plane took its possible southern flight route? I'll ask our panel of experts next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: From New York to London, World Tennis Day is gaining momentum on the global stage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's wonderful. It's drawing attention to our sport.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's a great platform to spread the gospel for the good game.

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: What started out as a Big Apple only event has expanded to include more than 70 countries worldwide. Promoter Jerry Soloman has been behind the idea from the beginning.

JERRY SOLOMON, PRESIDENT & CEO, STARGAMES: The idea is to do all of this all around the world on one day to where we sort of galvanize the entire tennis world to celebrate the sport.

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Organizers are hoping this fledgling event will find a permanent place on the tennis calendar.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: In just about four hours, planes searching for Flight 370 will return to the skies to follow a new and potentially significant lead. Here is what we know right now. Four orange objects about six feet long have been spotted today in the southern Indian Ocean. Officials are calling it the most promising development so far. Ships are on the way to the area investigate. Officials say several other objects picked up by ships yesterday are actually fishing equipment and other trash.

And of course, time is a critical factor for the crews. There's only about one week left of battery life on these flight data recorder pingers. And because of that looming deadline, an Australian ship carrying a U.S. pinger locater and undersea search equipment will leave for the search zone in a few hours from now and is expected to arrive Thursday to that search area.

Let's bring back our panel of analysts, Captain Kit Darby, Tom Fuentes, Clive Irving and Steven Wood. Welcome back to all of you gentlemen. All right, so we've been talking about this search now concentrated in about a 128,000 square mile area in the southern Indian Ocean. But Tom, is there any reason to definitively believe this is still the right search area? Why can't it still be the plane or debris might be spotted further north in that other trajectory? FUENTES: Could be. Fredricka, we are all -- especially me, because this is not my area of expertise -- we're all relying on what the experts have said is their best calculation. So, that's all we can do is hope they are right.

WHITFIELD: This calculation, Captain Darby, is in large part based on Malaysian authorities and Boeing officials pinpointing where this plane may have been gone based on evidence they have been collaborating on. Is that enough for you? Or do you think that's just still a long shot?

KIT DARBY, RETIRED UNITED AIRLINE CAPTAIN: It's mostly the satellite ping they got. It establishes a ring. The ring can be anywhere along that ring. There's a lot of additional assumptions about the speed of the plane, altitude, how much gas it would burn. Those are assumptions that are all variables. They have made their best guess. However, there are so many variables the actual outcome is uncertain.

WHITFIELD: Clive, you know, we're still talking about an awful lot of theories. We're entering the fourth week now. Theories whether the plane, you know, went down north or south. If it was a mechanical problem. Whether it had anything to do with the pilot and co-pilot, a sinister plan. You are also wanting more attention focused on the loading of cargo. That certainly would intimate that perhaps there was some other sort of sinister or maybe even accidental cause. It has nothing to do with the crew and perhaps nothing to do with the passengers?

CLIVE IRVING, CONTRIBUTOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": Even if we don't get sinister bend to it, spent a lot of time what's going on in the plane after it took off. It's very interesting that we don't know a lot yet about what was going on in the hour before the plane left the gate. This is a crucial period in the life of any flight. The ground handling, quality of the ground handling, the way the cargo was loaded, accuracy of the manifest, how individual packages of cargo were packed.

For example, the lithium ion batteries. They say they weigh 440 pounds. That's not the weight of the package. That includes the weight of the packaging. So you to subtract weight of the packaging from that to find out how many there are. That's one aspect of what remains to be an unknown and key part of the anatomy of this flight.

Because at that stage when the package being loaded you need to know how secure it was. Air site security on the other side where the passengers are. We haven't had any real information about this. I think to give balance to theories we need to know more.

WHITFIELD: Stephen Wood, you know, we're looking -- the net has been cast very wide. There's lots of theories. Everything is still on the table. There seems to be very little that's definitive. Is it your view we are at square one all over again?

STEPHEN WOOD, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, ALLSOURCE ANALYSIS: I don't think I would characterize it quite like that. It is certainly a challenge. Frankly, one of the things I look at, what can we learn from history? And so in fact when I was in New York City this past week with CNN, a number of guests, Jeff Wise, David Soucie, all the experts that we've been talking to. We started talking, one of the classic things that you do with analysis is you go backwards in time. What can we learn from what happened before?

Specifically both David and Jeff had asked me, what can we learn from satellite imagery of a similar incident like this before? We began looking at the Air France incident over the past couple of days, my colleagues in All Source Analysis, my friends at Digital Globe, we went back and we are beginning to look at what could satellite imagery tell us in this specific instance, what happened with Air France incident back in 2009.

A couple things that are important to me that came out of it, while we're still looking at data, that incident five days after the plane crashed into the ocean, people began to actually find debris. As you said at the top of the hour, we're talking about 24 days later in the disappearing Malaysian Airliner.

This is an incredible challenge, not only from the debris, recovery and the drift that we've all been speaking about, it underscores the complexity of what we're trying to deal with today. So I think we're moving forward. We're getting more information every day, but this is a really difficult challenge.

WHITFIELD: It is, indeed. All right, thanks to all of you, Gentlemen. I appreciate that. Stay with me. We're going to talk much more about this, this ongoing investigation which continues to get murkier and murkier and more mysterious along the way. Thanks so much.

Also next, how new animation technology is helping oceanographers track suspicious objects.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: In the search Flight 370, oceanographers are using new types of animation helping them track where suspicious objects were spotted and may have drifted. Brian Todd explains how it works.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are now hundreds of objects spotted by satellites in one condensed area, all giving if you hope to search teams. In the rough swirl of the Southern Indian Ocean, finding them has been almost impossible. It's oceanographers like Van Gurley who played a critical role in finding Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic who could hold the key to finding those mysterious objects.

CAPT. VAN GURLEY (RETIRED), METRON, INC.: The drift of the winds, currents, all things making this a very dynamic situation.

TODD: Gurley's team at Metron, a scientific data analysis firm has new animation models projecting where objects spotted recently by satellites may have drifted. They use weather, wind and ocean current projections from NOAA. They determine what kinds of objects could be floating.

GURLEY: Based on what to expect for a boating accident, someone lost at sea or an aircraft accident.

TODD: Like seats, luggage, other parts of a plane, Gurley's team projected where those objects spotted by a French satellite on Sunday could have drifted by midday, Thursday.

GURLEY: The circle is where it was spotted on the 23rd and this particular field is about 60 miles on this axis from the southwest to northeast. But the pattern doesn't really go to the north and does go to the south, again, about 60 miles.

TODD: Sixty miles in each direction. What about the field of 300 some objects spotted by a Thai satellite on Monday in the same vicinity?

GURLEY: In this projection, it's moved about 60 miles to the north, 65 miles south. You can see the entire field moved east.

TODD: A key question, if Gurley's team can project these objects forward in time, could they track them backwards to the morning of March 8th, when the plane's last signals were sent, and maybe see where the plane may have hit the ocean?

GURLEY: It's actually much more difficult because of the amount of time. We are now on day 20 of the problem.

TODD: The possible good news comes in what that black line represents in realtime.

GURLEY: The Australian ship "Success" is actually operating near the area where our simulation says the debris may be based on the 23rd of March imagery.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: These models are not just for debris. Van Gurley's company, Metron has similar models that actually help the Coast Guard find people who are lost at sea. They take a report of where someone has been lost and project currents and drifts ahead to where the person may be drifting and where the Coast Guard can start a search. Brian Todd, CNN, Weston, Virginia.

WHITFIELD: All right, let's now bring back our panel of analysts. Captain Kit Darby, Tom Fuentes, Clive Irving and Steven Wood, welcome back to all of you. We've learned and heard that there might be new objects that searchers are going to be looking for, orange objects that could be six feet in length.

Again, we have seen no images of this. They haven't necessarily been plucked from the ocean, but this is something many of the ships are going to be looking for. Perhaps those are potential glimmers of hope.

Steven, you know, last we were talking, you talked about and you made reference to Air France investigation in 2009 and what can be learned from that investigation and applied here. What lessons from the search for that debris and for the discovery of exactly what led to the downing of that plane, how do you see that being applied here especially since this is clearly a more arduous task of finding any wreckage, any semblance of wreckage pieces?

WOOD: Right. Well, a couple of things. In the segment just aired, Metron actually put out a report following the Air France crash. They identified some of the promises and the pitfalls of some of the technology used for forensic investigation for that air crash. Specifically they mentioned in the early days the effectiveness or the lack of effectiveness, both aerial searches by airplanes as well as some of the satellite imagery that was used.

My initial conclusion is some of the radar imaging satellites, which is a little different than what we've been showing on CNN this past week was very difficult to actually conclusively identify any debris that was seen. I believe in the Metron report -- actually reported there was one European military satellite that did detect debris very close to the down sighting of the Air France crash.

Now fast forward to where we are today, again, I think one of the lessons that we're beginning to uncover, if you look at older archive imagery we spoke about before, can we actually physically identify debris that did correlate to the downed airliner. I think it's possible. What becomes important then is you develop a signature as we call in the imagery world, specific identifying characteristic.

That can then be used to help train analyst, to train computer systems to now apply looking at this imagery of the Southern Indian Ocean. That may help us accelerate and improve our ability to now detect debris that may positively be identified with this missing airliner.

WHITFIELD: And we all realize that we're talking about a giant locality, the Indian Ocean. Even if you narrow it down to the recommended latest search area of 123,000 square miles. You know, Captain Darby, when we talk about the 777, a plane made up of some 3 million pieces as we heard our Rene Marsh reporting earlier.

It would seem if it went down anywhere in that Indian Ocean, some of those pieces, I mean, hundreds if not thousands of those pieces have the potential to float somewhere within the Indian Ocean and would have been spotted by satellite imagery or a plane flyover.

DARBY: It does seem so many pieces if we were in the right place would see something, I mean, every life preserver, every life vest, every personal item, a bottle, a plastic bottle with a top on it for the past 20 years.

WHITFIELD: Because there's so much that could potentially float even after being waterlogged, over a three-week, close to four-week period of time you're saying.

DARBY: Right. Plastic basically doesn't really show the effects for years to degrade. So something should be floating if we are in the right spot. It's discouraging that everything we've found so far has been nothing but trash.

WHITFIELD: Tom, you know, we've got assets that are in the area. We meaning the world is searching for anything as it pertains to this plane. You've got the Australian ship heading to that area with the U.S. pinger on board to arrive in that search area by Thursday with less than a week to go before the battery is expected to go out in the pinger of that flight data recorder. Is it your feeling that it's smart to have those assets in the vicinity necessarily, if not an indicator that they might know where this impact point is?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I would think so, Fredricka. If that device is going to swim around in the ocean and hope to get lucky, I think the odds are it's not going to be lucky. It's going to be like winning the lottery. However, what we don't know is there's some other classified piece of information that says go to a particular spot and deploy that device. I don't know if that could be from a submarine, other satellite capability. Maybe they have some reason to send it out. If they find something, look how lucky we are.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much, Gentlemen. Clive Irving, I know you are going to be sticking around. After the break, we are going to talk about what it's like for journalists covering the magnitude of this story. Much more after this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Looking at the grace of these jumps and turns, you would probably never guess that the 22-year-old figure skater, Max Aaron, started skating on a different kind of ice. He started as a toddler and fell in love with ice hockey the first time he picked up a stick. He started figure skating with his sister during the off season to help his game. Soon he was starting his days in figure skates and ending them in hockey skates. By 2007, he was well on his way to fulfilling his dream. He was on the elite USA hockey development team. But in 2008, he had a major setback.

MAX AARON, 2012 U.S. FIGURE SKATING CHAMPION: I kept pushing on and now both seasons were over. We were in the gym. We were lifting weights and we were doing a dead lift. It seized up and I tilted over. I couldn't walk and get off the ground.

GUPTA: His back was broken. He had to come back slowly and wear just one pair of skates.

AARON: I decided I will figure skate.

GUPTA: The medals started adding up including a bronze in 2010 junior nationals, a gold in 2011 junior nationals and a gold in 2013 nationals. He was the U.S. men's first alternate for the Sochi Olympics and now he is skating for a world title in Japan.

AARON: I was talking to doctors and they say, you know, you caught it even earlier when you did, you know, you could be paralyzed, you don't take that for granted. GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A new critic has been added to the chorus of those finding fault with the Malaysian government's investigation of Flight 370, Interpol, the International Police Agency. Here is CNN's senior international correspondent, 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 forces lambasting Malaysian officials for lax controls.

The truth is that in 2014, prior to the tragic disappearance of Malaysian Flight MH370, Malaysian Immigration Department did not conduct a single check of passengers' passports against Interpol's database. The agency said in a statement. They are not alone in their criticism.

FUENTES: The idea that somehow governments adopt want to query the Interpol databases because it takes too long is frankly just absurd.

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

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

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

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

While the Australian government said it was immediately shifting the certainly 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. So you have to ask when any of this information comes out, what's the factual basis behind it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: One former Malaysian Airlines executive told CNN while he is proud of Malaysia 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, Malaysia.

WHITFIELD: All right, this has been quite the challenge for any journalists to cover. I want to bring back Clive Irving, he is a contributor to "The Daily Beast" and a senior consulting editor at "Conde Nast Traveler."

All right, so Clive, as a journalist, you've got to be skeptical about just about everything at the same time be very probing about facts separated from fiction. Why has that story in particular taken you and so many others around the world, so to speak, trying to get to the bottom of how to present this story and at the same time also investigate so many theories that surround this mystery?

IRVING: Well, this is a global phenomenon. There's a huge appetite across the world for information. That's information which no one is in a position to give, which means there's a great responsibility on the part of journalists to be sure of their sources. In this case, I think we're seeing frequently that sources can be very flaky, particularly if they are Malaysian.

I can site, for example, the pursuit the pilots, which began very early on by careful and deliberate release of information, no credence at all. People went chasing after it. I think that's dissipated to some extent. It just underlines very often on this story, speculation is the enemy of truth, yet we are forced to speculate. I'm very self- aware. A certain theory. Might become too obsessed with it, too convinced on the basis of what I'm seeing.

It's probably the right one. That would be wrong to do. What I've been trying to do is look at each and balance them. Take Boeing, for example, they have been very silent, tight-lipped. They say absolute justification this is the best investigation under way. They can't say any more about it.

When I go to Boeing with information which I've worked out for myself, ask to confirm details, for example, of the architect of the plane, they won't even do that. I think all of us are out there working with far less information than we would like to have. There's a public interest. We understand the situation. Quite frankly, fear of flying has been banged by this unnecessarily because of the communications mode.

WHITFIELD: Well, you know, there's a hunger for the story. What you said about theory and speculation, that really hits home for so many because I think most journalists will feel like they want to stay as far away from speculation and theory and covering any story. Because this mystery is colossal, the theory is exactly what's driving the concept behind why this plane could have gone down.

Of course, if there were hard facts about where the plane went down, why it went down, there would be a lot less theory-based reporting. This story simply cannot exist without it at this juncture. Would you agree?

IRVING: I do. We're dependent here a lot of experts, the kind of experts that you've been having on CNN, a very strong team of experts. They are groping as much as we are to reconcile various conflicting signals out of Malaysia. Particularly in Nic Robertson's piece showed the passports, mixed passports of travelers and conflicting views of what went on in the first stages of the turn, after the plane turned. It was really a huge challenge for journalists.

WHITFIELD: Clive Irving, thank you so much. Appreciate your expertise on that. Our continuing coverage of the missing Flight 370 continues right after this. New developments as the search continues.

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