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Search for MH-370; Kerry Meets Lavrov; Quake Shakes Southern California; Search for Flight 370; How Investigators Could Reconstruct the Plane; Weather Could Impact MH-370 Search

Aired March 30, 2014 - 16:00   ET

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: The search for Flight 370 has now entered its 24th day. And so far, not a wing, not a rutter, nothing. But that could be about to change. Now that Australians have spotted what they are calling their most promising lead so far. Four orange objects about six feet long. Experts say they could - emphasis on the could be the plane's emergency escape slides, life rafts even.

Right now ships are on their way to the area to investigate, planes as well. But crews are cautious after other object picked up by ships yesterday turned out to be fishing equipment and other trash. All the while the clock still ticks on the flight recorded pingers, they're probably only about a week of battery life left and because of that critical deadline, an Australian ship carrying a U.S. pinger location and undersea search equipment leaves for the search zone shortly. That is expected to arrive there on Thursday.

The next air search begins in about two hours. Our correspondent Kyung Lah is at the Pearce Airbase where search planes will take off in Perth, Australia. Kyung, search crews haven't retrieved anything positive so far. They have been looking at this from the air and they see things that are interesting have they picked up anything yet that they can investigate to see if they are actually part of the plane?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there have been some items picked up by sea. We are not really clear on whether those items are actually objects that were spotted by some of the planes. But what we can tell you is that specific item you were talking about. Those four orange objects, those have not been retrieved yet. That's really something - those particular objects are really something that's lending to a lot of curiosity here at the airbase because they are particularly intriguing.

They are six and a half feet long. They are orange and the pilot when they stepped off of the Australian plane yesterday said that these were quite intriguing because they are all together and they are bright orange. But again, don't know what that is. There have been a number of items spotted by the air. I was aboard the P-8 when they actually did spot some items. There is a lot of sea junk out there, Jim, very difficult to tell until they are picked up by the sea vessels whether or not they are actually connected to the plane.

SCIUTTO: Well, one of the problems that we've seen and you and I have talked about this before when we checked in to Perth is that the plane will spot something but it is difficult for the ships to get to that same area in time before the current have moved them on. How confident are they that when the search planes go up that they will be able to get to the exact spot where the planes spotted these objects and potentially pick them up.

LAH: Well, quite a bit of it depends on whether or not a GPS buoy is dropped. That's really the key here on whether or not search planes feel that what they've seen in important. For example, when I was on the P-8 and there was some debris spotted on the sea. The P=8 crew did not drop a GPS buoy. Because the items were quite a bit far apart. They weren't quite sure and they leaned toward the theory that they might be significant. So they did not drop a GPS buoy.

The Australian crew yesterday, seeing those four orange objects did drop a GPS buoy. So that's really where we're reading the tea leaves here. If the GPS buoy is dropped, then the chances that a sea vessel will be able to find that debris is much higher. So that is really what they are looking at. If a GPS buoy is dropped, then the chances of finding it via sea vessel - it increases the chances. Jim.

SCIUTTO: Just one more question quickly if I can, Kyung. The new search area is smaller than the original search area which is farther to the south and the west from Australia. Do we have a sense now of what percentage of this new search area that the search planes have been able to cover?

LAH: We don't have an exact percentage. We sort of have to do the math on the new search area but what we can tell you is that they are chunking off a huge portion every single day. To give you a little perspective, when all of this began about a week ago, they were clearing about 30,000 square kilometers. Yesterday, they cleared 252,000 kilometers. So a significant jump. There are more assets in the air, more countries searching. And now for the very first time we see more sea vessels.

So eight sea vessels yesterday were crisscrossing this area, going to these places where the objects are spotted. So a significant jump in the amount of square footage that is being covered.

SCIUTTO: And as you have been speaking, we've had some pictures of those air assets going up. Chinese search planes as well as the American P-8 and there are now two P-8s I believe, the most advance American surveillance plane, looking for pieces of this missing flight.

Thanks very much, Kyung Lah in Perth, Australia.

I want to talk now about these latest developments with our panel of experts. We have Jim Tilmon, CNN aviation analyst, also retired American Airlines pilot Tom Fuentes, CNN law enforcement analysts. He was the former assistant director of the FBI. And also Miles O'Brien, a pilot himself, CNN aviation analyst. Good to have all of you here with me today.

Jim, if I can start with you, another day turning up objects that look possibly from several hundred feet in the air like they could be from the plane. Now you have those four orange objects, some of them more than six feet long. In your experience, you know planes very well, when you hear of objects of those dimensions, that color, does that make you think that it could be parts of this plane?

JIM TILMON, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes, it does. I really feel like it's a very promising sighting that they had. Because, you know I don't know the exact dimensions of the evacuation slides but it falls in that general arena. I don't think it looks like the rafts which are a completely different style and size and everything else. But it does sound like the slides and that would be wonderful to find those.

SCIUTTO: Just a question a question if I can, Jim, would those slides be designed to open automatically when a plane hits water. In other words, it just happen or would someone have to intervene to make those slides inflate?

TILMON: As I remember how they are hooked up, once they depart the airplane, or they're in the process of departing the airplane, they inflate. I mean, you know, they are attached to like the doors and that sort of thing. When you open that door, then they flop out and they fill up with air and they are ready to float and they are generally, generally capable of carrying several people as you go along. They are really pretty sturdy.

SCIUTTO: Miles, one difference of this new search zone, it is closer to Australia, in calmer waters but it's also in shipping lanes, more likely to have trash. That is a challenge isn't it now as these planes go up. Because frankly, they are more likely to be seeing pieces of things that could be part of a plane. They're not going to know until you physically get your hands on.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, given the trash that we have collectively discovered in the Indian Ocean (INAUDIBLE) I suppose maybe it is a wash, if you will. I supposed one advantage to being in shipping lanes is you have more sets of eyeballs in the area, general vicinity. Maybe one of those ships, somebody on one of those ships might see something that might be able to help the searchers in their efforts.

The fact that it is sort of closer to land is great the fact that it is better seas is great. All of these things are working in favor of the search. We are still talking about an area the size of New Mexico with on a any given day, somewhere between eight and 10 aircrafts. Still seems like not enough resources in my view.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it is interesting to think about. The Chinese have sent nine ships. But hat's a lot of ground to cover.

Tom, I want to bring you in if I can on the investigation. Because we learned in the last 24 hours that the Malaysian investigators are taking another look, not only at the flight crew but also at all the other passengers based on what they know. We also heard in the last 24, 48 hours that what they have seen so far from the pilot's flight simulator have shown no smoking gun, no red flags. You have done countless investigations so far when you were at the FBI. When they are going back to take another look, is that because they have no other leads or it's because there is reason to take another look? TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Jim, it is a little bit of both in this case. But it is a mischaracterization to say now they are going back to take another look. They have taken a non-stop intensive look from the first night the plane disappeared. And I know that for a fact.

So the look has been intense in terms of the pilots, the crew, the passengers, the cargo, the ground personnel that touched that aircraft. So that has been on going, that has not stopped. Now they may do continuing interviews of persons where they go back and ask questions, ask more questions, keep reinterviewing them. But that's part of the continuous process.

And as of now, in spite of the false reporting that has been put out, nothing derogatory has developed concerning the pilot or any one else, at this point.

SCIUTTO: Tom, mentioned - we'll talk about that later, the false reporting. One changes the final words from the aircraft are different, we learned in the last 24 hours than we were told just a week or two ago.

We are going to get back to the panel. We're going to get into some of the remaining questions. Thank you, Jim Tilmon, Tom Fuentes, Miles O'Brien. We'll talk again later this hour.

Now, we know about the emotional stress put upon the loved ones of Flight 370. But what about the physical stress. Next, Dr. Sanjay Gupta breaks down the short and long term effects on families as they continue to wait for answers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York.

Malaysia's prime minister today gave families his word vowing that the search operation will not end until flight 370 is found. That is not good enough for the loved ones of those lost on the airliner. They say they want the truth and evidence of what happened and they want it right away. Two things no one can apparently give them right now.

CNN's Sara Sidner joins me live now in Kuala Lumpur. That's the capital of Malaysia. Sara, I know you spent a lot of time with the families. This has just been gut wrenching for them over, more than three weeks now. How are they handling it and what are they telling you now?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They have been on so much emotional highs and lows hearing from the different authorities here in Malaysia. What we are seeing is quite a difference between the Chinese passengers which make up the bulk of the passengers' families on flight MH-370 and the families of the other passengers, the Malaysian passenger and the others who were on the flight.

What we are seeing from the families of the Chinese passengers is utter frustration and they have been very, very vocal about that. They have told us things like we believe we are being lied to. We believe we are not getting all of the information that we deserve. We believe that our family members are alive out there somewhere and authorities just aren't telling us. They are very, very angry with the Malaysian government partly because they feel that the information has simply changed too many times.

There have been too many differences, what they're hearing from Malaysian authorities and even differences in what they are hearing from different authorities. For example, when the prime minister came out five days ago and said Look, this plane ended - it crash into - he didn't say crash. He said it landed or ended, the flight ended in the Southern Indian Ocean and the families were then told by officials on the ground that all lives were lost.

And then just a day ago we heard the acting transportation minister that there was still hope and a search and rescue mission was in order and that by some miracle, hope beyond hope, that perhaps there are still some survivors and they are still looking for survivors even 23 days on.

So the families are thinking well one person is saying one thing and another person is saying another thing and they are both from official position, who are we to believe? As a whole, the families believe their loved ones are still alive and they can't believe anything differently, they tell us, until they see physical evidence.

And there is where the frustration lies not only with the families but also with investigators. They have been looking for this plane for such a long time, they have found no physical evidence of it and until they do, I think many of the families are so skeptical they won't believe a thing they hear and they'll continue to be angry with Malaysian officials and others until they get more answers. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Listen. Many share their frustration we had another change, right, in terms of what the final words were from the cockpit. You heard one thing a week ago, we heard another thing just in the last 24 hours. But I wonder when you are speaking to families and they are talking about still having hope that those passengers are alive, is it your sense that they feel that is a realistic hope that they feel it could honestly be true or that it is kind of a protective mechanism?

SIDNER: Look, it is a really, really good question and perhaps better for a psychologist to answer than myself. But I will tell you that it's interesting in the way that some of them say it. And that has changed a bit, some of them are saying, you know, "I believe if I can feel that my loved one is still there. I know they're still there. I just know it." Almost like they are telling themselves that they just can't let go.

Sometimes you'll hear them say "I believe they are still alive" but then later on they'll say but if they aren't we will accept that. We will accept god's will. We've heard that very sentence time and again from different family members. So you are right, I think some of them are doing this as a real protective measure. They can't understand and don't want to even consider that that their loved ones are gone while some of the others are starting to say things like "Well, yes, we believe they are alive, but it is possible that they are no more but all we want is proof and truly all we want if they are dead is to be able to see them and bury them." And so that's is what we are hearing here in Kuala Lumpur, Jim.

SCIUTTO: It's certainly the least they can ask for is certainty and that is the reason behind that frantic search now for the plane.

Thank you so much, Sara Sidner, in Kuala Lumpur.

For those family members, of course, this is a living nightmare and the stress is taking the toll on all of them. CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains what exactly they are going through. Sanjay?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There is no question there is a physical impact from all this grief and all those images that you have been seeing. Some of it just practical. People aren't eating as well. They are not sleeping as well. They have the collapse from just fatigue. But there's more than that. Your cortisol levels, your stress hormone levels which could be helpful on a regular basis, they go up and down as you need it.

But in people in these situations those cortisol levels just stay elevated. And as a result, people, their heart level may be increased. Their blood pressure may be increase but they may also start to perceive harmless threats as really dangerous. They are living very much on edge.

I do want to point out something that I think is important. This idea that there is a heroic period here, the whole world is paying attention. You got people who are really caring about your loved ones and you see that attention being given, and that can buoy up the families, make them feel more hopeful and optimistic but as you might guess when the heroic period ends, when the media attention starts to divert and these searches get shutdown or called off that can be a very devastating fall. When you realize that people have sort of moved on and it can be greater than the initial lost itself.

It is hard to say that if everyone is going to get closure. That can be a very difficult question. And again, people are going to behave differently. For most people subconsciously they may recognize that in fact there is closure here even if consciously they are not vocalizing it. What happens sometimes is that the pain, just the continued daily pain of not knowing and the worry and the anxiety gradually outweighs the pain of the lost itself.

And that is often times a form of closure as well. It is heart breaking to think about it and again, everyone is going to be different. That is a little bit of an idea of what they may be going through.

SCIUTTO: Thanks, Dr. Sanjay Gupta in New York.

We will have more on the missing plane in just a moment.

But ahead, a pair of large earthquakes rattle southern California followed by hundreds of aftershocks. We're going to go live to Los Angeles in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: We'll go back to the disappearance of Flight 370 in just a moment. But first, here are our other headlines. Secretary of state John Kerry is meeting this hour in Paris with Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, in trying to come up with a plan to reduce tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Before the meeting, Lavrov called on the west to support what he called "a federal structure" that would allow greater autonomy for Russian speakers inside Ukraine. Russia, recently as you remember annexed Ukraine's Crimea region. And U.S. officials say Russia has massed up to 40,000 armed forces right along Ukraine's border. But Lavrov insisted yesterday that Russia has no intention of sending those troops inside Ukraine.

Now we want to go to southern California where fresh aftershocks are rattling nerves after two earthquakes in two days, more than 100 aftershocks have struck the Los Angeles area since the first 5.1 quake hit on Friday, a 4.1 magnitude tremor followed yesterday.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is live in Los Angeles where there is plenty of concern that the big one could be next. Stephanie, is that what the experts are saying that these relatively smaller earthquakes could be forewarnings of a larger earthquake?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are not saying that, Jim. Of course, the one questions that we would all like though, especially those of us who live here, is all this earthquake activity is going to lead to something bigger. And they can't say that. What they did say though is that when you see an earthquake like 5.1, which is a moderate sized earthquake, and then you have a smaller one, which we saw yesterday afternoon. There was one that was about 4.4, that is what they usually do.

You have a earthquake and then they continue to get smaller after that. So these 100 or so aftershocks, most of them being very small. Most of us not even noticing them maybe in the two point range or the one point range but much smaller and they say that is typical behavior and they have been saying that the last 20 years have been very quiet which is not typical for the LA region and this could potentially mean that we are going back to a more normal cycle of having these little earthquakes all the time, Jim.

SCIUTTO: What are people doing to prepare as those aftershocks follow.

ELAM: I hope they're prepared. I hope that they're starting to really think about this. I think there's a lot of complacency out here, to be hones with you, Jim. And I think that a lot of people haven't thought about what they need to do to shore up their plate. You know, when you talk about a five-point anything earthquake, for most people who live in California, it is really not that big. We don't usually get freaked out by that.

But if you live in one of these areas that is affected where the bricks are falling or where the glass is breaking, where everything is coming off your shelves, that is a terrifying experience. I'm from California, I've been through it and I can tell you that is terrifying and it takes you a long time to go back to sleep as a normal human being after that.

So I don't want to down play it for the people who have been living with it. As you san see, this video that you're seeing right here, this is scary when all of this happened in just a matter of seconds. I believe it was a 10-second earthquake. So that is scary. But overall, this is not the biggest kind of earthquake that we have seen out here. It just makes everyone sit up and pay attention and hopefully we'll get them to really think about preparing moving forward, Jim.

SCIUTTO: No question, and I have been through a couple as well. Those things are hard to sleep after. So thanks very much. Stephanie Elam, she's in Los Angeles.

More than a week after a massive mudslide struck Washington state. Searchers are still hoping to find survivors. Thirty people are unaccounted for following this Saturday's slide. That is down from 90. Rescue crews still working around the clock. Washington's governor told CNN today he is still hoping for a miracle. But the search is proving extremely difficult.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JAY INSLEE, (D), WASHINGTON: The extreme conditions really can't be overstated when you talk to rescue workers. This is about as tough as it gets. It can take five minutes to go 50 feet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Several people in injured in the mud slide are still in the hospital. Among them is 25 year old Amanda (INAUDIBLE). She is reported to be in satisfactory condition. Her 23 week old son is in serious condition but is improving in intensive care. That's a picture of them there. Eighteen people are known to have died in the mudslide so far.

For some of the ways that you can help those affected by the land slide go to cnn.com/impact.

We are working on borrowed time. That is one member of the U.S. Navy describes the search to find Flight 370 in the southern Indian Ocean.

Coming up, the two crucial pieces of equipment that could finally yield some answers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York.

Some are calling it the most promising lead so far. But could it be just another dead end? Today an Australian plane returned to base with news of a sighting. The team saw four orange colored objects. Some six feet long. Experts say they could be the plane's emergency slide or even a life raft. Ships are now heading back to get a closer look at those objects to confirm.

In the meantime in Malaysia frustration is growing.

A group of Chinese families angrily demanding officials provide evidence on the fate of their loved ones and apologize for releasing what they call confusing information. Malaysia's prime minister responded with a statement, saying in part, quote, "As we entered the third week in the search for MH-370, be assured that the Malaysian government is fully committed to the search operation and we will not stop until the plane is found."

The time is quickly running out in the search, though. There's only about one week of battery life left in the flight data recorder. And when the battery runs out the pings go silent. Right now an American pinger locator and underwater search equipment are loaded up and ready to head for the search zone.

Correspondent Paula Newton takes a close look at the U.S. pinger locator and how it may help solve the mystery of Flight 370. That is if time doesn't run out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Ocean Shield is at the ready and just hours from sailing off to a search zone that so far has yielded no trace of Flight 370. The Australian ship will be the linchpin of the investigation but only if and when air wreckage is found.

VICE ADMIRAL KAY GRIGGS, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY: This is a very complex and challenging job and first real step here is to find some debris so that we can back up and pinpoint -- an impact point to give us an initial search area.

NEWTON: Being fitted on board a U.S. Navy tow pinger locator that will try and isolate the signal from the cockpit and flight data locaters. And the Blue Fin 21. An underwater vehicle that will comb the ocean floor looking for wreckage.

(On camera): No matter how specialized and sophisticated this equipment, it won't do any good unless that search zone can be narrowed.

CMDR. MARK MATTHEWS, U.S. NAVY: We need better point of impact estimation than we have right now.

NEWTON (voice-over): U.S. Navy Commander Mark Matthews is leading the team that will deploy the locator equipment and it needs to come within about a mile of the pinger. Just like the one he's holding.

MATTHEWS: I can search approximately 50 square miles a day. So really if we're searching for a beacon and we're leaving on borrowed time I need something that is only, you know, less than 1,000 square miles.

NEWTON (on camera): Right now we're dealing with over 100,000 square miles.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

NEWTON: As you said, challenging.

MATTHEWS: It's very low probability of detection, as bad as search area.

NEWTON (voice-over): And that's a sobering thought for the families of those missing. As we board Ocean Shield, those working to deploy her are mindful that every minute counts. The pinger signal will last a little more than a week and any wreckage has been dragged by wind and current for weeks now.

Paula Newton, CNN, at Australian Naval Base, Sterling.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: I want to bring back our panel now to focus in part on this U.S. pinger locator. We have aviation analyst and pilot Jim Tilmon, law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes and also aviation analyst Miles O'Brien, who's also a pilot.

Miles, I want to start with you because I spoke Admiral Kirby -- he's the Pentagon spokesperson -- before they deployed this pinger locator. He said listen, it's not useful until they have identified a debris field because of the range of the pinger locator and the hydrophone that they drag behind the ships.

Why move that into position now? Is it a sign that they really just don't have much in light of how little time is left on the pinger?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Exactly. It's kind of -- it's moving it into position on spec, if you will, Jim. If you get it at least close to the search area with time dwindling, if they do in fact find anything that'll just be that much closer, they'll be able to get that device on station and listening that much sooner. So it's just -- it's sort of -- protectively they're putting it in place. Put it that way.

SCIUTTO: I think it's something we have to remind constantly, do some expectations management here because every day there'll be something spotted and more equipment moved into the position but really they're not much closer to finding the exact location of where this plane is.

And, Jim, I wonder if I could ask you, because we started this conversation in the last segment about what has been spotted now. You have several orange objects some as long as six feet long. We were looking at some video of what those escape slides look like. And they appeared to be longer than six feet to come out of a plane.

I mean, you know, planes very well. You've flown for so many years. What else on a plane could be that size and that color? And I know I'm just asking you for educated guesses here. But are there other things on a plane that would look like that? JIM TILMON, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes and no. I mean, you know, a lot of things that are on an airplane as routinely are put there. They're not put there for flotation necessarily for this kind of analysis. But they are there and it would be very difficult to determine now which ones of those would have that kind of size and shape.

You know, I was thinking more about what we said earlier and most of these slides deploy as they leave the airplanes. For any reason, they leave the actual structure of the airplane and begin to inflate.

Yes, the size generally are larger, but it depends upon which slide. And I've got to tell you, they're not uniform because the size of the forward portion of the airplane are different in length to the ones on the rear of the airplane by the design and of course the one over the wing. So you've got different sizes and I'm beginning to get a little bit more skeptical about those orange objects.

SCIUTTO: We'll only know when the ship gets out there to pick them and have a closer look.

Tom, I wonder if I could bring you in just to talk about the investigation. Mike Rogers, he's the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He said something on the Sunday shows this morning. He said he has seen nothing yet that comes out of the investigation that would lead him to conclude there was something other than a normal flight then something went wrong.

I wonder this number of days in, really more than three weeks in, you speak to your contacts who are cooperating with the Malaysians. Have you heard anything -- or seen anything with your expertise that indicates foul play or are we where we were really a week ago and still guessing?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Jim, nothing in the investigation has revealed that the pilot or copilot or someone else entered the cockpit and actually caused this to happen. So, you know, all you could say is that so far nothing has been developed. The reporting that maybe the pilot have some kind of a nervous breakdown or, you know, did this at the last minute.

You know, nothing has been developed that proves that. And of course now you're trying to prove a negative that it didn't happen. So -- but there's really no indication that there's been that type of an act and everything is still a mystery in terms of, you know, what may have caused this from that standpoint.

SCIUTTO: Really -- that's really the word today, isn't it? Keeping all the options open because they are not much closer to answering those questions.

FUENTES: Right.

SCIUTTO: Well, thanks very much to Tom Fuentes, Jim Tilmon, Miles O'Brien. We're going to have you back. So if or when search teams do find that plane, what happens next? After this, the painstaking task for investigators as they try to pull back all the pieces.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: In just a few hours, ships and planes will return to the search looking for any sign of debris from Flight 370. But what happens if and when they find some?

CNN's Alexandra Field has a look at what happens next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Picking up the pieces, putting them together, it's been done by crash investigators before. The question is, in the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, will it be done again?

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: You got to get salvage vessels out into the area that have the kind of grappling equipment that can lift potentially large pieces of airplane, not only off the surface of the water, but, if need be, drop down cables long enough to reach the wreckage in 12,000 feet.

FIELD: July 1996, TWA Flight 800 crashes just eight miles off the coast of Long Island, New York, in waters only 200-feet deep. Investigators spot pieces of the Boeing 747 right away, but it still takes three days to find the bulk of the wreckage. After finding 97 percent of the plane, crash experts reassemble it in a Long Island hanger.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: You can literally start placing pieces of the aircraft back together again, so you can see how they relate to each other, how the impact was related.

FIELD (on camera): Is that kind of reconstruction still necessary?

SOUCIE: Well, there's obviously debate about that.

FIELD (voice-over): That's because data recorders like the one on Flight 370 are now more sophisticated. The older model aboard TWA Flight 800 could record only 18 indicators. Investigators needed to reassemble the debris, because the data only gave a partial view of what had happened on board at the time of the crash.

GOELZ: Essentially, speed, altitude, heading. So it was not that helpful in the -- determining what the probable cause was.

FIELD: The missing data recorder from Flight 370 captures 82 separate indicators, significantly more information, but will it be enough?

SOUCIE: If there's something conclusive on the 82 parameters that says the engines quit or there was a fire extinguisher that went off, things like that, then it will really narrow the accident down to where they may not have to reconstruct the entire aircraft. FIELD: Instead, investigators could choose to recover a few key pieces and hope they reveal the rest of the puzzle.

Alexandra Field, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Now much of the success of the search for Flight 370 hinges on the weather. Coming up, what search crews can expect in the days to come.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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GUTH: What we do won't take away their illness but it will certainly make their journey a lot easier.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: If you know someone remarkable just like Audrey would love to hear about it. Just go to CNNheroes.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Search crews in the Indian Ocean are zeroing in on four orange objects spotted in the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It could be the most promising lead yet in the weeks long investigation.

CNN's Alexandra Steele explains how the weather, though, could impact this week's search.

ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, the weather certainly has not been helping with the search effort. There is the search effort you can see off the coast of Australia. The size of New Mexico. And within it clouds, showers and wind. Kind of on and off again all the way through next week. I mean, this is such an active part of the country and the world storms wise that these storms just come through so unencumbered. Nothing to stop them and there's so much movement and it's so fluid out here.

So wind speeds, we're going to see pretty windy conditions on Monday, 30, 40 mile per hour wind gusts. So kind of timing it out and looking out into the ocean and watching the storms roll through. Monday you can see within this pocket where we've got some rough weather. Tuesday we'll hold off. But you can kind of watch these storms train in. Wednesday bad weather but here comes Thursday, kind of a break in the action.

And then watching this area of low pressure. It holds off for Friday, it holds off for Saturday and as we head into Monday and Tuesday the storm system sweeps in. So kind of on and off stormy conditions and rough weather for the search area and that's the -- the way it goes.

SCIUTTO: Each day brings new questions about the mystery of Flight 370 and we appreciate the ones you've been sending in. So we're going to bring our panel back now to get some answers to those questions.

With me now aviation analyst and pilot Jim Tilmon, law enforcement analyst, former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes and aviation analyst and a pilot himself, our Miles O'Brien.

So, Jim, I want to start with you because this question from a viewer named tower seems suited for you. And the question is, how many sorties out of his seat does each pilot get on a flight like this? How much sleep did the pilot or co-pilot get in the previous 24 hours?"

So how often do the pilots gets a leave of cabin, takes some rest. I know you've been in that cockpit.

TILMON: I have and I can tell you that that's a very, very important item. We've got to give them some time to do that. And now we have two P-8s on the scene from America. I understand they're going to alternate those. One day and it goes back and it's got a day off while the other one goes out. That's smart scheduling because this is boring work. Let's face it. You know, it's not like you have something exciting happening a lot.

You don't want anybody to suffer from fatigue and there you are flying very close to the surface and not only that but in the proximity of another -- another bunch of airplanes. So yes, I'll bet you that they have really taken into account rest time for everyone of these aviators and their crew.

SCIUTTO: No -- you bring up a good point because those pilots searching for MH-370 could get tired. But how about for the pilots of that flight, of a commercial airline flight? When you are on an overseas Flight 78, longer hours, how many times would you get a rest outside of the cockpit?

TILMON: Generally there are pilots that are aboard that relieve the crew that is signed out for the airplane. And you can go back and catch some rest. I happen to work on a NASA program about sleep deprivation and they have examined this and they found that there are like three different periods of sleep that seem to work. One of it is only 15 minutes or so, another one is 90 minutes.

And then of course the eight to 10 hours, but that 15 minutes, if you do it right, would be very, very helpful because you come out of it refreshed. It takes about four or five minutes once you stop sleeping to feel very, very good again and then you go back to an oxygen a little bit, you feel great.

SCIUTTO: Yes, power nap in the cockpit.

Tom, I want to go to you next because this next question relates the investigation. And it is, are we to believe any cockpit conversations are only saved to a cockpit recorder? None of those conversations saved elsewhere. Is that really the state of technology today?"

FUENTES: I believe so, Jim. But I don't know where else it could be saved to. I mean, once they leave air traffic control ability to communicate with the ground and they are off over an ocean, I don't know who else they can talk to or how else it could be other than being saved on the cockpit.

SCIUTTO: We have time just for one quick question. I want to bring to Miles if I can. And this comes from a viewer and this is something that's come up in a lot of our conversations. Why is it that a cockpit -- ACAR system, the system of sending data back to the ground, can be manually shut down? Why can it be shut down for any reason?"

O'BRIEN: You know, Jim, I get repeated questions about, you know, why can you turn off the transponder? Why can you turn off the ACARS, et cetera?

You don't want to have electronic boxes in an airplane that you cannot turn off? What if it's burning? SCIUTTO: Fair enough. I mean, and that's exactly right They have to be able to respond to crises in the cockpit, short circuits, et cetera. Good answer. Thanks very much for that, Miles. And we're going to come back to the panel as well.

Thousands of people gathered at Buddhist temples across Australia today offering prayers and blessings for the 239 missing people from Flight 370. We're going to go inside one of those services right after this.

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SCIUTTO: It is Sunday today and worshippers around the world are offering prayers for the passengers and crew from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

CNN's Will Ripley takes us inside a Buddhist temple in Perth, Australia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thousands of people across Australia are gathering at temples like this. Buddhists who are offering their prayers and their blessings for the 239 people on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and their families.

(Voice-over): Inside this temple in Perth chants and prayers. This year a special prayer segment enabling all of the people here to offer their sincere prayers and show their concerns to all of the missing passengers and their families.

GRACE COLLINS, BUDDHA'S LIGHT INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION: We're not just focusing on Buddhists, but focusing on all the victims of MH-370 that we are --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- inside this temple chants and prayers this year a special prayer segment enabling all of the people here to offer prayers and concerns to all of the missing passengers and their families.

GRACE COLLINS, BUDDHA'S LIGHT INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION: We are not just focusing on Buddhists but all focusing on all the victims of MH 370 and that we care for them and that we also are suffering with them. The support doesn't stop here with this service. It will continue once they offer the families whatever they need to make this painful time a bit easier.

RIPLEY: Will Ripley, CNN Perth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)