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Kerry Takes Questions After Ukraine Talks; Orange Objects Called "A Promising Lead"

Aired March 30, 2014 - 18:07   ET

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

(PRESS CONFERENCE)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: You've been listening to Secretary of State John Kerry following his comments in Paris at the U.S. ambassador's residence there. These comments follow his meeting with the Russian foreign minister, SergeY Lavrov. They were discussing the crisis in Ukraine.

In Secretary Kerry's words, that conversation with Lavrov was, quote, "a frank conversation." He said that the U.S. made clear in that conversation that it still views Russia's actions in Crimea as, in his words, illegal and illegitimate.

On the key question of the Russian forces now deployed some 40,000 Russian forces on that border of eastern Ukraine, which the U.S., he said, views as provocative, clearly no agreement yet. He said that both sides made suggestions to each other about possible drawdown, redeployment of troops. But he also noted in the end those troops are in Russia on Russian soil. That remains an open question.

I want to bring in our foreign affairs reporter Elise Labott. She's in Washington now.

Elise, as you listen to Secretary Kerry's comments there, particularly his comments on those troops which the U.S. has made very clear is a provocative act, those Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, did you hear a sign that they had moved closer to agreement on that issue?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jim, I think that there's an effort on both parts to de-escalate the situation and not make it go further. I think what's interesting is these discussions were not centered around a reversal of this annexation of Crimea which the secretary did say was inappropriate, illegal, illegitimate. But no talk in those statements, really, about reversing it, which means -- which says to me that Crimea is gone. This is kind of a fait accompli now that this is part of Russian territory.

And the question on all these negotiations are, what can the U.S. give Russia? What can the Ukrainians and the international community give Russia to stand by? Some of these things that they were talking about, constitutional reforms, a free and fair election, agree to consider Russian interest in all of this, says to me it's really now about soothing Russia rather than it is those bellicose statements and threats you've heard over the last week. Yes, sanctions are possible. But you look at what's happened in Europe. They're very divided about it. The U.S. doesn't want to gamble with oil markets.

So, really, Russia is in the driver's seat right here. And Secretary Kerry made clear that those troops are inside Russia. They're not inside Ukraine. And there's nothing the world can do about it.

SCIUTTO: Elise, you make a very important point. There's a new baseline in the negotiations between the West and Russia. And that baseline is Crimea is now part of Russia. All the discussions now relate to what happens to east Ukraine. For instance, do those Russian troops go in there?

But the fact is -- the fact on the ground now is really a dangerous precedent for Europe. You have Russia crossing borders as Secretary Kerry said, illegally and illegitimately, into Ukrainian territory and now has effectively made that part of Russia. I think for the sake of our viewers, just to explain the wider ramifications here, that has to make others of Russia's neighbors very nervous, whether you're in the Baltic stakes up in northern, Eastern Europe or even some of those countries which are NATO allies, Poland, et cetera, that border Ukraine.

LABOTT: Well, and you have Moldova, this area of Transnistria, which years ago actually voted to join Russia. Now it's kind of an unclear status. But it's still technically part of Moldova.

But we're not just talking, Jim, about the Baltic States in Europe and the dangerous precedent it sends. It sends a dangerous precedent for any country around the world that says that basically any country with a strong military can annex another territory. You look at Asia, and China is making a lot of noise with Japan about certain islands. In the Gulf, there's a dispute between Iran and Saudi Arabia over certain islands.

So, it sends a dangerous precedent that if you have a strong military and you can annex another country, or another territory of a country, and there's really nothing that the world can do about it because unless you are part of a treaty obligation, such as NATO, then there's really nothing the world is going to do to intervene.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And the eyes of the world, as you say, watching this. This has ramifications far beyond Europe. Territorial disputes in Asia as you mentioned between China and Japan and others -- very important story for our viewers.

And as we said earlier, Secretary of State John Kerry just completing this meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. A discussion Secretary Kerry described in his words as frank and that they still have not reached agreement, although he said both sides have made suggestions about that huge deployment of Russian troops on the eastern border of Ukraine.

Thanks very much to Elise Labott, our foreign affairs reporter. She was on the phone there. Please stay with us. Coming up after this break, we're going to be going back to our main story today. That's the missing Malaysian Airline Flight 370. We'll bring our panel of experts back to talk about all the remaining questions that investigators have yet to answer.

Stay with us. That'll be right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

And we're going to turn back to our other major story now. Search planes are scheduled to return to the skies above the search zone in the southern Indian Ocean. Its mission, to track down those four orange objects spotted yesterday. They're being called the most promising lead so far in finding parts of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. Each of them is about six feet long, these objects. And experts say they could, emphasis on could, be the plane's emergency escape slides or possibly life rafts.

As we possibly get closer to a potential break in the search, devastated families are protesting. They're demanding proof, something to justify the claim by Malaysian officials that all lives onboard that planes were lost. And within hours of this protest, a top Malaysian official was offering a glimmer of hope to relatives in Kuala Lumpur.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HISHAMMUDDIN HUSSEIN, MALAYSIAN ACTING TRANSPORTATION MINISTER: Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise. That is the hope that the family members want me to convey.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Now, today's search effort is ramping up as we speak. Additional planes and ships will later join the hunt for those four those orange objects spotted in the ocean by search planes.

Our Kyung Lah is at Pearce Air Base where search planes take off in Perth, Australia.

Kyung, so we were told about 6:00 Eastern, so 15 minutes ago, those first flights were meant to take off. What is their goal today?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The goal is to try to knock off more of the search area. There are going to be more planes in the air today, Jim, than yesterday, a total of 10 in the air. And on sea, a very important distinction, ten ships expected to be in the sea.

The reason that this is so important is the planes can spot all of this material. They can spot some of these objects. You were referencing those four orange pieces that were seen.

But you have to verify it by having a ship go out there and pick it up. That's really the key here. And with more of them at sea, there is more hope that perhaps they can figure it out. Get to these objects more quickly and verify them more quickly.

Another important thing that's happening here this morning, in just a few minutes' time, we are anticipating the arrival of Australia's prime minister here to Pearce Air Base and that he will be making comments this morning. We don't know what he's going to be talking about. The subject has not been made public, but he will be arriving here in just a few minutes and then will be speaking to the press. Making some sort of comment, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Is there any indication that he has something important to announce or is this just a regular update rallying the troops there at the search zone?

LAH: His comments have not been -- we haven't gotten any notification of what he's going to be talking about. The fact that he hasn't released anything like that shouldn't be read as some important announcement. It's most likely that he's probably just coming here to get an update, to make some sort of comment. He has been making a comment every single day, usually from another city in Australia. But he's expected to arrive here perhaps to talk to some of the search teams.

SCIUTTO: All right. We'll listen out for updates for what he has to say.

Now, we've talked a lot about this U.S. pinger locater that had been flown to Australia. It's now been loaded on that ship, the Ocean Shield. We saw some pictures of it.

Do you know when that heads to the search zone? I suppose the goal, since they don't have a debris field, is just to head out in the general direction of the search zone at this point because that's all they can do?

LAH: That's exactly right. It is expected to go out there to sort of be poised to be used. It takes about three days to reach this area. And we're expecting that it leaves some time this morning. We haven't been given an exact departure time but it is about this morning, in the next few hours or so, that it will leave.

And as you mention, it does -- it is just getting to be poised there. It's going to take about three days. And they want it there. Because if there is a debris field found, they want to use it right away.

The time is of the essence. We're only looking at about seven to 10 days where the black box, before it runs out of batteries. Before the pinger is no longer audible. So, that's why they want it to be poised and ready to go.

SCIUTTO: Right. Thanks very much to Kyung Lah in Perth, Australia.

We'll be waiting to hear what the Australian prime minister says when he visits. Now, while those planes and boats scour the Indian Ocean, here at home the Secret Service is also working the case. Leading to questions about whether there could be a terror link to Flight 370's disappearance.

CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh joins me now from Washington with more.

Rene, you and I both have been speaking to intelligence officials since this plane disappeared. They've always been saying nothing to indicate a tie to terrorism yet. But they're clearly not closing that door, are they?

MARSH: No, absolutely not at this point. As you mentioned there, Jim, a senior U.S. government official tells CNN that investigators there are still very much looking at the pilot as well as the co- pilot, but at this point, no aha moment, so to speak. A review of the hard drives from the captain's flight simulator has not raised any red flags, and another source telling CNN that nothing suspicious was found after reviewing the passenger manifest.

That said, when it comes to the question of whether someone deliberately took this plane off course, officials continue to believe based on how this plane flew, it suggests a deliberate action inside of the cockpit. But the question is, was it terrorism? Well, today the chair of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committee were asked just that.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA), SENATE INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: Well, so far there's been none. And there's speculation, but there's nothing.

REP. MIKE ROGERS (R-MI), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: Well, I have seen nothing yet that has come out of the investigation that would lead me to conclude that there was some -- anything other than a normal flight that something happened, something went wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

MARSH: Well, you know, that being said, investigators will continue to focus on the pilots. Even if there's no physical evidence such as a suicide notice. The reason for that is simply because they really don't have anything else to explain what happened on Flight 370. So they continue, again, to look at both of the men who were in the cockpit -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: That's the status of the investigation at this point three weeks later. Just keeping the options open, right? I suppose one missing thing when it comes to terrorism is that there's been no claim of responsibility. At least no credible claim of responsibility since the plane disappeared?

MARSH: Right. You know, and speaking to officials within -- within the intelligence community, they say generally you would think by now, if this was linked to terrorism, someone would come forward and take responsibility for it.

However, the rule is there truly is no rule. So, just because someone hasn't come forward doesn't necessarily mean that terrorism should be or can be taken off the table. So, we do know that it doesn't fit under generally what we would see. But, again, as that person said, the rule is no true rule to this one, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, like so many things with this investigation, right? They have to keep their options open.

Thanks very much to Rene Marsh in Washington.

Coming up, we're going to bring our expert panel back to talk about the growing challenges searchers face and how long this search could go on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: For now, all the families and the rest of us can do is wait and watch and hope that the plane will be found eventually.

I want to bring our panel of experts back. We have Miles O'Brien, CNN aviation analyst, a licensed pilot himself. Alex Babanin is director of the Center for Ocean Engineering Science and Technology at Swingburn University of Technology. And Jeff Gardere is here with me in New York. He's a clinical and forensic psychologist.

Miles, I want to start with you, because as we look this search for the plane, and the number of assets involved, ships and planes, it's expensive, they haven't found anything yet, how long before it's reduced as a search operation or even some of the parties involved give up? It can't go on forever if they don't find any clues.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it certainly will become increasingly dangerous to search as the weather gets worse. The sea state will get worse. The flying conditions are not going to get any better.

And so, eventually when winter comes, there's going to have to be a very difficult decision. And this is going to be a hard thing to say to the families. We have to stop for several months until the weather gets better.

That -- that's a high likelihood at this point. And that's why I think there should be more assets on this search. You know, eight or 10 aircraft covering something the size of New Mexico, that's not a lot of eyes given the square mileage that is involved here.

So, you know, should there be an aircraft carrier in the region? The Navy has said it wouldn't do that much good. I would suggest any number of aircraft with people looking are going to increase your chances and there is a narrow window.

SCIUTTO: Well, you bring up an interesting point. We have talked to the U.S. Navy about that. And their answer and the Pentagon's answer has been that the U.S. aircraft carriers have commitments. They're deployed in other areas. So, it's not something they've considered at this time. And that the search planes as you referenced involved in this kind of search couldn't land, so says the Pentagon, on a ship.

But it does bring up a point because, as you mentioned, there's a shorter window because the weather is going to give them only a limited opportunity to give up there and look for stuff.

And I wonder if I could ask you, Alex, because this goes to your expertise how to run a search like this and just the movements of the ocean. I mean, we're already more than three weeks past. As this stretches out, how scattered would this debris field be? And how hard would it be to find little isolated pieces of wreckage, you know, floating out there in the ocean?

ALEXANDER BABANIN, SWINBURNE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY: Well, Jim, let me tell you this. It's perhaps more cooperative with oceanic conditions than the previous area. The waves are not as high as in the previous area. We're talking about waves on average in the month of March, at least.

I'm looking at the satellite map, about three, three and a half meters. Maximum waves about four meters. The maximum winds on average, the extreme winds, 12 meters per second which are strong winds but nothing like a hurricane. So, this is much better conditions by comparison with the previous side. As you can imagine, the winds, the waves and the currents do their job and scatter the objects around if there are floating debris. And the speed we're talking about is about, let's say, 50 kilometers per day, perhaps, which would be about 30, 35 miles.

But this is not a unidirectional distribution. There are (INAUDIBLE) and the storms and the waves, they also scatter objects around. So it is not like they're moving in one particular direction. They are being scattered over the wide area.

SCIUTTO: Yes. It's been described not as one washing machine, but 1,000 washing machines, the movements of those currents.

I wonder if I could bring in Jeff now, because you've seen the families, particularly we saw this overflowing of emotion today from the Chinese families. You know, continuing to say maybe our relatives are still alive. And you know, they even go on to say that information is being hidden from them.

That, you know, has -- I would imagine the danger of stretching out the grief period for them. As someone like you who's counseled people in situations like this, is there a point when it is best for families to realistically give up hope?

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: I don't think that point ever comes unless you have the credible proof. Unless you have the bodies. What ends up happening is when people decide to begin moving on, and some of the family members have decided to do that, they're getting back into their routine, at the same time, even though it's the right thing for them to do emotionally, psychologically, they also feel a tremendous amount of guilt. Almost as if they've left their loved ones behind. The hope of that.

I think what's going to end up happening here, Jim, the biggest problem is going to be that if the media stops covering this at some point, when perhaps search slows down, that the families are going to feel abandoned because already they feel that the media is giving them information more than actually the Malaysian government. So that's going to be a real complication as part of that grieving process, if you will, that they're going through.

SCIUTTO: I heard an interview with the head of the Air France Flight 447 families a short time ago. And he mentioned that for him -- he lost his daughter on the flight. And he mentioned that for him he had two sort of periods of grief -- when the plane was lost and then two years later in that case when the wreckage was found and some remains were found. And he, in his case, luckily, I suppose you could say, fortunately was able to bury remains of his daughter.

That presents, you know, a real debilitating prospect, doesn't it? Two tragedies, I'm sorry.

GARDERE: That's right. You are talking about two tragedies. Here if they never find the bodies, God forbid, even though they will go through the grieving process, there will always be that open door where they cannot have the complete, the complete grief and resolution of this loss in their life. And it's something that they're going to have to live with for the rest of their natural lives. It's very sad.

SCIUTTO: Either possibility is a positive one, is it? Either you get to or you don't get to say good-bye.

Thanks very much to Jeff Gardere, he's a clinical psychologist. Miles O'Brien, Alex Babanin, thanks for joining us.

There will be much more coverage of Malaysia Airline Flight 370 ahead.

Up next an oceanographer explains how the location of one piece of debris can lead investigators back to a plane's crash site.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Object after object spotted by satellites. But are any of these items in the Southern Indian Ocean connected at all to Flight 370?

Our Rosa Flores joins me now. And Rosa talked to an oceanographer who explains how one piece of debris, kind of like a popcorn trail, can lead you back to the crash site.

How does that work?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right. This story has been filled with mysteries. One of those mysteries, of course, is where and when are we going to find this piece of debris that actually belongs to MH-370? So once that happens, then what? Well, that's when this type of science kicks in. Oceanographers are able to take that piece of debris in that part of the Indian Ocean, from that spot, and then backtrack and show us where that piece of debris came from.

SCIUTTO: You think one of those twirling currents, as we see the animation, you know, I first -- when I first thought of it, I imagined just one big twirling occur. Meanwhile, there are like a thousand of them in different directions.

FLORES: There are many. Right. Exactly. And there's currents, undercurrents, lots of eddies. Here's how he explained it. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RYAN ABERNATHEY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY OCEANOGRAPHER: We can use ocean physics and infer what the currents are doing at the surface. So what we do is we take what these satellites measure. And then we plug it into a computer program that uses those currents to move material around. You know, inside the program, virtually.

FLORES: So if there are objects in the ocean, in these bumps, you're able to measure the movement of those objects?

ABERNATHEY: Exactly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: And of course, we still have to find that piece of debris that is actually a positive I.D. of the MH-370 before any of this kicks in.

SCIUTTO: Right. And they have to backtrack from there. And you're going to have more on this later tonight?

FLORES: Yes. Definitely so. Where this data comes from, how it's calculated and some of the shortcomings of the information as well.

SCIUTTO: All right, great, thanks very much, Rosa Flores.

Watch the special at 10:00 tonight.

And we'll have more coverage of the mystery of Flight 370 just ahead here.

But next, the story of a former police officer sitting on death row for a murder he says he didn't commit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York. And we'll get back to the latest developments on the search for Flight 370 in just a minute. But first a former police officer was sent to prison in 1988. Convicted of murdering an 11-year-old Florida girl. But James Duckett continued to maintain his innocence as he sat on death row for more than a decade.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES R. DUCKETT, PRISON INMATE: I'm James R. Duckett. And we are currently at Florida State Prison in Stark. I'm sentenced to death. So I'm currently on death row. Been here since June 30th, 1988.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wrote Duckett a letter. Tell me more about this situation. Well, I got a big letter back.

DUCKETT: He reached out to me. Said I'm a retired detective from Miami Police Department. He said, I want to help you out. I want to see what your case is. I told him that I walked in this building scared to death as a young man. Never been inside a prison. Never been in any trouble before. And here I am going to death row.

I had a career going. I had a beautiful wife. I had two young sons. I had a future that I was moving towards. And all of that was taken for no reason.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Joining me now are Steve Hurm. He was James Duckett's trial prosecutor, he prosecuted that case, and Beth Wells, the appellate attorney for James Duckett handling the appeal.

Beth, if I could begin with you, early on investigators honed in on Duckett. Do you think that impacted the investigation as a whole?

BETH WELLS, DUCKETT'S APPELLATE DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Certainly. The victim was last seen less than 400 feet from her house. Yet they never even searched her home. There were men living in the home with her mother who weren't related to her by marriage who she had complained about previously to a relative bothering her. So, yes, I definitely think that.

SCIUTTO: Now, Steve, how about you? When you hear an argument like that, you've never wavered in your belief that James Duckett is guilty -- that Duckett is guilty of this murder. Why are you so convinced?

STEVE HURM, DUCKETT TRIAL PROSECUTOR: Well, the evidence, Jim. And as far as exploring other evidence, it centered on Duckett very quickly because of the evidence that was found at the crime scene. Beginning with the tire tracks. The tire tracks led investigators to talk to Duckett. And he denied ever having been down in the area where the body was dumped the night before.

They asked further questions and they processed the car and found her fingerprints on the hood of the car. He denied that she'd ever been on the hood of the car. So that's why the focus was on Jim Duckett. There was no reason to suspect a law enforcement officer would do such a horrific crime.

SCIUTTO: Beth, what's your response when you hear --

HURM: Other than the evidence. SCIUTTO: When you hear of evidence like that that Steve was talking about. For instance, the fingerprint on the hood of the car, the tire tracks. What's your response?

WELLS: Well, after trial we discovered a number of things. For example, the tire tracks, one of the Mascotte police officers, Jim's boss at the time, said that he came back after the crime scene tape had been taken down and realized that the plaster for the tire tracks was actually outside where they alleged to have found them. And it was where his car had been parked. And where -- and he had the same tires.

So I think there's substantial evidence. The fingerprints, presumably she jumped up on the car. Mr. Duckett had the opportunity and was supposed to wash his car at the end of the night and didn't do it because he was lazy. If he had actually put her on the car he would have done what he should have done as a police officer and washed the car and gotten rid of that evidence.

I don't believe -- she was questioned by the car. I expect what probably happened is she did jump up on the car when he wasn't looking, when he was at the Circle K talking to her.

SCIUTTO: Steve --

(CROSSTALK)

HURM: Well, it wasn't --

SCIUTTO: I'll let you -- I'll let you respond. I'm just curious, well, first of all, actually, why don't you give your response to what Beth had to say?

HURM: Well, it's the fingerprints, the tire tracks, Duckett's behavior following the report of Teresa being missing by her mother. Her mother searched around Mascotte, which is a very, very small town. I mean, one police officer on duty. She couldn't find the Mascotte Police car. She had to go to a neighboring town of Groveland. And then they called him on the radio.

When he came back he put together a photograph after talking to the chief, put together a photograph and a missing poster. But when he went back to the Circle K where he'd last been seen he told the clerk, don't put this up. I'll come back with a better picture. He never did. Then within a couple hours he was running stationary radar on Highway 50 going through the town writing speeding tickets.

Now I used to be a police officer. He'd only been on the department for, I think, less than a year. This was a huge case for him in a small town. A missing girl. And yet he just went back to running radar because he knew exactly where she was. She was not missing as far as he was concerned. So it was his behavior, his explanation of what he'd done when he saw Teresa at the store, coupled with the physical evidence including his pubic hair found in her panties that were the deciding factors on prosecuting him. And so far every court that's looked at this has agreed that he's not entitled to a new trial. He got a fair trial. And the evidence that was submitted against him was more than sufficient to justify his conviction and sentence.

SCIUTTO: Well, it's a fascinating case. I want to thank both of you for making your case in the story of James Duckett. Steve Hurm and Beth Wells, thanks for joining us.

Please don't forget to watch CNN's original series "DEATH ROW STORIES". That is tonight at 9:00 Eastern right on -- right on CNN.

Questions continue to pour in from our viewers about the mysterious fate of Flight 370. Up next our panel of experts will tackle some of your questions. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Each day brings new questions about the mystery of Flight 370. And we're answering your questions with our expert panel.

Remember, you can tweet questions to me @Jimsciutto, #370qs. And joining me now aviation analyst and pilot, Miles O'Brien, and in Melbourne, Australia, Alex Babanin, director of the Center for Ocean Engineering, Science and Technology at Swinburne University.

Alex, if I could start with you. And here's the first question from a viewer. His name is Robert. And the question is, is it possible the airplane ditched in the ocean intact, leaving little debris? It's an interesting idea considering that happened in the Hudson River not far from here in New York. A possibility?

BABANIN: Jim, I'm an oceanographer. I am not an aeronautic engineer. But I don't see why not. If the plane made an attempt to land rather than crash, then that's certainly a possibility.

SCIUTTO: Miles, does that seem possible to you as well? Structurally on the ocean, obviously different on an ocean than in a river as Sully Sullenberger famously did in the river here?

O'BRIEN: It depends on who's flying/. If it's the autopilot or human being. If it's the autopilot and it's been set for a specific speed and altitude, the autopilot will desperately try to maintain both as long as it can even as the engines run dry. And what happens as it does that is the nose just starts pitching upward to about a 40-degree upward pitch.

That's not a good situation for any aircraft, you can imagine. So then the autopilot gives up. And what we've seen in the simulators is that the aircraft goes down tail first. That could go a couple of ways. That would lead you to believe that it would be landing hitting the water at a relatively slow speed having stalled out.

Now if somebody were actually flying it down, the airplane could glide down and, in essence, you can perform a ditching. But it's pretty hard to ditch in the water at night. So I can't -- I'm not exactly sure at that time after that much flying if they were in daylight conditions or darkness. That would be a key thing.

SCIUTTO: No question. Well, Miles, let me bring another question from a viewer. This one asks, if military radar was picking up a plane without a transponder, why didn't it raise any flags to deploy help? So that that famous Malaysian radar data --

O'BRIEN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- that saw a plane going across there but not identifying itself?

O'BRIEN: Or why weren't fighters scrambled. There's a lot of questions there. And I think that the various governments that might have picked up this primary target, meaning no transponder, on a military radar system, and then there was no response, I think they're a little reluctant to talk about that as you can imagine.

It might, for one thing, tell the world about some exploitable holes in their system, or perhaps a lack of responsiveness in their air defenses. And that's probably why we're not getting much on that front right now, which is unfortunate.

SCIUTTO: And that's been a continuing part of this story, right, is the reluctance of some countries involved to reveal their capabilities, whether by satellite or by radar.

Alexander, I got another one for you. This is from a viewer, Mike. And he asked why won't Malaysia or Inmarsat release the definitive altitude versus time? Altitude and speed assumptions for the final leg of that trip?

I know you're an oceanographer but you've been looking at the possible causes for this trip. What do you think explains that reluctance?

BABANIN: Well, Jim, it's hard for me to speculate. But this a question which I'm asking myself when I'm watching the news as well. Right? This is not so much information about why this kind of decisions are made and why, for example, not only the distance which the plane traveled but also the direction which the plane traveled was reviewed.

SCIUTTO: Miles, I got one more question for you just quickly. This is from Bill. He asked, if the pilot shuts off ACARS, that data transmission system, is there an audible alarm that the co-pilot would hear? In other words, could one of the pilots do it and the other one not know? Just quickly to you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: I don't believe so. We can double-check that with some 777 pilots. My inclination is that that would not be something that would trigger an alarm.

SCIUTTO: All right. Thanks for your answers to that, Miles O'Brien, Alex Babanin in Australia.

I'm Jim Sciutto. That's it for me. As "NEWSROOM" continues with Don Lemon right after a quick break. Thanks for joining me.