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Two Ships Begin Underwater Hunt For MH370; "We've Still Got A Long Way To Go" In Search; Families Demand Answers About Flight 370; Stock Market Soars On March Jobs Report

Aired April 04, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Now, this year's Final Four consists of Florida, UConn, Kentucky and Wisconsin. Now, the Gators -- they're the top overall team in the tournament. Most people expected them to get this far.

But the other three teams they're a bit surprising. And you know, it's kind of weird to say that Kentucky, is a surprising team to be in the Final Four considering this is their third appearance in the Final Four in the past four years. But this one by far the least expected after bringing in yet another stellar group of freshman players.

Kentucky, they're tabbed the pre-season number one team in the country. But the Wildcats did struggle through the season losing a number of games. However over the last two weeks, they have started to resemble the super team Kentucky fans were expecting at the start of the year. But still this team is one of the youngest to ever make it this far, the average age is just under 19 years old.

When speaking with CNN's Rachel Nichols, Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari said, despite his player's recent success, he wouldn't be surprised if they are still overwhelmed by the huge stage at the Final Four.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN CALIPARI, KENTUCKY HEAD COACH: They are all freshmen, they are going to go out in front of 75,000 and probably pee down their leg to start the game. We playing seven freshmen. I don't know if that's ever been done before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: You can watch Coach Calipari's entire interview tonight on "UNGUARDED" with Rachel Nichols at 10:30 Eastern right here on CNN. For the first time in Final Four history, both games are going to be on our sister network, TBS. The action gets started at 6:09 Eastern with Florida taking on UConn. That game is going to be followed by Kentucky and Wisconsin.

I don't know about you, Carol, my bracket has been busted for quite a while, but I'm still looking forward to these games. Who do you have winning it all?

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm still caught up in the coach saying pee down their leg to start the game. What is that?

SCHOLES: I think he was over exaggerating.

PHILLIPS: I think so. Sounds like my toddler on the basketball court. Andy, thank you so much. I'll get to my bracket later. Andy Scholes, thanks so much. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins right now.

BRIANA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and thanks for joining me. I am Brianna Keilar in for Carol Costello.

Now nearly four weeks into the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, it seems we are no closer to solving the mystery of the plane's disappearance. An underwater hunt taking place in what authorities call, quote, "the area of highest probability where the plane may have entered the Indian Ocean."

That area is roughly the size of Idaho. It totals some 84,000 square miles. On the surface, teams are now looking for large objects that could indicate plane wreckage acknowledging the leads from satellite so far turned out to be other things. With just days left until those black box batteries begin to fade, a U.S. Navy pinger locator has joined the mission. A device deployed by an Australian ship, the "Ocean Shield."

Paula Newton joining us now live with more on this from Perth, Australia. Good morning as well as good evening to you, Paula.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. It is the end of the day here. The search is done for today except for that towed pinger locator that you were talking about, Brianna. That's on a 24-hour operation now to look for any signal from those black boxes. Now I talked to the commander leading that. It was Captain Mark Matthews from the U.S. Navy.

He was very blunt with me, Brianna, saying that, look, this is a shot in the dark. They want to give it a shot, their best shot really that they can right now to look for those black boxes. You know, Brianna, we have been thinking about the families so much through all of this. A lot of their questions about this are the same as any one of us would have.

I spoke to Danica Weeks just a few hours ago. She is the wife of Paul Weeks. He was an engineer going to Mongolia for a mining job. She describes the torturous last few weeks. But again her issue on the investigation is that, look, she is confident that if there is something to find in this area that they are looking, they will find it.

But she has that same nagging doubt. Are they even looking in the right place? At the same time, Brianna, she is dealing with some very mixed emotions about wanting so much for this to just be a big nightmare that goes away. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DANICA WEEKS, HUSBAND WAS ONBOARD FLIGHT 370: Sometimes I catch myself seeing excitement of him coming home and I have to get rid of that out of my brain quickly, because I can't let myself go to that level of excitement, because it would only -- it's only going to make me crash further when I find out the real truth. Which we are all expecting will be that the plane has crashed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: You can really put yourself in her shoes and think to yourself, that's what you would want this to be, some awful mistake. Danica Weeks was here on this base, Brianna, having a look for herself at the search operations. She is confident that now with the Australians leading this, that they will do their best to find some answers. She told me, Brianna, she wanted to be sure that in her words, they were looking for Pauly. She is convinced they are doing their best to find out what happened to that airplane -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Poor woman and you know, so many family members are going through the exact same thing. Paula Newton in the Australia for us, thank you so much. Officials involved in the search are also cautioning against any immediate breakthrough even with that towed pinger locator trying to pick up sounds from the black box.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGUS HOUSTON, CHIEF COORDINATOR, JOINT AGENCY COORDINATION CENTER: We still have a long way to go in terms of the searching. When you are searching these vast areas of ocean, it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and depending on the weather conditions, it's incredibly difficult to do a visual search.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Dealing with the quickly changing conditions on the Southern Indian Ocean is a key part of this operation. CNN's Will Ripley is on a boat off the western coast of Australia.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, after a day of clear weather, we are now starting to see some light rain off the coast of Western Australia. The weather about 1,000 miles from here in the search zone, we are told, has been similar. Relatively calm seas, which was good for search crews today because they weren't distracted by those white caps on the waves. White caps that could easily be mistaken for possible debris floating in the water.

Even though the visual search is now over for the day and these planes from a number of different countries are flying back to Pearce Air Base in Perth. We know that the underwater search, the sonar is going to be active 24/7. The U.S. Navy towed pinger locator behind the Australian ship, the "Ocean Ship," is going to be functioning literally 24/7 under water listening for any possible signal from the inflight data recorders from Flight 370.

The problem is, with all that sophisticated technology, the TPL, the submarine that's in place and then the ship that's using sonar equipment as well, all of that technology is just fine, but it needs a more narrow search area than what we have right now. The search area needs to be 100 times smaller for this technology to effectively locate possible debris. Those are answers that we simply don't have right now -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Will Ripley for us from Australia. Now families of those on board the missing jet are becoming even more frustrated with Malaysian officials. CNN has learned that authorities denied their request for recordings of communications between the cockpit and control tower. The transcripts have been released. The families will not get to actually hear them, at least not for now. CNN's Joe Johns has more.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, officials held a three-hour meeting for Malaysian family members of passengers. But the officials were not even able to say for sure whether the plane had crashed. Unanswered questions leading the frustrations and a sense among some of the family members that these briefings may be a waste of time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): It's been weeks since MH-370 disappeared and the Malaysian government is still struggling to meet the needs of the passenger's families.

NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: We owe it to them to find, to give them comfort and closure to this rather tragic event. The world expects us to do our level best.

JOHNS: Waiting for word on the fate of the plane, the cry knees families are channelling their anger and frustration.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We want evidence. We want the truth. We want our family back.

JOHNS: They have now made public more than a dozen highly technical questions and requests that go to the very heart of the investigation, questions so tough the authorities can't or won't answer, which makes the families suspicious. Distrust is not uncommon for the relatives of passengers in airliner mishaps as authorities work to uncover the truth.

PETER GOLEZ, FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR, NTSB: The reality, there is generally less going on than meets the eye on this. There is the fog of the investigation, how hard it is to get facts right. At this point, the trust is zero with family members.

JOHNS: Even though Malaysian officials have released transcripts of cockpit communications from Flight 370, the families are asking for more. They have demanded records of all communications between the plane and the Malaysian military. They want a three-dimensional illustration of the plane's flight path and a comparison with the analysis of the last pings. They want calculation formulas of the last known flight position over the Indian Ocean and why all these calculations could vary by as much as 1,000 kilometers. The families were briefed by officials from both Malaysia and China at a closed-door meeting which was live telecast to families gathered in Beijing.

(on camera): But the briefings failed to satisfy the families who said, we were fooled once again, accusing the authorities of trickery, complaining they did not receive direct answers.

GOLEZ: Some of them cannot be answered. That's part of establishing a level of trust with the family members over time of saying, listen, we don't know the answer to that yet. We are going to try and find out that answer but as of today, we just don't know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: The Malaysian government continues to insist it is doing the best it can to keep the families informed. It is difficult to come to any conclusions until the plane is found -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Joe Johns for us.

Now still to come, the stock market soared to a record high after today's strong jobs report. We do know this. A healthy stock market doesn't always mean a healthy economy. Right, Alison Kosik?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You are right about that, Brianna. A milestone for the job market. All the private sector jobs lost from the recession are back. Here on Wall Street, stocks are trading at record highs. Is it all it is cracked up to be? Story is coming up next.

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KEILAR: The stock market just roared this morning. It surge after the opening as Washington revealed 192,000 jobs were added in March leaving the unemployment rate changed at 6.7 percent. To talk more about this, let's bring in business correspondent, Alison Kosik. She is at the New York Stock Exchange. Let's talk to Monica Medda. She is the managing principal at Seventh Capital Investment. Alison, first, just walk us through the numbers here.

KOSIK: OK, you know what's interesting. You look at this jobs report for March, Brianna, and there really is one headline that stands out. That's the number of private sector jobs lost during the recession. They have been gained back. Here is a picture. We lost 8.8 million jobs in the recession. We gained back 8.9 million. That means we are back at the breakeven point, back before the recession. You know what it is. It is a reminder that it took almost five years just to get to the break-even point.

This is the longest recovery on record. It has some questioning how really good this milestone is. A lot of things is changed since then. The government continues cutting jobs. The population has grown. This doesn't account for that. It is not totally back to what's considered healthy. Although, you wouldn't get this by looking at the market today. The Dow is trading at record highs -- Brianna. KEILAR: We are going to talk to that in a second, Alison. Monica, when you look at what Alison said, last month brought us back to these pre-financial crisis levels for unemployment for private sector hiring. It isn't all it is cracked up to be though, right?

MONICA MEHTA, MANAGING PRINCIPAL, SEVENTH CAPITAL INVESTMENT: It is an irrelevant psychological milestone. It is the same way as saying graduating from kinder garden is some sort of milestone in your academic career. It's what Alison said. People move into this country, get older and enter into the workforce. Just because we created the same amount of jobs we lost in 2008, doesn't mean we have absorbed the population that is here and ready to work.

It is going to be 2018 before we can absorb all of the people that are looking for work that need work. A lot of the job that we are creating are low wage jobs in retail food service and frankly, 50 percent of the jobs we created in professional service are temporary hires. They are not breadwinner jobs that call for a solid economy.

KEILAR: There is this issue of long-term employment. Some folks, you wonder, are they ever going to be able to re-enter the job market. It has changed so much. Alison, when you are looking at today's report. Is this going to keep pushing the markets, to keep knocking down records like we did last year?

KOSIK: No one is really expecting the 20 to 30 percent gains we had last year or the 50 record highs that we saw. It was incredible. That is not necessarily a bad thing. You really don't want to see the market rise too fast, too soon. Today, the fact that the record is slowly creeping up is a good thing. The Dow may get to its first record close of this year. It has gotten closed a couple of times.

As far as Wall Street goes, this report shows it is still steady as she goes. One trader told me, this report is really reflective of the economy as a whole. The economy is good but not great. This trainer telling me the jobs report was good, it just wasn't great -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Monica, telling me, a lot of people at home are kind of looking at the stock market going, OK, fantastic. I am not feeling any of this. There is a disconnect between the way the stock market is performing and the way people really feel personally when it comes to the recovery, right?

MEHTA: The stock market is not a great barometer for how the economy is doing and how the average Joe is feeling in terms of their outlook. Fifty percent of people in the U.S. have absolutely no participation in the market and 80 percent of stock market wealth is held by 10 percent of people. What makes the market go up in this case and one could argue is, an idea that we are going to continue to get sweeteners from the fed.

That has nothing to do with the average Joe who is sitting there and thinking, I'm barely getting by, paycheck to paycheck every month. Frankly, the average person is spending less because they are not making the wages and they don't have the money. KEILAR: Sure. They are wondering, where is the wage growth? Where is that extra money I can feel when I need to provide for my family? Monica Mehta, thanks so much. Alison, thank you to you as well.

Now still to come, the "Ocean Shield" arriving to aid the underwater search for the black box from Flight 370. With battery set to die soon, in a matter of a couple of days, what other options do search crews have?

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KEILAR: The search for the black box from Flight 370 shifts to under water now, but with no sign of debris from the plane and the batteries for the pinger set to run out possibly by the weekend. Where does the search go from here? CNN aviation correspondent, Richard Quest, joining me live now for New York. Where does it go, Richard?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Very good question. They are still working on the best information they have and that's still puts it in a South Indian Ocean in a search zone that shifts ever so slightly. The dramatic shift, a good 1,000 kilometers to the northeast. What we have seen are various modifications and shifts, first to the east and then to the west.

We are told by the asserting authority and by the Royal Australian forces, we are told that they amend those searches because they have obviously looked at the water, found nothing. You can see there the three red boxes. When they find nothing, they just alter where they are actually going to search next.

Also, Brianna, in conjunction with the refinement of the data coming from the international working group, the technical specifications that are taking place.

KEILAR: Really the other issue is the sort of painstaking process of doing this. This pinger locator, as it searches this area can only go about 2-3 knots. It is very slow. It is a very large area. It is almost like if you had a metal detector on a massive beach and you were searching for something you had to go very slow that is going to disappear in two days, right?

QUEST: Indeed, the pinger is transmitting a very high frequency signal. You can't hear it by the human ear. However, the pinger, the locator does have mechanisms to translate the high frequency sounds to a noise and register it. When we heard it, it is like ping, ping, ping. You can't hear it if it is in the room. It is so high frequency.

It has to be done slowly and at a distance of no more than a couple of kilometers away from it. The difficulty is the depth of the water versus the topography under water, what the actual seabed or ocean bed is looking like. Put all this into perspective, they might as well look for it using the pinger.

Frankly, the thing is going to run out of juice in the next week or so. You have "Ocean Shield" there. It has the locator putting it in the water. It has to be regarded almost as drinking at the last chance saloon.

KEILAR: It will be remarkable if they find it, but it is obviously worth a shot. Richard Quest, thanks so much for explaining that to us.

Now still to come, at the beginning of this investigation, the mother of one of the passengers had to face the painful suggestion that her son had something to do with the plane's disappearance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need to know what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Next, what she now tells CNN in an exclusive interview.

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