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Search Continues for Missing Malaysian Plane; Chinese Reports Indicate Black Box of Malaysian Plane May be in Indian Ocean

Aired April 05, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Christi Paul. We want to welcome you to the Newsroom here on CNN, not only those of you in the states but also to those of you around the globe watching right now. We're grateful for your company.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell, 10:00 on the east coast of the U.S. 7:00 out west. Again, to our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world, you are in the CNN Newsroom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

BLACKWELL: A breaking news this morning, a huge very possibly for search teams hunting for flight 370.

PAUL: A Chinese ship has detected what's called a pulse signal. That's how they're characterizing it, a pulse signal in the Indian Ocean. This could be the flight locator beacon pinging that could lead searchers to those black boxes, possibly to the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines plane, but we do not have any confirmation on that.

BLACKWELL: Here's where we're talking about. We've got a map to show you. About 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude. Now this is all according to Chinese state media.

PAUL: We haven't independently confirmed this, again, just want to reiterate that. Neither has the joint agency coordination center in charge of this search in Perth. The pulse signal reportedly has a frequency of 37.5 kilohertz per second which is said to be the standard beacon frequency for the flight data recorders and why it's getting attention right now.

BLACKWELL: Here's one more reason why this is incredible. The batteries for those pingers may have only hours of power left before they run out.

PAUL: So with time running out, this may be the best hope of finding flight 370. I want to bring in our panel here. Thank all of you for being with us as we have got this covered from experts with the ocean to the air to the investigation. And thank you all so much for being with us. Jeff Wise, as you're hearing this information I'm wondering, from you, what was your first reaction when you heard that a pulse signal had been detected?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: My first reaction was, wow, because if this does pan out it is huge, it is the game changer we've been looking for it. If we can locate this beacon we can find the black box and start to hope to solve this incredible riddle.

Then I thought, you know, this is like winning Powerball. We've been spending the last few days saying how likely it is we will be able to find an acoustic signal just by trawling on the surface of the water. So this is a one sentence press release, and then there was another, it was modified with another one sentence press release. It's not a lot to go on. So we hope to find more about this very soon.

BLACKWELL: David Soucie, of all the analysts and reporters and experts we've had, we don't have David?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: No problem.

BLACKWELL: OK. We've got David here. David, of all the experts and analysts we've had on air you have been the most optimistic. When I came to you, you said this is a pinger. Do you still have that level of opt him?

SOUCIE: Well, yes, there's no doubt in my mind that's a pinger, frequency and pulse. I can't imagine anything else out there unless they're picking up their own signals from a test that they're doing or something like that. Yes, I'm convinced that it is a pinger.

Now, there are some confusion on the reporting as to who it came from and where it came from. But I'm optimistic that it is that pinger that we're looking for. Again, too, they said they saw it, only heard it for a minute and a half, and they haven't been able to relocate it from what I understand, which makes me very concerned because typically if you do have that pinger signal you should be able to come back over that same spot knowing where you were and pick it up again. So I'm -- my optimism is waning a little bit until we hear that they picked it up again.

PAUL: Miles O'Brien is with us now, as well. And, Miles, I know you've been skeptical of a lot of things, of Inmarsat's findings, of how many resources were or were not admitted to this entire search, especially in terms of how many resources the U.S. was able to see send. What is your level of optimism or pessimism about this new information, I should say?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, you know, my first reaction is exactly Jeff's -- wow. But then you have to step back and consider what David just brought out, which is very important, that this would be a steady, consistent pinging noise that wouldn't go away necessarily in that short period of time unless by some strange coincident it quit pinging at that moment, which really I don't know what the odds would be on that. So we should take this with a bit of a grain of salt and consider the possibility that at least they now have a place where they can do a very concentrated search on the surface and continue listening.

You know, you have to wonder -- it's interesting a Chinese ship, which is not even ideally suited to be doing this, found or heard this pinging noise. Did they have satellite information that they weren't necessarily sharing with everybody else or some sort of data that came through military means that put them on this site? Otherwise it's an incredible shot in the dark and, you know, could be potentially the break everybody has been waiting for here. So I will put myself in the cautiously optimistic mode because you've got to have some home here.

BLACKWELL: Mike Williamson, ocean search specialist, my question to you of just the odds of finding this black box, if this pinger, if this is from a ping first and the pinger is connected to the black box, the odds of finding this considering the scape here, the depth of water and the terrain in this area.

MIKE WILLIAMSON, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: Well, actually if this was the pinger signal, it's very low power and so it doesn't have much range. So if they picked it up, particularly if it's near the surface, they have to be almost directly above it or very close. So if this is true we have a very accurate position to begin a search and if it was, in fact, a pinger, this is great news because it's going to be very close to a pinpoint to start the location for searching.

PAUL: OK. We want to go to Will Ripley right now. He's with the joint collaboration center there in Perth. Will, I have to believe that, you know, some of these ships or some of these planes at least are coming in today after their searches. What have you heard there? You've got some new information?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We do have some new information. Our source at the Australian defense force tells us that they got word of this through some channel. We don't know which channel. But the authorities here got word of this around lunchtime today. The Xinhua news agency put it out around dinner time. But we know since lunch time the Australian Defense Force and other members of this joint coordination center have been trying to establish a connection, a communication line with the Chinese ship that is equipped with this pinger locator that supposedly detected this pulse. They have not been able to establish a connection with this ship.

You need know how the Chinese ships communicate with the joint coordination center. It's very different than the way other countries are working here, because other countries actually communicate directly with the command center in Australia. They basically use a text messaging real-time information sharing system. But the way it works with the Chinese ships, their information first goes to Beijing and then Beijing communicates that information to the Malaysians and the Australians.

As of now as far as we know there has been no official communication to Malaysia or Australia from Beijing. We are working to get comment from Beijing. We've been asking them about this, so basically unable to establish a connection with the ship. But obviously this is a piece of information everybody here would like to learn more about. And again, we have to be very cautious because there have been false leads in this investigation and this is a time when we certainly don't want to give these families false hope.

BLACKWELL: Will Ripley there in Perth for us. I want to take that straight to Mary Schiavo. Hearing that most countries go straight to Australia but the Chinese send that information back to Beijing. Beijing, I guess, done their own analysis and then decides what they want to pass on to the Malaysians who then give it on to -- it's a game of telephone. It seems as if by this point in this search this would be a little more -- should be simplified, don't you think?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It is. And it's supposed to be simplified. When you set up a joint task force to do literally a multinational investigation, you're supposed to transfer command and control of the operation to the task force head, that would be Angus Houston down in Australia.

But again, China being China, they still have to answer to their government supervisors or bosses. So it doesn't surprise me that it did this, but the expected outcome is what happened. Now that you don't report it directly to the command of the investigation, you've got this game of telephone, you've got these delays, and you have people, one, doubting your data. This could be the best break in the whole case but now people doubt it because they didn't follow through the joint task force command structure.

And, quote, again, time is being lost, time is being wasted. If they had put it through the command structure, the ships would be on the way, additional pinger locations and change the location of others and get there. So hopefully it's all right. Hopefully going forward they can work a little better with the joint task force. But unfortunately it does sound like business as usual with reporting to Beijing first.

PAUL: Michael Kay, retired lieutenant colonel, two things. First of all, Will Ripley just aid that Australia has known about this for several hours since it was lunchtime their time. You wonder why they didn't release anything. Does that show that they themselves are skeptical about this? And secondly, if it's not a pinger based on the fact that it is the exact frequency, the 3.75 that it needs to be -- or 37.5, rather that it needs to be, what else could it be?

LT. COL. MICHAEL KAY, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The process of cooperation takes time, and it takes a lot of time to make sure that the information that they're disseminating is unequivocal and accurate. So what I do is I want to go back to this situation. I want to look at what we do know, which is that you rightly alluded to, 37.5. That is a unique signal and it appears to be in right part of the world.

But let's interrogate the data to see why it necessarily couldn't be. And for me you don't get smoke without fire in these situations. So where is the debris field, for example? The maritime surveillance aircraft, they will be looking on top of the surface. Why can't they see anything that we can associate with two black boxes? Let's get the submersibles down there to have a look at the debris on the ocean floor as well. Until we have that corroborated evidence, then we need to be extremely cautious about where we take this information from China.

BLACKWELL: Richard Quest, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott throughout this search has been amongst the most optimistic by saying that you know, on one given day the most credible leads yet. On another given day, that this is a positive day of searching. What we have from an Australian defense force spokesperson who told CNN that this is an anomaly of interest and is cautioning people about the possibility of a false positives. So I would imagine from those statements very little optimism from the Australians. What's your level of optimism and skepticism as this report comes in?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR: I am skeptically optimistic on this one. This is a mess. Let's call it, frankly, what it is. It is a mess because all the mechanisms that are designed to prevent exactly the speculation and rampant what is, what if, what happened, have now gone right out of the window because of the way the Chinese have announced this, through Xinhua. All the command and control structures that have been designed, whether by Beijing to Malaysia to Perth, it doesn't really matter. This is being set up in a particular way, specifically to avoid this sort of crucial information or misinformation from being leaked at exactly the wrong moment, giving painfully false information and false hope to families and setting everybody off in the wrong direction.

So, what has to happen now? That's what has happened so far. What has to happen now? The Australians basically get their hands around this and start pulling all the information together. They find out from the Chinese exactly what it is they have found, what it is they have discovered, and more assets get moved in the general direction. It's 10:00 at night there of course so it will be somewhat difficult. They will be searching at night which they can do.

But until the Australians via the Malaysians or however, manage to get their hands around this information, corroborate, confirm, and announce, it must be treated with skepticism, albeit skeptical optimism.

PAUL: I want to ask the panel to stick around here, because not only is this happening right now but in Kuala Lumpur, remember, the authorities denied the victims' families earlier this week, the families' request to release the audio recordings of the final recordings from the air traffic control center with the cockpit in this case. It turns out now that apparently some friends, not family members, but friends of the pilots have actually heard that audio. We're going to take you live to Kuala Lumpur with Jim Clancy, who is researching that. We're back in just a moment. Stay close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Breaking news this morning, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reporting a Haixun 01, the Chinese patrol ship that is searching as part of this multinational effort to find flight 370, has detected a pulse signal at 37.5 kilohertz per second which is the exact frequency a pinger on a black box sends out that ping. We've got our panel here covering this search and this investigation from many different angles all around the world.

I want to go straight to pilot Dave Funk. The discussion up to this point has been searching for debris and hopefully that debris field would lead searchers to the black boxes. It has to be incredibly rare to find the black box before the debris. DAVID FUNK, FORMER PILOT: Well, exactly. In this case we just hear a signal from the black box. And I'm no submarine hunting expert. I'm sure we could find somebody. But let's not forget, sound under water doesn't travel in a straight line like it does through the air, like you and I perceive it. So they could get this signal, but it's going to be somewhere in a relatively close circle to hear it. If we can now -- we know where to start looking, you can expand the search for the debris field and see what's on the surface.

But my big question is where does this data point lay in relation to things that we think we know already, the suspected track of the airplane, any radar skin paints the Australian had with the over the horizon radar. If it's on that line, I would be very optimistic. If it's way out of position, and I haven't had a chance to look at a map yet this morning, a lat-long map of the area, if it's out of position, I would be suspicious. If it's close to what we think we already know, I would be pretty optimistic that we are looking in the right spot. It's time to get the submersibles in the water. Remember, we've been looking for the debris field to work our way back. Sometimes you just get lucky and that might be the case here. We heard the pinger.

PAUL: Jeff Wise --

FUNK: These things don't occur in nature.

PAUL: Right. The pinging sound at this frequency we need to point out and it has been said all morning, it does not occur in nature. Jeff Wise, our aviation analyst, what else could it be? If not from nature, if it's not from a black box, at 37.5 kilohertz, what else could this be?

WISE: You did hear reports of a false positive -- false ping report. And so it seems that this has happened before. We've had a false positive from pinger. We really know so little at this point, I'd like to put a hat on what Richard was saying, that this is not how information should be released. When you're search for something, especially with a huge multi-national task force, you're going to have false positives. And the key thing of the search authorities is to suppress false positives until they can be checked out. This is a very sketchy report at this point. We have to really be cautious.

And I think as Richard said, this really shines a light on, you know, the flaws and how the organization is set up. And I don't blame the Malaysians or the Australians. I think the Chinese are sort of doing their own thing under this broader umbrella.

BLACKWELL: I want to go to ocean search specialist Mike Williamson. We understand from the Australians that they were notified of this report by Xinhua. Again, it has not yet been confirmed but they were notified around lunchtime, which would be maybe eight to 12 hours ago, just an estimate there. At what point in this confirmation process should the searchers be now?

WILLIAMSON: Well, actually what I'd like to insert here before I answer your question is 37.5 kilohertz is the unique frequency for these pingers. But because for the same reason that that frequency was chosen for the pingers, the 30 kilohertz area is low noise in the ocean spectrum. And so it's favored by a lot of different kinds of equipment, a lot of the echo sounders used on ships, high powered echo sounders operate at 30, 33 kilohertz. There are some mine-hunting sonars that operate at 37 kilohertz. And, you know, we've got a lot of ships in the area. We've got some submarines. And there could be some other signal that may not be precisely 37.5 kilohertz but could be very close and it might be confusing.

So there are a lot of things that we have to think about, you know, that there are a lot of ships and airplanes in the area. You know, this may be the pinger but it might be something close to that frequency. I just wanted to add that.

PAUL: OK, let me ask you, Michael Kay, our retired lieutenant colonel. We don't have Michael Kay. Mike Williamson, let me go to you. If they are releasing this, we've had a lot of talk about -- we've had a lot of talk about the chain of command here, so to speak. So if Australia found out about it, say, six hours ago, lunchtime their time, six or seven hours ago, if this were a false positive, would we not at least know that by now, because we are just learning about it this morning but they've known about it for six or seven hours, and China still felt compelled to release the information? Have they not been able to wipe out whether a false positive is indeed the case?

WILLIAMSON: Well, because there are some other possibilities, I would expect that maybe the Australians were trying to figure out if they could get confirmation. It would be wonderful if this is a pinger signal. It would be fabulous. I hope it is. But there are some other possibilities.

BLACKWELL: All right, so I want everyone to stick around. This could be a potentially a big break in the search for 370. But there is also a development in the investigation. We've got our Jim Clancy there in Kuala Lumpur, as it relates to the families who have asked to hear the air traffic control recordings. Well, we know that some people have heard them. We'll tell you who and why. Jim is up in a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Breaking news for you this morning is that the state news agency in China, Xinhua, is saying that a Chinese patrol ship hours ago detected a pulse signal coming from the southern Indian Ocean. We're waiting to find out whether we can -- or anybody can confirm that, what it means, did they find the black box, didn't they, from Malaysia 370? But also this morning we're learning more about those audio recordings from inside the cockpit.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Let's bring in Jim Clancy in Kuala Lumpur. Jim, what have you learned about those?

JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, we take a look at these cockpit voice recordings that were made between the aircraft, flight 370, and air traffic control on the very early morning of March the 8th, its final transmission. Why does that matter? It matters because whoever made that transmission was in control of the aircraft or thought to be at the time that it suddenly disappeared from radar. They were confirmed to be inside the cockpit. Both pilots might have been there, but at least that one was there.

Families wanted to know, well, whose voice is on this, they wanted to listen to these recordings. And they were refused. The news media has asked to hear those recordings. They have been refused. But some people have heard them. Friends of both pilots have been able to listen to it. They've been asked by investigators, this is according to a source here in Kuala Lumpur close to the investigation. He said, they listened to it and they could not be sure whose voice that was. We don't get any further along I don't think in the investigation but at the same time, it's another area that shows you how far the investigation is going. Christi, Victor?

BLACKWELL: So, if the friends could not come to any conclusion, any decision about who was speaking those final words, after the refusal, is there any indication the Malaysian government will change their decision and maybe let some of the people who were very close to the captain and copilot listen to the recordings?

CLANCY: You mean, family members?

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CLANCY: I don't think it's likely. Here's the problem with that. If I were the pilot, we all know suspicion is going to go to the person, the last one in the cockpit. People say, well, we know for sure that person was in the cockpit. You know, if I were the pilot I would hope my family members would say, oh, no, that's not his voice. That's the problem. You would have somebody there with an interest. And I think that's good investigation.

But, you know, as we're talking about the pinger tonight, we had a little bit of a wake-up call with that as well, a lot of discussion, how long will it last. As you've been reporting. We know we're very close to the end. What kind of shape are the batteries in. The CEO of Malaysia airlines addressed that. There's a regular schedule of maintenance. Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMAD JAUHARI YAHYA, CEO, MALAYSIA AIRLINES: And as far as the battery, what is reported, we have -- we confirmed there's a maintenance program whereby the batteries are replaced prior to expiring. We do know that the batteries are due for replacement only in June, 2014.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CLANCY: That's good news. Hopefully that would add days to the window that they would continue to ping and everybody here, you know, we've tried to pull the families, government officials, either the families nor government officials want to make any comment about this Xinhua news report until and unless they see a solid confirmation. Victor, Christi?

PAUL: All right, appreciate it. Jim Clancy, thank you so much. Richard Quest, I understand you've been listening here and there's something you want to add?

QUEST: Yes. What Jim said is really interesting and important, because what Jim says is exactly what you would have expected both of a criminal and of an aviation investigation at this stage. Those people who need to hear the audiotapes of the air traffic control have heard them, the friends or the family or the colleagues, anybody who could identify who was speaking those words, Malaysia 370 from the cockpit. That is significant. It shows us that the authorities are letting those people hear the tapes who need to hear the tapes to help with the investigation. It's not a blanket ban, as some would suggest, if Jim's source is correct.

What they will not do and they never do is give a general release of cockpit audiotapes. The prejudicial effect, the firestorm of hearing the people's voices at the moment the plane is doing whatever it's doing is simply too great. And it will be the cockpit voice recorder that will have it on it.

BLACKWELL: And thus far the findings are inconclusive on who spoke those final words. Let's bring in Frank Graham, president of AeroVox Forensic Investigations and Research. His firm specializes in cockpit voice recorder analysis and flight data visualization. Frank, good to have you, especially at this point in this mystery over last 30 days. Investigators are combing through the audio from air traffic control. Beyond trying to identify those voices, what are they listening for?

FRANK GRAHAM, AEROVOX FORENSIC INVESTIGATION AND RESEARCH: Well, right now all we have is a copy of the air traffic control recording. That is quite different from the CVR cockpit voice recorder. That is presumptively still at the bottom of the ocean. We have the transcript of the ATC, or air traffic control, recording. One would hope that it is accurate and complete, although they are frequently not. I see nothing unusual in that transcript.

So at this point all looks normal from that transcript and those air traffic control recordings. The cockpit voice recorder, if it has anything on it, because, remember, records two hours, the aircraft could have flown for over seven, in which case there will be nothing on the cockpit voice order.

BLACKWELL: If indeed they were incapacitated for the last two hours.

PAUL: Right. Right. So let me ask you this. Because we do -- they have released transcripts. What would you learn from the audio as opposed to learning from the transcripts?

GRAHAM: Well, it may well be possible once the proper team of experts is assembled to discern who is speaking at each turn. Typically in the U.S. and many other countries the pilot flying the aircraft is not the one talking on the radio. That could help. And we can also get a baseline from prior recordings, whether they be home videos or other types of recordings, voicemails, voicemail greetings, and compare those voices, certain parameters, so what we hear on the ATC recording. And if there is anything on the CVR, cockpit voice recorder, compare it again to that.

BLACKWELL: All right, Frank, I just need you to hold on for just a second. We've got breaking news just in to CNN. I'm going to read it. It just came to me. A Chinese air force plane involved in the search for missing Malaysian airline spotted a number of floating objects in the search area. A Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, is the source for that, the same source that says that this pulse was detected. Photographs of the objects were taken after they were spotted from the plane, 11:05 local time according to Xinhua.

So that gives us almost 12 hours ago these pictures were taken. So I would imagine the protocol is these would then be given to Malaysia and then also shared with the Australians, as we learned as the information came out about those pulses that were detected. But here again, is a map of where this pulse signal was detected, and now we've got news from Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, that almost objects have been seen in this search area.

PAUL: OK, Frank, I do want to get back to you quickly before we let you go as we talk about these audiotapes. Are you listening to or is there ever any indication when you listen to these tapes that maybe there's some noise in the background, that you, you know, have technology to extrapolate from that and glean any information from that as opposed to just the voice on the recorder?

GRAHAM: Absolutely. Not only do we generate a full, complete, accurate transcript of what was said, we look at how it was said, the pitch of the voice, the loudness of the voice, how fast they spoke. These things can tell us about stress the pilots may have been under.

And as far as background sounds go, there are warnings in the cockpit, engine noise, some sort of failure may be heard. There are a number of parameters that we can use and apply to an audio recording to determine exactly what was going on in that cockpit. And sometimes further back in the airplane.

BLACKWELL: All right, Frank Graham, president of AeroVox Forensic Investigations and Research, thank you for speaking with us this morning.

GRAHAM: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

PAUL: Thank you, Frank.

BLACKWELL: Of course, we will continue the breaking news we just got in from Xinhua the news agency that earlier this morning reported that a Chinese patrol ship had picked up this pulse signal. It is also now reporting just in the last few minutes that these Chinese air force planes have spotted objects, a number of floating objects in the search area, and took photographs. That was at 11:05 local time, meaning it was about 11-and-a-half hours ago in the south Indian Ocean.

PAUL: We'll keep you up on this. We'll take a quick break here and be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Breaking news this morning is that the Chinese news agency Xinhua not only reporting now that they -- one of the Chinese patrol ships detected a pulse signal which some say could be from the black box, Malaysia 370, but now also reporting that they have seen some objects floating in the water in that general area. That's from Chinese air force plane that supposedly spotted that. We're just waiting for all of that information to make it down the chain of command and get a more definitive sighting of some of these things.

BLACKWELL: Confirmation even, a confirmation from the Australian authorities who are leading this effort. But it seems as if the Chinese are releasing their information as they get it. Again, there's a healthy level of skepticism.

Let's bring in our panel. We've got no fewer than eight experts and reporters joining us in front of cameras and over the phone following this mystery from March 8th when it began. I want to go to Professor Bill Waldock about first about not only the report from Xinhua that this pulse signal has been detected, but now that these photographs have been taken of objects floating in the water. We are almost 12 hours from the time according to Xinhua that those items were spotted. Where in the investigation should we be, and what is your reaction to the reporting?

BILL WALDOCK, PROFESSOR, EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY: The reaction to the pinger would be that this is a huge break in the case. If it is indeed validated that it is a pinger, we've nearly done the impossible. And finding the debris in the area, recognize it's been float for four weeks. It should have drifted considerably down current. So we wouldn't expect to find it over the site of the pinger. The pinger itself would be more where search would be concentrating. Put the underwater swimmers in the water, the autonomous vehicles. You're dealing with an area now that's probably about five miles across.

PAUL: All right, Tom Fuentes, I want to get your take on this, and also the fact, because this is something that's just sticking with me. That Australia is trying to establish, as Will Ripley just told us a short while ago from Perth, Australia is trying to establish a communication line. The information we're getting is several hours old. We know that Australia knew about some of this several hours ago. How long will it take to connect those lines?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: The problem I have with this is we criticize the Malaysian government from losing control of the message in their command post running this investigation. Now it's been -- the search part has been in the hands of the Australians, and they've lost control of it. The fact that we're getting reporting by way of Xinhua, a Chinese-owned newspaper, government-owned newspaper, I should add, CCTV China, which is also government-owned TV network, based on reports from aircraft and ships belonging to the Chinese government, if that information was, in fact, relayed to the Malaysian -- I mean, to the Australians 12 hours ago approximately, why didn't they have some type of just, OK, we've heard these reports, we're responding. Don't get your hopes up. Don't get too excited, but we're going to dispatch the appropriate resources to those locations and look for the debris and look with the autonomous vehicle and the side scan, radar vehicles -- sonar vehicles. We're going to search that site and try to find it.

They've said really nothing officially. So everything is coming through China media rather than the command post in Australia. I realize it's almost 11:00 at night in Australia and in Beijing, for that matter. But put something out, a press release, something, that you're on this, you're working on it, you've deployed appropriate resources. We're hearing nothing in an official capacity to really know what's going on.

And, also, in terms of expectations, say, you know, the ocean shield with the appropriate gear won't -- it will take two days to get there or four days to get there, whatever it will be. Give a more realistic timeline of how long it will take to verify what's been reported.

BLACKWELL: Mary Schiavo, without that information from the Australians who are leading this multi-national search and we know that this is nearly 12 ho hours old, 12 hours ago since these pictures were taken according to Xinhua. Do you glean anything from the silence? Just like what Tom was just saying, if you didn't believe this, if you had no confidence, you could have said that very early on.

SCHIAVO: Well, I think that's probably it though. They pass the information on to the Australians, and the team there had no way to confirm it. It's not their assets there that got the pings or got the wreckage. So they probably receive the information and were waiting to be able to confirm or to get additional assets in the area to confirm it.

You know, they're probably not too happy that the news is coming out over Chinese news agency, but it's a Chinese ship. Lots of Chinese passengers on the -- on the plane that went down. And so there's a reporter on that ship. I think the reporter is doing what reporters do, which is report news that's pretty darn significant if it's accurate.

So I guess at this point the important thing is to get the assets there's and find out if this is true or not, because if it's true, this is hugely important, and I guess we need to stop quibbling over who broke the news and get the ships there to confirm it. But I think the Australians were just being cautious and wanted to have confirmation.

PAUL: Let's find out if we have any answers to that. Will Ripley is live for us there in Australia at air base in Perth. Will, good morning to you, and what have you learned this hour?

RIPLEY: Good morning. The bottom line, no, we don't have official confirmation. As we mentioned earlier, the Australians first got word of this through some channel, we don't know which channel, but they first got word around lunchtime. They've been trying to establish communication with Haixun ever since, have not been able to do so, have not been also able to get any information out of Beijing, which has been disseminated all these facts to the Australians and the Malaysians.

Our source within the Australian defense force is telling us they really hoped when they got word of this this afternoon or yesterday afternoon now, in Perth, they hoped that this would speed up the process. They hoped that, you know, hours into this we would be able to speed up the line of communication. That simply hasn't happened yet. So that's the reason we're not seeing confirmation, because the authorities here can't confirm it. They can't get ahold of the ship to give them more detailed information on this.

BLACKWELL: All right, Will Ripley there for us at the air base in Perth, as we wait for some confirmation whether this is the pinger that has been detected by this Chinese patrol ship as reported by Chinese state news agency or not. I want our panel to stick around. We will continue with the breaking news as reported by Chinese state news agency that not only a pulse signal has been detected by a Chinese ship but also Chinese air force pilots have seen and taken pictures of floating objects in the search area there in the south Indian Ocean. Stay with us. We'll continue to coverage in a moment.

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PAUL: Breaking news this morning, two big pieces of information, both of them coming from state news agency Xinhua out of China. First of all they say a Chinese patrol ship detected a pulse signal at 37.5 kilohertz which is the frequency standard beacon frequency of a black box. So we don't know, no confirmation from any other source other than this is what Xinhua has heard. Also the Chinese air force planes spotted and photographed objects that they saw floating in the water about 12 how ago local time for them.

But this certainly brings into play the communication of where this information is going, because even though it's coming from China, Australia some 12 hours later, has not given any formal confirmation of this.

BLACKWELL: Chain of custody, chain of command, protocol, and Tom Fuentes, I've got a great question that just came in via twitter from Claudia. And she says, "If the black box is found, and maybe this is it, maybe not, who gets it, the Malaysian government because it was a Malaysian plane, the Chinese because they found it, the Australians because they lead the search?" Who gets the black box?

FUENTES: Victor, it's not finders, keepers. The box goes to the Malaysian government and it's up to their decision making to give it to analyze whether if they think they have the people who can study it or give it to the NTSB or the British or some other authority. But it belongs to Malaysia.

Mary Schiavo, your assumption they will give it up to anyone else to analyze considering all the intelligence and information that other countries have asked for, that they have not given up? SCHIAVO: Well, I think that they will and they'll have to. First of all, they have to be extremely careful, and I'm sure the experts are there onsite as to how to actually take it from the water. They don't actually take it from the water. They'll transport it in saltwater and take it to hopefully the NTSB labs where's they will then put it in a bath of freshwater and eventually then be able to get it out and dry it out. They have to be very careful with how they handle it. And because it's a Boeing aircraft and it's the best lab in the world is the NTSB, I'm hopeful that the Malaysians will decide that the NTSB should do the analysis because they have to be careful how they remove it, how they take it from the water, how it's eventually removed from both saltwater, then freshwater, then dried out. So it's not an easy process, but it's a process the NTSB has done, sadly, hundreds of times because they've dealt with so many plane crashes. So yes, it belongs to the Malaysians, but they should make a wise decision to send it to the best lab in the world.

PAUL: Jeff Wise, because we're talking about how many hours have passed since this was discovered and since this was -- this information was released, is releasing it hours later by, you know, the Chinese news agency, does that give them more credence because they've had this for hours and may have been able to do some of their own confirmation, or does it show even some desperation considering the fact that most of the people on that plane were Chinese and they're looking for answers?

WISE: It's very strange, as we've been talking about, the way this information has been released by the Chinese is not according to protocol. There seems to be a certain lost in translation element.

I have to add, this new bit of breaking news about the debris being spotted from the air, it's like the Chinese are really doubling down on this idea they've located the plane. As we've already heard, finding debris on the water from the air is a completely different kind of search. Based on the amount of time since this incident occurred you would expect the debris in the water to be on the order of hundreds of miles away from where the debris would be located under the surface. And so it's almost like they won Powerball twice, if true.

BLACKWELL: All right, Jeff Wise, Mary Schiavo, Tom Fuentes, all of our analysts who are in front of the camera and on the phone, we have more. Stay where you are. We've got a little more that's coming in from not just Kuala Lumpur but also from some of the families of those who are on flight 370. We're going to get to that in a moment. Stay with us as we continue the coverage of this morning's breaking news.

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PAUL: Xinhua Chinese news agency telling us or some releasing some information today that their patrol ships spotted or heard a pulse signal in the ocean. So a lot of people wondering if that is the black box from Malaysia flight 370. Also that objects were spotted by Chinese air force planes. However, family members of the victims apparently are skeptical about this news today. BLACKWELL: CNN's Pauline Chiou is in Beijing with many of the families, and we just got this in from Jack Song, whose sister was on board flight 370. He says, "There's no piece of debris so how can you find the black box?" He does not believe that indeed this frequency that was picked up was, indeed, the ping. I think we've got the map showing exactly where this was detected near the search areas today, but not only the sound or the ping, but also the photographs that were taken, we're told, according to Xinhua, the Chinese state news agencies, of these floating objects about now almost 12 hours ago. So of course --

PAUL: But that news about the objects just came down to us within the last 15 or 20 minutes.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

PAUL: So we'll see how this continues to develop. And you're going to see it as well with Fred as she's here with you now to walk you through the afternoon. Hi, Fred.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello to you. Good to see you. Lots of developments to follow up on. That's what we're going to do beginning right now in the 11:00 eastern hour.