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China State News: Ship Detects Pulse Signal; No Confirmation Signal Is From Plane

Aired April 05, 2014 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. We want to welcome viewers in the United States and around the world. We are following breaking news right now of what could be a major break in the search for Flight 370. China's state news agency reports a Chinese patrol ship detected a pulse signal with the same frequency as a black box.

This is the spot where the signal was picked up according to the Chinese report and the signal reportedly lasted for a minute and 30 seconds, but the Joint Agency Coordination Center says that signal has not yet been verified and there's no confirmation as of yet that this is connected to the missing plane.

China's state news agency also says a Chinese air force plane spotted several floating white objects earlier today. It is not clear yet if those are connected to the plane either. Also today Malaysian officials announced they're forming three committees to handle all of aspects of the plane's disappearance.

The committees will work with families, the investigation and the deployment of assets and we also learned today officials played a recording of the last words from the cockpit to friends of the pilots and families have not, however, been allowed to hear it. A source close to the investigation says officials are trying to determine who was speaking.

So we have reporters and experts around the world trying to bring you every angle of this story. First, let's get an update on the search from Perth, Australia. Will Ripley is live there for us. So, Will, explain to us how Australian authorities want to move forward on trying to verify this information coming from the Chinese news agency?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, tonight they are definitely moving forward in trying to verify this information, but proceed with caution are probably the three key words because as we've all seen over the past several weeks there have been many false leads in this case and the last thing that we want to do right now is be irresponsible and give the families of those 239 people missing false hope.

Nonetheless, within the last 30 minutes, we are hearing from the head of the Joint Agency Coordination Center, Angus Houston. One thing he's telling us, they are now considering sending Australian air force assets to this area where, one, objects were spotted and also to the area where, you know, perhaps the Chinese ship potentially detected pings under water, but all of this information unconfirmed.

Let me actually read you the quote from Angus, Houston. He says, quote, "I've been advised that a series of sounds have been detected by a Chinese ship in the search area. The characteristics reported are consistent with the aircraft black box. A number of white objects were also sighted on the surface about 90 kilometers from the detection area."

However, and this is key here, he says, "There is no confirmation at this stage that the signals and the objects are related to the missing aircraft." We know that Australian officials have had this information to some extent for the past 10 to 12 hours or so and they've been trying to establish communication with the Chinese ship that supposedly detected these underwater pings, the Hixuean.

But as far as we know they have not been able to communicate directly with that ship. We do know that Australia has spoken with China, presumably with the coordination center in Beijing, that's the center that's been disseminating information to Malaysia and Australia. A lot of unanswered questions out here right now. Nonetheless, they are moving forward, trying to verify this information and see what the next step maybe.

WHITFIELD: And perhaps why at day break they might be able to get some of the air assets in the air and then at what point will the determination be made that some of the ships already in the region might be redirected if not already?

RIPLEY: Yes. We don't have those specific answers yet. That is going to be up to the folks who are in the command center, but we do know that they are awake even at this late hour. They are monitoring these reports. They're trying to get more information, and trying to establish a more direct line of communication with China.

One thing, Fred, that I think people don't understand is that unlike the other countries involved this this search, the Chinese ships and airplanes don't directly communicate with the command center in Australia. Their information goes to Beijing first and then Beijing decides what information is released.

So to see all of this come out earlier this evening around dinner time Saturday in Australia, from a Chinese news agency. It took a lot of people by surprise, especially considering there was a press conference a couple of hours earlier and no mention of any of this.

WHITFIELD: OK, that's what brings such puzzling questions to the surface here. Thanks so much, Will. Appreciate that.

Let's continue our conversation with aviation correspondent, Richard Quest. And so Richard, earlier you were shaking your head as Tom Fuentes was making the point that he thought it was troublesome that Australian authorities may have known about this some 10 to 12 hours ago, but are just now saying that it is considering redirecting assets. Your point to what was being said? RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, we don't know when Australia knew or what they actually knew, but I can think of nothing more damaging for the Australians to have sort of willingly sent off assets because they -- the Chinese with an unconfirmed report say that they have heard a pinger, which may or may not be consistent with a black box.

This would be exactly the situation that we had early in the investigation when you'll remember the Chinese satellite pictures came out. Excuse me, and on that occasion, the Chinese satellite pictures came out and the Malaysians didn't -- or they hadn't sent immediately assets out there because they needed to verify.

Within 24 hours, the verification proved that the Chinese pictures were wrong and had been released in error. I understand the urgency of the pinger, which is deteriorating in strength, but just because the Chinese have said we think we found a pinger, Australia, as being the responsible agency for the whole search and recovery has to verify and confirm before it decides to shift vast amounts of assets in the search.

WHITFIELD: OK. All right, we'll let's continue this dialogue and broaden it out some more. Tom Fuentes is back with us out of Washington. Mary Schiavo is a CNN aviation analyst, now working for a law firm that sues airlines, and Art Wright is operations manager at Williamson and Associates and a retired Navy captain. He's in Seattle and we have Les Aband, who is a contributing editor to "Flying" magazine, a 777 captain and a CNN aviation analyst. All right, thanks to all of you.

So Tom, how about if I get you to respond on that because it is clear, there's a lot of frustration about how this investigation is moving forward. We just heard from Will who verified that the Chinese ships are not reporting to Australian authorities. So that might explain why Australian authorities didn't hear about it directly from the Chinese, but instead by way of the news agency, but this also means this method is promoting a lot of confusion and frustration.

So, Tom, when you have a multi-national force involved here, some who are cooperating by command post and others who have the assets, but are doing their own thing, it is difficult to co-exist and it seems as though this is exactly what is likely to happen when you've got kind of, I guess, you know, different captains at the ship, so to speak.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, it's one thing for the ship to be out there and not have communication with people onshore in Australia, but I thought that those aircraft, the Chinese planes included, were taking off from the same base as all the other aircraft. So I'm curious as to why they're doing their own search patterns in a completely different area.

It's like are they even part of this multinational task force or not, and if they're not, OK? But when this gets reported back to China, when did China then, send the information. You know, they have telephones between Beijing and Perth, Australia, somebody should be calling somebody else to say here's what we're hearing. Check it out. What Will said is true.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

FUENTES: If the Australians heard this by reading it in the Xinhua newspaper hours after it was obtained, that's horrible if that's how they were informed, but they were still informed, as he said, at dinner time Australia. This is many hours past that and there should be a decision that's already being made or had been made that says we're going to check this out or we're with not. It's kind of a chicken or the egg. You can't confirm something if you don't check it out and you can't wait to check it out until you confirm it. They're mutually exclusive in a way.

WHITFIELD: So Mary, what's worrisome about the sequence events for you or do you prefer to be hopeful about these latest bits of information that are being reported even if it has not been verified as yet.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I'm looking at more, I guess, from that's the way things happen point of view or a practical point of view. The Chinese ship has a reporter on board. So I think that we are going to expect that doing his or her job as on would do, they'll get the news as quickly as possible and they'll pass the news back to Beijing.

So I guess, I'm not surprised at the way this has come down. I'm disappointed because I would want this information to go first to the joint task force because those are the folks that will get out there and they'll get the record and the plane and those are the folks who have a need to know.

But the snafu and the backwards release of information doesn't really surprise me other than obviously getting people riled up, it will probably not hurt things in the long run and I am surprised that the Australians didn't respond by quickly sending assets to the area.

WHITFIELD: Les Abend with us now. Clearly, this is very messy, but everyone wants a positive outcome meaning they want to find the wreckage. They want to find the answer as to what happened to this plane. So how do all these assets, how do all of these countries involved kind of redirect now and try to salvage anything in these critical hours to come?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST (via telephone): Look, I'm hopeful like the rest of the world, but my exposure to accident investigation is that nothing is ever released to the press, media at all of this magnitude. We shouldn't be talking about it right now. I'm very, very disappointed that the joint task force wasn't the immediate go-to people because this is -- this is something the Chinese people and the rest of the families on this airplane really want to know about.

WHITFIELD: OK. Tom, yes, I'm sure they're frustrated as well, but at this point how do you fix it? How do you clean it up?

FUENTES: Fredricka, this is not the press. This is not like the reporters in the U.S. that send it back to their editors in the U.S. and it gets in the newspaper here. Xinhua is owned and operated and controlled by the Chinese government. That reporter on the ship is an employee of the Chinese government. What gets put in the newspaper is determined by the Chinese government and it's their ship and plane in that area.

So this isn't just a leak to a newspaper like we've had earlier in this investigation from many different newspapers with information from Kuala Lumpur. This is a government agency putting this out essentially.

WHITFIELD: Yes. And Richard, you know, I would think the Australians would know about this potential, given the way the Chinese government operates and culturally how it operates and at the same time perhaps there was a feeling of a common goal that everyone wants to get to the bottom of this and there may be this sense of cooperation and maybe Australian authorities still feel blindsided even though they may recognize there is this potential?

QUEST: I'm going to read between the lines of all of the events of the last few hours. I'm guessing that the Australians were told about this in some shape or more description from the Chinese. It might have been so-called, second, third or fourth hand, but I'm probably guessing that China did, by Beijing, let Australia know about it and roughly at the same time Perth released it, the reporter released it.

What I -- seeing these things before and with a certain amount of touch and feel of the whole thing it's messy. The Chinese should have told Perth officially and Perth should have been the only people to have made any announcements upon it and any reporter on it -- and Tom's right. Xinhua may be an agency of the government in that sense or a news agency disseminating information in that way, but what have we got now?

It's 12:14, 12:15 on the east coast, 12:15 in the middle of the night in Perth and you have a circus. You have a complete and utter confusion over what has been found, where it is, whether it's credible, whether it's relevant, who's going out to find? And you have families saying they don't believe it anyway even though if the story is as it is and that's exactly the treaty and the Annex 13 and it's what every structure is designed to prevent.

WHITFIELD: All right, and now what? That's the question. We'll have more on this conversation right after this.

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WHITFIELD: We want welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Hello, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. A Chinese state news agency says a Chinese patrol ship detected a pulse signal with the same frequency as a black box, but Australian officials say they can't confirm that.

In fact, Australian authorities now are saying they need to be cautious while they are considering deploying assets. To the Chinese news report some families in China are very skeptical. Pauline Chiu is in Beijing. Pauline, what are they saying about what's being reported?

PAULINE CHIU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fred, they are very sceptical. They are tentative. They are cautious and that's because they've been through so much and so many emotional ups and downs in the past 29 days. We've reached out to several relatives after this reports came out about this possible ping.

One man whose sister was on the plane said I don't believe it. There's no debris yet so how can you actually find a black box? He said let's wait until tomorrow when we get more information and maybe it will just be another mistake again.

And a relative in Kuala Lumpur said there's no confirmation yet. We are waiting patiently and this relative is right because the Chinese Ministry of Transport said on its microblog site be careful. This is not confirmed yet.

So we do see the government also being cautious about these reports as well. Now, we've also been tracking social media. There is a big group chat among family members on a social messaging app and we were tracking some of the activity. Most of this was from journalists asking each other what they thought and asking relatives, but we didn't see a lot of answers from relatives.

So Fredericka, this goes to show you that there is that tentativeness and these relatives have been under so much stress. They're exhausted and frustrated. So much so that the government has actually offered to bring them to a sanatorium on Saturday so the relatives can get fresh air and go through health checks and that gives you a sense of their state of mind at this moment.

WHITFIELD: Pauline, perhaps you being in Beijing you can help us understand and many viewers who may not understand the dynamics of how the news agencies are working in China, but as we understand it, a reporter with this Chinese news agency was actually on this Chinese patrol vessel and was able to help report this reported finding of this ping, rather, immediately and instead of that reporter or even that Chinese vessel reporting to Australian authorities, which are heading up this multinational force, they instead feel more compelled and by duty, have to report this to the Chinese government and that is how the information is disseminated. So can you help some folks understand the dynamics of this reporting and the Chinese government's involvement as it pertains to its assets involved and even its news agency.

CHIU: Sure. That reporter is someone from CCTV, which is a government-backed television news station here. There is also another reporter from a Shanghai newspaper on board, as well. That's also a Shanghai, Communist Party-backed newspaper. These are reporters working for agencies that are backed by the government and all of the domestic news agencies are backed by the government and the way information is disseminated is this goes back to Beijing.

Beijing is supposed to give this information to Malaysia. Malaysia is then supposed to give it to Australia, and it is curious, Fredricka, that Xinhua is saying that those floating objects were detected at around 11:00 a.m. Whether or not Australia knew about it or not is still unclear, but there was that news conference in Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur at 5:30 local time. None of this was mentioned during that news conference.

So you also have to wonder was Malaysia informed about this possible ping as well as those floating objects. So there is that disconnect in terms of the information flow. I can put this interest context, though, Fredricka, because early in this search there was a little bit of a fumble from China's part when you remember those satellite photos of the debris in the South China Sea. The satellite research center put those photos on their government web site.

Well, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the next day said they had no idea these images existed. Malaysia said they had no idea these images existed so the Chinese govern am as a result called that whole episode a big mistake so you can understand why they want to have a tight grip on the flow of information even coming from that ship, even coming from a reporter.

WHITFIELD: All right, Pauline Chiu, thank you so much for that clarification on that. It is a messy situation. It has been from the start and continues to be so, but clearly, many interests involved here and it's difficult for all of them to work together clearly.

All right, I am joined now on the phone by CNN analyst, David Gallo, who is in Boston. He is the director of special projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Also on the phone is Anish Patel, he is the president of Dukane Seacom and his company is believed to have developed the beacon that you see on these black boxes.

The beacon is the device in which once it hits under water that's how sonar equipment is able to detect and locate the beacon, which is attached to this flight and data and voice recorders. All right, so let me go to you, Anish, because this signal according to Chinese authorities, they believe this signal is consistent with the beacons on the boxes.

Even the Australian authorities are acknowledging while the reporting is showing the characteristics are consistent with these devices, they are unable to verify. So in your view, could it be anything else in that general search area that could emit the same kind of signal that is characteristic of the beacon?

ANISH PATEL, PRESIDENT, DUKANE SEACOM (via telephone): The 37.5 kilohertz pulse per second is very unique. It's a unique signature for these devices. It's designed to be separated from the background noise in the ocean. So it's highly unlikely that unless there happens to be other devices in that area that emit this that we have an anomaly. It should be related to these type of devices.

WHITFIELD: So that kind of frequency would not come from, you know, a pod of dolphins or whales. It wouldn't come from a submarine that may be in the area. It would be very distinctive and very different.

PATEL: As best knowledge we have that is the reason it was chosen because of its unique characteristics. WHITFIELD: OK. I'm actually talking to Anish Patel and now I'll go to David Gallo, and I say that because we have David's picture on the screen now. You agree that the signal has to be verified and perhaps some kind of autonomous vehicle has to be brought in, but since time is of the essence, are any of the ships among the dozens or so ships in the area equipped with this vehicle that you speak of?

DAVID GALLO, CNN ANALYST (via telephone): Fredricka, I don't know what's in the immediate area, but this is an issue about how this has been released because -- you know, the saying the suspense is killing me. Well, to a survey like this where we've got so many assets and the multinational efforts and these are going full speed to the point of exhaustion to have to break away from what they're doing and get over there and have a look at this.

And I'm not sure what the Australians have decided to do or if it's going to be left entirely in the hands of the Chinese to verify the signal, but it does create a problem with the pace and the tempo of the expedition.

WHITFIELD: OK. And you understand the sounds of the ocean. In your view, is there anything else that would be in this portion of the Southern Indian Ocean that could mimic the sound that could throw off any of these devices to make it appear as though or sound as though it is a pulse from a beacon?

GALLO: You know, you have the biologicals, the whales, dolphins and that kind of sound and it's not just the frequency that is the issue because a lot of it has to do with the instrument itself and also the operators. And so, if you've got having a bad day or something not tuned exactly right and maybe it's an operator error type of thing and it's not an infallible system.

So it doesn't have to be another way of making the sound. It may be just a misinterpretation of the sound they're hearing and not knowing exactly what you're looking at it's hard to understand how sure they are that this is the right frequency and the right point to make.

WHITFIELD: All right, David Gallo and Anish Patel, thank you to both of you, Gentlemen. Appreciate it. We're going to get the latest on the reaction out of from Perth, Australia and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on these latest Chinese news reports that a Chinese vessel may have detected a pulse that may be that from a black box and also Chinese air assets claiming that they see white debris not far from the location of that pulse. Reaction from Perth and Kuala Lumpur after this.

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WHITFIELD: Welcome back. We're following breaking news right now. China's state news agency is reporting that a Chinese ship detected a pulse signal in the Southern Indian Ocean. It's the same frequency as the pingers on flight data recorders, but the Joint Agency Coordination Center in Australia says that signal could not be verified and there is no confirmation that it is related to the missing plane. Officials in Australia say they have been trying to get more information, but they haven't been able to open a line of communication as yet with that Chinese ship. Chinese state news agency also said today an air force plane of theirs spotted white floating objects in the search area earlier today.

Let's get an update now from Perth, Australia. Will Ripley, give us an idea about this communication breakdown or what is the obstacle as to why Australian authorities are not getting enough information from the Chinese ship?

RIPLEY: Well, one question that we can't answer right now is who exactly told the Australian authorities, at the Joint command center, who told them about this? We know that they first got word around lunchtime. Lunchtime, they've known for about 12 hours or so and yet at this late hour in Perth, there is still no real official confirmation from China as to the specifics about this. They haven't been able to establish a line of communication with the Haixun, the ship that supposedly detected these pings.

But they did learn about this hours before the Xinhua news report came out around dinner time. So what happened at lunchtime? Who told them? What did they tell them? What do they know? Those are things that we don't really have the answer to right now.

WHITFIELD: And now we're about five or six hours away from daybreak and as Australian authorities try to ascertain what information they have or that they're lacking, how will they make a determination as to when to get crews ready for flight, if they'll take flight to try to do any kind of flyovers of these areas that the Chinese airplanes say they saw debris as well as try to direct, redirect some of the dozen or so ships, multinational ships that are in the area to see if they can get their sonar equipment in the water to see if they also detect pulses.

RIPLEY: You know, the latest word from Angus Houston came down within the last hour and he said they are considering deploying the Australian air force to the area where this supposed ping was detected by the Chinese ship. As for the report of objects, you know, there's a lot of cautious -- caution, skepticism.

We've seen reports of objects report and we've seen satellite images and we've heard talk of that this the object that's the size of a wing of a plane and it's turned out to be nothing. I think the Australian authorities until they get more information.

There is a reason why we're not being told, here's our plan and here's what we're sending because frankly the information that they have is limited right now and I know they've asked Beijing for more. I don't think they have it yet.

WHITFIELD: All right, Will Ripley, thank you so much. Let's check in with our Jim Clancy who is in Kuala Lumpur. Jim, as we understand, from Pauline Chiu, she was explaining the sequence of events that would take place when you have this multinational force involved. Chinese authorities would get their information, presumably this pulse or even information from this flyover and debris reportedly in the water.

That information would then go to Malaysian authorities and it will trickle over to Australian authorities, but it is unclear whether that sequence of events has taken place. What is your understanding of the information that Malaysian authorities have as it pertains to this new information from the Chinese news agency and what is their duty to be part of the multinational force so that Australian authorities feel like they're in concert with the information?

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm not exactly sure how it works in practice, but I think we can look at the case that's developing right now. You have a ship set for a few minutes or moments it was able to hear a ping at the right frequency. This could be significant and it would alert the Malaysians who would then alert the Australians. There is a set procedure for doing that.

But I think at the same time, you had a Xinhua news reporter on board that ship and at some point he reported into his news agency about the findings. That's outside this entire realm of the way that things should have been done because he's not reporting something officially to the search coordinating unit in Perth, Australia.

You have two things happening and that might explain some of it. The reaction has only been one, Hishamuddin Hussein sent out a tweet saying that it was another night of hope and praying. That was his reaction, but largely, Malaysian officials don't want to go on the record until this is confirmed. Nobody wants to raise false hopes here, and I think that's the way people feel around here. We have to deal with it -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: It's a messy situation and has been from the very beginning. It's a colossal event, but from a reporter's perspective, I mean, clearly in reporting any story you always have lots of different directions and, you know, that is how you -- that's part of the task is trying to discern what is most credible? What can you check out? Where are the sources? How do you funnel all of this information into one streamlined kind of straight line so people can understand it?

But give me an idea how difficult this story has been from the very start whether you were reporting it as an anchor back on set and now being in Kuala Lumpur, trying to streamline this information, trying to discern what is the most credible. Give me an idea how frustrating and how difficult, what a task it has been?

CLANCY: You know, it's not like any other story that I've covered like Pan Am 103 where I can stand in the debris field in Lockerbie, Scotland, or outside that town and see that they have a mountain of evidence that is going to be sifted and there will be a reckoning of what happened here. In this case, we have nothing. We have nothing to see. We have radar records that aren't made public. We have sources that are saying one thing one day, another thing the next.

The news media and Malaysian officials have, as I like to put it, just danced down the road of confusion and contradiction together. News reporters have gotten the stories wrong. They misheard things over the course of this whole thing. Everybody is desperate for information and that's the one thing that we don't have in this story, Fredricka.

We don't have the solid, hard evidence to examine and it's made it very difficult for everyone here, and I think, you know, for the public at large and especially for the families, it's really made it a roller coaster ride. Hopes are up one day and we're close to understanding what happened, but we really never seem to be getting closer -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, so close yet so far. It seems as though just when we're getting closer to some kind of discovery and some kind of kernel, it's replaced by another notion and another theory is we're back at square one. All right, thank you so much, Jim Clancy. Appreciate that. We'll have much more of our coverage right after this short break.

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WHITFIELD: Today's unconfirmed news that a Chinese patrol ship may have detected a pulse signal in the search area for Flight 370 raises all kinds of questions. Our Rene Marsh joins us now from Washington. We know the sound picked up by the Chinese ship is the standard frequency from the pingers at least from what's being reported and this doesn't necessarily mean it's a slam dunk and there's a lot of skepticism. Why?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: There is a lot of skepticism. This report has really peaked our interest simply because of that key information coming from Chinese TV in that the sound was that standard frequency of the pinger 37.5 kilohertz. You have the manufacturer on our air saying this frequency is very unique to these pingers. There's not a lot in nature that mimics this sort of frequency so there aren't many things that this could be.

That said, we do know Chinese television is reporting that that signal was detected every second for only about a minute and a half. So here's what's leading us to scratch our heads just a little bit here. According to the manufacturer, those pingers, if it's working, it's constantly pinging. It doesn't ping for just a short period of time. It continues to ping, so now the question is why did they only detect it for about a minute and a half?

We could possibly explain that by looking at the possibility that the ship was moving away and perhaps it was losing the signal or there could have been a shift in the water. We do know that the signal can be disrupted by debris or silt, and then there's the other possibility, Fred, possibly a false positive. So many questions raised by this tidbit of information that we have right now and all of it needs to be verified and it is unclear how they'll go with about verifying it at this point -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: OK. Thanks so much, Rene Marsh, that's eliciting a whole lot of other questions and we'll talk about that coming up. And many family members, while they want to be hopeful, this latest report still means that a lot of them are very skeptical. They're not sure what to believe anymore. We'll talk to some of the family members after this.

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WHITFIELD: It is hard to imagine the anguish of the Flight 370 families and not knowing the fate of their loved ones it may be, of course, the hardest part of all. Husbands, wives, mothers, and children, they are all talking about their loved ones and here they are in their own words.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEE KHIM FATT: She has been flying Malaysia Air for the past 18 years. She's a lovely lady. A lovely wife, a very caring mom for my two kids. Yes.

LOKMAN MUSTAFA, BROTHER OF SUHAILI MUSTAFA: She's the glue that holds things together, my sister. It's a roller coaster ride. It's difficult for the family members. We are hoping there will be survivors, if it indeed ended somewhere in the Indian Ocean, we hope that there will be survivors. We hope so Suhaili is among the survivors. We hope there is a light at the end of this tunnel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I definitely miss him. He is a very professional, committed pilot. If something happened to this flight I would think -- in fact, I would believe that he would have made sure of safety and welfare of everyone else before he would think about himself. That's the kind of person that he is. That's why I would choose him as my pilot. I just cannot imagine what the family might be going through, not just the captain's family, but the rest of the passengers and crew.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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WHITFIELD: Welcome back with the mystery surrounding Flight 370. Now a tropical cyclone may be forming near the search area. Will it disrupt the search effort? CNN's Jennifer Gray joins me now with more on this. Jennifer, what's the potential here?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It looks like it's going to stay away. It's actually forming to the west of the search area, which is really good news. It is coming together, and it's not supposed to gain much strength. It's packing winds of 50 miles per hour and it will travel to the south and eventually curve to the east, really bypassing the search area so that is good news and a lot of the energy is holding very tight to this tropical cyclone.

That's also good news and so it's actually going to give the searchers better weather than they could be dealing with. It is traveling right through the old search area. So it is good news that we are here now. It could increase a little bit of that cloud cover. We may see an uptick in winds and maybe seas, but it's really not going to have a direct effect at all.

In fact, the weather over the next couple of days is going to be pretty good compared to what we've seen over the past couple of weeks. Here are your winds as we go through the next couple of days, peaking out today, say today through tomorrow possibly at 30 miles per hour and that's just the extreme southwest corner. The rest of the search area looking at really good conditions. We'll see winds maybe 10 miles per hour, 20 at the most.

So the only problems I really see is an uptick in cloud cover so the airplanes may have a hard time seeing down through those clouds and as far as the ships are concerned, folks actually are on the water ask it looks like the seas will be down for the most part and maybe swell, but nothing major out there for the next 48 hours.

WHITFIELD: So particularly good conditions for the underwater search to resume or pick up intensity.

GRAY: Exactly.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much, Jennifer Gray. We appreciate and we'll have much more on the latest search efforts involving Malaysia Air Flight 370.

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