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New Developments in Search for Flight 370; Glimmer of Hope as Chinese Ship Detects Signals; Did Jet Fly Around Indonesian Air Space to Avoid Detection?; Mazda Recall Due to Spiders

Aired April 06, 2014 - 17:00   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Fredricka, thank you.

Hello, everyone. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. And I'm Ashleigh Banfield.

A glimmer of hope and then nothing. Teams that are searching for flight 370 are raising to confirm pulse signal that were detected by a Chinese ship. And they are assisted by the HMS Echo which just arrived at the sight. It is the latest and best lead in this month long saga, but sadly, it is also one that just may not last for very long.

The Chinese ship detected the signal right here. It maybe the black boxes from the Malaysia airline airplane. But, and that is a big but, no one has confirmed this yet. There was another acoustic event. And I used those term exactly as they have been delivered, acoustic event. It was detected by the Australian ship Ocean Shield. But that ship was about 300 miles away from where the other acoustic event was registered. But in just hours or days those batteries in the black boxes are doomed. They are supposed to be running out if they aren't already gone.

Here is another mystery. Did the plane try to avoid Indonesian air space deliberately? It apparently steered a very curious course right around the northern part of that country. And that comes from a very good source, a senior Malaysian government's source straight to CNN. Why would the plane do that? Was it actually trying to avoid radar?

At this point no one knows. The families are left to do what they can at this time. They are praying for news of their love ones no matter how grim that use might be, but a lot of them certainly do have their doubts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YE LUN, BROTHER OF ONE OF THE PASSENGER (through translator): I feel the news from the press conference could be true because the area is where the plane should be. It is so strange that there was no emergency beacon signal. I think the plane glided on to the water and sank so the beacons weren't activated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The arrival of the HMS Echo gives the search team a new tool to find the airliner. But the fact remains the last held signal was heard more than 36 hours ago.

Matthew Chance joins me live now. And first, to you, Matthew, what is the optimism like at this point from the other side of the world? Does anyone feel as though the HMS Echo might be able to do something to find these boxes or even the plane for that matter? Do they think it is even possible?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think there is a degree of optimism in the sense that if the Malaysian aircraft is in that area where they are currently searching, the HMS Echo is equipped with the right kind of technology. But it will be able to find that plane.

But, of course, there is still question mark over the areas being search. There is no verification that these Chinese pings that were detected 24 hours ago. So, before that, as well there were separate pings that they detected, two separate acoustics event as they call them.

It has not been verified that there was anything to do with missing Malaysian airline we are told. And so, that the main reason why the HMS Echo, with its sophisticated equipments has been deployed to that area, along with airplanes too which will resume their searches once the sun comes up here in western Australia for there is any kind of sign they can find as well. Particularly, the white objects that have been spotted by the Chinese air crews as well, arriving at the same time that they identified these apparent pings under the surface, on the surface. They saw a number of floating white objects about 90 kilometers, 60 miles or so from where the pings was detected as well.

And so, it is probably the most likely place at the moment with the data where the airplane they though to find something. But there is that second location as well that you mentioned. Ocean Shield, the Australian vessel, is also investigating a third acoustic event. We have not any detail yet on what the progress has been there. We shouldn't lose focus on it -- Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Well, Matthew, look. There are two forces here. And that is the search in the water. And then there is also the search for any further details that might hone us in on where this flight may had ended up. And now, we are hearing about this incredible sharp turn. But a very curious pattern that, you know, gently and perfectly skirts the northern coast of Indonesia.

Are the investigators where you are in of Perth, Australia, the least they concern about that at this point or they completely wrapped in these pulse signals and looking at the water only?

CHANCE: Yes. Because I think the turn that was revealed to us by that senior Malaysian government official is more related with the investigation as to why this happened rather than how it happened.

What the search teams here in western Australia are focusing on is the satellite data which is sort of a related to that which indicates where about this plane may have ended up, if it has run out of fuel depending on how fast it was going, the altitude in which it was going, factors like that. And that is why the continually refined this search area for this place now arrived about 4000 kilometers, a thousand miles and so off feet the western coast of Australia.

There is other issue, though, is really interesting. This issue that has been revealed to us by the senior Malaysian government official. That there were a number of turns taken to, left-hand turns that were taken by this Malaysian airliner after it took off from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. The first one that was pretty clear, that was tracked. And that it was a second apparently deliberate turn to the south towards the south Indian Ocean which senior Malaysian officials now say could have been deliberate to avoid the radar of surrounding countries.

And so, that has a bearing on the sort of criminal investigation and the possible motive for why it happened.

BANFIELD: We are certainly going to get more into that as this hour progress.

Matthew Chance, thank you live from Perth, Australia.

I want to also to dig deeper now into the search for these pulse signals. They were so fleeting and yet they are everything that we have to go on.

And joining me now is Thomas Altshuler, Teledyne Marine Systems, a company that makes the kind of emergency locater, pingers that are inside airplane black boxes. It may have been in fact made the pingers in the black box that we are searching for.

Now, Mr. Altshuler , thank you so much for being with us. I know you have seen some of the video of the Chinese ship that has made this two ping locations and you have looked at the equipment that our viewers are now able to see on the screen as well. When you look at the gear that is being used, your assessment is that this is sophisticated enough to find what we are looking for or not?

THOMAS ALTSHULER, VICE PRESIDENT, TELEDYNE MARINE SYSTEMS: So Ashleigh, we manufacture the gear that the Chinese are using in Massachusetts. It is designed to locate the aviation pinger, but it is designed typically for shallow water locations. So as I show you this, this is actually a diver system. It is handheld by a diver. It is used to swim to an area that has debris and look for a black box.

It is able as the Chinese were using it to have an extension, which is what this is, which is a hydrophone that can go on the water off a boat. But in reality, it is used to just look for shallow systems.

Can it detect a system that deep, a pinger that deep? It is possible. But it would be right at the edge of the detection limit of that system.

BANFIELD: Which is very odd because as I know, and correctly if I'm wrong, the area that we are looking at right now, is a couple of miles deeper. There is nothing shallow it. ALTSHULER: That's correct. And so, there is a capability of the system detect potentially something that that is that deep if you are right over top. But again, that has never been shown by us and it really is a physics problem having to deal with how sound propagates in the water problem. And so, the probability is there but it is a very hard problem and not a likely scenario.

BANFIELD: I think the accuracy is actually 2.8 miles which is plenty deep.

The other issue and I need you to get you clear this up. It is our understanding that there is reporting that on that Chinese ship, not only worth the gear that we are talking about right, the hydrophone in employ, but there was also a pinger. And it was seem to me that that was the not the best piece of equipment to have next to a pinger locator.

Could it is worth the effort of a hydrophone to actually have a pinger, how, you know, destabilize it is or whatever system -- I don't know how they turn on and off, for better or worse terms. But even if they are not being employed, is it smart to have a pinger onboard, a vessel that is looking for pinging?

ALTSHULER: So I have looked at the video and looked at the picture of the pinger. There is a pinger on that boat. It is not an aviation pinger. But it is a pinger that operates at the same frequency, the 37.5 kilohertz. It is what we call a timed delay system. It is designed to have a timed delay once it goes in the water for anywhere from one to many days.

The issue there is that we would ship that from the factory with a time delay of zero. So we don't know what the Chinese were doing with it, whether they were trying to calibrate the system, whether they had it set on a time delay or whether it was potentially operational in the boat.

So, it is all about their operations and how they calibrate and use a system. Is there a risk that they were hearing a ping from that item -- that pinger in the boat? That is probably a risk that we would have to look at very carefully.

BANFIELD: And the reason I asked you because I understand that you have recognized both the pinger that is on the vessel and the hydrophone that is (INAUDIBLE) dragging below the vessel and you recognized both of those to be your manufacture. And that would require them to follow your directions to the T. And they screwed any of that up, could we be getting false readings?

ALTSHULER: Well, remember that the product that they are using is designed for shallow water operations. So already, they are using it in the scenario that is outside our normal operating procedures.

BANFIELD: If the fact to say the very least that I have a lot more questions for you. If you could stand by, Thomas, for a moment. I want to bring in our panel as well. With us now CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest, Michael Kay who was a former lieutenant colonel in military And Les Abend, a contributing editor from "Flying" magazine and a pilot himself.

Richard, let's start with you. The Echo has arrived. I think that sounds terrific. It is in fact what we are hearing, And you just heard that conversation with Mr. Altshuler. If what we are hearing, because he verified, is really important and important to scene.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Indeed. And if you go back to what Angus Houston said last night. He says black box was -- he described it as this is an important encouraging lead but one which I urge you to treat very carefully. So even last night, the chief marshal was warning against it. It is a promising lead. It is the best lead.

But here is the problem with all of this. We are back to the old story of it is the only lead. So whether they are using this pinger in a conventional fashion or an unorthodox fashion, and I think we need also addressed whether that video we all -- we have seen, Ash, is whether that video is the real video.

BANFIELD: Why don't you think that is the real video from the Chinese ship? What could possibly be the motive to send us fake video?

QUEST: So we can't do if they really got to that is working under the water. So we don't know exactly what they have deployed. Just about every single expert is telling us privately was being publicly polite that there is almost no chance that you are going to hear the pinger by shoving that ping over the side of the boat.

BANFIELD: I hear you. It sounded crazy to me but I know very little about --

QUEST: Well, I suspect even all our guesses is being diplomatic in the way he is expressing it. but anybody else will tell you it is not realistic. However, I give them the benefit of the doubt.

BANFIELD: You know what? I want you to weigh in on this. You have been an adviser to the British department of defense for its military.

MICHAEL KAY, FORMER ADVISOR TO THE UK MILITARY OF DEFENSE: Ministry of defense, right. Yes.

BANFIELD: OK. What Richard says, actually -- I mean, look. I don't want to be conspiracy theorist but if the Chinese are in that area and it is not in today's search grade or the day of search grade, there has to be a pretty good reason why they have detected a ping in a place they really weren't suppose to be, then why would be there? And it does not make sense that perhaps they are not showing us the gear that they got because it is not the gear they want to share?

KAY: Look, Ashleigh. There is a very encouraging convergence of data here. And I think the tone of chief marshal Houston's voice yesterday and the way that he conducted the press conference was pretty impeccable. As chief marshal Houston knows what he is doing. I think there is a lot of work going on behind closed doors. What we shouldn't do is underestimate the intelligent force power that is going --

BANFIELD: He has got nothing to do with what the Chinese gives him?

KAY: No. Chief marshal Houston would not redeploy to key assets the own strategic assets that can hunt for those pingers at this critical time of 31 days when we are about to run out. He would not be redeploying those assets into the area if he didn't think there was analysis to back it up but himself. He thought there was a good reason for doing that.

BANFIELD: I'm with you. I'm not suggesting and I don't think Richard is either for a moment that any of this information is a wild goose chase. It is how they got there. It is how the Chinese ended up there. It is the gear that they use to get what they got and then sent everybody to the place where we are.

KAY: Agreed, Ashleigh. And there would be no one more frustrated than chief marshal Houston in a way that this has come about.

QUEST: What we are getting at -- what I'm getting at is, I don't know but do you believe that the video that they have shown is the video of that which they have?

KAY: But Richard, this conversation is pure conjecture. We don't know. And chief marshal Houston has to take this credible lead because it is the only credible lead who we got and he has to send it to --.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: They are out there in three miles of water.

KAY: Let's take a glass half full into this, OK?

BANFIELD: At 30 days in, it has been a trying time.

KAY: If it is on the edge of this range in terms of this hydrophone, then it is not going to take a lot for a very sensitive kind of sonar to go in there and coordinate whether is there or not. P-8 Poseidon carry 120 --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: I want to bring Les Abend on this.

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Here is another thing. I mean, we also covered last night. Let's see that the wreckage got hung up on a piece of the ledge and it is high enough for that piece of machinery to pick it up.

BANFIELD: Or haven't completely silenced.

ABEND: Exactly. BANFIELD: Let me move you to the pilot's view point of the latest breaking news. We have two very big parts of this story that have moved this weekend -- one is under the water with what the Chinese has found. And I will say the Ocean Shield as well because they are looking elsewhere for something similar.

The other is what happened in the sky. Yet again, and if I could ask our producers to pop up that map that shows a very creative arc around Indonesia. Les Abend, as a pilot, what does that say to you.

ABEND: Well, you know, Richard and I has a conversation about that earlier today. And it is perplexing -- I mean, the first term makes total sense to me.

BANFIELD: Sure. We are in trouble.

ABEND: We are in trouble. But after that, then you go and you look at it and you go OK, now, why the final southbound term. But here is the point is that, as a pilot, I don't know specifically where each radar site is and how far it extends nor would --.

BANFIELD: You don't know air space as a pilot?

ABEND: I know air space. But what does it do is from the air space and how far radar extends. So for me to think it (INAUDIBLE) and go, let's see if I go this far -- I really don't have the kind of basic knowledge on where I'm going to be detected and where I'm not going to be detected. I know where my air space is. But I just --

BANFIELD: Richard, how far outside of air space is radar go?

QUEST: Michael is more confident on that. But I think it is 250 --

KAY: Basically, you got primary radar which were out to around 200 miles depending on whether conditions humidity and the atmosphere and then you go (INAUDIBLE) radar that works on (INAUDIBLE), 150 miles about primary second surveillance, you know, which worked with the transformer is about 200 miles.

QUEST: One point though to further take your thought, you may not know how far radar goes but if you look at the map, you would be very concerned that you didn't fly directly across Indonesia. So although they may not be avoiding who ever or whatever radar they would still be at 12,000 or 14,000 feet. It would still be picked up by Indonesian radar. But you would be necessarily thinking that I certainly don't want to be going right the across the country.

ABEND: Well, I got that and it goes back to Ashleigh's question which was have you understand air space. And yes, that is correct. I would understand where the air space is.

BANFIELD: -- in a lot of scenarios, not just one.

ABEND: But see, as a pilot I'm always paranoid. I always know that somebody is watching me somewhere on radar. So for me to make some --

BANFIELD: Even when you turn off your transponder?

ABEND: Yes, absolutely.

KAY: There is a difference between disappearing of primary radar and entering a fly information region which is sovereign --

BANFIELD: Military radar.

KAY: No, no, no. There is a difference between the two i.e., the sovereign territory line of another country's air space wouldn't necessarily align to where the echo drops off radar or not. That will allow the ACARS and the transponder -- I think what we need to do is take this track and then look at why ACARS was of, why transponder was off? And then look at the bigger picture as well.

BANFIELD: And why we have this very curious bubble over the air space of Indonesia.

All right, three of you, hold thoughts. I have a lot more questions for you.

You just heard our guest, Mr. Altshuler, talked about the strength and the capabilities of the hydrophone that had apparently located the pings that now we are focusing on and sending all of our assets towards.

So, how good are those hydrophones? And by the way, how about the black boxes, and what comes out of those black boxes? The emission, did you know there can be a black box in the future that can go on for years and years without the concern of running out of batteries? He is going to show all of that to us coming up in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGUS HOUSTON, CHIEF MARSHAL, JOINTS AGENCY COORDINATION CENTER: (INAUDIBLE) air force assts were deployed to assist in further examining the acoustic signals in the vicinity of where the Chinese ship has detected a sounds. HMS Echo and a strand offense vessel Ocean Shield are also being directed to join Haixun 01 as expeditiously as possible to assist with either discounting or confirming the detections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So it is effectively a race against time as more ships are joining the hunt and searching for this incredible new news, the pulse signals that was detected twice in two days by a Chinese search crew.

And then on top of that, the Australian ship, Ocean Shield, it was 350 miles away, also reported something they called and acoustic event and that was just yesterday.

So, of course, we don't know yet if anything is link to the missing plane at this point. And don't forget two acoustic events 350 miles apart. One of them is got to be wrong, right?

Just hours ago, the HMS Echo arrived at the search site. And as you just heard, the Ocean Shield is steaming towards that search site as well.

And still with me is Thomas Altshuler of Teledyne Marine System, the company that makes emergency locater -- pingers.

Mr. Altshuler, can you just weigh in on this notion that there are reception to something that is pinging in two different locations 350 mile as part? Your first thought when you heard that.

ALTSHULER: Well, there are reasons that there could be other noise in the ocean in the same band, at that 37.5 kilohertz. So it is possible to pick up those various signals. It is obviously unlikely that there is an active aviation pinger on both sides. But there are other types of devices that in the ocean that give up acoustic signals.

BANFIELD: So, one of them is definitely wrong?

ALTSHULER: That would be the most likely scenario. It is hard to imagine a scenario where you would have both the two pingers. Remember, there are two block boxes on the airplane. So there are pair of pingers that you would have two pingers separated to that kind of distance.

BANFIELD: So let me ask you about the pinging devices. Because I think that your company make some and at this point you are not sure if your devices were dispatches to that particular aircraft or were in those black boxes. But at secondly, I found it miraculous when to told me that it is not pie in the sky to suggest that we could have black boxes that could ping for years, not about batteries, but about the wave we use them. Can you explain that?

ALTSHULER: In fact, yes. So the way a pinger works, and I'm going to pick up, this is our 30 day pinger. This is what we use right now. It is like that this is not the one that is in the airplane right that we are talking about. But this pinger is a 30-day pinger and as soon as it hits the water it starts to emits that signal at 37.5 kilohertz.

Just to show you, this is a 90-day pinger. And these are also now use on air frames. They are relatively new going into the market. But what happens with this is this is going to be active for 90 days. And the difference in price between the two is only about $100.

Those technologies, as soon as they hit the water, they ping. You have an passive listening device which is this pinger locater and you listen for the sound. The reality is to get longer life time. You need something that asleep in the ocean as interrogative. So the listening device or the active seeker sends a signal out into the ocean and request a response from the device. And we make these all the time for the marine space. So it is a very common instrument to put into the ocean.

This is an example, this is a thing we call an US. an underwater transponder. And it goes into the water and will sleep for as much as a year waiting for a signal so that it can be located. You can do that. These done has a very similar mile to two mile range that we have been talking about for the pingers. But you can go all the way up to something like this which also we sell right now which is a modem technology.

This is broadband and this technology, again, can sleep in the ocean for many years and has ranges that are more like 10 to 15 kilometers. And so, it lets you one, have the longevity and two, have the search swat to be able to find such a device.

BANFIELD: And it is maddening to know that that exists and yet, we are on the day where we are looking at the possibility of the pinging, stopping today or tomorrow. It could have already stopped by now depending on how they sort of batteries. It could go on for a few more days as well depending on how deeper, how cold the water is. But it is frustrating to know that here is that technology out there that could help us solve this mystery better.

Thomas Altshuler, thank you so much for being with us. I do appreciate it, sir.

ALTSHULER: Thank you.

BANFIELD: It was great news when the pulse signal was detected. And it certainly got a lot of people talking. But why do you suppose the Chinese shape was even there. Because if effectively wants the spot that everyone was supposed to be searching anyway. I'm going to show you how far away it was from where they were supposed to be searching. It certainly does raises a lot of eyebrows.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ashleigh Banfield.

Priority one, find out if there is anything to those pings that were heard this weekend by Chinese search crews. It is the hunt for flight 370. And a specially equipped ship has now arrived where those pulses were picked up. The British Navy ship has a high-tech set of detection gear onboard. And they are getting to work now.

Here is the new working theory on the flight path possibly taken by that 777. It is from the Malaysian government and they said it looks like the plane flew around the tip of Indonesia and then over to the Indian Ocean and southward. Possibly, and a big possibly to avoid radar detection. They are now working on why the plane would have done that.

And then there is side emergency beacon. Wherever it is, the batteries aren't going to be good for much longer because today is day 31. Thirty one days since Malaysia's flight 370 vanished. Sadly those batteries have about 30 days on them.

One question no one has answered yet, why was the Chinese ship looking in the particular area where it said it heard the pings, when it wasn't near any of the assigned search areas.

As Jennifer Gray explains, it is a mystery in the hunt for flight 370.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: A lot has been going on over the past month with search areas, new search areas we have been talking about this arc. We are going to put it in perspective now that the Chinese say they have actually feel like they have heard that ping.

Let's start with this arc, this blue line. That was the original arc. And it gave a lot of insight. It is where we are going to search because of handshakes. All of the talks that we have had over the past couple of weeks.

So, in the yellow, that is where you see the previous search areas all the way down to the south along that blue line and then even up to the north. We have also been watching these areas in the red. Those are the new search areas. These are the areas that we are currently searching. And then if you look right here, this is where the Chinese said they heard that ping. This is the Ocean Shield. If you look at it in relation to where the current search areas are, from here to here is about 200 miles. Here to here is 200 miles as well as theirs. So where the Chinese say they heard that ping is well away from the current search areas.

BANFIELD: Jennifer Gray, thank you for that.

Did flight 370 intentionally dodge the radar? The panel I going to weigh in on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: We are following breaking news tonight in the search for Malaysia airline flight 370. At this moment a British ship is headed to the area where the Chinese crews says they have heard pulse signals on two consecutive days.

I want to bring in our panel, CNN's aviation correspondent Richard Quest, Les Abend, a contributing editor for "Flying" magazine and Michael Kay, a former lieutenant colonel in a British military.

So, that is one big piece of news. And gentlemen, there is another big of news as well. And if I could ask our producers to pop up the map that we just now been getting in the CNN and a source in the Malaysian government tells us that this is the new flight path.

We have always known about that the westward turn where the last communication was from the cockpit. But now, what we are getting from the Malaysian government source, is that if you watch that dotted line, the flight skirted northward over the tip of Indonesia.

Les Abend, you are a pilot. Is there anything that you can see in that new route that perhaps does not sound nefarious? Because to the lay person, it looks awfully suspicious.

ABEND: There are holes in everyone of those theories. And just I go back to why I don't think it is nefarious. But to bring it to the point where I originally started was, if it is mechanical failure of some sort that involve a fire, fume, smoke in the cockpit where they attempted to make a diversion and things started to shut down on them, they started to descent, and then things got worse with flight control systems, at that point, coincidentally, that airplane may have started to turn on their own and then at some point, they got overwhelmed by fumes, smoke. It is perplexing. There is still enough holes in my theory, but it still holds in being in a nefarious part. And like I said, I know air space, but I don't know where radar at.

BANFIELD: So, it is not as though if you are a pilot onboard this flight or hijacker onboard this flight you would have enough savvy to pop that course.

ABEND: It is not even savvy. It is -- I know that primary radar will work just about anywhere. It will pick me up regardless of whether whose air space Somebody's radar is going to find me and that the altitudes that we are alleged to be at, I'm not going to avoid that.

BANFIELD: And that is the point that, Richard, you and I have been talking about leading up to this program is that could you even ever know that there is a pocket out there that is not covered by someone's radar, be it military or be it civilian or otherwise.

QUEST: There is one little pocket of Malaysian air space to the west of the country that doesn't have very good radar. And in fact, part of the investment program for Malaysia is to fill in that little bit of the gap. You can read about it online. It is well documented. But that is not relevant to this core issue.

BANFIELD: Not even in the place.

QUEST: Ultimately, we can set up and other phase then knock it down. And I have always believed that that term actually at the northern part was relevant and quite telling. But I can put up an argument either way for its purpose.

So, you know, the big news tonight as a result of this is that Malaysian officials are saying that this is part of their believe that is nefarious not mechanical.

BANFIELD: Colonel Kay, I want to get you to weigh on this in a moment. That there is something that we are also waiting on as well. And a lot of time, it sometimes helps for you to see how this actually gets plugged in? How these terms look within the cockpit? Because with this suspicious new flight path, it might help to go into the simulator for you to see when Martin Savidge and Mitchell Casado who are standing by live actually plot that course and show you how it might have gone. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: An explosive report today that flight 370 deliberately flew around Indonesian air space to avoid detection. Watch how the map has change now. This part we've always known from the beginning. But it is after the westward turn that things change. And this information now that has this are over that northern part of Indonesia comes to us directly from a source inside the Malaysian government. And the conclusion was reached by the investigators looking at all of the data. The reviewed radar, track data from neighboring countries.

I want to go live to CNN's Martin Savidge and pilot Mitchell Casado inside the flight simulator.

You know, a lot of people have been asking is there any possible way that that could have been something other than nefarious. Could you two walk us through what that would have looked like inside the cockpit who have taken than flight path?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure we can.

And Mitchell actually has been working on it. But you know, keep in mind, there are still a lot of things that we don't know. We are essentially in the same aircraft. We the scenario of flying out of Kuala Lumpur, same time of night and it dark outside. And we are coming up on Nigary (ph) which is the last weight point where things were normal say for flight 370 and it is just after that that things began to go wrong, equipment began to shutdown and the plane made a dramatic turn off course.

So Mitchell, you worked it out as to how we think the points might have gone, right?

MITCHELL CASADO, COMMERCIAL FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR: I did, Martin. So after Nigary (ph), I programmed 18 difference wave points for us to cross through the path that they think happened. So, if you look at the screen here, this full of triangle is that this airplane, the effects of that triangle. Nigary (ph) is up here. So we are headed toward Beijing this way. The airplane that could turn in here crossing all of this blue stuff here is the perimeter of Malaysia. So it crosses Malaysia here. I expand the scale a little bit. You can see the Vietnam up here. This is Thailand. And this turn here, after it crosses Malaysia, it makes a further left turn. This black here, this is Indonesia. So it is making a turn to skirt Indonesia around and you can't expand the scale anymore, but you can see it continues downward here in Indian Ocean.

SAVIDGE: And then eventually, it would have to make the turn in the direction here and stop the coast to western Australia.

So, we are assuming here that, of course, that this was preplanned and entered into the flight management system. You could do the same pattern, I suppose, by hand, right, flying manually.

CASADO: If you were a good stick, as we call it in aviation, then a very good stick, you could do it, yes.

SAVIDGE: So, you know, it is pretty clear that the Malaysian government from early on thought that this was some sort of criminal act and information like this may be one of the reasons that it is bolstering that thought.

BANFIELD: Question for Mitch, if I could, Marty. And that is this. I have heard since the beginning of this coverage that it is not unusual for pilots to preprogram wave points before they take off in case of emergency, in case of any kind of scenario. But do you see any kind of scenario where you would preprogram a path like that?

CASADO: I don't see a scenario like that. Everything on the flight deck is cross checked and cross checked before departure to make sure that the route is the way that it was filed. So unless the two of them in cohorts together, I don't see that happening.

SAVIDGE: Who was flying the plane the course, if it was won the pilot or the co-pilot, what is the other pilot doing when all of this change is abruptly happening? You know, there are a lot of ways you can look at this criminally. But I suppose that it doesn't necessarily prove it.

BANFIELD: Pretty mystifying. I tell you what, you too, don't go far. Because there are three men sitting beside me who collectively have several thousand flying hours between them. Each is a pilot of different kinds of craft and they each have questions for you specifically with the equipment that in front of you. Stay tuned. Our pilots weigh in and ask the pertinent question given all these new information. That's coming up.

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BANFIELD: We are learning brand-new details about the potential of flight 370 after it dropped off of Malaysia military radar. A senior Malaysian government source telling CNN the plane intentionally skirted Indonesian radar and the brand-new path is on your screen.

The first part looks very familiar. It's the second part after the westward turn that things are very different than they were 30 days ago with that northward arc around the tip of Indonesia. Right around the air space and down towards Perth, Australia.

We just saw Martin and Mitchell in the simulator demonstrating that exact path. But a couple questions from our panel.

Colonel Michael Kay is here as well as they get the simulator ready. The questions are about to come to you two gentlemen from our panel. And let me remind everybody that Michael Kay has three and half thousand hours of flying. And Les Abend has 24,000 hours of flying and Richard Quest has as many hours of reporting on flying, actually I think Richard give covered every crash since Lockerbie in '88.

QUEST: Every major crash.

BANFIELD: Unbelievable.

Colonel Kay, I want to turn to you. And I'd like you to address your question, if you will, to this new information to Mitch and to Marty.

KAY: Mitch and Marty, this Michael Kay speaking. Great to see you guys.

We all know about the astonishing piloting skills of the pilot that landed on the Hudson. And I think what that's given to people is the kind a false sense of just how easy it might to where it land an airplane on the high seas. Can you give us a sense of how easy or difficult that is, but not just by day, in this case, by night?

CASADO: I can answer that for you. Landing an aircraft on the water at any time of day is extremely dangerous. It all depends on the sea state, the type of airplane. At night typically, I mean, yes, we have landing lights. But they're very -- they're canted downwards. They can mess up your illusion. They can cause an illusion. So we normally use only the taxi lights because they're a more general direction. If there's ocean spray those lights are going to distort and be more of a hindrance than anything else. So it's a very dangerous proposition.

SAVIDGE: And you know, the sea state, of course, and they call it the miracle on the Hudson for a reason. There are other examples of aircraft, specifically a 767 that was hijacked that had to make a water landing. And if you see the video it's quite dramatic. It catches a wing tip in an engine colleague and then it summersaults and breaks apart. So a water landing is never going to be anything easy. And at night, boy, it would be extremely difficult.

BANFIELD: OK. Question for you from Captain Abend -- Les?

ABEND: Yes, I wonder if Mitchell could do this for me. This is just something with relative computations where the airplane might have ended up. Would you mind flying the airplane at 12,000 meet, going up to -- Mitchell, you'll understand what I mean -- VMO, the max air speed that you can go without sounding off the mach warning? And tell me what the fuel flow and the air speed is. Could you do that?

SAVIDGE: You know, I'll just interject and say that we could do it. It would take a little bit of time, about ten minutes to set that up. So we're happy to actually do both of those scenarios for you. If you give us just a little bit of time, we can show you what the water approach might look like. We can definitely begin -- because I know what you're getting at here. This is fuel consumption. And you know, the derivation from the route, depending on the altitude, you could be burning up a lot of fuel. Certainly the speed of the aircraft.

And the other thing I wondered here is how does this new route information we have match up with the pings that they were getting from Inmarsat? In other words, was there a ping out sort of out of place where all the pings line up in a crescent going south? But we can do that, just need some setup.

BANFIELD: We're going to give you that ten minutes. And in the meantime, Les, that is what you meant?

ABEND: I did.

BANFIELD: Spot on. OK. So, we are going to let them put that creation together and we will come back to it in a moment.

We have some other news that we're following as well. This is going to sound a little strange. Certainly sounds strange to me. Mazda is recalling thousands of vehicles. Of all things, the reason? Spiders. Apparently spiders are causing fires in the fuel line. No joke.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHUYLER EBERSOL, AUTHOR: No one knew what was wrong with me. And they also have hypothesis.

DOCTOR SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Home from school for months at the time, away from his friends and his world, very sick. Ebersol desperately needed and escape and he found it in writing.

EBERSOL: I just started writing and I would get lost in this world and identify with this character. It was just the way that heel me going, while everything else in my life wasn't so great.

GUPTA: And then after several months, doctors finally discovered the cause of the symptoms, a rare form of (INAUDIBLE) disease. And at the same time, his scattered pages started to gel in to a book.

EBERSOL: The book is called "the Hidden World." It is about the main character who has a heart attack, he slept into a coma, and when he wakes up, he turns in to a wolf in the hospital room.

GUPTA: Sounds familiar?

EBERSOL: I didn't really intent for there to be a lot of me and the main character, Nate Williams, but it sort of happened that way. You really just have to find something that can sustain you and keep you mentally strong. For me it was writing and the quest to get published.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)