Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Malaysian Inconsistency Fuels Distrust; What Happens If MH-370 Search Comes Up Empty; Ukraine Crisis Escalates; Four Pings Detected; AUVs for Underwater Search
Aired April 12, 2014 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Jim Sciutto, in Washington. Thanks for joining me this evening. I'm going to turn it over now to my colleague, Don Lemon. He is live in New York.
Don, how are you?
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I'm great. It's nice to see you, Jim. Nice work. See you soon, sir.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. It's the top of the hour. Again, I'm Don Lemon.
It is day 37 in the hunt for flight 370. Despite no trace of the plane, we now have both the U.S. Navy and the Australian prime minister, quote, "confident" that they are hearing pings from the plane's black boxes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY ABBOT, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: There have been numerous, numerous transmissions recorded, which gives us the high degree of confidence that this is the black box from the missing flight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Unwavering confidence, despite the fact that the men heading up the search, Angus Houston, says, quote, "On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH-370."
Confused messages from the Australians but not quite as confusing as what's now coming from Malaysia. For weeks now, we've been told every passenger on board flight 370 has been cleared of suspicious involvement in the plane's disappearance. But in an interview with Sky News, the Malaysian defense minister contradicted this, saying this is still a criminal investigation, and, quote, "Everyone onboard remains under suspicious at it stands," a complete turnaround with no really explanation why we were told otherwise.
Let's get to our panel of experts, aviation analyst and pilot, Miles O'Brien; aviation analyst, Michael Kay, a retired British Royal Air Force pilot; aviation analyst and 777 captain, Les Abend; David Gallo, an ocean expert with Woods Oceanographic Institute.
And I want to start with this Malaysia response first.
We'll start with you, Miles.
How do we know what to believe coming out of the Malaysian government? Why can't they get on the same page here?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I have no idea why they can't get on the same page but I can tell you I'm skeptical of everything they say. This whole idea they cleared the entire group of people that were on the back side of the cockpit door in a week's time and now have implicated everybody as a suspect kind of randomly is a perfect example of a pattern. So the question is, are they really investigating the passengers and the cabin crew or not? Are they just saying so because there was pressure and they indicated that they cleared them in a way that was so clear that it didn't pass the smell test?
So I think, you know, it is not surprising. This has been a consistent pattern for an investigation that's been confused and not well coordinated. And let's face it, it's been an unprecedented investigation in general and the best and brightest in this business would have a hard time dealing with.
Mike, Sky News is quoting the Malaysian defense minister saying, "Everyone onboard this plane still remains a suspect." There's a quote there. This flies in the face of what we were told by the inspector general of the Malaysian police who said, the passengers were cleared. The question is, was that too early to rule that out out? And is it too early to rule anybody out now?
MICHAEL KAY, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It's disappointing. We went rewind to a couple of weeks ago, we went through the process of Malaysia declaring an independent investigation in charge, effecting delegation of some of the key assets of the investigation from worthiness operations, the human factor side and the medical side. And I was hoping once that process had occurred Malaysia was accepting that it couldn't and didn't have all of the facets available to deal with this.
LEMON: Right.
KAY: So I was kind of hoping that the other five countries involved -- U.K., U.S., France, Australia and China -- I was hoping that would influence the quality and continuity of information coming out of the investigation from the lead, Malaysia. Clearly, it hasn't. If I was those other five countries, I'd be trying to rally around Malaysia and say, you can't keep putting out inconsistency of information because it's diluted the credibility of the whole investigation.
LEMON: And to try to immolate what Angus Houston is doing with the search? Right? The Australian prime minister is saying one thing but Angus Houston has been in charge of the search, and he's saying, listen, there's nothing new, regardless of what everyone else is saying. LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I think the Malaysian government is trying to leave the door open. This is not my area of expertise, but that's the way it sounds.
LEMON: I want to switch gears a little. Australia's prime minister says he is highly confident, but families are losing optimism. Listen to what the mother of one of the passengers told CNN. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMIRTHAM ARUPILAI, FAMILY MEMBER OF MISSING FLIGHT 370 PASSENGER: I have to see, my own eyes. Then I can believe it. I have to see. My heart, inside, my heart is telling still they are alive. All the passengers are alive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: David Gallo, you know, you've led searches in oceans and deal a lot with investigations. In an investigation, how important is transparency?
DAVID GALLO, CNN ANALYST: In the Air France case, it was a criminal investigation from the get-go and the French were very tight with information coming out, and a lot of confused information and seemingly contradictory information. But later on, it was whatever went out, it was all consistent. And I think that's important, is consistency. And sure, they can't know everything. But you have to know that there's progress being made. And the most important thing is you need to know that you can trust the people that are involved in trying to find your loved ones.
LEMON: Especially the families. Right? Right. Trying to find loved ones.
GALLO: Especially.
LEMON: All in agreement? Yeah. They need to get on one page.
KAY: I think, Don, the poor lady -- and I can't imagine what she's going through -- when she says she's got to see it to believe it, effective to what Angus Houston is saying, it's always said from the outset he's got to see a sort of evidence, wreckage on the floor or on the ocean surface to believe it. There's consistency with that.
LEMON: Thank you.
It's been 37 days and no sign of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. What happens if the search comes up empty? My panel will discuss. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: When the Australian prime minister comes forward and says he's very, very confident that this is the plane, that's there, that we will find it within a few days, if that promise turns out to not bear fruit, then I think we have to start asking some questions. Not only, OK, where is the plane? But also, how much trust have we invested in these authorities who have assured us that they know what the situation is, and yet their previous assurances have come up empty?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: 37 days since a huge jet airliner disappeared along with 239 people onboard. We have heard so many theories. It's changed daily. What happens if the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 comes up empty? What if searchers are not even close and the remnants of flight 370 are far, far away?
I want to bring back my panel.
Michael Kay, to you first. Australia's prime minister says he is "confident." A word he used. So what happens if there is, they can't -- the pings run out? They can't get the black boxes and they don't find anything for two weeks? What happens if -- nothing?
KAY: Where in a hazy part of the investigation at the moment, where we have been concentrating on hopefully getting some sort of progress through identifying the signal from the pings and the black boxes. But in getting to that place, I think we've got it reset and just look at how phenomenal that analysis has been in terms of the Inmarsat guys with the air accident investigation branch from the U.K. That analysis goes us down to the southern arc. That took a finite amount of time to get there but it pushes on the outer limit of the black box batteries. So we got there.
Personally, I was absolutely flabbergasted that we got four pings when we did, bearing in mind we found the haystack and were going straight in on the needle.
LEMON: Right.
KAY: So I think what we've done so far is phenomenal, unprecedented. And we're in a transition where Angus Houston has a judgment call. When you put down the AUVs, that gets in the way of the ping locator and getting in the way of the sound and detection and everything else. You can't do both at the same time. So the ping locator looking for the ping --
(CROSSTALK)
That's what they're waiting for.
KAY: That's the just call. I said from the outcome, the judgment call, it will go or for at least to the outer limits when we think the battery might last 40 days.
LEMON: I want to ask David Gallo this because, David, there are ocean explorers I've spoke to, there are people who have led searches like you have, even found 447, even the "Titanic." They're saying, how can anybody be confident that they heard pings from a black box right now? I just don't understand how they can say that, because it is -- it's such a tenuous situation, especially when you're looking for sound in the ocean, the ocean can play tricks on you.
GALLO: Yeah. And I think part of the issue there as many of these people I've talked to them, too. We've put instruments, dropped them off the side of a ship, various kinds of instruments with a pinger attached. So we call them back and find them later on. Many times, they don't come back. Even though we know it's right beneath the ship. So I do understand where the skepticism comes from. But we've got to have faith in this case. And these sound pretty solid. I don't know what else could have that frequency and be in that position. You know, I don't know what more we could ask for, except now comes the search. We've gotten the enough out of trying to triangular. Now comes the bottom search.
LEMON: David, you don't think they need to dial back the optimism? You're optimistic with them?
GALLO: I've asked many people, would you be surprised if tomorrow there's breaking news that, guess what, these weren't from the black boxes, and almost everyone says, no, they wouldn't be surprised. I find that disheartening, especially for the families. I'm sticking with this, that those are the pingers from the black boxes, especially the first two hits. They seemed pretty credible, and let's go have a look. I mean, I don't know where else we go with this.
It's so important, it is so important, to have faith in those people out at sea and the people doing the research now, because inside the box, those -- inside those rooms, those people are exhausted. And I'm sure there's plenty of self-doubt back inside the rooms. They need support from the outside.
We're operating on very little information. The stuff that we generate in the media or online, social media, but they have the actual tools. I don't think I'd let my boss stand up there and say these are definitely from the black boxes unless I was really damn sure they were from the blacks boxes. It's going to take the search. Let's get in the water and find out.
LEMON: Good point.
Producers, there's your sound bite. "Unless we're damn sure it's them."
Thank you, David Gallo, for that.
(LAUGHTER)
So, listen, Les Abend, I want to ask you that. Malaysia says this week the flight 370, it went as low as 4,000 feet to avoid radar, a move that would burn fuel at a faster rate. If Malaysia's altitude claim is true, are searchers way off the mark right now?
ABEND: No, I don't think so. The difference between 12,000 versus 4,000, I really don't think so. I would repeat what David Gallo said, the investigation is an ebb-and-flow process. You lose confidence, gain it back, depending on -- and we all want this progress to occur a lot quicker. But in answer to your question, I don't think so. But the problem is, the Malaysian government seems to come out with conflicting information about this radar data. I don't know what to believe as far as where it went. Did it go over to Malaysia? North of the Indonesian peninsula? Come back down? A lot of it doesn't make sense.
LEMON: This search area was calculated in complex math from satellite handshake data. Some people slamming the British satellite company, Inmarsat, for keeping that raw data secret.
Should that satellite data be made public so other scientists can check the work? Michael Kay, that's right up your alley.
KAY: No, it shouldn't. They absolutely shouldn't. They should be allowed to conduct this investigation with the privacy it requires, because people speculate otherwise.
But I would say it's not just the Inmarsat information that's being used to corroborate the search operation area. Also assumptions, which we're using. Those assumptions are based on what speed the aircraft traveled as it came down south of Sumatra into the search area and what height it traveled. And depending on that combination, that depends on the fuel burn, how much fuel onboard, which give us endurance and, therefore, its distance.
I'm assuming the area they're looking at, at the moment, would be based on hard number crunching depending on what those relationships are between speed and altitude. That's where they've come to where they're at.
It's kind of been corroborated by a couple of pings. As we'd spoke about the other night, Don, I'd like to reverse engineer and go back up the track and look at what's been going on at this point across the Malaysian peninsula and try and attain more information from when the transponder last pinged to see what happened there. That would give us or feed those assumptions on height and speed and maybe give more accurate information down south.
LEMON: Is Miles still there? I don't want to leave anybody out of the panel?
No Miles? OK. Is Miles there? Miles is not there.
David Gallo, what do you make of what Michael Kay is saying? He sort of wants to do a reverse of the information that we've gotten from Inmarsat. Maybe that and the information with the pings, and that that will perhaps help to, I don't know, solidify, even hone in on the search area even better?
GALLO: It's important. In Air France, one powerful thing, we had a last known position, the LKP. It sat on a map on my wall for two years that LKP. It's the centerpiece for the search that we built on top of that. And, in fact, you know, mathematics, that first phase, we were out there for -- the first year, out there for two months, and we were led to a place in the northwest quadrant of our search zone where there was no aircraft. It was done by mathematical models, retro-drift, and it was horrible. That's a case where I wish we had gone back over and over the models. The modelers were 90 percent positive the plane was in that box and there was no plain was anywhere near that box. I'm totally with Michael Kay on this.
LEMON: Are you flabbergasted by this, having taken part in a number of investigations? I would imagine everyone, as the whole world is, but some people who have actually searched for airplanes and have seen airplanes, you know, go missing or crash, they're saying, it's know so surprising, but what's surprising, that one completely disappeared from radar. Here we are 30-some days, almost 40 days in, and nothing, David. Nothing?
GALLO: Well, you know -- you've got to have a lot of faith, again, in the people at sea and the people running this in Angus Houston's -- that they're doing all they can do to speed this along. Even though sometimes I stare at the ships on my laptop as often as I can wondering what in the world is going on out there? But I know stuff is going on out there. It takes patience. And you have to remember, Air France 447, it was two years from the tragedy until the time we actually found that wreckage. We weren't at sea two years. It took a long, long time. And those poor families, the agony they went through. You know, it's just a horrible thing.
It's one thing if this is just a -- a real mystery about the missing plane, but it's about 239 passengers missing and their loved ones and family and friends.
LEMON: Absolutely. Right on the mark with that.
I don't know if you remember, in the beginning, Richard Quest and I went back and forth because one of the investigators, someone like a David Gallo said, we're expecting this to happen overnight and we keep looking for every single little bit and it takes -- the average investigation takes 3.5 years to complete. The average search takes maybe two years to complete. And everyone's wondering, why haven't we seen something in days? Maybe part of the problem is us.
ABEND: It's true. I mean, this is the mystery of the century.
LEMON: Certainly is.
ABEND: That's the whole thing.
LEMON: And here we are talking about it and covering and everyone is interested in it.
Much more on the mystery of flight 370 straight ahead.
But first, a developing story for you. Gunman seized two buildings in Ukraine. The escalating crisis and the conscious choices facing Russia, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: We'll get back to our Malaysia Airlines flight in a moment. But first, breaking news out of Ukraine. The White House wasting little time in responding to the reports of violence in eastern Ukraine. Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Kiev April 22nd to meet with government leaders and other groups. Here's part of the White House statement: "The vice president will discuss the latest developments in eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian separatists apparently with the support Moscow continue an orchestrated campaign of incitement and sabotage to destabilize the Ukrainian state."
Let's get the latest from Nick Paton Walsh in Ukraine.
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, a troubling escalation here in the last 24 hours. We've been traveling around Donetsk to see what's happening in these towns where a gunman, pro-Russian militants, have been springing up almost over night. One, in Donetsk, they had taken the police station and the local security services building as well. Very well equipped and armed men, often in matching camouflage uniforms, getting some help from locals who give them food and put up barricades, also aggressive towards many Western journalists. And at another town, (INAUDIBLE), we went there to find protesters had taken down the Ukrainian flag from the center of that town and put up a Donetsk separatist one instead. Calm relations with the police, who seem to be able to co-exist with them. Later on in the day, reports of gunfire. The interior ministry claiming that, in fact, pro-Russian militia had exchanged fire with Ukrainian police there as well. Deep concerns now. We seem to be seeing weapons more readily involved in the standoff here in Donetsk. Many are worried, took, because protesters forced the resignation of the local police chief today. Many concerned, too, about the final response we might see from Kiev while the central government is struggling to work out what to do. And we're not seeing many police here really coming out to stop these pro-Russian militants -- Don?
LEMON: Thank you, Nick. Appreciate that.
New developments in the wild standoff between federal agents and supporters of a cattle rancher. A group of people carrying weapons who have sided with the rancher have gathered at Interstate 15 near the ranch, forcing the closure of the northbound lanes. And earlier, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management ended a roundup of Cliven Bundy's cattle, which it claims have been illegally grazing on federal land.
New information on that deadly bus crash in northern California to tell you about. Witnesses tell our affiliate, KOVR, the FedEx tractor trailer truck was on fire before it slammed into the tour bus Thursday. The bus was carrying perspective students to visit Humboldt State University. Ten died in the crash, five of them high school students. 30 others were hurt.
Coming up, the new steps in the search for the missing plane. Will the search size shrink for a sixth consecutive day? And when will investigators send in the underwater drone to join the towed ping locator?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: The two words that sum up the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 this weekend, "optimism" and "patience." Australia's prime minister is the world leader closest to this mission. He says commanders feel good about the newest sound clues that they're getting from the ocean floor, but warns it could be a long time before we see any concrete results.
One group of people whose patience ran out long ago, the families of those who were onboard that plane. A group of families met again with airline and Malaysian officials. The mother of a missing passenger is not happy. She says they keep telling her the same things, nothing useful.
Well, these were the search planes as they returned from patrol late Saturday in Western Australia. The report from all of them was the same again. They saw absolutely nothing.
You know it is now dawn, Sunday morning, in Perth, Australia, the headquarters of the search mission.
And CNN's Michael Holmes is stationed there in that search area. Also, with me is Joe Johns, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the flight 370 originated 37 days ago. Michael, I'm going to start with you. Are planes again in the air heading for the search areas yet?
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Don, as they have every day for now we're into week six. It does seem extraordinary. Doesn't it? Not a scrap of wreckage has been found in all that time. But more than a dozen planes are out and about today. They'll be out there searching from the skies and on the ocean. There are more than a dozen ships searching.
Two of them, of course in that area where the pings were heard. The four pings that the Australian prime minister and the head of the search operation, Angus Houston, believe are from the flight data recorders. The ocean shield still towing that ping locator on loan from the U.S. Navy. Also in that little tighter area, where they did get those pings, there's the British ship, the HMS Echo, which is an oceanographic ship, it has a two-mile wide beam, if you like that it can put down and try to get back some information from the ground floor, and see if it can locate any wreckage. No luck so far.
Don, this is a very long and involved process, and isn't by far over.
LEMON: And Joe Johns in Kuala Lumpur. If and when these black boxes are found, who will take custody of them and get the information from them?
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's pretty clear the Malaysia government has the authority to at least lead the investigation, but they've already said they are going to need help. They are going to need expertise from other countries. The three of the countries we know that can handle this job would be the United States, the UK, and Australia.
Malaysia has also shown a real tendency here for collaboration, to get a lot of other countries involved. As we've seen in the search, and we do know that they've been reaching out and trying to keep the country of China very much included in this process. So that's a possibility, too. But it's up to Malaysia and they say they will look for an expert, Don.
LEMON: All right. Michael and Joe, appreciate you. Thank you very much.
You know, deeper than where the "Titanic" rests, deeper than where you would find giant squid, next, how search teams are handling the nearly three-mile depths of the southern Indian Ocean.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAPT. MARK MATTHEWS, DIRECTOR OF OCEAN ENGINEERING, U.S. NAVY: If we can locate the wreckage and salvage the components, it's just going to be a phenomenal event. Because I don't think in the history of aircraft searches, we've ever started with such - inexact information to identify where the aircraft went in the water. It certainly would be a miracle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So you heard it, finding flight 370 in the Indian Ocean would be a miracle and it's easy to see why the search area is massive. The terrain on the ocean floor is treacherous.
As CNN's Ed Lavandera is about to explain, if searchers do eventually pinpoint a location for the black box, finding it in such deep water would be difficult, if not downright impossible.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Plunging to nearly 15,000 feet below sea level is a journey into a mysterious abyss. A journey few humans can even comprehend. The Boeing 777 is about 200 feet wide, 242 feet long and possibly so deep under the Indian Ocean that you'd pass the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower and the tallest building in the world in Dubai on the way down and still be only a fraction of the way to where the plane wreckage might be resting.
Keep plunging and you enter a place sunlight can't reach. The pinger locator is being told well below that. 4,600 feet below the surface. Marine biologist Paula Carlson says at these depths, marine life is unlike anything most people have ever seen.
PAULA CARLSON, MARINE BIOLOGIST: The deeper you go, you find less and less. You have to be very cold tolerant. You have to have - they might not have eyes. They might be blind because they don't need to see because there's no light down there.
LAVANDERA: Keep going towards the ocean floor and at 12,500 feet below sea level is where you'd find the wreckage of the "Titanic" which took some 70 years to discover and where it still rests today. If it were turned upside-down, at 14,400 is where you'd hit the iconic peak of Washington state's Mt. Rainier.
Only after all that, would you reach the spot where search teams believe the pings from the flight data recorder are coming from, 14,800 feet into the abyss.
(on camera): If that doesn't capture the magnitude of this search, then imagine what one oceanographer described for us. He says picture yourself standing on top of one of the highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains looking all the way down and trying to find a suitcase, in the dark.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uh-oh. That's not good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got a lot of failures here. We got a problem.
LAVANDERA: Only a handful of people have traveled to these staggering depths or even beyond. One of them is movie director James Cameron using a state-of-the-art vessel he dropped 35,000 feet or about seven miles to the deepest place on earth. He's turning the scientific mission into a movie.
JAMES CAMERON, DIRECTOR: It's that need to see what's there beyond the edge of your lights. To see the unknown for yourself.
LAVANDERA: The pressure at nearly 15,000 feet is crushing, and very few manned submarines can even withstand it.
SYLVIA EARLE, OCEANOGRAPHER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: There are only half a dozen subs that can go to basically half the ocean depth, with a number of countries having that capability. It gets to the point of, of collapse. It basically implodes. It just crushes.
LAVANDERA: Finding the plane is daunting. Bringing it back from the deep, even more difficult.
Ed Lavandera, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right. Let's talk now about ocean silt. Basically a thick layer of ooze coating the ocean floor. Right now silt could be muffling any faint signals from the plane's black boxes. Any wreckage from flight 370 could be sinking in silt. I want to bring in now CNN analyst David Gallo of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
You know, David, I've heard of conflicting information on this. I've heard some oceanographers saying, no. Silt is not a problem. It's probably not covering it yet. Others say, yes. Could silt be preventing searchers from finding the black boxes?
DAVID GALLO, CNN ANALYST: It could play some role but I think there are other things. There could be gullies, canyons, boulders, all that stuff. I'm sure here's some silt there. There's certainly some sediment there. It's a fairly old piece of ocean floor. But I don't see it personally as until we find out for sure, taking sediment, of course, getting down there. I don't think we're going to find something like quicksand that would suck up the black boxes. I'd be very surprised if we find that.
LEMON: And the thing is - the thing is that we really don't know. We don't know what the ocean floor is like, where the black boxes presumably are. If it's in some sort of a deep valley - we just don't know until we get down there, and even if they do, you know - if they do locate them in the right place and the ping, we won't know what it's like until they get what those AUVs in the water, right? To see it?
GALLO: Sure. I mean, you know, Don, these are depths and places, kinds of underwater terrains that oceanographers are very familiar with. We're not intimidated by the depth (INAUDIBLE). In fact, as we speak on the other side of Australia, north of New Zealand, we got a team right now mobilizing to go between six and seven miles with a robot and do some exploring there.
So, you know, the depths aren't so intimidating. The terrain, I can see it because my thesis was spent poking around terrains just like this, scattered boulders and rocks on a sediment on a volcanic terrain. That's not intimidating either. But trying to find the black boxes, you know, a particular bit of a needle in that big haystack is always going to be problematic and you know, to take systematic mapping of that terrain.
LEMON: Michael, (INAUDIBLE) what did you want to add?
MICHAEL KAY, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes, I just wanted to say that that's actually one of the key capabilities of the (INAUDIBLE), and that's why we're seeing the Echo up in the area. It has this ability to map out the hydrography of the actual area so you can get a sense of what the topography is like under the water as David said. You know, there could be canyons, there could be gullies, there could be ditches, there could be sort of anything around there. That would at least give the searchers an indication of the type of topography they're looking in which would sort of give a sense of where they're going to get pings or not.
LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Because more than anything, considering there's a good chance that the wreckage is holding on to the black boxes which could be the (INAUDIBLE) of the airplane tail of the airplane.
LEMON: So what is that?
ABEND: Well it means that they'll have to get through that structure in order to get to it. So which may help and both hinder the whole process of the underwater -
LEMON: How much does that - that doesn't really inhibit the sound, the echoing?
ABEND: Not the sound, no.
LEMON: That doesn't do it?
ABEND: Just the actual picking, the physical picking of the actual boxes.
LEMON: That doesn't make a big difference, does it, David? The structure of the airplane being around it? Just wondering.
GALLO: You know, I mean, down to nick picking, sure some difference, but really, no. Not to the point where we won't be able to find it because it's in something like that. I have to tell you, Phoenix International, the group out there operating (INAUDIBLE), is superb at just this thing. Finding that pinger. If they need to, to penetrate inside an aircraft and remove the black boxes. They're the best on the planet to do that.
LEMON: Yes. How much time do I have, producers? I wanted to ask something else. I can ask in the next segment if I can't. OK.
I want to ask. There was a great point from one of my senior producers in the booth is that we have been looking now, the last time we heard about any debris, especially David, was, what, a week ago Saturday? And so far we haven't heard about debris, no spotting, no nothing. It's not it. I mean what is going on?
GALLO: Yes. That part mystifies me, Don, where did all this ocean junk go? You know, are we out of the - with the junk, the layer of - lawn chairs and things, balloons all that stuff. So are they just not reporting it? Maybe they're just not reporting it. I do find that a bit strange. That we're not hearing about it as much as we used to.
LEMON: And if it's going to wash up, because people are asking, how long before it washes up in Australia and I'm sure with the current, I don't think it does wash up in Australia. I think with the current, it may be Africa or something that it washes up towards, Africa?
GALLO: Well, you know, in World War II, there was a very famous Australian war ship that sunk, much closer to shore but it sunk in that area by a German raider. The ship was the HMS Sydney, it was a long time before they found any shred of that ship on the ocean surface, and it ended up thousands of miles to the north on Christmas Island. So that part of the world certainly can play tricks, but I've got to say, apart from the pings, there's not a shred of evidence that says that that aircraft ended up in the ocean, and - I'm not saying it didn't.
LEMON: Thank you.
GALLO: I'm just saying just there's no evidence.
LEMON: There's no other evidence. I know. We have been debating that, Mike Kay is not sure. Les Abend, I'm not sure where he stands on this.
But just the last questions we just discussed, about the wreckage and all of that, (INAUDIBLE) the person to ask. So we're going to ask him. He's coming up. More people have been to space and have explored the depths of the Indian Ocean. So are search teams ever going to find these black boxes?
Next, the amazing technology being used.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: It is a place few humans would even think about going. It's a place with bone crushing pressure and complete darkness. So how are searchers going to find something the size of a mailbox?
CNN's Rosa Flores went to see how the AUV, the autonomous underwater vehicle in the deep.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This probe is the latest technology that could be used to find flight MH-370. Using site scan sonar it searches for things that don't belong beneath the sea.
(on camera): What is sightscan sonar?
ROB ANDERSON, PRESIDENT: Well, sightscan sonar is an acoustic technology that's based on reflections of sounds rather than reflections of light.
FLORES (voice-over): The autonomous underwater vehicle, an AUV, is gathering information to create a map of the seafloor. This time, it's the bottom of a Massachusetts reservoir, but it could be the depths of the Indian Ocean.
ANDERSON: The sightscan consists of an electronic package which is inside the vehicle. It's basically a computer that processes the data to make the pulse and to bring back the pulse and configure it into an image.
FLORES: It moves back and forth along the surface, but some AUVs can dive deep into the ocean.
Sonar helps identify and find debris like the submerged car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once we identify the target, we did this cross pattern. If we zoom in here, we pull that sonar file, went to that location and got a better high-def image.
FLORES: In the case of flight 370 an AUV would face a number on obstacles, it could stress this entire process out for months or years.
To get a real-time close up image, this remotely operated vehicle or ROV uses the map to visit the location.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's pretty choppy out here today so the visibility is quite reduced.
FLORES (on camera): In the depths of the Indian Ocean you would probably use sonar at first, I imagine, if the water is very deep and very dark.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
FLORES: And then perhaps the camera?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly.
FLORES (voice-over): Once it's there it uses a camera and claws to pick up debris, bringing critical evidence and hopefully answers to the surface.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Rosa Flores joins me now live. So Rosa, what are some of the limitations of these AUVs.
FLORES: You know, Don, it's very easy to get wrapped up on how fascinating these devices are, because they are. They're able to dive deep into the Indian Ocean and use side scan sonar to give us an image of the ocean floor.
But when you talk about some of these limitations we have to talk about speed. They're very slow. The one in particular that's in the Indian Ocean travels between 2 to 4.5 knots so it's very slow. You also have to think. So these are autonomous vehicles. They have batteries. So you are limited by the life of those batteries.
The one in the Indian Ocean has a battery life of about 20 hours, so it can be out and about for about 20 hours. Then the other thing is, is the deployment and the retrieval process of these AUVs. Remember, these are multi-million dollar pieces of equipment. They are very delicate, as well. So it takes time to both deploy and retrieve those devices. Don?
LEMON: Great report. Thank you very much, Rosa Flores. We appreciate it.
You know, questions continue to pour in from our viewers about the mysterious fate of flight 370. Up next, our panel of experts will tackle some of those questions.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: All right. Time for questions. A lot of questions from you guys right now. So let's put them to our aviation experts. Our panel is back. David Gallo, to you first. Here's what Sarah (INAUDIBLE) wants to know, how long would it take for the plane to sink and how far would the drift be?
GALLO: Well, hi, Sarah. Well, certainly the drift depends on the current on the way down to the sea floor. You know, I don't know exactly for an aircraft but I would imagine it's something on the order of 10 minutes or something like that. Minutes, not any more than, not like an hour.
LEMON: OK. This is for Michael Kay. A question a lot of people are asking. It's from Sheila. If they think they hear the black boxes, why haven't they sent the bluefin to try to find them? What are they waiting for. We know it's the noise, but go ahead.
KAY: Yes, I think one of the misnomers about the ping location is it works on strength. It doesn't geo locate. So if they're going along a seven-mile track what they have to identify the strength of the signal. They get close to where the black box is, the amplitude will increase. And then as it goes away, it will decrease. But that doesn't geo locate where the black box is so they have to go around, come back and do another and triangulate.
So effectively three to identify. We're not get that third ping pulse. That's kind of what issue is. They're not going to put the AUVs in until they've exhausted the batteries. Because as soon as they put the AUVs in then you can't look for the pings because obviously the acoustic noise of the AUVs (INAUDIBLE).
LEMON: Right. You don't want to get it confused with the AUV, it may be similar, blah, blah, blah. That's the answer to your question. They don't do it because of the noise.
On the ships anyway, when they hear it they turn everything except for the power that they need on the ship. Everything off so they can listen for it.
KAY: Yes, absolutely. When HMS "Echo" was going to use hydrography thing, that again, adds a little bit more complexity to the search because HMS Echo can only work when the ping isn't pinging. Otherwise, it's going (INAUDIBLE) acoustic. It's complex.
LEMON: All right. This one, another one for Mr. Gallo. This is from Paulette. Paulette asks, is it possible to have a camera on the towed pinger locator so it can take pictures of the ocean floor while it is trying to find the black box?
GALLO: Yes. That's a very good question, Paulette. The issue there is that the TIPL, the towed pinger locator, is typically towed quite a ways off the seafloor and light doesn't go very far into the sea. It's one of the classic problems that we have. If you want to get a picture you've got to be close to the bottom. If you want to use sonar by listening or making a ping by the side scan sonar you've got to be well off the seafloor. So you could pick one or the other. It's tough to do both. We have them both but it's not a bad idea.
LEMON: OK. Let's go Les. This one is coming - people are wanting to know what happened in the cockpit. So this one is from Tara and Tara asks If pilots are both suddenly incapacitated in a catastrophic failure, can other crew still get into the cockpit?
ABEND: I don't know how Malaysia's cockpit door was configured but I can only assume the way most of them come out of the factory that there's a coded door and the flight attendants would be able to get in through that coded door.
LEMON: It's coded. It's not like a key somewhere that you get into? ABEND: Correct.
LEMON: Are they thinking about making changes when it comes to that at all because, especially in light of this, what if this was a pilot who, you know -
ABEND: Yes, there's nothing industry wide that I've heard of. I mean, we're all waiting to see, you know, what the cause of this whole situation was.
LEMON: I want to ask you, you went back and did your real job, as you might say, you flew to London and back. Are people talking about this? Are pilots talking about this?
ABEND: Yes, very much so. We bantered a lot of things around and did a little review of the airplane and we went through a lot of the scenarios. It's still - we're still scratching our heads. We all come up with different versions of scenarios, you know, from terrorism to a passenger going berserk to mechanical failure aspect to depressurization. And every one of them still has holes in it based on the Malaysian radar and so on and so forth.
LEMON: And tracking, what can you share with us about what you were talking about, do you talk about tracking planes and all of that as you discuss this?
ABEND: Well, I mean we did to some extent but most of the folks that fly are still in the same belief that I am, that radar is constantly with us in some form or the other and never quite far enough away from it where we couldn't be tracked or low enough to be tracked. We're just an obvious target out there.
LEMON: All right. Stand by everyone.
There we go. I'm Don Lemon, you're in the "CNN Newsroom."
