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Nancy Grace

Search for Flight 370 Is Moved North

Aired March 28, 2014 - 20:00   ET

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

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Two hundred twenty-seven passengers, twelve crew members aboard Malaysia flight 370 when it vanishes without a trace.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The search area is now shifting to an area some 680 miles to the northeast of the old search area, the search area they`ve been looking at for the last couple days. The new area covers about 123,000 square miles and lies about 1,100 miles west of Perth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is definitely a game changer. And the reason is that when they say they refined their radio analysis, they determined that, indeed, that plane, Anderson, was likely flying faster, which means it ran out of fuel, which means it`s in a completely different location than they thought, not so far from the kind of areas that we`ve been outlining here on CNN, but still shifting much more to the north and east.

What does that mean? It does make the search easier in the sense it moves it closer to shore. And we`ve been told about the conditions out there that are horrific on certain days. But what it also means is it`s hard to determine the credibility of what`s come before, all of those searches that they`ve already done and all of that evidence from satellites. Is it debris? Is it garbage? What was it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eight planes made it to the search site, but face dangerous conditions, severe wind, ice and zero visibility, conditions so tough that even the P-8 Poseidon, the world`s most advanced anti- submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft considers it too risky.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Zero visibility means nothing right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, you may not even be able to see the wingtips of the aircraft.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can see it on their faces. Can you tell me a little bit about what they`re thinking?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`re disappointed they don`t get to go out and do it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do the mission, find a piece of Malaysia flight 370, evidence the families so desperately want. Six governments, eleven of the world`s most sophisticated planes, and still nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Satellite images continue to point them in the right direction, but the south Indian Ocean is one of the most remote spots on the planet with no land to break the wind or the waves. They can barely predict the weather. And when it turns, like today, crews risk their lives just trying to fly out and get home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How good would it feel to bring something back?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it would be great for us. It would be even better for the family and friends of the victims of this crash.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Grounded today. Try again on the new search day. Kyung Lah, CNN, Perth, Australia.

GRACE: What I understand is that the U.S. is bringing in an extremely sensitive hydrophone. What is that?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, this is a special sonar device or a listening device, actually, is what it is. And what they will do is they will trail it in the water with the hopes that they can pick up an electronic signal, the ping, as they refer to it, that should be coming from the various recorders that were on board flight 370.

Assuming that the plane went into the water and that these are now on the ocean floor, they would be releasing a signal, a radio signal, that this hydrophone could pick up. So once they hear it, they can begin to pinpoint exactly where the wreckage is. Of course, those recorder boxes would be vital.

GRACE: On March 8, after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing, the plane disappears over the Gulf of Thailand somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The trauma of waiting. For weeks, hundreds of family members of those on board flight 370 have been stuck in a hotel in Beijing, a pressure cooker of grief and emotion. When they were told the plane went down, some via text message, it was overwhelming. Then grief boiled over into anger. These families have banded together, and leaders like Steve Wong (ph) have emerged. Without physical evidence, he believes his mother could still be alive. But the wait is weighing on them all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it is a hard time, and all of us are exhausted, both mental and physical (INAUDIBLE) nothing but just sit there and wait. So it is a really hard time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Retired U.S. Air Force colonel Gordon Peters (ph) has deep experience helping families deal with trauma. He calls the situation terrible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have no closure. They`re not able to say, Let`s deal with this, let`s discuss it. They still have confliction of, Is my loved one alive? Are they really dead? The sense of loss just keeps perpetuating.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Often, family members are stuck in private conference room for hours each day. Many tell me that they still believe their family members are still alive, even if, logically, the chances seem quite remote.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They go to bed at night and they probably logically know what`s happening, but they don`t want to give up. They want to have the good moments with their life. They want to continue to hope for the best.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And in a culture where family is everything, they are refusing to give up because the consequences are just too great.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, my mom used to say that where there are people, there are family. But one is lost, so -- I think it is a disaster (INAUDIBLE) to my family.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David McKenzie, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Quickly the theories mount about what happens to the missing flight. Was it a mechanical failure? Was it a hijacking, pilot error, a terrorist attack, or something even more bizarre?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three million parts to a Boeing 777, and after more than two weeks of searching, not one piece of flight 370 has been found, satellite images from Australia, China and France showing floating objects in the south Indian Ocean. The latest suggests 122 floating objects. But so far, nothing is confirmed to be from the plane. The objects range from 3 to 78 feet. The larger piece could be a portion of the wing. The total wingspan of a 777 is about 200 feet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The wing carries fuel. And so the liquid doesn`t leak out, it`s sealed. So when a plane uses all that fuel and the tanks now are empty, those voids in the wing will now be with air, and that would float a wing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But the large objects could be multiple pieces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Intermingled with the wire and other debris, so you may have a lot of smaller pieces mixed in which might look like a larger piece from a satellite or the air.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The size of debris depends how a plane hits the water. If it hit water fast, nose first, like Alaska Airlines flight 261 in 2000, the plane would shatter into thousands of small pieces. A midair explosion like TWA flight 800 could produce larger debris and a wider field. But if someone attempted a controlled landing, like Ethiopian Airlines flight 961, the plane could break into large pieces. What sinks and what floats depends on what it`s made of.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think floating today, definitely seat cushions, definitely insulation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Plastic and composite parts of the plane, like overhead bins and even the tail, could still be floating. Air France 447`s tail was floating days after it crashed. Heavy metal pieces like engines and the fuselage would sink. All of that considered, these satellite images may not even be the lead search crews need.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The eddy currents that are collecting this stuff, it`s almost like a whirlpool effect. A hundred and twenty items, you know, this could be garbage, plastic bottles, things like this from merchant vessels.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Time is of the essence to make that determination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: How does a huge commercial jumbo jet just vanish into thin air? Tonight, news emerges rapidly. We go inside the mystery of Malaysia flight 370, searching for answers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a vacuum of evidence, media reports persistently point to the pilots as those likely responsible for the disappearance of flight 370. They had the skill. They were the last ones in control. Government officials refuse to comment, but the former head and founder of Malaysia Airlines said he personally knew senior captain Zaharie Shah from the time he was a cadet 30 years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You knew Captain Shah. Some people point a finger at him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s an excellent pilot, and I think also an excellent gentleman. I think they`re going the wrong way pointing finger at him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You also knew the co-pilot. What can you say about him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His father learned the Quran by heart, so he also learned the Quran by heart. He`s a good Muslim. And I know that (INAUDIBLE) a good Muslim.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At times accusations against Captain Shah have been colored with politics. He was a long-time supporter of the opposition political party and its leader, Anwar Ibrahim.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some people in the government saw this as an opportunity to link Anwar Ibrahim to the pilot, and that`s the reason why he became a populist (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It has been reported Captain Shah was in the courtroom hours before the flight, when Ibrahim sentenced to five years in prison on sodomy charges, charges the opposition insists are designed to eliminate Anwar Ibrahim from politics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am quite clear about it (INAUDIBLE) one in there that Friday afternoon, right up to the point where (ph) the sentencing took place.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a multi-national search effort closes in on the suspected resting site of flight 370, Dr. Aziz (ph) hopes the flight data recorder will be located, and with it the evidence to clear the pilots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) once we get the black box, then can have the answers. If we can`t find all those, then we are stuck pointing fingers and so on. (INAUDIBLE) also something (ph) and it`s very difficult for us to defend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Captain Shah`s family has gone into seclusion after voluntarily talking with investigators. But his son, Seth Zaharie, talked with local media, telling them, "Whatever I have read has not changed my heart. I have ignored these speculations. I know who my father is. We understood each other."

Jim Clancy, CNN, Kuala Lumpur.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: When we come back, Malaysia`s prime minister says flight 370 ended in the Indian Ocean. But why does he say that? Like the families, we want proof!

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Two hundred twenty-seven passengers, twelve crew members, the Malaysia Airline flight 370 vanishes without a trace March 8 after the takeoff from Kuala Lumpur en route Beijing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A new direction and possibly new leads in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370. Just hours after dramatically shifting the focus hundreds of miles away, five aircraft have spotted objects in this new search area in the Indian Ocean. Those objects are described as being of various colors, various sizes. They were photographed, and those images will be assessed in the coming hours. Overnight, officials abandoned their previous search area and shifted their attention to this new zone nearly 700 miles away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: New satellite data may help unlock the secrets of where Malaysia flight 370 went down. After disappearing from radar, the Boeing 777 flew south over the Indian Ocean, connecting with the satellite once an hour for six hours. The final ping, as described by Malaysian authorities nearly two weeks ago, happened at 8:11 AM.

But now a new revelation. There may have been another ping. Eight minutes later, the satellite detects something else, this time evidence of a partial connection.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So by getting that very last datum, that last data point, you have a lot more information about where the plane might be. It`s another very important piece of the puzzle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But not even the engineers understand what this means and how it fits into the big picture.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this time, this transmission is not understood and is subject to further (INAUDIBLE) work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this partial ping a sign the plane was still flying, or is it the moment it went down in the Indian Ocean?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This extra data point is not in itself very definitively conclusive about the fate of the plane. It will allow us, should it come to that, to have a somewhat better -- a somewhat narrower search field.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The plane never made its next satellite connection scheduled for 9:15, around the same time the plane would have run out of fuel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the time that that transmission was received, even though it was partially incomplete and somewhat garbled, presumably the equipment that was tending it was intact. And some time after that, there was an impact and it stopped functioning completely.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The new data helps further plot the path of flight 370 -- a 12:41 takeoff, then a left turn off course after 1:21 AM. Flight 370 then flew for more than six hours. Then sometime after 8:11 but before 9:15, the plane went down.

Renee Marsh, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: In a hastily arranged late night press conference, Malaysia`s prime minister declares flight 370 ended in the Indian Ocean, far from any possible landing site. But after this unusual statement, does he take questions from reporters? No. Does he show any proof of the wreckage? No. Questions continue to mount.

Next, more questions, then answers emerge, and families desperately searching for proof.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: It`s not just family members who are demanding proof that Malaysia flight 370 fell into the ocean. Experts are also looking for tangible evidence. Why should we believe authorities this time?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New information has changed the search zone. They`re now searching about 700 miles north of where they had been, and already, it could possibly be bearing some fruit -- possibly -- several flight crews reporting they spotted different colored objects in the new search zone. This is a big change. It could turn out to be nothing of significance, but until now, only satellites had really seen anything. So take a look at this. This is what a military plane from New Zealand spotted today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now, investigators are checking out photographs like these from this new search area to see if these objects are missing parts or parts of the missing jet. Also, we should tell you a Chinese patrol ship is getting in position to find those objects. That is expected to happen tomorrow.

As for the forecast, the weather is expected to cooperate. And remember those satellite images from a few days ago? Well, Australians say forget about them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but the Malaysian officials say they could still turn out to be useful.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It could be debris that floated out of the current search zone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even without a confirmed piece of debris from the plane or pinpointed locations, search teams want to be ready for that if and when it happens, want to be ready find the crucial black box and the pinger. Well, this is the crucial piece of equipment that`ll help them do that, and this has already been sent to the search area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. Navy has only two of these high-tech listening devices, and one of them is now heading to the Indian Ocean to help find the missing plane. It`s called a towed pinger locator. Its mission, find the plane`s black box with the important data recordings before the pingers die out. That`s in less than two weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Think of your cell phone ringer. If you lose your cell phone, you can call it and you hear the phone ringing, so you narrow down your search.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: CNN had a rare look inside the Maryland facility of Phoenix, International, where the towed locator is made. This device helped recover wreckage from Air France flight 447 in the Atlantic. Project manager Bill Nelson (ph) says once plane debris is found, the pinger locator with a fin on top is towed slowly through the area. It can go down to 20,000 feet below the surface for hours and miles at a time. It`s listening intently for the black box`s signal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How far away can it be and pick it up?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The outside edge is about two miles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With flight 370`s pinger`s battery life ticking down each day, every moment is critical.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Until they recover this data, it`s still a mystery. They will not know what happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Without a confirmed sighting, why not just deploy a lot of these on a lot of different ships and blanket an entire area of the ocean? Well, the manufacturers say there are just a few of these in the world, and they`re very expensive to deploy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Next, the mystery of Malaysia flight 370 deepens. What has been seized? And who is being questioned?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dramatic new developments are unfolding right now in the hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight 370. The search area has shifted by hundreds of miles, and now multiple planes have spotted objects in the new location. This picture from CTTV, Chinese state television -- it shows what`s described as a suspicious object spotted by a New Zealand military plane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: The mystery surrounding the sudden disappearance of Malaysia flight 370. How does a plane, a commercial airline, a jumbo jet, just disappear undetected? As the international investigation goes on, reports emerge about who is being questioned, and more importantly, who has not. This as fears emerge of a cover-up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Military radar data is revealing more about the mystery of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. But with these possible new clues come new questions. At 1:07 AM, the plane was on course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. At 1:19, no sign of any trouble when the co-pilot told air traffic control, "All right, good night."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m really concerned about the pilots right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over the next hour and 21 minutes, something big happened on that Boeing 777, a sharp left turn toward the Strait of Malacca before the plane descended to 12,000 feet, intentional maneuvers that took minutes to complete.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m open to any scenarios. I think the data that we got from the -- from radar has been sketchy, at best. If this is, indeed, true information, this plane descended to 12,000, it was a professional flight crew handling an emergency, and they were turning the airplane to divert it and begin a descent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why would a pilot drop to 12,000 feet or 3,700 meters? Not to avoid radar. A 777 is easy to spot at that altitude. But 12,000 feet would allow the pilots to depressurize the cabin, making it safe for all 239 people to breathe. The biggest question of all, why was there no mayday call? If the pilots had time to change course and altitude, why didn`t they communicate? As we continue learning what the plane did, we still can`t answer the biggest question of all, why? Will Ripley (ph), CNN, Kuala Lumpur.

GRACE: The Malaysian embassy stormed by family, friends, loved ones, holding signs, screaming. They want their sons and daughters back, angry over the handling of the missing flight, demanding proof a crash even occurred when not a single piece of debris has been identified. Tonight, is there a cover-up?

Straight out to CNN correspondent Martin Savidge. Marty, you know what? They`ve got a point. If it was my family, and for what, the second, third time I`ve been told, Oh, we found the plane, we found the plane, take three, we found the plane -- and they can`t show me one seatbelt, one wheel, one piece of plastic that says flight 370 on it -- nothing? Why should we believe it?

SAVIDGE: Right. And many people have the very same feeling as you do, Nancy, and I can`t blame them, either. I mean, they`ve been set up so many times, and then whatever has been told to them pulled back. Now they`re being told that they just have to trust the Malaysian government, that they`ve managed with technology to determine that the aircraft and their loved ones has vanished somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and yet, as you point out, not a single piece of debris. I think that would be stretching any credulity that they would believe what they`re being told.

GRACE: Martin Savidge, I want to talk about the search and rescue and the fact that the weather now, according to Malaysian officials, is causing the whole thing to be called off! You know, it`s hard for me to believe that you could put a man on the moon, that you can have a space lab up in the air with people living in space for, you know, six months at a time, but we can`t find the black box, when it is emitting a beep for 30 days? What, when`s that going to end, the beginning of April?

SAVIDGE: Well, the problem is, yes, you`re right. There is a timeframe on this, and that they are concerned that -- look, they don`t believe there are survivors. They just simply believe that`s not an option anymore. So they want to be careful not to risk the lives of the searchers that are out there.

The weather is said to be so bad -- it`s taken a severe turn. It`s a very difficult part of the world to search. But the waves are too rough, the winds are too high, and because the planes have to fly low, they try to spot the debris, it`s a dangerous combination. So they have withdrawn for now. They`ll go back. But if you`re a family member, of course, nothing can be done fast enough. If you believe someone`s in a life raft floating, waiting to be found, it would be heart-breaking.

GRACE: Well, especially, Marty, when you feel like you`ve been lied to. And that`s the way a lot of them feel. Martin Savidge joining me, CNN correspondent. If there was an emergency landing on water, can you simulate that?

SAVIDGE: Yes. Sure, we can, because, you see, I think the Malaysian Airlines is implying that this airplane plunged into the ocean, which it might have done, but it didn`t have to.

Mitchell Cassato`s (ph) the pilot here. Take us down, bring us right to the water level, and let`s see what this would look like.

You know, the "miracle on the Hudson," which everyone remembers -- that aircraft was a lot smaller than this aircraft, but it shows that airplanes are capable of landing in a water environment. It wouldn`t be ideal, wouldn`t be what you`d want it to do, but if the engines have run out of gas, if they are no longer generating any lift, it may be the only thing you can do.

So you come sweeping in over the ocean like this, and what you would want to do is begin to set up the aircraft as if you were coming in to land. But you don`t put the wheels down because if you do, they`re likely to trip you and make you flip over. Instead, you want to set it down on the smooth underbelly of the aircraft.

What speed would you like to do that, Mitchell?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ideally, as slow as possible, minimum control speed, yes.

SAVIDGE: And you`re going to try and make it so that the tail hits first, and then the rest of the plane settles down. The other thing you worry about would be the wave (ph) state (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. We don`t know the sea state. We don`t know the winds. But they play a tremendous factor in all this.

SAVIDGE: Yes, you would try to land on top of the wave, not in the trough. You don`t have any control over that. If you have to land, you have to land. This is all assuming, of course, Nancy, that the pilots were awake and conscious to be able to do it, but it could have been done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Coming up, what happened to Malaysia flight 370? Conflicting information emerges on how high or low the plane was flying. What does that mean?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Conflicting information emerging on radar movements of Malaysia flight 370. Was it at 45,000 feet? Did it drop to 12,000 feet? What do these numbers mean?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This morning, a major shift in the search for wreckage, Australia moving their focus just over 680 miles northeast of the most recent search area, Australian authorities crediting the shift to what they describe as new and credible radar information.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This continuing analysis indicates the plane was traveling faster than was previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel usage and reducing the possible distance it traveled south into the Indian Ocean.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This revelation moves the search hundreds of miles closer to Australia`s coast, giving reconnaissance planes more than the previous one to two hours of search time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The new search area, although more focused than before, remains considerable, and that the search conditions, although easier than before, remain challenging.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The new search area covering 123,000 square miles, the waters there reaching depths of about 2.5 miles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This information needs to be continually adjusted for the length of time elapsed since the aircraft went missing and the likely drift of any wreckage floating on the ocean`s surface.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The full search back on today after yesterday`s tumultuous weather. Dedicated to the search, 10 aircraft and 6 ships from 6 countries, Australia also shifting their satellites to focus cameras on the new search area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will put out data marker buoys that report back their movement by satellite so that we know with accuracy where the water is moving, and that provides us the best way to keep the search area confined.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, 21 days into the investigation, reporters ask if the previous search zones were a waste of time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the normal business of search and rescue operations, that new information comes to light, refined analyses takes you to a different place. I don`t count the original work a waste of time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We understand that the sea vessels are staying out there in the overnight Australia hours, and they`re going to try to pick up some of this debris.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: The clock is running to find the black box. Does the black box hold the investigative keys to the castle?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the moment Malaysia flight 370 took off, it was communicating with a satellite orbiting more than 22,000 miles above earth, sending out pings or electronic handshakes to say, I`m here and OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The ping is really like your cell phone checking that it`s connected with the cell phone network.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first three recorded pings come between 12:30 and 1:00 AM local time as the plane takes off from Kuala Lumpur and ascends, all normal stuff.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first three pings are messages which are carrying the data about the performance of the engines on the plane.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At 1:19 AM, the co-pilot sends his final message to air traffic control, "All right, good night." Then the transponder, which identifies the plane to civilian radar, stops communicating. Between 1:21 and 1:28 AM, radar shows the plane makes a sharp left turn, then dips as low as 12,000 feet. At 2:22 AM, as the plane appears to be making another turn, the satellite then picks up three more electronic pings, one right after the other in a span of just a few minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like they were initiated by the plane because the plane had lost contact with the satellite network. After that quick turn, maybe the plane banked sharply.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whatever happens is seemingly resolved as Malaysia 370 sends hourly pings or handshakes at 3:40, 4:40, 5:40, 6:40 and 8:11 AM.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The hourly pings are really just the network checking that everything`s going on. That sort of indicates that the plane is flying smoothly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But then something very unusual happens, a partial ping just eight minutes later, recorded at 8:19 AM, the last electronic signal before the plane disappears.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The plane wasn`t able to communicate back again, and so the handshaking wasn`t completed. The plane must have turned sharply or stalled or died, something to cause the terminal on top of the plane to be pointed away from the satellite, and then to try and reestablish contact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We all can make a difference. Need proof? Check out this week`s "CNN Hero."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Everyone knows how critical it is to find the black box in any airplane crash. But what you may not know is the box pings, emitting a sound for only 30 days. This is not only a race to get answers for family members, but a race against time before that black box goes silent. The U.S. sends a super-sensitive listening device to the region.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the sound of a pilot in trouble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) have to land immediately.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was the pilot of Swissair flight 111 talking to air traffic control just minutes before he crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 1998. Everyone on board was killed. When crash investigators found the plane`s black boxes at the bottom of the ocean, they were stunned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both the recorders stopped recording about six minutes before the aircraft actually hit the water.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Leaving investigators to wonder why they suddenly lost control of the plane. It was a fire, they later found, in the jet`s entertainment system, which also caused the black boxes to fail. But it took putting the plane back together, all two million pieces of it, to figure that out.

Bottom line, the so-called black boxes aren`t perfect. And they`re not black, either. They`re usually orange. On an airplane, they`re tucked inside an insulated case and surrounded by stainless steel. They`re built to withstand temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and catastrophic impact.

After TWA flight 800 went down in July, 1996, just 12 minutes after takeoff from New York`s JFK airport, the plane`s black boxes were recovered, but they offered little.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both the voice recorder and the data recorder terminated their operation within a nanosecond of each other when the explosion took place.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Still, despite all the conspiracy theories, investigators say they figured out an explosion in the fuel tank caused the crash and shut down the recorders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) Did you get a hold of American 77 by chance?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On 9/11, 64 people died on board American Airlines flight 77 when it slammed into the Pentagon. Fire crews spent days trying to put out the flames. The two black boxes were found in the wreckage, but the cockpit voice recorder was too charred to offer anything of value.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It flew in with such force and the fire was so intense that nothing could have survived that impact.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If the black boxes are ever recovered from Malaysia Airlines flight 370, investigators still may have questions. The cockpit voice recorder starts recording over itself after two hours, so the moment something went very wrong may remain a mystery.

Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What`s that look like to you, anything?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like -- oh, boy, it`s a rectangle. You know, there`s a lot of...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that`s about it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... things that kind of look like that. One of the things I think we learned from the last week is that there`s a lot of debris in the ocean, and most of that debris is not airplane. So I think we can expect to get a lot of false positives as we search this area. It`s closer to the shipping channels. It`s closer to human habitation. You know, everything that runs off the land through storm drains, everything gets thrown off of ships, all the garbage, all the debris -- human beings make a lot of stuff, and a lot of it winds up in the ocean.

GRACE: Is there a cover-up regarding Malaysia flight 370?

Back to Martin Savidge, CNN correspondent. Martin, so many people are jumping on the cover-up bandwagon, and due to the behavior of the Malaysian government, I get it. They`ve been told so many different things. None of it really makes sense. They`re dead set, they`re hell bent that this is the wreckage. They can`t show me one seatbelt, nothing!

I`m not saying it`s not the wreckage, but why are people now becoming suspicious that there is a cover-up, Martin?

SAVIDGE: I think any time that you have a lack of information, when you have a vacuum and there`s just no knowledge of really what happened, this is when we begin to suspect there`s a reason we don`t know and it`s some kind of cover-up. We`ve been spoiled in this country by the work of the National Transportation Safety Board, their professionalism and their ability to, in almost every case, solve what happened to an airliner. That professionalism is what many just feel is lacking now with the Malaysian Airlines investigation.

GRACE: Well, another thing, families in this country -- and we`ve got a family member with us tonight, James Brokaw -- are distraught, they`re angry sometimes, and rightfully so, but you don`t see them storming the U.S. embassy. And there`s a reason for that, Martin. Would you like to enunciate it?

SAVIDGE: The reason is that the people, I believe, many of them, look at the Malaysian government and feel they were inept in the beginning of this investigation. And they also believe that valuable time was wasted, that it was possible their loved ones could have been alive someplace, maybe in the water, and because of the delay and looking in the wrong place, they may now have died. They equate that to almost murder.

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GRACE: When we come back: What will it take to bring answers, concrete answers to loved ones and families?

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the first time that two planes from two different countries were able to locate the same patch of debris. You see the photo that`s going viral right now from CCTV. This is one of what we`re told are many photos that are being studied at this hour.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Day 21 of the search for flight 370 began with an entirely new search area nearly 700 miles north of the zone searchers have been scouring for more than a week.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The new information is based on continuing analysis of radar data about the aircraft`s movement between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca before radar contact was lost.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officials explained the sharp move northward follows further analysis showing the plane may not have flown as far south as previously thought.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This (INAUDIBLE) the new results which indicates that MH-370 flew at a higher speed than previously thought, which in turn means it used more fuel and could not travel as far.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For days, searchers have been focusing here, raising expectations of a breakthrough with successive satellite photos showing what appeared to be not just individual pieces of debris but possible debris fields. Now satellites and planes have a new target zone in calmer waters and closer to the Australian coast.

CNN`s Kyung Lah traveled aboard a U.S. P-8 Poseidon aircraft, and within minutes of arriving on site, searchers spotted what could be debris.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This plane did spot some debris, and there was a bit of excitement. The plane tipped to the right. They got very, very close to the ocean -- some white debris, some orange rope, a blue bag, but it wasn`t significant enough to say that it was connected to the plane at all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least four other planes taking part also spotted possible wreckage. A crew from New Zealand took this picture as it returned to base. Still, conscious of the repeated false alarms, officials downplay the significance of these early sightings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would not wish to classify any of the satellite imagery as debris, nor would I want to classify any of the few individual sightings that we made as debris, and that`s just not justifiable from what we have seen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Questions continue to linger over whether the captain or first officer played a role in the plane`s disappearance. Still, Malaysia Airlines officials said today they conduct regular psychological tests of their air crews.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s something that we check yearly and six- monthly, depending how old they are, on their -- you know, on their medical annual (ph), and that`s normally done through an interview with the (INAUDIBLE) doctors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Expressing growing frustration with the continuing lack of answers, hundreds of family members walked out of a meeting with airline officials in Beijing in protest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We haven`t seen any evidence of transparency or full competence so far.

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GRACE: Family members so overcome with grief, they are taken out of hotels by medical personnel, authorities so confused, we often hear conflicting information. What will it take to finally find out what really happened? Who can we trust?

END