Twist And Turns In The Hunt For Flight 370
BALDWIN: We are now officially in week number four of the hunt for Flight 370 and we've only just learned that the final word spoken from the cockpit were not "All right, good night," but "Good night, Malaysian 370." Just another confusing walk back by Malaysia here. Each new lead bringing more mystery. CNN'S Amy La Porte takes a look at the timeline of the twists and turns since the plane first vanished from the radar. (</s>BEGIN VIDEOTAPE_ AMY LA PORTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On March 8 at 12:41 a.m., Malaysia Airline Fight 370 takes off from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board. It's bound for Beijing, but it never arrives.</s>ERIN BURNETT, HOST, CNN'S "OUTFRONT": It was expected to land at 6:30 a.m. local time. That plane is two-and-a-half hours late.</s>LA PORTE: March 9, two men registered as passengers come forward saying they were not on the plane. Their passports were stolen.</s>JAKE TAPPER, HOST, CNN'S "THE LEAD": We've known that at least two passengers were traveling with stolen passports raising fears that terrorism may be involve.</s>LA PORTE: As for the search, the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea comes up empty. March 11, Interpol identified the two passengers who used the stolen passports. Iranian nationals, the ruling, no connection to terrorism. Then an explosive development, we learned that Flight 370 made a mysterious turn to the west.</s>WOLF BLITZER, HOST, CNN'S "THE SITUATION ROOM": Was the missing plane deliberately flown towards that remote island chain in the Indian Ocean?</s>LA PORTE: March 15, Malaysia's prime minister confirms Flight 370 flew for about seven hours after its final transmission. This news enough to end the search in the South China Sea expanding the search zone some 4500 miles. The question now, how far could this plane have gone? March 16, the focus turns to the two pilots. Authorities raid their homes. Confiscating the flight simulator owned by the captain. March 20, our first satellite pictures of two objects.</s>DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: The prime minister saying they have found objects that they believe to be credible.</s>LA PORTE: The next day, March 21, lines are drawn around a section of the Southern Indian Ocean. A possible crash site in one of the most hostile places on earth.</s>TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: It's the most inaccessible spot you can imagine on the face of the earth.</s>LA PORTE: This would be the first of many satellite sightings. French satellites, Thai sightings and more from the Chinese. Each possible debris heading nowhere. March 24, the Malaysian prime minister calls an unscheduled press briefing.</s>NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: Flight MH-370 ended in the Southern Indian Ocean.</s>LA PORTE: With no evidence of the plane itself, a text message went out from Malaysia Airlines confirming the prime minister's grim announcement. None of those on board survived. The news just too much for the grief-stricken families. Some lashing out at the media. Others fainting and taken out on stretchers. March 28, three weeks into the search after days of scouring the section of the Southern Indian Ocean, search crews find out they have been looking in the wrong spot.</s>BALDWIN: The search zone today shifting by hundreds of miles.</s>LA PORTE: As soon as the search moved, possible debris is spotted and another, more and more sightings, most turning out to be trash. As the satellite and visual sightings come in and the search continues, the world is still waiting for the words, the plane has been found. Amy La Porte, CNN, Atlanta.</s>BALDWIN: Amy, thank you. Bad weather made it tough for these pilots searching for the missing plane. CNN's Martin Savidge and pilot trainer, Mitchell Casado join me inside the flight simulator. So guys, can you show me when you talk about these bad conditions, what's it like flying low?</s>MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We can. I mean, you know, we will simulate it as best we can. What's neat about this simulator is that it actually ties into the weather so that it knows what the weather conditions are in any part of the world where you can program it. We have essentially taken off from Perth and headed west in the direction of what would be this new search area. Now the simulator has replicated the weather conditions. We should point out, of course, it is night time there, but for the purposes of visualizing it, we made it daylight. When you look at this word about it, it's 2,000 feet up.</s>MITCHELL CASADO, PILOT TRAINER: We are 2,000 feet up, 177 miles out from Perth directly west. Nothing but ocean.</s>SAVIDGE: If you look out on the horizon, it's difficult to where the ocean ends if you will and the sky picks up. It's very mixed. I will point out, why don't you take us down lower, Mitchell? The weather conditions like this, it is not that bad, you don't have the blinding sun hitting your face. You instead have more of a gray-like cloud cover overhead. That diffuses the light and allows it to be less harsh bouncing back. If you are looking by the naked eye which in many cases that's what they are doing. Not terrible conditions. There is light rain and at times it can be obscuring by the rain. Otherwise, certainly conditions could be worse. This again is what the simulator is replicating what it knows are the weather conditions. We are talking about fatigue. You are looking out at something like this. There is a relative fatigue you can get.</s>CASADO: You are staring at a style and it's like flying over the arctic with a lot of snow with white out conditions. You can't discern the horizon from anything else. We take frequent shifts, 30 minutes, 45 minutes max. You get in.</s>SAVIDGE: If you drop it down on the deck and you see the sense of speed and the other factor that comes into play, search aircraft are not going to moving at a tremendous high speed because otherwise the terrain and everything else will whiz by you so quickly you haven't been able to get a good assertation of what it was you saw. Again this is simulating the sky conditions and you can see from here and know with the camera, it may not look the same. A good distance here as you look out on the water with these conditions, very interesting.</s>BALDWIN: Sure at least we know that the conditions once they establish that new search area the conditions have been better, closer to land, to maximize flight times to look for possible debris. Gentlemen, thank you as always, Martin and Mitch. We appreciate that. Coming up, as we learn the actual last words from Flight 370. We are being told there was, quote, "Nothing sinister" in the conversations between the pilots and air traffic controller. So why not release the entire transcripts? There may be a very good answer to that. Also ahead as fears rise, Russia is getting ready for more action here against Ukraine. Moscow reportedly beefing up the presence along the Ukrainian border. Live picture, CNN is there for a firsthand look. Do not miss this next live shot.