Chinese Satellite Spots Floating Object
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Disagreement on this panel. A lot of experts in the field. It shows the complicated nature of the search, why it's being pulled in several directions and why it has taken so long and that flight 370, where it went, what happened to it remains very much a mystery. CNN's coverage of the search for Malaysia airlines flight 370 continues right now. Hello. I'm John Berman in for Fredricka Whitfield today. And of course, we are covering the news about flight of 370. A lot of developments today in just a moment. Four hours, searchers will be back in the sky over the Southern Indian Ocean looking for three now, three objects they have not been able to identify. Images of a third object were captured by a Chinese satellite four days ago and released to the public today. The object, 74 feet by 43 feet. Just to be clear, satellite imagery from China now, has captured picture of what could be debris off the coast of Australia. This is in addition to the two pictures that were taken about a week ago now that Australia has been looking into to trying to get some kind of a visual confirmation of. China is now sending ships to try to locate this new piece of possible debris to determine if it is wreckage from the plane. It's just about 75 miles from the two other objects, possible floating objects spotted by the commercial satellite one week ago. The search for all three of them could be complicated by bad weather. Conditions earlier today were good enough. And crews managed to see several small items in the ocean, including a wooden palette. But none of those small items, including the palette got investigators very excited. They do not think they are substantial leads. Families of 239 people onboard flight 370, they have been on an emotional roller coaster ride. Every new sighting of possible debris, every new satellite image we are seeing. Many families increasingly frustrated with the way the Malaysian government is handling this crisis. And today, the frustration boiled over during a briefing with Malaysian officials. Take a look.</s>BERMAN: Malaysian officials say the one thing the families want to know, they can't tell them. And that's, of course, what happened to flight 370. So we have a lot to talk about. We gathered a fantastic panel of experts to stay with us for the hour. In Washington, Rick Castaldo is an aviation surveillance engineer. He spent 20 years in the FAA. Tom Fuentes is a CNN law enforcement analyst. And from Denver, David Soucie is the CNN safety analyst and author of "Why Planes Crash: An act of investigators fight for safe sky." Thank you all so much for joining us. David, I want to start with you. This new image from the Chinese satellite, 75 miles from where those other images of possible debris were found one week ago. How much of a reason for hope is this now, David?</s>DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: I don't know if it increases my hope at all. What it does is increases my optimism they will be able to find what this is because at least now, if it is the same object, at least now, they have the track on the direction it's going, approximate speeds. Now, in that area, it could change quickly, but -- and this is two days p old. So we'll have to see if that actually pans anything out. but some people are discounting this second image because of its size. Well, at accident sites, this material could be flipping, it can be a whole bunch of small pieces especially with that particular structure because of the stringers inside of it. That it could be a lot of small pieces that are strung together with electrical cables with mechanical cables. And with this stringers themselves. So I'm not discounting it until we get in there and start finding it. But it gives me hope that they will find something down there because we have had two hits on what appears to me to be, at least, similar.</s>BERMAN: So David, just to be clear, you are saying at a minimum, it gives greater specificity in a possible search area?</s>SOUCIE: It would in my mind, yes.</s>BERMAN: All right, Rick, you think, though, this piece of debris, as David positive there, you think it may just simply be too big to get excited about? Some 73 feet by over 40 feet?</s>RICK CASTALDO, AVIATION SURVEILLANCE ENGINEER: Well, I didn't really comment on the size. There was another comment earlier about the size. I'm certainly not an expert at looking at satellite photos and the kind of terrain with the wave action, the sea states and the other pieces. But, I guess my point was, I wouldn't solely function on one piece of debris with my entire search team. I would certainly look along both arcs based on the ping. You know, it's not unusual to have engineers and lawyers disagree about where to look for things. You know, I like to base it on science and the available data. And the available data from the satellite is fairly reliable. A ping is awfully reliable for determines an arc where something may have flown. I was go on either side of the arc down in the sea and go along the arc looking for radar data and pull tapes over a seven to eight hour period for some of these countries. You will find, though, that because of the air defense mission, many of these organizations will not release data to show you one, how good the radar is, or two, how poor it is and whether or not it's properly maintained and actually works.</s>BERMAN: Daniel Rose, you served in the Navy. You were a naval aviator. You were involved in searches, maybe not in this scale, but that may actually be part in here. You were involved in searches in some ways that may not have been nearly as complicate and they were still difficult.</s>DANIEL ROSE, AVIATION AND MARITIME ATTORNEY: Right. You know, at the end of the day, even in this search, somebody has to put an eyeball on the object in the water. And it's a very difficult thing to do, extremely difficult. I mean, you can be at 50 feet and still mistake a white object like that for a white cap in a heartbeat and your eyes play games with you. So it's a very difficult thing to do. You know, when we were in the Navy, we had the luxury of having a landing strip right there, actually, the carrier which we could go back and continuously look for the downed aircraft. You don't have that luxury here. You effectively have two hours on station and a very dangerous environment because if anything mechanical goes wrong with the aircraft up there, they have few options, except to try to make it back 1500 feet or 1500 miles.</s>BERMAN: It's a long way from Perth, Australia, you know, some 1500 miles. They only have got about two hours over the search area. Clearly, that's complicated the situation. Tom Fuentes, I want to talk about another complication right now. We are more than two weeks since the plane -- since it disappeared. As time goes on, does it make it less likely we will get some kind of a break in the case in terms of the investigation if there, in fact, is anything to find there? If it wasn't simply something mechanical. At this point, will it be harder to discover?</s>THOMAS FUENTES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You know, John, I think you are right. As time goes on, there could be other pieces of information come up from interviews with the former colleagues or friends or family or something else come up with one of the passengers. You know, so far, we don't have that. But to do complete backgrounds on hundreds of people, which is what's happening in this case, you know, it takes a long time. They have done the searches of data bases. But there's a lot more that has to be done and learned about the people involved in this. So, you are right, it could be something more that could come up in a future date regarding the people.</s>BERMAN: We have talked about the list of nos, Tom. The no chatter from many possible terrorist organization. No</s>FUENTES: Not necessarily because we have had all these cases here in the U.S. of the so-called lone Wolf, where, you know, they don't disclose to family, friends, schoolmates, others that they have a terrible act in min mind. We just saw this 11 months ago here in the U.S. during the Boston marathon bombing. The two brothers weren't telling all their friends that they were going to do a bombing at the marathon. They only discussed it really with each other, as far as we can tell. And you know, even their classmates after the bombing and after they learned, you know, who they were and the fact that they had done it, you know, are saying, you know, they were great. They never talked about it. All American kid. You know, the younger one being captain of the wrestling team and going to parties and dating and smoking pot and everything else. They had no clue. There's no chatter then. There's no e-mails to other people or co-conspirators. In the big plots, the 9/11s, you have a much larger conspiracy and then you will have the chatter of people either bragging about or discussing it because they were in the no and want to talk about it with each other. But there's many explanations why there's not a lot of outside chatter with the case.</s>BERMAN: Just some of the threats they are investigating now, two weeks since the plane disappeared. Guys, stick around for a little bit. We want to talk much more about the possible scenarios, talk about the new developments, the new satellite image taken by the Chinese satellite, you know. Just one of the issues being discussed right now, it is in one of the most remote areas of the world. We'll talk about these situations when we come back.