Search Zone for MH370 Expands Massively
BLITZER: So after 52 days, searchers looking for flight 370 say it's time to regroup. The search area will be expanded once again. It will be massive, 350 times the search that was just completed. It covered an area roughly the size the state of Indiana. The aerial part of the investigation for all practical purposes is now being called off. Private contractors are being brought in to help. Officials say new technology also will be deployed but it could still take months to complete. Australia's prime minister, Tony Abbott, was emphatic they were not giving up on finding the plane.</s>TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIA PRIME MINISTER: I want the families to know, I want the world to know, that Australia will not shirk its responsibilities in this area. We will do everything we humanly can, everything we reasonably can, to solve this mystery. We will not let people down.</s>BLITZER: Let's bring in our panel of experts. Peter Goelz is a CNN aviation analyst, former NTSB managing director; our law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes is here, former assistant director of the FBI. I guess, Peter, it looks to me like they're almost starting from scratch.</s>PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: They certainly have expanded it far beyond what I had imagined. I thought they would start the search around the four pings and check each one of the remaining three pings as carefully as they checked the first one. But apparently they are. They're going back to scratch. And a size the state of Indiana, awfully big.</s>BLITZER: What does that say to you, that it's not just another ten square miles or whatever that they're going to search but they're going to search an area the size of the state of Indiana, which is a pretty big state?</s>TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, it still says they have confidence in the Inmarsat data. If they were starting from scratch, they'd be back in the South China Sea --</s>BLITZER: The problem though is they don't have confidence in the pings they may have heard.</s>FUENTES: Well, less confidence because it wasn't exactly the frequency they were looking for. Certainly, they're still looking in that part of the Indian Ocean. They're not looking in the Himalayas or near Vietnam or China. They still appear to have a great deal of confidence in the Inmarsat data that put that plane on that arc west of Australia.</s>BLITZER: When I heard they were going to look at the bottom of the Indian Ocean in an area the size of Indiana, my immediate reaction was they no longer have confidence in the pings, the pings that were detected, four sets of pings. Because each one of those pings that a distribution area may be two miles or three miles. It says to me maybe they're re-assessing what they heard.</s>GOELZ: I agree with you, Wolf. I think this means that for whatever reason, the pings are not the top priority, but they're going to go back in. I assume they're going to be bringing in an array of equipment that will expand the bottom search dramatically.</s>BLITZER: When they say they're going to bring in private contractors to undertake this underwater search, I guess navy personnel, military personnel, they're not going to be used. What does that say to you?</s>FUENTES: I think they are going to be used but I think private companies own the equipment and are under contract to the navy and to the Australia authorities. I don't think that's anything we wouldn't have expected to see private companies supplying equipment, who are under contract to the U.S. military and other authorities.</s>BLITZER: Are they just right now hoping they have a Hail Mary and they're going to find something, is that what they're about to do?</s>GOELZ: No, I think they still -- as Tom mentioned, they trust the Inmarsat data. They just got the look over the entire arc and they're starting.</s>BLITZER: Is there anything else, Peter, they need down here if they're going in this whole area? The underwater search, that goes very, very slowly. Think about somebody walking along all of the state of Indiana, how long that could take.</s>GOELZ: When they finally found Air France 447, they had three Rima 6,000s plus a towed array, so they need to bring in some more equipment quickly.</s>BLITZER: The Air France search, which went on for two years, after five days, they did find wreckage. So they at least now where approximately the plane had gone into the Atlanta ocean. This was a two-year span, but the actual search time was only, what, 14 or 15 weeks during the course of those two years.</s>FUENTES: Right. And here you have everybody in a big hurry to give up. Almost the third day the Bluefin was in the water, people were complaining, it didn't find it, let's quick. So I think the lack of patience is astounding when experts from the very beginning, like Peter, said this could take months, this could take years. Everybody wanted an answer the first week of the search.</s>BLITZER: A lot of people are saying maybe they'll never find it too. That's obviously a possibility out there. But it's going to take a long, long time. Guys, thanks very much for joining us. Up next, more fallout from the racist comments attributed to an owner of an NBA team, the Los Angeles Clippers. We're going to hear what President Obama has to say about it.