u.s. navy aircraft have covered more than 160,000 square nautical miles but now new satellite data is helping search teams get closer in the indian ocean. >> we know we're only looking in one haystack rather than multiple haystacks. >> reporter: this former navy oceanographer's firm developed search maps that helped locate air france flight 447 in the atlantic ocean. he took us through the sophisticated mode dells that used. first, a grid that showed where the air france plane likely it this surface. two calculations for that, how far the plane could have flown between the last position update it gave and when the transponder failed and where the debris would have fallen if the plane had a catastrophic failure at cruisi cruising altitude. >> so you get a heat map and this meet map says where it's red that's likely where the plane is. where it's green it's a medium chance. >> reporter: but managing the search zones has huge obstacles. why can aircrafts spot so many