Transcripts For CNNW The Situation Room 20140319

Families of the passengers. Distraught relatives are dragged away by authorities after begging the media for help and the search narrows. New details on why efforts are now focused at the far end of the southern corridor in a remote area of a vast ocean. Im wolf blitzer. Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. Captions by vitac www. Vitac. Com we begin with new clues that are emerging right now in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. A senior u. S. Official says a route change, that abrupt turn to the west, appears to have been entered into the airliners flight system at least 12 minutes before the last voice contact was received from the cockpit. The fbi is now looking at hard drives from the computers of the pilot and the copilot, including the pilots Flight Simulator hard drive. A malaysian official says simulator data was erased and investigators are trying to recover the files and u. S. And australian officials indicate the hunt the now focused on the far end of the southern search corridor, and that could put it more than 1500 miles off the coast of perth, australia. Were standing by with the kind of coverage only cnn can deliver. We begin with our chief national correspondent. Cnn has learned that the malaysian government has obtained new radar data relevant to tracking the path of flight 370 after it lost communications with the ground. Because this data could reveal sensitive military capabilities, malaysia has yet to detail the new data or which country has provided it. It is a broad appeal to all countries along this path to indicate which direction it went and how far. Meanwhile, as every day passes without hard information about the planes fate, theres leading emotions of family members to boil over. Begging for answers for one more day, today, loved ones of passengers on board flight 370 grew frustrated and apgry. And when the answers didnt come yet again, the disappointment was simply too much for some of them. Today, new attention focused on the pilots. The fbi is now reviewing a hard drives from their computers an the captains Flight Simulator. Malaysian Officials Say data had been deleted from it weeks before the flight. We are in on going conversations and will make available whatever resources, whatever expertise we have. The massive search area in the southern indian ocean is narrowing significantly. They are now focusing on a much smaller area, roughly the size of france, centered here, 2,000 miles off the australian coast. Today, the area has been significantly refined. You can see here, the lines that were prepared by the ntsb have been refined somewhat based on more detailed analysis. Malaysian Authorities Say they are now getting new radar data after reaching out to every country along the presumed northern and southern flight paths. I can confirm that we have received from radar data, but we are not at liberty to release information from other countries. U. S. Officials tell me one key reason they are increasingly focused on the southern flight path is that the northern route is so well covered by radar and by satellites. Though this Southern Area is beco becoming smaller and more refined, it is still huge and 2,000 miles off the aus krtrali coast. Still saying its going to take weeks to search the area. Still huge when you look at the relativity of the whole area. Cnns getting new information about the flights initial turn west. What are you learning . Basically, i think it comes down to the details, when the computers fly iing the plane, its more refined and smooth than when the pilot is flying. The data is showing the way the plane directed itself to radar way points was so precise that that follows a plane following a path of what has been entered. Had the pilot made that turn in response to something in the cockpit suddenly, it wouldnt have been as refineded a path. So it feeds into this theory that we were reporting first yesterday that this turn was preprogrammed into the flight before that final good night. For whatever reason, very disturbing. Thanks very much. Were also learning more about the reasons why the search for the airliner is narrowing and why the focus is now on that far end of the southern search zone. Lets go to barbara starr. What are you picking up over that, barbara . Australia is searching a vast area, but right now, focus on about 117,000 square miles, big enough, isnt it, off that western coast of perth. The map really tells you everything you need to know about this. How are they coming to this calculation . Well, what theyve done is with the help of the u. S. Ntsb, look at the satellite transmissions, calculated the fuel, the range and how many, most importantly perhaps, how many days this has been going on. Thats what leds to the urgency of this. As the days go on, the ocean currents shift everything around every day. Based on what they know now, calculating all that data from the time they lost contact from the last transmission of the airplane, thats how they come to this box theyre looking at right now. But officials are saying every day, the search box is going to change as time goes on and the urgency will probably grow. That box still the size of about new mexico. So, does this mean they have effectively given up on the northern route . Well, technically no, but i have to tell you, since this happened, every u. S. Military and intelligence official ive spoken so says theyve genuinely believe most likely it is somewhere sadly in the indian ocean and why do they say this . Of course, its because the u. S. Has pretty good satellite coverage in asia, china, pakistan, those countries in there because they watch for Ballistic Missile launches. U. S. , the most classified military satellites as far as anybody publicly knows right now, have seen absolutely nothing that indicates a plane is up in asia. No country reporting legitimate verified, if you will, radar hits of a plane. Just simply no indication that it is up in asia in any of those 11 countries and u. S. Officials feel pretty confident as each day goes by, if there had been any information about it being up there, they would have heard it by now. The issue is satellite coverage in the indian ocean. Commercial satellites have been moved that way. U. S. Satellites, the classified satellites regularly dont cover that area, but they are going back through everything they have. Wolf . Barbara starr at the pentagon, thank you. Lets bring in our Law Enforcement analyst, the former fbi assistant director, tom fuentes along with mark weiss. Tom, you think now that theyve narrowed the search in the Southern Area, does that mean you think theyre getting closer to actually finding something . I dont know, wolf. This is a phrase weve heard about ten times in the last 12 days, weve narrowed the search area. I dont know completely what its based on. Seems to be based on a negative that surely, some country would have seen it had it gone north. Maybe yes, maybe no. Weve seep where thailand and other countries look back ten days later and say, across our radar, i dont know we can rely on just the fact it didnt show up there, or we dont think it did, to say it for sure went this way. Also, you could speculate the reason the area is being narrowed is that maybe australia saw that plane and said, okay, its over here, but dont tell anybody we told you. So, the fbi is now looking at the hard drive from the pilot, the copilot, as well as the Flight Simulator the pilot had. Theyre going to look for any type of track that pilot may have put in to the simulator because that would not be a normal route to flight that the aircraft would be taking. So, theyre looking to see if theres anything suspicious that might indicate this pilot or copilot, the case of the simulator, that the pilot was rehearsing, if you will. Thats the keyword ive heard all day. Theyre looking for some indication of rehearsal. Right now, nothing has been found, so certainly you dont want to cast dispersions where they dont belong. Theyre going to look for that smoking gun piece of information. Youre a former assistant director of the fbi, yet even if it look like its going some place sinister, there could be a logical explanation. If its going to the circle they have put on the globe in the indian ocean, theres nothing sinister about going to australia. Air malaysia flies to almost every major city in australia already. If he did search going to those location, it may be that hes got an upcoming flight to one of those airports or hes going to request being able to fly there if they have him on a regular beijing route, maybe he wants to go to sydney or perth or brisbane. Youre hearing from your sources that theyre pretty confident these fbi experts, that they can retrieve what was deleted on these personal computers as well as on the sim later. To a point. Theyre confident they can retrieve something. They say t like fitting together pieces of a puzzle. And these are teams that thats their job. Theyve got an expertise in looking on computers for things that people dont want to find on computers, so if you had a team who could pull it off, it would be this team. What do you make of the fact that the computer in the cockpit that they had a different flight path that was programmed about 12 minutes before that copilot said to ground control, all right, good night . I still dont know how that information with that 12 minutes really came from it came from Law Enforcement source whos been briefed. Okay. My understanding of how that system would work, it wouldnt know that on the ground. That could have been programmed on the ground at kuala lumpur from one of the pilots or somebody getting into the cockpit. I dont know that that system actually would allow that transfer of information back to the its likely supposed to go from kuala lumpur to beijing, nonstop, five hour flight. Why would someone program in on the ground that its going to go somewhere else to the west . Well, thats the point. Somebody could have done it. On the ground or even in the air, but i dont know someone mischievously would go into the cockpit before the pilot and copilot checked all the systems . No, it would have had to have been after they checked all the systems because youd get a flight plan from your operations, youd check that against the computers. Youve been on commercial flights when youve seen pilots get out of the cockpit and go to the bathroom. Go to talk to some of the passengers and people have been in the cockpit. Certainly at that point, something could be done. Or weve heard before that this has, flights allowed other people into the cockpit. Its possible somebody could have tampered with it at that point. What are you hearing . You know whats interesting about this, in the investigation, the investigators, the u. S. , the malaysians, are using what they never have before. Its partly because you dont have a plane. Its also because planes, devices, everything we do today has more data than before and the coverage of the earth, satellites, radar, wireless communications, ar cars and the engines, these are systems that did not exist five, ten, 15 years ago. Also i think relevant, reporting on the nsa story, the nsa is not spying here, but it is an example of the society that we live in today, where theres data coming from everything we sit in, ride in, use, talk on in a number of directions at any time an this is helping investigators. Also, wolf, you want to know whats the bases of the investigation. If theyre saying we saw this on the ground, the computer change, that would be one thing, but it seems like theyre saying the flight turned so smoothly, it must have been programmed. They couldnt tell you for sure if it went up 43,000 feet, down. It was tat edge of the radar zone, so it wasnt precise enough. Suddenly, its precise enough to know the turn. Getting new information, stand by, up next, the cnn correspondent ready to go out on a u. S. Search flight, but the american plane is refused permission to fly over Indonesian Air space. Ill have a Us Navy Commander in the region, what is going on. 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Sometimes we trip ourselves up. And although the mistakes may seem to just keep coming at you, so do the solutions. Like multipolicy discounts from Liberty Mutual insurance. Save up to 10 just for combining your auto and home insurance. Call Liberty Mutual insurance at. [ thump ] to speak with an Insurance Expert and ask about all the personalized savings available for when you get married, move into a new house, or add a car to your policy. Personalized coverage and savings. All the things humans need to make our world a little less imperfect. Call. And ask about all the ways you could save. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . Welcome back to our continuing coverage. Lets take a closer look at this new search area, which apparently is narrowing, yet is still about the size of the state of new mexico. Tom foreman is joining us from our virtual studio. Hi, wolf. It can look as if this is somewhat chaotic when we see how this has changed daytoday. Especially when we look at these two arcs, the northern and now, the southern. Why are they focusing so much on the southern now . This is the basian theory. They have chosen this place off the coast of australia, because as they have adjusted the probableties, based on all the evidence they have, it started pointing more this direction. Talk about what it means to search an area like that because we know they have focus on this area now. We know they have this information to look here, but this is part of what tells us how intense this is. If you were out searching this, it would be a very difficult task because spotting anything on the water is hard. Even for train eed searchers. There are glares that come across the water. White caps and other debris that make it difficult to see. Also, this, the p8 poseidon. This is considered the stateoftheart right now for submarine hunting in the world. This plane has been sent down to that quadrant, specifically because it can look past all the things we cant see with our eyes. With its radar, it can search thousands of miles in a day looking for any sign of debris, thats why its in the quadrant and thats what tells us this is important, but i want to make a real point here. Even if you find debris on the surface, thats just the beginning because if we were to fly down from that high level down to the water and then below the water, what you wind up with is what could be the actual resting place of this plane if it in fact has been lost in the indian ocean and down there, two miles deep, more in some places, you will find mountains and valleys and all sorts of things that make the search even harder once youve narrowed it down to a real place to search. Thank you. Lets bring in two experts to discuss. Colleen keller helped with the air france airliner in 2009 and peter golds, a former managing director of the National Transportation safety board. Colleen, you helped with the search for the air France Flight 447. It took five days to find some initial debris, but then another two years to recover the flight data recorder. Give us a sense of how daunting this current challenge is. Well, if you compare it to the air france search, its much more daunting, wolf. This area is much larger and we still dont have a very good motivation for what happened to the plane. Whether it was a hijacking or some kind of mechanical failure. We knew in the air france search that we were looking at a mechanical failure that brought the plane down within four minutes of the last known point. Here, we dont have that kind of information. If the airplane did go into the water or over land, we dont know how it struck the surface or really anything. Were still searching in what we call a wide area search using wide area search centers. The first few days were wasteded basically. They were lookinging in the totally wrong area. It was an oil slick that had developed, that is long disapated and youre not going to find that now. Absolutely. We ran a wild goose chase during the most critical part of the search and colleen is being a little modest. Two years, that was a recovery. They did an extraordinary job on finding that plane. As she said, they had a hint of where it was. We have no hint where this plane is. And so, colleen, if they really dont, if theyre just looking randomly out there with planes and ships and satellites, whatever, give us a little sense of do you believe its possible they may never recover this aircra aircraft . Well, yesterday, i was saying that, but today, im very encouraged weve narrowed the search area down at least to the southern half. Weve focused on half of the original search area, so thats an improvement off the bat. We do need more data. We need to bring it down much more before we get any sensors in the water. How do you get that data is this. Well, i keep hoping that somebodys military is going to step forward with some secret information, but as far as i know, theres none to date, but that would be wonderful. If we could get one electronic hit from a cell phone, from an emitter or the plane, a sighting, that would do it. That would nail it down. Because peter, as you know, theres a lot of suspicious out there, some of the countries in that area, in that region, they dont trust each other, that somebody might be withholding critical information. We have the Thai Government saying, nobody asked. We dont know if theres covert activities or station or listening devices. Perhaps in the ocean floor. That might have picked up something. Were just hoping the powers at be are going to come clean. Colleen, if you were involved in this search, what would you be recommending right now . We would love to get involved and use the same basian techniques we useded for the air france search. Its very important to be documenting everything youre looking, the time spent, altitude, sensors, weather conditions. This helps us evaluate how effective that search was and reduce the probability that they contain the target and its not clear that we have all that information being recorded at this point. Thanks very much. Youll be back, were standing by to talk to a Us Navy Commander whos in touch with the search area. Well also dig deeper on todays news that fbi experts there, they are now examining the computer hard drive. The software from the pilots personal Flight Simulator. Plus, back the new information, were revying our own timeline of the night the flight disappeared and its raising a glaring question. Why didnt malaysia do something as soon as the plane disappeared . Are you flo . 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In quantico, virginia, theyre combing through the hard drives that include software owned by the planes captain. Why . Some data has been deleted from the simulator and work to retrieve this is ongoing. Investigators arent saying what data was deleted or if the captain or someone else deleted it. As one simulator user said, all of us load and delete files in the sim continuously. 777 pilot les abe said he may have felt there wasnt enough space and may have deleted a basic Training Exercise or may have been embarrassed. But some say it is suspicious. The files are tiny and if they were just in a casual flight just for entertainment or for practice, thats why it would never be saved and there would be no need to delete it. A Company Called pmdg, manufacturer of the software captain shah used in his simulator said he had no relation to them. In an email, they defended shah, saying those who connect his love of flight simulation to the planes disappearance are engaging in wild conjecture thats insulting to pilots. If it was deleted, how do they reconstruct it . Its taking a known, good image of that data. Because theyre familiar with the program, they have an edge. So, they can go in, they can get an idea of the overall structure of that data and what it looks like on the inside of the file. From that point, they can go on to the pilots hard drive and search on that for the specific signatures. But jason, he says time elapsed is key. Just a couple of days had passed, he said it would be fairly easy to recover that data, but the data was deleted february 3rd, more than a month before the flight disappeared. He said they could still retrieve the material, but the time between the material was taken out and the plane had disappeared, a lot of other data could have smudged that footprint, it could be tougher to find it if its the month between the time of the lapse and the time the plane disappeared. Do we know if the pilot tried to protect any of the data that was encrypted, for example . A Law Enforcement source says its unclear. All of that information could tell them if it was a routine deletion or if someone was trying to cover their tracks. Thanks very much for that. Up next, were going to take you inside the crucial moments of the night flight 370 disappeared. Why did malaysia wait so long to sound the alarm after it was obvious something had gone so terribly wrong. So our business can be on at ts network for 175 a month . Yup. All 5 of you for 175. Our clients need a lot of attention. Theres unlimited talk and text. Were working deals all day. You get 10 gigabytes of data to share. 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And so, you know, our thoughts and prayers are with the families, but i want them to be assured that we consider this a top priority and were going to keep on working. Lets get some analysis. Peter is here. So, the president of the United States, he says this is a top priority. Youve been involved in these investigations when you were at the ntsb. When he says that, practically speaking, what does that do to the men and women who are involved in the effort, as well as the Foreign Countries who have to be out there on the front lines . Two things. For the americans, everyone takes notice. They say, all right, the president wants us to do this. If they werent on their tiptoes, theyre on it now and they want to see something happen. Secondly, its encouraging the malaysians, who have started to share more materials that are critical to the investigation. With the u. S. Over the past four days. It says to them, i see that, keep doing it. Were going to throw everything we can at it. So, its an important statement, sort of encouragement from the president. I assume when you were involved in these negotiations, your reports would go to the white house. We would keep the white house informed on a regular basis on our foreign investigations. So, the president now says this is a top priority and were going to keep working on it. Stand by, todays new revelations as well as the ongoing clarifications from authorities keep changing everyones understanding of what happened on the night this flight disappeared. Renee, youve put together a new timeline incorporating the latest information coming up. This is day 12 were talking about here, since flight 370 took off from kuala lumpur and its where abouts are still unknown. This has become a longest search for a plane in recent history, so tonight, we look at the timeline of events we know so far. Airport security cameras apparently capture the captain and first officer of flight 370 reporting for duty. March 8th, 12 41 a. M. , the red eye flight with 239 people on board depart for beijing. Sometime after takeoff, u. S. Officials say it appears someone in the cockpit programs an unexpected left turn. 1 07, the last transmission about the health of the plane. 1 19, the last radio transmissi transmission, all right, good night, believed to be from the copilot. All i could tell, it was a routine operation. 1 21, the transponder stops. Flight 370 disappears from air Traffic Control radar. The plane flies 100 miles off the coast of the peninsula. Next, it turns left, off its scheduled course. 1 28, thai radar detects whats believed to be flight 370, headed towards kuala lumpur, then turning west. Loses all contact with the plane. 1 37, next expected transmission never happens. 2 15, malaysian military radar detects whats believed to be the plane hundreds of miles off course. 2 40, Authorities Say air Traffic Control alerts Malaysia Airlines its lost contact with the plane. 3 45, a code red alert from Malaysia Airlines. 6 30, flight 370s expected rival time in beijing. 7 24, six hours after the plane flew off course, Malaysia Airlines publicly announces flight 370 is missing. 8 11, more than seven hours after takeoff, a satellite makes the last electronic connection with the plane. Somewhere along these two arcs, a sign the plane was still in tact with power on. After the airline was told its plane was missing, it waited another four and a half hours before it told the public. The airline says it first checked every communication possible. That meant contacting other air Traffic Controllers and aircraft fl flying in the area to make sure they hadnt made contact with this aircraft. They wanted to make sure it was tr truly missing. Was that the wise, correct steps that the malaysian government and Malaysian Airlines took . Plane goes missing and you wait four and a half hours before you alert people theres a plane missing . Theres a moment of absolute disbelief. This cant be happening. There must be some mistake. And then it went on for four and a half hours. They would call the cockpit and they get no answer and so, they must be freaking out. They are. But theyre trying every other option other than the dreaded, weve had an accident, or the plane is gone. They waited too long. Theres no question. And did they alert others, vietnam, singapore, china, other countries that may have been in that flight path, hey, we got a plane thats missing, help us . They undoubtedly called them, what did you see, im not sure it was the greatest response. They said, no, we never picked it up. Pretty shocking. It is and im just wondering in your experience, in the United States, had that happened here, what do you think tspan o time would have been . Minutes. What would have happened within minutes . There would have been calls going on. When a plane goes off, they get very nervous, very quickly. Particularly because of 9 11. And they start procedures, they start trying to reach that plane. They reach other planes nearby. You can hear it on the tower calls from twa flight 800. There were three or four planes that were immediately calling in. They were reaching out to other aircraft, so it would be minutes. Tell other pilots maybe flying along that route, have you seen anything, have you seen this plane . Theres a plane missing. Would you scramble military jets to send them up in the sky . Only if they had a place to go. If the plane was flying and did not ident, you would do that. But you would certainly contact other planes, say try to reach out to them. Maybe theyre communications to the controller is out, try aircraft to aircraft communications. They would try everything. So, in your mind, you drop the ball as far as what we know right now, air traffic would you say or i think clearly, you start with air Traffic Control. Malaysian air Traffic Control. Its their responsibility to track the aircraft and when it goes off the screen, its their responsibility to raise the alarm immediately. All right, guys, stand by. Coming up, a onehour special edition of the situation room. Were getting new information about how flight 370s guidance computer was reprogrammed. Much more right after this. Check it out. I cant believe your mom has a mom cave today i have new campbells chunky spicy chicken quesadilla soup. She gives me chunky before every game. Im very souperstitious. 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Its connecting over one million lowincome americans to Broadband Internet at home. Its a place named one americas most veteran friendly employers. Next is information and entertainment in ways you never thought possible. Welcome to whats next. Comcastnbcuniversal. As the hunt for the missing airliner focuses in on the southern indian ocean, were learning that aus search plane has been unable to complete its mission. Atika shubert was set to fly on the airplane. She explains what happens. Reporter as you can see the plane is all set to go but its been delayed for hours. A big frustration for the crew because they dont have clearance to fly over indonesia to begin their search. While they wait for clearance t the crew goes over the plan. The p 3orion was originally meant to hunt for submarines. Weve already done five missions so far. Can you run us through what you do with each mission . I run the radar, the meds system and the camera. The radar is a primary sensor for search. Anything large in the water will show up on my radar. Ill take the camera, zoom in on it and make sure that its nothing of interest. But if its something that might be of interest, then well drop down low and use observers, the flight station and our eyes just to make sure that its nothing that could be, you know, survivor wreckage or anything like that. Atika shubert reporting. Lets bring in the former assistant fbi director. Pretty shocking that indonesia wouldnt let this u. S. Plane they had to cancel the whole flight. The crew members, the plane, the p3. They wasted a whole day they could have been searching. Indonesia wouldnt let this plane fly through its air space. How do you explain that . Cant, wolf. Seems outrageous to me also. We dont know what channels they asked for or if it got stuck in the midlevel of their bureaucracy. But you would think that would be something that the ambassador could straighten out very quickly with the highest levels of their government and Defense Ministry and say what are you doing and get that resolved. Only indonesia can explain their decision. This is really an outrage. Well make sure it doesnt happen again. Well get back to our coverage of flight 370 in just a moment. But first another urgent story were monitoring. Crimea stands on the brink of a potentially bloody conflict. Armed russian supporters stormed ukraines naval headquarters and kidnapped ukraines navy chief. Ukraines acting president demanded his return warning ukraine would take action. The siege comes one day after a ukrainian soldier was killed, another wounded. Lets go to ivan watson. Hes joining us from kiev. This looks ominous right now. It does. I mean, what we see is a pattern now developing on the crimean peninsula, a day after the russians declared they were annexing this piece of ukrainian territory where these troops without insignia and groups of prorussian militia members take over Ukrainian Military bases. Its happened a couple times now. As you mentioned yun ukrainian soldier killed yesterday with a gunshot that the Russian Military has denied came from their direction. The Ukrainian Government is trying to put up its tough stand. It has announced that it is going to impose visa restrict n restrictions on its neighbor russia, on its citizens crossing the border. It has announced that it is going to ask the United Nations to declare crimea a Demilitarized Zone which would allow it to then pull its troops, thousands of troops out of crimea, but the fact of the matter is very quickly russias allies on the ground in crimea are establishing facts on the ground. Theyre pushing out the ukrainian troops base by base and so far the ukrainian troops do not seem to be firing back. Wolf . What are the chances that serious conflict actually could break out between ukraine and russia . Well, thats a really important question right now. The Ukrainian Government has announced its put its military on combat readiness. It has announced partial mobilization of its military. Its calling up reservists. Its recruiting people. Weve been to recruiting centers. Young men, older men lining up saying they want to come up and defend their country, theyre signing up by the hundreds every day were being told. And the ukrainians are really preparing their border defenses as well. The idea of a conflict erupting between these two nations is hard to imagine. Its like Canada Fighting the u. S. These are two countries with the same languages, but it does seem like ukraine is getting pushed into a situation where it feels like it will have no choice but to defend itself, wolf. Ivan watson in kiev, all right, thank you. Coming up a onehour special edition of the situation room. Were following all of todays new developments in the mystery surrounding flight 370 including new information about the change in the airliners flight path. My dad has aor afib. Brillation, he has the most common kind. Its not caused by a heart valve problem. Dad, it says your afib puts you at 5 times greater risk of a stroke. Thats why i take my warfarin every day. But it looks like maybe we should ask your doctor about pradaxa. In a clinical trial, pradaxa® Dabigatran Etexilate mesylate . Was proven superior to warfarin at reducing the risk of stroke. And unlike warfarin, with no regular blood tests or dietary restrictions. Hey thanks for calling my doctor. Sure. Pradaxa is not for people with artificial heart valves. Dont stop taking pradaxa without talking to your doctor. Stopping increases your risk of stroke. Ask your doctor if you need to stop pradaxa before surgery or a medical or dental procedure. Pradaxa can cause serious, sometimes fatal, bleeding. Dont take pradaxa if you have abnormal bleeding or have had a heart valve replaced. Seek immediate medical care for unexpected signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. Pradaxa may increase your bleeding risk if youre 75 or older, have a bleeding condition or stomach ulcer, take aspirin, nsaids, or blood thinners. Or if you have kidney problems, especially if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctors about all medicines you take. Pradaxa side effects include indigestion, stomach pain, upset, or burning. If you or someone you love has afib not caused by a heart valve problem. Ask your doctor about reducing the risk of stroke with pradaxa. At farmers we make you smarter about your insurance, because what you dont know can hurt you. What if you didnt know that taking pictures of your belongings helps when you have a claim . Or that farmers offers a policy thatll replace your car with a new one, if its totalled within the first two model years. And that parking near a street lamp deters thieves. The more you know, the better you can plan for whats ahead. Talk to farmers and get smarter about your insurance. We are farmers. Call 18004708502 and see how much you can save. Happening now a special report on the mystery of Malaysia Airline flight 370. New clue, investigators make an intriguing discover be the planes route change. Was it programmed to be done automatically . The search narrows. The massive operation is now focusing in on one specific area as malaysian officials reveal theyve received new radar data. What does this show . Families anguished. Emotional outbursts as relatives of passengers reach a breaking point. What are they demanding the airline do . Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. In just the last few hours weve learned of some significant new developments in the search for Malaysia Flight 370. A federal official has just told cnn new clues suggest the dramatic route change that sent the plane heading west toward the indian ocean may have been programmed into the planes computer to be executed automatically. Also, malaysian officials now say theyve received new radar data from another country, but they wont reveal who provided the data or what they show. And the fbi is now looking at the Flight Simulator seizeded from the pilots home. Experts are trying to recover some deleted files that could potentially contain some critical clues. Our correspondents and analysts are working all angle of this story using cnns unparalleled global resources. Lets start with cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr. She has breaking news on the search for this flight. What are you hearing over there, barbara . Reporter look, wolf, theres growing worry behind the scenes that the world may be running out of time to find this airliner. Every day brings everything closer to that 30day limit before the recorders stop transmitting. The australians have now narrowed down some of the search area, but there is still a lot of water to cover. The u. S. Believes Malaysia Airlines flight 370 most likely fell somewhere within 230,000 square miles of water off australia. Based on the latest technical analysis, the immediate search is zeroing in here. A u. S. Navy p8 Surveillance Aircraft searched 1500 miles west of perth. There are now 26 countries, 60 ships and 50 aircraft joining the hunt under australian coordination. Commercial satellites are also scouring the ocean. The shear size of the search area posing a huge challenge. Reporter raising the question if the plane will ever be found. I would lean more towards the if we find debris can we find enough debris to really ascertain precisely where the aircraft wreckage is if it is on the bottom of the ocean. It really in my mind is an if situation. Reporter the search is based on radar and other data calculated by the u. S. National Transportation Safety board, the faa, the malaysians and other experts. The starting point . Transmissions from the airliner. Those transmissions were detected by a Communications Satellite over the indian ocean, and with the time of those communications and the distance, they cant plot an exact position for each one, but sequentially they can built up into a possible route that the aircraft took. Reporter but the data is now changing every day. The search area is here based on the last one of those reports. What would likely happen to the aircraft after that. And it has then been moved to account for Water Movement and weather. Reporter the malaysians hinting they may have additional clues. I can confirm that we have received some radar data, but we are not at liberty to release information from other countries. Reporter and what about that northern sector, those 11 countries in asia . Well a search still goes on there, but no verified reports of any aircraft crash or landing. So as the days go on, at least u. S. Officials continue to believe that the flight is somewhere in the indian ocean. Wolf . Barbara starr at the pentagon, thank you. I want to go to commander william marx, aboard the uss blue ridge command ship. Weve been checking in with you every day. Any luck today . Any closer to finding this plane . Yesterday we had another flight out of perth. This one went to the west. Once again, no Nothing Associated with wreckage or debris. The ranges are increasing. So in one aspect, thats a positive that were getting out there more and more, but its still a challenge. Even with the ranges, so what you have to realize is when youre flying these p8s and p3s, theyre flying a Straight Line then once out there you have to calculate the time and come back. So if theyre flying at their max range which is well over a thousand miles. Were talking 1200, 1500 miles. Once they get there, they have a smaller amount of on station time, so then they have to come back. Even though we can get out to these ranges with these various aircraft, the search time out there is pretty short. So huge area, still a challenge, but we are getting pretty far out there. Heres a Disturbing Development today, commander, that p3 that was supposed to leave kuala lumpur and fly out there, it stayed on the ground, was canceled. That operation was scrubbed today because indonesia refused to allow this u. S. Plane authority, permission to fly over, through its air space. How is that possible . The report ive seen, it was a difficult situation. I cant get into any of the discussions on the ground. I wasnt personally there, but from what i understand, were looking at it. And this is an international effort. Its not just one country. Its not the United States alone, its not indonesia alone. Were looking at it. I cant really give you any details on what happened on the ground there, but im confident were going to be flying if not today than very soon up in the northern sector. Because thats pretty outrageous when you think about it. The search is desperate, every day is desperate out there. Could be locating something, that p3, that orion plane just wasting an entire day there on the ground because indonesia says it cant fly through its air space. Thats pretty outrageous, i must say. Yesterday you suggested youre looking at the possibility of increasing your Aerial Assets in the region, bringing more planes in. Have you made a decision on that front . Right now were working with all of our international partners. Australia has a number of p3s, india has 3ps. Right now what were doing is looking at this International Coalition and looking at our assets. We havent made a decision yet. Thats something to look at for the future. What about submarines . Are you willing to tell us whether any sub marines are being brought into this search . Great question. I actually get asked that a lot based on, one, could the aircraft have sunk and the other is the black box. If its pinging below the surface. Right now movement of submari submarines, i cant tell you where submarines are and i cant tell you if were going to move them there. We have a number of submarines in the seventh fleet. And once again seventh fleet stretches from north of japan all the way south to australia. There are submarines on assignment through all that area. So the movement of submarines is a very sensitive issue. I cant discuss it at this point. I know, the policy is the u. S. Navy never discussing submarines, where they are, what theyre doing. Lets talk about this more restricted limited air space, the space in the indian ocean youre now looking at the size of the continental United States now about the size of the state of new mexico. Should we conclude from that that youre making progress and narrowing in the possibility where this plane might be . Well, every time we fly we cover a pretty big chunk of area. So the p3, as it flies out, it will fly typically at about 5,000 feet or so and the radar looking down at the surface covers an area of each side 10 to 20 miles. So youre getting a large swath of water space just as it flies out. Then once again depending on how far it is, when it gets there, it will have some onstation time left. And that onstation time is where it can do a pattern search going back and forth and recover that box or a chunk of water. So it is encouraging. Were getting some pretty good ranges out there. Im encouraging that were now covering the Southern Sector which at first it wasnt covered very well by assets. So you know every day that goes by and we cover another 15,000 square miles, its a positive. Commander, good luck to you. Well check back with you as we have every day. Commander william marks. Hes aboard the ship in the pacific. Our chief National Security correspondent jim sciutto is watching whats going on. Were told the planes route may have changed, may have changed because it was preprommed into the flight management system. What are you learned . This new information indicates that when this plane took the familiar turn to the west, it followed two geographic way points that planes use to navigate their route, but it followeded them so precisely, it would indicate that the plane was on auto pilot under the control of the computers rather than the pilot because the pilot would make less exacting moves than the computer would. This corroborates the idea that this turn was programmed, premeditated as opposed to a sudden reaction to some event in the cockpit of the plane. What are you finding out about the new radar data that the maam asi malas asians rece they did say they received new information today. We already know that thailand has provided its information. Malaysia itself has talked about how the plane passed three of its own radar search areas. We know another country is providing its data. In addition to pakistan and india saying that their radar showed nothing of interest passing through the area at the time. What that is giving us, a further sense that this northern area, you have a lot of radar coverage here, satellite coverage in the sky. This is what u. S. Officials are telling me. If theyve not found a sign of the plane to this point amid all that radar and satellite coverage, this is why more and more theyre focusing on this area here, that smaller and smaller search area that barbara is describing in part because the coverage is up here and getting better. Come over to the table here. Lets continue the conversation. We have a panel of Experts Joining us. Michael schmidt is here from the new york times. Our avs analyst, the former nstb managing director peter gold is with us and former fbi assistant director tom fuentes. How hard to go through the hard drives, to go through the Flight Simulator that the pilot had in the home and go through the hard drives and find out if anything suspicious is there . It will depend on how the files were deleted and whether the files were overwritten after they were deleted. People think when they delete a computer file that its gone, its erased off the hard drive. It really is not. First letter of the name might be taken off so that you cant locate it. When you ask your computer how much memory i have, it would tell you that its all the memory including those files that have been deleted. When you save the next file, it may write over a file you previously deleted or corrupt a previously deleted file. That would make it more difficult. Kind of like a gps system, you have 20 previous destinations, when you put in the 21st, it erases the first, when you put in 22, it erases the second because theres only so much date that that can be held. If you reformat the hard drive what the forensic cyber people refer to as nuking it, it wipes everything off, you would have to reinstall the operating systems, the software from the start. President obama today for the First Time Since this plane went missing what about almost two weeks ago, he spoke out, he was interviewed by kdfw and he said this. We have put every resource that we have available at the disposal of the search process. Theres been close cooperation with the malaysian government and so not just ntsb but fbi, you know, anybody who typically deals with anything related to our Aviation System is available. So our thoughts and prayers are with the families but i want them to be assured that we consider this a top priority and were going to keep working it. Thats the president. Michael schmidt of the new york times, youve been doing serious reporting on this since the beginning of this mystery, since the beginning of this search. I take it everyone in the u. S. Government who deals with aviation, as the president said, this is priority number one. Yeah, we were actually seeing Something Interesting today about what happened over the weekend, when they sat down with the malaysian Prime Minister. They basically said, hey, you are looking in the wrong area. You need to be looking here. This is why we think this. Within hours the malaysian Prime Minister said were going to look elsewhere. This was sort of the first example of the u. S. Saying, hey, let us help you here a little bit. Now we see this development with the fbi today that the malaysians seem to be sort of coming along. Secretary of defense chuck hagel called his counterpart yesterday and said, hey, we think you should have a little more transparency on this. Its taken a long time but the u. S. Has seen some things that make it feel a little bit better but obviously theres no sign of anything. As you well know there was a lot of waste in the first several days of this. The first few days were really pitiful. I mean, we were looking in the wrong direction, there was no coordination. I think this is good news. The last three or four days appears to be more focused. The president s remarks will keep the americans focused but also lets the malaysians know that the resources are there. Use them. Still pretty shocking to me and im sure it is to you that indonesia, a neighbor over there, would not allow this u. S. Aircraft to fly through its air space to search in the indian ocean for this plane . It does show, though, the sensitivities in that region. We talked about that a bit this week. Youve got a lot of capabilities there that these countries dont want to reveal. Thats played out with the radar data. Yes, another country shared radar data in the last 24 hours but why not the first 24 hours . Thats the kind of thing thats been slow going and these road blocks certainly dont help. Interesting to hear the president say the u. S. Is offering all available resources because listening in to commander marks, he tended to acknowledge something that they tend not to acknowledge, that there are submarines involved in the search. There are sub ma remarines runn around under the ocean. But theyre helping under the water and over the water with planes as well. They feel like theyre making progress. They see at least a little glimmer of light at the end of this mystery . No, i dont think so. Theyre focused on the pilots and the investigation has a focus that it didnt have a week ago. But and they have these computers where they think they may get some raanswer, but beyo that theyre narrowing in the ocean and looking at a hard drive. I dont know anything more than i did just a few days ago. We do know when it flew to the left that it was preprogrammed and it was when they said good night, but what does that mean . We still dont know. A lot of questions we dont know. So frustrating. Remember 239 people were aboard that plane. The families are going through agony. Well have much more on this part of the story coming up. Stand by. Copies from the hard drive of the inhome Flight Simulator. Can the experts recover the deleted files . The wait is too much for the families of some passengers. Well show you some extremely emotional scenes. 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Pamela brown is working this part of the story for us. Youre learning fascinating new details. Reporter i just spoke with a u. S. Official involved with the investigation who says figuring out whats on the simulators hard drive is a top priority. Its being handled with a great deal of urgency because right now its the biggest stroke of evidence we have right now. Theyre trying to rebuild the pieces of data that were deleted more than a month ago according to malaysian officials. Sources say fbi agents are already combing through the hard drive from the Flight Simulator inside the home of captain zaharie ak med shah. It confirms that files have been deleted. They are oftentimes able to retrieve files that appear to have been deleted but actually werent. There are artifacts of those files that are left on the harddrive. Reporter while experts in quantico, virginia, are trying to retrieve missing files from that hard drive theyre looking at how the data was deleting. If you were just deleting files off the hard drive to provide more room, youd delete it once. You wouldnt go through the extra effort to completely destroy the file and make it unretreevlable. Reporter they are baffled because they let that computer in the pilots house for more than a week before retrieving it. Only some of the data was deleted and theres no indication that the pilot was trying to cover his tracks. I would like to take this opportunity to state that the pilots and the passengers and the crew remain innocent until proven otherwise. Reporter the most important piece of evidence is yet to be found, the plane itself. You have to look at the totality of the evidence. Its just not there right now. The most important piece will be when you find the physical structure. That will demonstrate whether it was mechanical failure or intentional act. You will start to backtrack whether its hijacking, pilot action or terrorism. While there are experts with Sophisticated Technology looking at the hard drive in quantico right now, its a complicated multilayered process. It could take some time until we have a complete picture of whats on the hard drive. As one of my sources with the investigation put it, it could end up being an insignificant detail in the process. We just dont know right now. Lets bring in our Law Enforcement analyst into this investigation. There could be major developments discovered on the hard drives but as pam says, there might be nothing. Most of the people i talked to, wolf, are really leaning toward probably not a lot. Because if he had put in destinations that are somewhat suspicious and exotic, we know he used that simulator for recreation. It might have been just for the heck of it. There ar lot of destinations all over australia, major cities of china, that the Malaysian Airlines flies to. As a senior captain he could be getting ready to change routes and this week it was beijing and next week it might be sydney, australia or tokyo or some other place. You just dont know. And additionally, not only the major cities they fly to, but when they file the International Flight plan, they have to designate alternate cities that may not be where they fly to ever but lets say they discover he deleted some simulation that he had to go to somalia or pakistan, not the regular routes that Malaysia Airlines nice . Would that presumably be some sort of rehearsal . Thats the suspicion out there. Could be a rehearsal thats where he was going to take the plane and its completely sinister. Could be he wanted to see whats it like to go there, whats the air space like, whats the mountains like around that . You just dont know and you still wont know. Youll have to read his mind as to why he wanted to put those destinations in and practice it. Pamela, i assume fbi source youre talking to, theyre happy it might be late but theyre glad the malaysians are sharing this data. As one of my sources put it were in a dramatically different posture with the malaysians than we were at the beginning of this investigation. But still the malaysians have not put in a formal request with the state department to send over an fbi team to malaysia to help with this investigation. So theyre Still Limited in what they can do but this is certainly progress that theyre able to analyze the hard drive. Should have done this from the beginning, but you live and learn. Pamela brown, tom fuentes, thanks to you as well. Heartbreaking scenes in kuala lumpur where some passengers are enduring an excruciating wait for any information about the planes fate. Today some just couldnt take it any longer and their emotions boiled over. [ speaking Foreign Language ]