looking for missing flight 370. michael holmes is live in perth, and nic robertson in kuala lumpur. nick, good morning to you down under. what is the latest on the bluefin mission? ongoing again? reporter: yeah, it is ongoing. we re waiting to get the latest update from the search organizers. it should have been in by now, and you think about it now, bill, that is three out of five missions had some sort of trouble. the fifth mission was aborted shortly after launch due to some problems with the navigation system, we re told. that is according to the u.s. navy. since the bluefin did not go to the ocean floor, of course, there was no side scan sonar data to review on that mission. of course, the bluefin-21 was relaunched. we re told it is on its sixth mission. there were no problems with the
of any investigation of this nature is having to deal with the families. in our case, we are dealing with 14 different nationals. so just focusing on the chinese families, i think is not fair to the other nationals who do not have the same problems. yeah, well, a lot of the families here would say they don t feel as if they really have had the adequate answers and wouldn t put themselves on a par with the families waiting for information from that air france flight. they really feel the malaysian authorities have been coming up short on this one, bill. okay, nic robertson in malaysia tonight, thank you. and let s talk about the developments today or the lack thereof, with mary schiavo, department of transportation attorney for victims, and david souci, author of why planes crash good to have you both back with us. let s talk about the bluefin-21. this is interesting, this came from angus houston, this is a
no word on they have found. and nic robertson in kuala lumpur. we saw numbers, nic, in terms of the cost of this search. nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. is that a projected cost or is that up until right now? day 42? reporter: yeah, that is the projected cost, bill. it basically says look, when this current search area which is a limited area is done, if nothing is found there then there will be another search area back along the arc of the sort of satellite track, 30 miles long, and across. when you get into that and start to work on that that the costs this is what the cost projection looks at. so a quarter of a billion dollars potentially. we re not there yet. but of course somebody has got to pay for this. and that discussion is already under way, bill.
but the search area around where the pings are is a lot more concentrated. it is less than a thousand kilometers. they do say at walking pace which is what the bluefin does it could take six weeks to more than a month to cover the search area. you know, bill, you mentioned that oil slick that was near the ocean shield vessel. and they have brought that back to shore. it took a while, you have to think, it is a thousand miles off the coast, 1600 kilometers. they had to get a ship out to the area, fly that back with it, get that to shore with the helicopter to fly off. so the logistics here are remarkable. we expect results from the analysis within the hours to come, bill. within the hours, all right, thank you very much. let s go to nic robertson in kuala lumpur. we talk about the families, and they have seen all sorts of mood
cell phone providers providing different services here. so, it just adds layer after layer of complexity to the investigation, but any handshaking between a phone and a cell tower as it passed over the malaysian peninsula is going to be hugely informative for investigators, christine. of course. all right, nic robertson in kuala lumpur. thank you, nic. ukraine this morning is teetering on the brink of civil war, many believe. the government now is asking for international peacekeepers to help it deal with pro-russian militants, and those militants have taken over government buildings and refused to step down. and despite promises that ukrainian security forces will move in and force them out, no major operation has begun yet. last night, president obama and president of russia, vladimir putin, they spoke, trading barbs over who is behind the escalating violence. phil black is live in kharkiv, ukraine, with the latest. phil, tell us more about that conversation and what you re seein