simply based on this satellite communications link, they were able to identify earlier this week these two corridors, one that stretches down into the southern indian ocean, and the other that stretches up to kazakhstan. my read of it, is that there was sufficient fuel to reach both of those corridors, that is why the data was laid out in this way. okay, what do we know about the maldives and the reports of this low flying jet with the malaysian air markings, that came from a number of sources. they re foreign, we know it was a daily news report out of maldives, do we know anything about that? there was no independent reporting or confirmation from u.s. officials on that report, but what they emphasized today, when you look to the southern indian ocean, they have what they call black spots or big gaps in the surveillance system, it s hard to imagine in an era where almost everything seems to be under surveillance, there is not complete satellite coverage,
there s not complete satellite coverage and certainly not military coverage, because that s specifically or generally limited to the land bases. so to answer your specific question, there was not independent confirmation of that reporting. i have a pilot friend of mine that alerted me to the federal register. in this register, they talk specifically about what is somewhat of a defect on the boeing triple 7, which raises the possibility of a cyber hijacking. somebody could be sitting in the back of a plane and perhaps alter the trajectory of the plane and turn off the transponder. anybody talking about that in washington tonight? significantly based on my reporting today, this was really the first time that a source familiar with the investigation said to me very specifically that there was no evidence. they had seen no evidence that the plane had gone down. now that seems to be obvious on its face, but it s the first time i had heard it phrased in that way. as to a potential cyber
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 they ve not found a sign of the plane to this point amid all that radar and satellite coverage, this is why more and more they re 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. let s 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
calculating all that data from the time they lost contact from the last transmission of the airplane, that s how they come to this box they re 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 i ve spoken so says they ve genuinely believe most likely it is somewhere sadly in the indian ocean and why do they say this? of course, it s 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.
malaysian authorities say that is still indispute. australian officials say that information from the u.s. s national transportation safety board helped them refine the area they re searching to the southern most part of the plane s route. one us navy aircraft is helping out in that area. let s bring in jim. give us the big picture here about the focal points. we talkeded about these two routes. the northern and southern. u.s. officials i ve talked to are becoming more focuseded here. one republican because there s a lot hoff radar coverage here. china in the west, pakistan, india, and they feel if the plane had come north, thosery darr stations would have been likely to pick it up. the u.s. also has a lot of satellite coverage here and they haven t picked up wreckage from the plane. they haven t eliminated this, but as they focus south off the coast of australia, they re even able to refine that area more so