>> reporter: not items from a landfall but from the ocean, more specifically the end ocean gyre, essentially a garbage patch swirling with trash and overflowing with plastic. the massive rotating current spins counterclockwise. marcus ericsson is the director of research for the five gyres institute of california, and says they're like soup. in 2010, he sailed through the indian ocean gyre, the same area where the search teams are now looking for doomed flight 370. >> what we found there were things like fishing nets, multi-colored buoys, like the one that is behind me. lots of buckets and crates, other consumer goods like bottles and caps and bags and knives. there was so much stuff already there. so the aircraft is blending into all that. >> reporter: which is one reason why locating the missing plane is such a challenge. satellite images once thought to be debris fields likely just