reunion island for a closer inspection. the island that you can see is close to madagascar and 6,000 kilometers from where crews had been searching for the plane. the search has gone for 16 months. the search for the missing airline has stretched from the south china sea all to the way to the southern indian ocean. >> we have more on the exhausted efforts so far. >> reporter: march 8th, 2014, just after midnight in call kua lumpur, the flight takes off. >> reporter: 40 minutes in to the flight the plane's transponder dud suddenly goes dark. >> it is the effectually the instrument that tells you what height, direction and speed it is traveling.