is war looming? we are live. good morning, welcome to "early start." i'm christine romans. it's very early. i've got the 4:00 a.m. voice this morning, john. >> you'll work through it, i'll work through it. >> john berman. >> it's march 18th, 4:00 a.m. in the east. and we begin with the latest on the search for malaysian airlines flight 370. it's been 11 days since that jet went missing, and this morning, malaysian officials are admitting they're simply not sure what happened in the cockpit. it's not clear if the final words spoken to air traffic controllers came before or after the plane's data reporting system was shut down. that's a change. the malaysians reversed course on that one. this morning, however, there are reports that the plane's turn off course was preprogrammed into the flight computer. however, no one is quite sure if the new coordinates were entered before takeoff or after that jet was already in the air or who entered them. now the search has extended to the waters off australia, and a u.s. ship is pulling out, being