rules. but not finding flight 370 or its data recorders could be a missed opportunity for change. >> whatever brought down that flight, whether it was fire, hijacked, pilot suicide, explosive decompression, a. bo, whatever, it's important to find that out so that we can fix it so it doesn't happen again. >> reporter: and it's security too. the september 11th hijacks led to strengthened cockpit doors. the shoe bomber led to shoe checks. >> unfortunately, we've had a history of sort of graveyard policy making. you wait until enough people die and then you make a change. >> reporter: with so few crashes in recent years, the faa is more proactive in finding problems that could cause crashes before they happen. now with malaysia airlines flight 370, there could be lessons to be learned, but only if they find out what went wrong. one example of why finding hard evidence:00 what went wrong is