Were headed north. This is that northern route thats been spoken of and were at 6,500 feet. The terrain here so mountainous were only 1500 feet above the ground. You can its daylight weve set up in this scenario. It would have been nighttime for these planes. These are the hazards you run up against. In many cases you are not flying over the mountains any more youre flying through them. That means mitchell here is flying manually and you can feel us banking and yanking as we literally try to find our way through the mountain passes. At the same time the aircraft is sending out all sorts of warnings to us hes way too low. Are we landing. Mitchell describe flying . An extremely fast pace, unforgiving environment. Low to the ground. Not a lot of time to react. Reporter alarms continuing signalling like right now were going too fast. Hes got to pull back on that. Also being told, look, if youre flying this low why isnt the landing gear down, which i can put it down, right . Go ahead put it down. Reporter we put the gear down. This way to try to satisfy the airplane. To reduce some of the alarms but this creates tremendous drag. Absolutely. More drag, more fuel consumption. Very inefficient way to fly an airplane. Reporter its hard to imagine lets put it up again, that an aircraft, especially at night flying through the mountainous region of pakistan, afghanistan and any of the other stans that are known in this region to do that would be almost suicidal. Ill point something out. Military radar are still going to be following this aircraft. They may not know who it is, but they are certainly going to be alarmed that you have a large aircraft flying through disputed airspace. Were very near kashmir a heavy militarized region between pakistan and india. Again, this is 5,000 feet and it feels like youre on the deck. Let me ask you Something Else. For a plane to fly that low and this plane flew four to seven hours after they lost track of it by radar. The air is denser the closer to the ground you get. Wouldnt fuel burn off faster in denser air . Reporter yeah. This is something that mitchell and i have been talking about. Fuel consumption at this altitude. How does it compare to say cruising altitude. Were doubling fuel consumption especially with the landing gear down thats a tremendous amount of drag. Youre going to cut your flying time in half. Reporter of course it means you cut the range in half. So no telling how far you could have gone when youre burning up this much fuel, carol. Another question. There were more than 200 passengers aboard that plane. So what would they be doing if the plane is cruising along at 5,000 feet . Reporter again, this is something that mitchell and i have been talking about. If a plane is down this low, any passenger would know its irregular, theres something wrong. What would you expect them to be doing, mitchell . The passengers are going to be freaking out. They are going to be pulling out your phones. What would you be doing . You would be calling your friends asking whats going on. They would be freaking out. This is insane. Reporter the passengers are awake and have the ability, it would more than likely seem they are trying to communicate with somebody even if the plane is not. Because the theory was the plane went up to 45,000 feet. At that point the passengers would pass out. As the plane lowered would the passengers gain consciousness then . This is all speculation mind you but these are things being brought up. Reporter right. But, again, that altitude, when they went above 45,000 feet it was well beyond what is normal operation for this aircraft. Were trying to clear this mountain range. What would happen to the passengers . Its possible they could have passed out, the systems were providing oxygen and air at that altitude wouldnt have worked as well especially if they went through that very steep, steep dive supposedly 45,000 feet and then i dont think anybody would have with stood that and stayed conscious. Martin savidge and pilot Mitchell Well get back to you throughout newsroom. Thank you. Investigators agree who whoever took over that plane knew what they are doing. They knew the intricacies of flying a boeing 777. Malaysian investigators are focusing on who was aboard that plane. Finally more than a week after flight 370 van jashd malaysian plainclothes officer searched thunderstorms of both pilots, first the copilot who lived with his parents and according to the ceo of malaysia airlines, uttered the last words to air Traffic Controllers at 1 19 a. M. Last saturday. All right, good night. Initial investigation indicates it was the copilot who basically spoke the last time it was recorded on tape. Tinting twist at 1 07 a. M. A full 12 minutes before the final words, one of the planes acards or Communication Systems had already been shut off. These are pictures of the copilot on a previous flight. Theres nothing suspicion about him except for an incident in 2011 when two australia passengers said he allowed them into the cockpit. Neighbors said this about his mother. I pray for her and him, the families. Patience. Patience. Investigators searched the pilots home. They card out his home maid Flight Simulator. The captain is a very socialable person. A person who loves people. Enjoys his work. As far as his job as a pilot hes a very committed professional pilot. The family post ad youtube tribute to their father describing the captain as loving, reflective, generous, cool, sporting, intelligent, supportive and the list goes on and on. You see the tshirt hes wearing in this to, to it says democracy is dead. He wore it in a may 2013 rally on kuala lumpur where supporters protested charges of boat tampering by the majority party. Lets bring in former ntsb vice chairman bob francis. Thanks for joining me. Lets focus on those pilots. Malaysia airline says the last words all right good night probably came from the copilot at 1 19 a. M. On saturday after some Communication Systems were shut down. Why wouldnt air Traffic Controllers ask the pilots about that . I think they would. And there seems to be the communication seems to have just ended at that point. What would have been done in the United States if this had happened . Lets just take it from there. If a Communications System so important was shut down and you heard from the copilot after that happened, what would you do . Well, i think that you try to make sure i mean theres so much redundancy in terms of communication. You want to make sure you dont have any, have any communication and at that point i would imagine that there would be launching of aircraft, military aircraft to see what was going on. As far as we know, that wasnt done in the malaysia situation . That wasnt done in the malaysian situation. Although i think a lot more justification than just the loss of communication. But the pilots family, they released that Youtube Video about their father. He lived in an upper class community. He was passionate about his job. He made home made videos of fixing air conditioners. What do you make of this . I make a little bit of something, the age of the copilot and that may be unfair. But 27 years old with, i dont know how many hours but cant be too many is really very, very young for somebody in the right seat of an aircraft like that. You would never find that in most places in the world. I think he had just finished his training and had some 2,000 hours and then there was the incident when he let those teenage girls inside the cockpit to pose for pictures with him. So, in your mind as an investigator, would suspicion be focused on him . Well, i think i think suspicion probably when you got two pilots and so many things going on that you would be focusing on both of them. But i think given his age and given his previous actions that he would certainly warrant a good deal of focus. So, would it be of added significance that he was the one who communicated with air Traffic Controllers the last time they heard from the cockpit . I wouldnt think necessarily. We know there was a Flight Simulator in captain shahs home. And the plane flu at 5,000 flight to avoid radar detection. Could it fly for a sustained period at a low altitude . I think that anybody thats become a captain of a 777 probably would be as competent to do that as he was. Do you put any credence in that theory that the aircraft managed to flight 5,000 feet for hours and hours . No. I just cant believe it either. It came from a malaysia newspaper, unnamed sources, a whole bunch of theories are coming out. Why does this defy credulity in your mind . Because of the amount of fuel you would be burning at that altitude. You know, its an awful lot more, and whats the rationale . I mean the difficulty with this is nothing seems to nothing in the whole whats happened seemed to fit together. And that makes it difficult for any of us whether we have any expertise or not to really be terribly accurate about what were trying to what were trying to we can say what we think but thats about all. Thank you so much for your insight. I appreciate it. Still ahead in the newsroom american fill lp wood is one of the 239 passengers aboard that flight. David mckenzie talked with his partner who is holding out hope hes stale live. Reporter good morning. Hes a texas native on that plane who is missing and his long term partner believes hes still alive. I talked to her about phillip wood after the break. The man who drove to the control room [ woman ] driverless mode engaged. Find parking space. [ woman ] parking space found. [ male announcer ]. That secured the data that directed the turbines that powered the farm that made the milk that went to the store that reminded the man to buy the milk that was poured by the girl who loved the cat. [ meows ] the internet of everything is changing everything. Cisco. Tomorrow starts here. The internet of everything is changing everything. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. And that their Homeowners Insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesnt. Stop pretending. Only Flood Insurance covers floods. Visit floodsmart. Gov pretend to learn your risk. And i know there are many myths out there about a reverse mortgage, so i want you to know the facts. There are currently no credit score or income requirements to qualify. You can get taxfree money from the equity in your home. You can use the money to pay off your current mortgage if you have one. The remaining money can be used for anything. Theres no monthly mortgage payments. And you still own your home call today to get your free guide and dvd. It explains how a governmentinsured reverse mortgage works. Theres no obligation. One reverse mortgage is a quicken loans company. Their licensed experts can answer all your questions. Call to find out what a great solution this can be. Dont wait, call now ten days into the search for that missing plane families of the 239 people on board are, of course, desperate for answer. American phillip wood is among those passengers. Wood and his partner have been planning to move to kuala lumpur in the coming weeks and getting married. She believes woods is still alive and being held hostage somewhere. The entire u. S. Population is reliving things like 9 11 in this experience, right . If an unthinkable thing can happen even after weve taken all these precautions, what could happen next . This is a planned activity. Somebody wants to do something and make a message out it and it would serve them no good to be seen as callous and brutal and just start killing people unnecessarily because then they wont have as much bargaining power, i think. I think. I mean, i cant imagine to put myself into the mindset of somebody who would even possibly contemplate this, but ive got to believe that the hostages are valuable to them. And as the only adult american on the flight phillip would be a valuable asset. Hes very calm and very put together and he would know to step back and, you know, not cause any conflict so he wouldnt be somebody that they would want to get out of the way as a trouble causer. If theres anybody who can survive a situation like that its him. Very level headed. And i think he is the kind of person who would help to calm a really chaotic situation. Of course, i have to prepare for the worse because no matter what i have to go forward. And no matter what his family still has to go forward. So, we need to, to know where that fork in the road is going to go. And were not ready to take either branch, but we have to know whats coming because otherwise when it comes you wont be prepared and thats when you get into trouble, i think. You need to be prepared for whatever the news is. My bag is packed and ready to go. It has been since saturday morning. Ready to go where . Wherever he is. My son even helped me pick out which dlots bring for him so i have an outfit for him in my backpack. Because he wouldnt want to wear his dirty old stuff any more im sure or wouldnt want to wear a hospital gown if thats the case, so, yep, its all ready. Just heartbreaking. David mckenzie joins us now from beijing. Is she hearing anything from malaysian authorities about whats going on . Reporter she done seem to blame malaysian authorities, carol, or the airlines at all. Unlike some of the people weve spoken to. You know, it is that heartbreaking, not knowing, that belief that really the love of her life is alive and well or alive and hurt somewhere. She honestly believes that. She said her friends say she must be in denial. The likelihood this plane crashed and shes willing at some point to believe that. But sarah is a very logical former high flying business woman who believes that she can figure this out. She started a facebook page, twitter page, finding phillip wood and shes trying to gather crowd sourcing to know anything she can to get comments or tips or understanding or watching cnn which shes doing a great deal to try to get a sense to logically believe hes alive and also deep down inside she feels her presence. I cant say i wouldnt do it differently. I cant. Thanks so much, david mckenzie. We appreciate it. Still to come in the newsroom as the search area expands u. S. Naval resources have joined the hunt for flight 370. Well join a commander aboard the uss blue ridge on how the search is going so far. Backboardbreaking, cash back card. This is the quicksilver cash back card from capital one. Unlimited 1. 5 cash back on every purchase, every single day. Ill ask again. Whats in your wallet . So our business can be on at ts network for 175 a month . Yup. All 5 of you for 175. Our clients need a lot of attention. Theres unlimited talk and text. Were working deals all day. You get 10 gigabytes of data to share. What about expansion potential . Add a line, anytime, for 15 a month. Low dues, great terms. Lets close new at t mobile share value plans our best value plans ever for business. The search for flight 370 now covers at least part of 11 countries, an enormous swath of ocean. Some more than two miles deep. The uss blue ridge has joined in the hunt in the south china sea. Joining me by phone from aboard that vessel is commander William Marks. Welcome, commander. Thank you. Glad to be here. Thank you for being with me. Latest evidence suggests this plane flu way beyond the south chooip sea. You guys are still searching there. Why . Well, right now we moved the uss kidd to the indian ocean. We started out in the gulf of thailand. They went through the strait of malacca and they covered as much of the sea as they can which is to the south aefr west of burma. As you move from a small area like gulf of thailand which has relatively defined boundaries in to an area like the indian ocean its a new ball game. The kidd and its helicopters are relatively short changed. Fortunately we do have a p 8 divide and a the 36r7b. Those are our long range search aircraft. Our ship can travel 300, 400, 500 miles in the course of a couple hours. The p 8 flew about is 1,200 nautical miles. It covered 10,000, 12,000 a square nautical miles. Looks like our long range assets are our rafael betancourt. It sounds hitech. What does your crew do. Ill give an example. Our p8 was flying yesterday and they fly at about 5,000 to 10,000 feet. We have a very advanced surface search radar, to give you and example. We can see from our radar sma small wooded crates. Well get a radar return. It pops up on our radar. We either fly lower get one of our optical sensors on there or fly lower and get a visual identification. The first thing we do is we see it on radar. How many times has this happened . All the time. So yesterday the p8 was flying and it comes it sees very small specs on its radar. A lot of it is a judgment call. A lot of it is the decision of the pilots and air crew. They were flying and had a choice, they could either fly over an area lets say not yet searched or fly to this area where they were getting very small radar returns. What they did they decided to check out what those radar returns were and it actually turned out it was just some trash and debris not associated with an aircraft wrecker. You just keep doing that over and over, like i said, their flight is nine hours long, so it takes a lot of concentration, a lot of focus on the part of that air crew. I know some of the debris from the plane if it did indeed crash in the sea would float up to top. What sorts of debris are they specifically looking for . Well, you know, if theres something out there, we fly over it. Were definitely going to find it on the radar. At this point were looking for anything and then when we do find it we go get a visual. If we get it on the radar and we dont know what it is we get closer either with the p8, p3 or if theres a helicopter nearby we use that to get a closer identification. First is the radar and then you try for a visual identification. It really doesnt matter what we see on the radar. Well take a look at it visually. I know you have good hearts and you desperately want to find something and resolve this matter but this search must be incredibly frustrating for you and your crew. Tell us about that. It is challenging, and i have to give so much credit to those, about 400 u. S. Navy sailors out here right now and this is a 24 operation. And these sailors are so dedicated. I heard yesterday they are volunteering their off time, they have doubled some of their watches, they have cut short their meal hours to search and taking on extra people on deck looking out. So i give so much credit to those sailors. This is what we do. This is what we train for. In the seventh fleet we have exercises, more than 80 exercises a year to practice these type of things and we build these relationships so that when a crisis occurs we can immediately move in, coordinate with all these other countries and execute the plan that we trained for and thats what were doing now. Were proud out there. Commander