The same length as one wing coming from a 777. That is getting ahead of where we are right now. Search planes headed to the debris field 1500 miles off the coast of perth to get a better look. But the Australian Maritime Safety Authority just minutes ago, they tweeted the crew has been unable to locate any debris thanks partly to limited visibility because of rain and clouds. That could hamper the search somewhat, of course. Still if you want a frame of reference for how far flight 370 may have gone if this is from the plane is 3,000 miles south of where i am. One official calls it the best lead that we have right now. Thats what that came straight from australian officials. We have seen as resources deployed around the world to bring you the latest this morning. Lets start with Andrew Stevens who is live in perth, australia, where it is a race against time to get visual confirmation of what those objects are in the water. Andrew, you were telling us that the planes are still out there but what do we know so far from your Vantage Point . Well, its been interesting, kate. That tweet you mentioned, thats really frustrating development for the searchers, rain and low cloud hampering visibility there. Weve had four planes from australia, new zealand and the u. S. Out on that target area. The area that the australian Prime Minister says is new and credible. Underlying credible information. Thats come frgt priing from th ministers office, the highest office in the land. There is a lot of hope this will lead to something. There is still that hope that something will be found. All right, we lost andrew for now. The obvious question is does this debris actually mean crews are any closer to finding the jet liner . If it is the plane, what does it say about how it got there . Lets bring in Richard Quest. Goochlt. Good morning. The most important detail has nothing to do with the map. Several days ago they got the satellite images. Theyve been doing analysis of it. They feel confident enough to go look. However, it will not be where it was three days ago. Thats part of the calculus here. Take us through starting with malaysia. Retrace the steps of what they believed happened during the flight, the arcs and understanding of satellite data. So if we start up here in malaysia. We know the plane came out in the south china sea. That was the last known point where it makes the turn. We know also the plane came back over the malaysian peninsula. That is the last known ping, if you like. We dont know what happened after there. The two arcs, one arc goes that way. They no longer believe that is the operative one. One of the reasons from that is they had reporting from every country except ukraine, nobody had any sense of anything coming into their airspace. And the one is bengal searched by the interian forces and nothing has been found. The main focus of attention has been down into the southern arc. And this is the vast area that we have been talking about. It is overcast and misty. We know the conditions are, theyre calling it moderate. That means they werent able to spot anything. Several days ago satellite showed there was debris 1400 miles off the southwest coast of australia. So that is perth. Thats perth just about there, just on the coast. There we go. It slipped. Ill take your word for it. And then we come out into india. So youre talking about this sort of area is where the debris was last seen. All right. So lets go with the factors there. If this is where it was, two pieces of debris. About 14 miles apart. Ocean currents, wind is very important. The fact that theyre having white cap seas, that means two things. One, visibility. Its hard to see things. Two, its going to increase the speed that things are moving, something that is important, even if theyre right about what this debris is. That doesn mean thats where the entire plane is. Absolutely not. I want to remind us what were talking about here. Youre talking about very, very small amounts. Approximately 24 meters for that one. Approximately five meters for that one. 14 miles apart and were talking about it 1400 miles off the coast. So when you see that dot. That dot is so much bigger by scale. Even though it looks like a small dot on your tv, it is so much bigger than what theyre looking for relative to the area. And the sort of questions that theyll be looking at is the route that plane might have taken. They know the winds. Theyll know the tides. Theyll know the oceanographers are extremely experienced working this sort of thing out. But even so, plotting a route that would have taken it on that arc that would have then allowed it to have the incident happen around here and debris to move, to be found to be finding debris off the southwest coast of australia, we might have thought it would have been here, back into the Southeast Asia region. But to be finding it way down into the southeast ocean is something. Australian military have believed for some time when using cross referencing what they knew about the last pings and handshakes, the terms weve been hearing which the Thai Government identified as an arc this coincided with an arc that gave them more confidence. Youre going to start hearing the terms today, flotsom and jetsom. Theyre hoping this is debris of not nflotsom. Youll start hearing the terms. Thats the cause for confidence. This area is on one of the arcs they were studying. The one thing we have heard in the last few minutes and kate was reporting is that the first planes who have been over the area because its going to take some time to get assets, planes and ships into this area. There is a merchant ship also involved in the search much its going to take time to get people out there. The first search has come back unsuccessful. This is more than the needle in a hay stack. Maybe its a pitch fork or a dinner fork if the hay stack. But its still an extremely long option, to find it, to drop the bouie so they can locate it again and then to retrieve it so they can get the confidence of what it might be. Initially theyll get a visual. That isly the air. Again, just to, you know, deal with controlling expectations, its going to take a while to get there even by plane. The conditions are not good. Well have our meteorologist explaining what the conditions are. They have been studying these images for days. They feel confident enough to look but beyond that, nobody is willing to take a step in term of what this debris is in until they find it. Search conditions very difficult. It may be slow and coming for more information. Richard, thank you for helping us understand. For reporting on the ground, lets get back to kate who is in malaysia. Kate . Reporter its been almost two weeks of complete agony for the families. How are the families coping with the news of this potential discovery . Well, what weve heard from family members is that theyre being cautious right now. Theyve had their hopes up and then crushed in the same day and all they want to know is whether or not this is actually confirmed. I had the chance to speak with the father of one of the passengers onboard. What he told me is this he said he has hope that all the passengers are safe. But if its true the plane has been found, he told me i will accept that, too. He also thanked australian and malaysian government for doing their best to search for plane. But he said he still needs confirmation. He is hoping to get that later tonight. We understand malaysian airway officials are having a briefing with family members at 8 00. Were hoping for more details then. Kate . All right. Atika, thank you. Lets go over to bay shing. Most beijing. Half of the passengers are from china. Families there understandably also on edge. Their frustration has been visibly spilling over in the past few days. David mckenzie has been with family members. What is the latest from there . Kate, the frustration and anger has been boiling over here in recent days. Today certainly psychologists telling us they very worry when this news comes out if, it does come out that it could be overwhelming for these hundreds of families stuck in this hotel behind me. They have four ambulances on scene. At least a dozen paramedics. One psychologist telling me the elderly here have been suicidal thoughts because they have one child on that plane because of chinas one child policy. The stakes are just so high here. Every time weve had a false lead and that lead was then dashed, its been difficult for these families to deal with. In fact, impossible. So as they wait and wonder, not so much today because they dont want to get their hopes up. And they do believe whether the news comes, its probably going to be bad news. So until they have clarificat n clarification, at least they can cling on to that hope. Chris, back to you. All right. Thank you very much. Now lets bring you back into the studio. We put a map of the area where the two objects related to flight 370 have possibly been found. Keep hearing the words. Its all about possibility here. Were going to take a look at the newly narrowed area. Lets bring in an expert in expedition logistics in the remote regions. You have the right qualifications for this. Lets qualify what we know. We do know that they are searching in this area. We do know that australian and u. S. Military sources have been somewhat confident and expanding the search into this area and several hundred miles into antarctica because of what they believe in the reasonable arc thez cross referenced from what the Thai Government said, radar pings, satellite handshakes. Does that square with your reckonning so far . And then, lets get to the main question which is who do they have . What do they have in term of this search and conducting it . What do we know . First of all, i think at this point they have been following debris for two, three days now. Yes, satellite images that theyre working off and showing you this morning are from several days ago. So theyve had some idea and theyve been accurately following this debris with planes, helicopters, trying to get a visual. So now youve got the issues with drift and currents and theyve been able to locate. Theyre working off grids. Theyre squaring off different areas thatter that going theyp looking for. But what were finding is they have this area locked in for right now. So what we know is we see the two objects, not sure what they are. Again, youre going to hear the words, flotsam and jetsam. Theyre hoping it is intentional debris from a ship. Youre going to hear the words. They believe that two objects are about 15 miles apart right now, nautical miles. The search area is 1500 nautical miles. What assets are they using to locate this . How long do you think it could take allowing for conditions which are getting worse right now because of the storm season . Thats a big factor. Theyre working with planes. Theyre working with the p3. They have the p8 out. So theyre really covering air yalz aerials in and trying to pick this up and get a real visual on it and then move on. P3, p8, these are different surveillance aircraft. Yes. They pick up magnetic signatures. They know they have something that is metal floating in that ocean. And theyve been following it. Again, theyre narrowing the search and trying to make it tighter and get to it. One of the objects is very large which plays both ways for experts. Some say thats pretty big to be a piece of an aircraft. Others stha ay that this is a g sign. If its big and its aircraft, it may be identifiable. There is a lot of stuff floating in the ocean, right . This area is not heavily trafficked. Youre not going to have a lot of its on a shipping lane, you dont have a lot of fishing boats. Its pretty far down and pretty remote. Okay. And now again, just dealing with 1500 miles, even in perfect conditions, a lot of the ships that theyre using by water, theyre moving maybe 10, 15, maybe 20 knots an hour. Its going to take days for them to get there. They move much more quickly by air. One of the lucky breaks to the extent there is any, will is a merchant vessel that we heard is in the area and they want to help. They may get there first. Why is it important to be on the water and not just by air here other than the obvious to, you know, visually identify something. You have to really physically see it. The satellite images are saying there is something in the water. It is a metal object. You have to physically get people there to look at it, to identify it and then try and collect it which will be the next phase. Were hearing from military sources, the reason and that was last time they picked it up around here. However, data from radar and gps and notably from the Thai Government, they started to create arcs. One came from the south and one to the north. They gave up confidence in the north. Countries said they didnt find anything this their airspace. They reviewed records, nothing on the ground. One of the arcs going south into the indian ocean led them to this area where the satellite three days ago showed this. Why three days . They have been studying and analyzing the images. So were looking at several days for actual physical confrontation with this you know, getting their hands on what it is. Absolutely. They have to move ships into place. They have to really theyre fighting currents and wind and weather. Right. Were hearing white cap waves out there. Thats a problem. Thats going to slow it down. There is progress. There is success. There is something that we can work with that makes sense. Australian authorities, the Prime Minister called it the best lead so far. I would submit that is intentionally qualified language. So well have to see what they find. There will be eyes from the air bringing some reporting sooner rather than later. Were work oaiting on a merchan vessel to get there. Lets take a quick break. Whether we come back, were going to try to analyze. This how confident should it be . What does this mean to the family members . Is this a false alarm for the search of flight 370 . Well analyze the clues and see where the confidence comes from just ahead. So ally bank really has no hidden fees on savings accounts . Thats right, no hidden fees. Its just that im worried about, you know, hidden things. Ok, whys that . Well uhhh. Surprise um. Well, its true. At ally there are no hidden fees. Not one. Thats nice. No hidden fees, no worries. Ally bank. Your money needs an ally. Until youre sure you do. Bartender thanks, captain obvious. Co which is what makes using the hotels. Com mobile app so useful. I can book a nearby hotel room from wherever i am. Or, i could not book a hotel room and put my cellphone back into my pocket as if nothing happened. Hotels. Com. I dont need it right now. Welcome back to new day. Were tracking breaking news in search for Malaysian Airlines 370. Youre looking at what they believe may be the best lead to date. Two objected spotted on radar in the interian ocean some days ago. Theyve been analyzing them. Youre looking at them. One of them is unusually big, 24 meters. They believe some 10 to 15 miles away is another object, five meters, relatively small. Where are they . Off the southwest coast of australia. Lets bring in experts who can break this down for us and why there is confidence at all in this. We have a safety analyst, former faa inspector and author of why planes crash. And then security consultant, former cia counterterrorism officer, fbi special agent, delta force officer, now a professor of National Security studies at the university of new haven. Great credentials in a situation where its very difficult to know much. Lets deal with why theres confidence. Three days old . Jeff, why are we only hearing about it now . How does it work . Well, first of all, we have to make sure that whoever took the satellite imagery is confident that its not going to compromise their true capabilities before they disseminate that information. So, in fact, they may even have degraded the image before they pass it on. What does that mean . That would mean if they had more clarity on the image, they may have decided to say were going to dumb that image down a little bit and not make it look like we could read a label on a basketball or something. People dont want to give away their National Level capability to use satellite imagery because it has wartime, you know, consequences. So thats part of what theyre dealing with in this investigation. 26 countries are cooperating. You believe there is reason to be guarded about what you share. The same thing holds true for what theyve been able to see on radar. They dont want to necessarily let people know where their gaps and radar coverage are, et cetera. They havent been too bad. Theyve been good about moving information along. That does account for possibly some of the delay. Another check, david, on optimism here. Even if everything lines up the right way and this is what theyre hoping it is, that does not make this an easy task at all. How big an area . How small an object . What would this be like in terms of setting out to find Something Like this . Youre talking 1400 miles from perth. So even just getting the ships there youre talking about a long time to try to get there. Theyre only going to go 20, 30 knots if theyre flank speed they could go better than. That theyre not going to go flank sea because they burn up too much fuel. Seven time as much fuel when at flank speed. Flank speed is high speed. They have to consider how do we get back . Thats right. All right. And just in terms of the vastness of the area and how small the object is. Weve been trying to find metaphors about this. The original search area is the size of United States and looking for three people. If youre talking about something that is 80 feet long, if not partially submerged, how difficult a task, jeff . Fortunately, you have the technology on station right now to do. That you can tell by the way they tried to phase in these aircraft that they want to maintain some technology on station. The capabilities youve been recently talking about about the ability to determine what metal objects in the water from the high speed submarine detection platforms, basically. Once you find out and in the area, you want to keep something on station. They will probably deploy bouies to stay with the wreckage. As they float, they deal with darkness. I think a real good factor working for them is the fact they even have a merchant ship coming into the area. A nonmilitary cargo ship that says they want to volunteer to help. Theyre getting closer than anybody else. Function for search and weigh station, to give people a place to land, necessiany resource fo weather and distance. If in fact its a flat form can you put a helicopter on. Sources were telling me last night that the best source for confidence in where this is also one of the constraints. Following the arc, they didnt want to talk to me about the northern route. They say all the countries r