Center killer is charged with murder. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer, youre in the situation room. This is cnn breaking news. Right now, the best hope for finding flight 370 is under water searching for wreckage. The bluefin21 should be about eight hours right now into a 24hour diving cycle if, if, nothings gone wrong. It was a little after this time yesterday that we learned the bluefins First Mission had been aborted. Conditions are similar today, including the depth, which was a problem, so anything could happen. Right now, our correspondents in the United States and around the world are covering all the breaking developments and our team of experts, they are here in the situation room to break it all down. Lets go to our aviation correspondent rene march for the latest information. Rene . As we said, the underwater search is happening and the hope is the underwater vehicle will cover more ground this time. The navy says mission one covered only about four square miles. It was supposed to scan 15. After an abbreviated first launch, bluefin21 is back in the water and searching, but so far no trace of flight 370. Extremely deep water caused it to abort its First Mission. One condition that causes it to abort its dive is if it reaches its maximum operating depth of 4,500 meters, so thats what happened in this case. Bluefin can operate in water almost three miles deep, but turns out the search area was deeper than expected. Bluefin was pushed to its limit. It should have spent two hours diving to the ocean floor, 16 hours searching for wreckage, and two hours resurfacing. Instead, it only spent seven and a half hours in the water, including its trip to and from the surface. Once it hit that max depth, it said, hey, this is deeper than im programmed to be, so it aborted the mission. The bluefin did collect data, which included firstever images of the sea floor, but they showed nothing of interest in areas crews considered to be the most promising. As for the oil slick spotted nearly three and a half miles away, they are still chasing that lead, waiting for the water sample to reach australia. Certainly, were analyzing the water sample from that area to see if it was a Petroleum Product related to the aircraft, and well know that over the next couple of days. And theres many possible sources of an oil sheen on the surface of the ocean, but its, you know, would be one explanation is that it was lubricating fluid or control oil from the aircraft. As the search for the critical black boxes continues and almost equally critical question looms, who will get them . I dont think its important who gets it as far as im concerned, and this is my own personal position. Its finding out the truth. That truth, likely only to be found if or when the black boxes are. Well, since flight 370 went missing, people have asked, is there a better way than radar to track planes . In the u. S. , radar tracks a planes position every 4. 7 seconds, but the faa Just Announced the completion of a key part of an initiative to upgrade aviation technology. Eventually the old groundbased radar system will be replaced with a satellitebased tracking system. Someone could still disable the system, but controllers and nearby pilots would be notified. Rene, standby. I want to get back to you in a moment. I want to go to perth right now. Perth, australia, the staging point for the aerial search. Its early wednesday morning already, the air search is about to resume. Michael holmes is on the scene for us. Whats the very latest there, michael . Reporter yeah, wolf, well, certainly hoping they are going to get more out of this new dive than they got out of the last one that aborted mission, of course, not something that they wanted to see. But, you know, its interesting, those involved in the search say they actually hope that the bluefin will be capable of going down lower than 4,500 meters, so they are going to be giving it all sorts of test on this dive, seeing if it can stay down there below that level. Initially, of course, that was thought to be the extent of its range. They are actually hoping to see if it could go even further, so youre right, they are several hours into this mission. They are hoping to get that side sonar to give them good data about the bottom of the ocean, but it is really only the beginning, as weve been discussing. This is a search area that it could take them up to two months to cover at the pace that the bluefin goes. Meanwhile, as you say, just after 6 00 a. M. Here in perth, and the planes, we believe, will be going up again. Angus houston, the search coordinator, had said a day or so ago in his briefing that that search would be wound down in the days ahead, but it is still ongoing as far as we know, that the planes will be up again having a look for any surface debris. No luck so far, of course, and the ships that were looking, as well, in that area, well to the west of where the ocean shield is, they have moved south and are looking at an area where they previously looked, also hoping to find surface debris. But very much the focus, wolf, on the bottom of the ocean at the moment, and hopefully when bluefin surfaces a little later today, theyll get some data that will show how things look down there, wolf. What are you hearing, michael, about when the air search might end . Reporter yeah, well, all weve got is what air vice Marshal Angus houston said the other day, which was it would wind down in the next few days. Well, were a couple of days into that now, and no sign of the search ending. The ships are still out there and the planes are likely to go up again this morning. Weve heard nothing to the contrary. We normally get word from the search coordinating body in the next hour or two and well probably have more idea of that aerial and sea search then, but at this stage, that search continues. But as weve reported, six weeks, were into the sixth week now. It seems extraordinary theyve found absolutely nothing out there, as vast as the ocean is, no sign of malaysian flight 370. Wolf . Michael holmes reporting from perth. Thank you. Lets bring in our panel, aviation correspondent rene marsh, peter goels, and tom fuentes. Peter, this bluefin21, is that the best option right now available to try to find the two black boxes or any wreckage that may be on the floor of the ocean . I think its the only option theyve got right now. There are other options tethered deep dive remote vehicles, but right now weve got the bluefin and thats what were going to use. What about those other options . Weve been hearing there are these other options, more guarantee that these other options can go deeper than the bluefin21. Thats right, but remember, when they first deployed bluefin21, we still didnt even know what was going to be the focus of our search. We thought at one point it was going to be in point a, then point b, so they didnt know that. They didnt know what they know now, which is how deep this water is. So youre right, theres other equipment that could go a lot deeper, but it would take days for this boat to travel back to the port to switch out and get another piece of equipment which is better, so they have to work with what they have. We do know some testing has been done and they believe they could push it to the limit of 5,000 meters, so at some point it may even go deeper than the 4,500 meters. If you push it too much to the limit, that whole system could collapse. You dont want to go too much to the limit, do you . No, but it raises the question why they didnt use the echo to scan the bottom of the ocean to know exactly how deep it is in the area. Why didnt they . I dont know. Thats what im saying, thats the question to be asked, why they didnt to that to know exactly the depth they could go. The echo would map the bottom of the ocean and then they might need bluefins big brother, which is towed on a sled. I have no idea why they didnt bring the echo in to do, you know, ocean bottom mapping, but toms right, there are a couple of other options that go deeper. They are a little slower and a little more cumbersome, but, boy, they can hit the bottom. Are you hearing anything about that . Remember, echo wasnt always in this position where it is now, so do keep that in mind. It came after ocean shield was focused on this area here, so perhaps thats the reason behind it. Remember, this is an area unknown to man, as Angus Houston said. They dont have accurate charts on just how deep it is, so it was probably a surprise to them when they realized, wow, this is deeper than we thought. I want to go back to perth, Jeffrey Thomas is joining us from perth, editor in chief of airlineratings. Com. Whats the latest youre hearing as far as this underwater search is going on . Youre there on the scene, jeffrey. Reporter indeed, wolf. Look, the way its been described to me is that this First Mission that was aborted, this is more of a shakedown mission to see what the operating environment is at the very bottom. Echo has actually been in the area for quite some time, over a week, and it has been with ocean shield. As ocean shield was towing the pinger through, echo would follow it and do some mapping, although its echo sounding of the bottom is not nearly as accurate as sending something down right down to the bottom, 4,500 meters. And as described to me, they are adjusting bluefin21, they are tweaking it, and, of course, its got software that self aborts, bring it back up, they are changing the software, send it back down again, and it may be one or two or even three missions into with bluefin21 before they get the Software Package right for the operating environment that they are working in at the moment. Its a tough, tough challenge. On that oil slick that they found in that general vicinity where the pings were detected, i know they are bringing a couple liters back to shore where you are in perth, in australia, to try to do some chemical analysis. What are you hearing about that . Are they confident or not so confident that this could be oil from that airliner . Reporter yes, very interesting, this one. It was found three and a half miles down sea and downwind of where they believe the black boxes are. It was described as doesnt look like its from a ship, so it could be mobile jet 2, which is used on this airplane, or maybe possibly hydraulic fluid. Our understanding is, its on its way back to perth now for analysis and were hoping within 24, maybe 48 hours, well get some definition on this. And this could be the first piece of confirmed debris, if you like, from mh370. You would think, peter, youre a former ntsb investigator, they would have sent some chemists out on that ship to determine and do a little analysis. Its not that complicated to see if this is the kind of fuel or oil that comes from an airliner as opposed to a ship. Well, i think they want to bring it to a lab and get it right. Theres been enough missteps early on. Theyve got it. Its a little more challenging when its been in the ocean for some time. They want to get it right. Lets hope that it is the first indication of where it is, but we said wont be there for 24, 48 hours. Its now 40 days into this search. They havent found even a tiny piece of the wreckage yet. They think they are looking in the right place, because they did get those pings that were detected, one for two ours, but theres no guarantee, tom, they are even looking in the right place right now. No, theres no 100 guarantee. They are relying on the computations of the inmarsat satellite technicians and everything hinges, all the search effort, all of the investigation, is riding on the analysis of a handful of people. Youve been doing some reporting, rene, the faa now looking at potentially a new way to track airliners. What are you hearing . Right. This is part of an initiative thats been in the works for years now called nextgen, and part of that initiative is tracking airplanes with satellitebased technology. Getting away from the old groundbased radar, and the question has been since weve started covering flight 370 and the disappearance of it, how can we better track airplanes, and people are wondering will this new announcement that faa made about the infrastructure for this satellitebased technology being complete, would that solved the problem here. Heres the bottom line, the technology would allow pilots in the air to know where a plane is, in addition to the air Traffic Control towers, so its not just about the tower. If youre a pilot, youre in the air, youre aware of a plane. That being said, if a transponder is turned off, that other airplane would know right away, so if it falls through the cracks with this air Traffic Controller, you have several other people in the air who would be aware. And as one expert put it, a plane would not be able to fly for eight hours without people not knowing where it is. Good information. Jeffrey, lets say this second attempt to get that bluefin21 goes down and its down there right now, but in the next few hours we learn that for a second time it has self aborted and started coming back to the surface because it wasnt capable of reaching that depth. Where do they go from here if that were to happen . Reporter indeed. Angus houston has suggested, in fact, if the depth is consistently greater than 4,500 meters, if its beyond the operating range, they are already looking at bringing other assets in that can go far, far deeper. And thats, indeed, what we may have to do after a more analysis of the bottom, more Detailed Analysis of the bottom, which is what were getting right now. Thats certainly on the radar, wolf, absolutely. Jeffrey thomas in perth, well check back with you tomorrow. Thanks very much. Well check back, of course, with tom, peter, and rene, as well. Stand by, guys. More on this story coming up. Also, ukrainian troops now, they are on the move in a new crackdown on pro russian protesters, so is the country on the blink of an allout civil war . Cnn is there on the front lines. And general Richard Meyers is standing by live with his assessment of the conflict and the worst tensions between the u. S. And russia since the cold war. [paintball noises] the annual company retreat. Planned, as usual, by this guy. Nature lover. People person. And you put up with it all. Because he also booked you a room. At this place. Planet earths number one accomodation site booking. Com booking. Yeah . And let in the dog that woke 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. 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Made in the usa with chicken or beef as the number one ingredient. The best treats come from the kitchen. Crossfire wont be seen tonight so we can bring you more on the mystery of flight 370. Well get back to that coverage in a few moments. First, another urgent story were monitoring right now in the situation room. Antiterrorist operations are under way in eastern ukraine, as Government Troops move into the region. They are trying to crack down on prorussian protesters. Our Senior CorrespondentNick Paton Walsh is on the ground. I know youve been out there looking at what the Ukrainian Army is doing. What are you seeing, nick . Reporter certainly, kiev calls this an antiterrorism operation, but moving around to the next region, weve seen today the first signs of the Ukrainian Army getting into position. We ran into a convoy of about 80plus Ukrainian Armored vehicles, supply vehicles, light artillery from a unique troop, it seems. Didnt tell us exactly where they were going. They were moving to the west of towns taken over, luhansk, and said their orders were changing constantly. This is one of a number of signs of the military moving into position around here. A key town i just mentioned, the airfield, the outskirts of that used by the military in the past, that saw two ukrainian helicopters land there, a number of troops get off. When we got to that site, a crowd already gathered from the neighboring town, some shouting abuse at the ukrainian troops, others going to negotiate with them. One drunken man, in fact, approaching them, warning shots fired, but a degree of bemusement, a strange event occurring in a usually quiet part of ukraine, but it really shows, i think, the hostile reception the ukrainian troops are getting still inside the borders of their own territory of ukraine and the difficulties ahead for any broader operation here. They are talking about in kiev how they are moving against luhansk, the key town. We saw signs of that earlier on today. This is going to be a very lengthy and messy operation, wolf, with the threat still there of those 40,000 Russian Troops on the other side of the border who may intervene if moscow thinks protesters are having rights abused. Based on what youre seeing and hearing, nick, what happens next . Reporter difficult to say. I mean, we wonder whether or not the Ukrainian Army really has the resources or the stomach to launch a fullscale operation like that one they have been promising, but we saw today the beginning. Its very possible while these movements havent sparked bloodshed at this particular point, only one fatality we know of, its possible if they persist, they will,