>> a straw of hope. >> the best lead they' had in 13 days. >> for that missing malaysia air padgett. >> two satellite photos of debris floating in the indian ocean. >> what could be debris from the missing boeing 777. >> the general belief that this was a very big break. >> about 1,500 southwest of perth, australia. >> and they were going to find something relatively quickly. >> so far, nothing has turned up. >> this is a massive, massive area. >> it's been called the most isolated part of the world. >> literally in the middle of nowhere. >> citing something on satellite and finding it from ship or plane in the ocean are two very different things. >> this is the worst possible location. >> choppy seas, rainy, cloudy. >> and the worst time of year to have to look for aircraft debris. >> there's a laundry list of challenges here. >> this is going to take a lot of time. it will require patience. >> families of the 239 passengers and crew are anxiously waiting. >> they just want to know what's happened. >> families who have been through an incredible ordeal. >> they have been waiting through all these days. >> their hopes having dashed and raised and dashed again. >> now they have to rate again. >> we must never, never give up hope. >> good evening to you. i am ari melbur in for lawrence odom. it's the middle of nowhere. it could take years. that is the warning about the search for flight 370. these images were taken on sunday which show what could be debris from the missing plane. one of the suspected pieces is 79 feet in length. the other is smaller, it's estimated to be about 16 feet and may also be a piece of debris. so why are we just now seeing these images? digital globe, the company that took them told cnbc this volume of imagery is far to vast to search floug real time. instead they relied on crowd sourcing volunteers. the companies say those number in the millions, which helped rule out broad swaths of the ocean. while those volunteers and professionals continue to hunt, investigators are honing in on this pinpointed search location in some of the world's most desolate ocean. the nts sb has previously said this was an area of special interest and that's because it's sort of in an intersection of where the jet could run out of fuel and six related satellite pings. this bolsters the theory after making the 20 degree turn to the west, flight 370 went south into the indian ocean. right now at least four aircraft are scouring the area. a norwegian cargo ship is also there and on the lookout for any possible debris. after enduring high ocean swells and visibility problems yesterday, conditions in the area are improving, but only slightly. just to reach the sight, in fact, each plane must fly nearly 1,500 miles each way. that's equivalent from about denver to new york. what does that mean? well, after getting into the area, each plane only has about three hours of actual search time left before it must turn right back around. family members of the passengers who were onboard flight 370 are no doubt watching these developments closer than anyone. >> translator: i feel very sad. i cannot run away from it. i accept everything. whatever the result, whether alive or dead. >> now for more reporting aempb insight into all of this, we turn to kerry sanders in our washington bureau tonight. how are you? >> ari, there is a fair amount of hope that the new wave of aircraft that are heading back out to that location may find what the first set of eyes and equipment did not find, confirmation of that debris. so right now we have two 3-3 orion class aircraft that are over that area. its's 10:00 here on the east coast. it's 10:00 a.m. there in the morning. they are also accompanied by a civilian gulf stream aircraft. and they have the able to use some onboard electronics to look in this general suspect area. later today there will be another p-3 leaving, and then finally, perhaps the most advanced piece of equipment which will leave several hours from now, which is going to be the p-8. that is from the u.s. navy. that is the poseidon class aircraft. that has the most advanced electronics. now, there is some weather in the area. the p-8 is not affected by weather. the gear can see through that weather. and the bottom line is that these aircraft with their gear onboard are designed to search for submarines. this is for anti-submarine warfare. they're now deploying this equipment over the area to see if they can find that debris floating on the surface or maybe even just below the surface. i'm going to take a map here and take you down to the area that we're looking at. so as you look at the map here, and i just sort of telestrate, that's the general area that you see marked there where they're flying out to. the debris was actually found on the satellite a little bit further to the south. now, we can call it debris because we know it's something that doesn't belong there. we just don't know if it's the aircraft debris. remember n this part of the world, there are these ocean currents that travel in these directions and they're called gyres. and they actually capture garbage in the water and they just flow round and round. what we may discover is when they do, if they do locate this, that it has nothing to do with the aircraft. but this is the most hopeful sign that they've had so far. remember, let's take you back 24 hours. this is when the authorities from australia went forward and announced, the prime minister announcing that what they have seen is the most promising lead of where this debris might be. >> yeah, and that's a lead not taking us where we would like to go. thank you so much for your reporting tonight. for more, we are joined again by robert hager, retired nbc news aviation analyst. i want to start with an interview with a former malaysian airlines pilot who actually flew this very aircraft. take a listen. >> cockpit voice recorder will be the one that will tell you what happened in the cockpit. 17 days to look for the thing. >> is time running out? >> time is running out, yeah. because the batteries, the potential location for the box seems to be very, very inhospitable. >> we talked about this before. it's not an exact, hard deadline. walk us through this. >> well, the spec says it goes 30 days but often times it goes longer than that. occasionally 35 or so forth. but occasionally picked it up where it was well over 35 days. so there is some hope of an elapsed time. and then they have found flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders in the past without the ping. i mean, long after the ping has run out. the poster child for that is the air france accident off brazil five years ago. and it took them two years to find that flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. then it was very valuable when they did find it. >> we're going to be talking to a specialist about that experience and what it offers today. i also want to talk to you about specifically the weather situation. we just did some reporting on that obviously. the search conditions, mostly cloudy with light showers, winds from the east 10 to 20 miles an hour. australian officials say visibility is still pour. these waves, 5 to 10 feet and what they call eddying currents. enormous waves that can go 20 feet or higher. this is not, of course, tom, a normal weather kind of prediction here. this is weather that has a potential impact on this important search. >> well, yeah. this is probably the worst weather region on earth. and when you're talking about nine foot swells and 30 foot waves and winds up to 25 to 35 knots, you're talking about something that you can't find debris with just your eyes. you have to have radar. and we can be encouraged by the intensity of the focus on this satellite image. the mystery is eating away at people. and it's a human tragedy. the next phase is the human dimension of this drama. and it's excruciating. >> speak to that, what do you mean? >> well, the people from china whose loved ones who are on this flight. they are not a sophisticated people. they're middle class, lower middle class people who have never been on a vacation. this is something that's new to them and all of a sudden it disappears. why did it disappear? the rumors about the pilot going rogue or an intervention, a hijacking, this drives people crazy. >> i would argue your level of sophistication or education may not matter that much when you're dealing with something that's so hair rowing, so terrible. i know plenty of people who are sophisticated and highly educated and they get very scared when they go on plains even though they know the statistics that the highway may be more dangerous. you're in a tube flying over this earth and it has this feeling of what could happen. as to some of these allegations and conspiracies about the pilots, i also want to play for you something discussing in a rueters interview, the significance of the fact that the pie plot had this flight simulator. let's listen to that. >> he has never hidden the fact that he has a simulator at his house. it's in facebook, everybody is proud of it. and i've been invited many times to try it out but have not had the chance. i've asked him before why he built the simulator in his home. it's because that is his hobby. he enjoys flying and he wants to share the joy of flying with his friends and having a simulator at home is just the perfect way to do it. >> so that's the perspective of a friend who is obviously sympathetic to the pilot. but again, put it in context for people who don't know this as a part of pilot hobby. shall we read anything into the fact that there's a simulator? >> no, i wouldn't think so. you have to find something when you go into the hard drive, find something suspicious. the fact that he has a simulator in the house, that works for me. some pilots want to relax when they're offduty, but others are just so into it they want to play with these things. i have so many friends who have these simulators just because they're nuts about them. they love them. >> that's an important context. some people thought that was it, just the fact that it exists. we haven't seen that be the case. thanks for your time tonight. appreciate it. >> sure. >> coming up, we have the man who led the search for air france flight 447 in the atlantaic. joins us to talk about what it will take to locate the plane in the indian ocean, as i mentioned earlier. and someone finally asked chris christie why did he fire bridget kelly. it was a constituent in a town hall and he joins us for a "last word" exclusive. no, no, no! stop! humans. one day we're coming up with the theory of relativity, the next... not so much. but that's okay. you're covered with great ideas like optional better car replacement from liberty mutual insurance. total your car, and we give you the money to buy one a model year newer. learn about it at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? >> for a little perspective, it took two years, millions of dollars and help from a nuclear submarine to recover air france flight 447 when it crashed in 2009. and in that case, searchers found the wreckage of the plane just a few days after it crashed. the man who helped find it, he joins us next. when does your work end? does it end after you've expanded your business? after your company's gone public? and the capital's been invested? or when your company's bought another? is it over after you've given back? you never stop achieving. that's why, at barclays, our ambition is to always realize yours. 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[ mom ] why use more, when you can use less. new bounty. the no-quit picker-upper. flight 307 has now been missing for 14 days. the longest period for a missing plane in modern aviation history. the search for possible debris is about 1,500 miles west of australia. this is an area of open water that runs up to three miles deep. if the jetliner went down in this remote part of the indian ocean and if any debris is found, it may no the be anywhere near the possible crash site beneath the surface. that's because things move very fast on the ocean surface. median ocean current feet is about a foot per second. an object moves about 16 miles a day. this plane has been missing for two weeks. so any potential debris could have traveled 224 miles in any direction. that was an issue in the last major aviation investigation of this type, air france flight 447 which crashed off the coast of brazil in 2009. investigators found debris from that flight five days after it vanished from radar about 30 miles away from the point of impact. it only took five days to find floating debris from flight 447 but it took another two years to find the main crash site on the ocean floor. the search for that air france flooigt is any indication, the search for missing malaysian airlines plane has only just begun. joining me now is the man who helped find air france 447, the director of special projects at the oceangraphic institute. debris may have traveled hundreds of miles away from the potential impact site, how do you search for that kind of thing? >> well, you've got to start by looking at some of that debris if it is, in fact, from the aircraft. and then, you know, it's not just the debris itself, it's the shape of the debris. people that backtrack that kind of stuff want to know is it like a sailboat with a piece sticking up, or is it more like an iceberg with a keel. or is it somewhere in between? it's a very elaborate scientific model being used to backtrack those things. we're getting near the edge of the envelope where, you know, the models are going to start becoming less and less accurate rapidly. >> yeah, and how does the depth of the water and the terrain compare to basically where your team actually found that wreckage of the air france flight? >> sure. air france was about -- the terrain was extremely rupged, probably the most mountainous -- rugged mountain terrain on the planet. with the greatest depth down to about 6,000 meters. in this case, it's an east-west trending underwater volcanic ridge. it's called the southeast indian ridge. and the top of it is about a mile and a half, and then on either side goes down to about three, four miles. it's a lotless rugged, though. so it's a smoother terrain. it still has its lumps and bumps but not as much as the france 447 terrain. >> we're talking about how this military equipment is being used but isn't designed explicitly for this purpose, which makes sense but also leaves you wondering okay, how good is it? can you give us any insight into that? how much of this equipment is tailored towards this kind of search? versus being sort of dual use? >> sure. i can't speak too much to the military hardware, but listening, i think the military hardware is mostly listening for the pinger and identifying objects on the surface of the ocean. you know, radar is pretty good. in terms of the scientific equipment, i can tell you that this is exactly what we do as scientists. in fact, there was a survey at the top of this very ridge. i don't know who did it yet. i'll check that out. these kinds of terrains and this kind of mapping is not unusual for us. except normally we're being driven by scientists asking questions. in this case it will be an investigator, a team of investigators asking questions. >> briefly, just compare this effort to the international cooperation in your effort. because we have seen both excitement and interest in people around the world trying to work on this but also a lot of frustration. >> in the early days of the air france 4477 investigation, there was a -- some similar confusion. we didn't join the fray until months later. but there was always that question about were we getting the right news and how much of it was misinformation. and was there something here behind the scenes that no one knew about. in the end, being on the inside of that circle, i can tell you that it's not easy to do the job you're supposed to do when the whole world is looking at you and criticizing your efforts. i've been there and not a pleasure. >> certainly not. and yet, at the same time, there's, you know, there's a great deal of concern when people look and they say even countries that are nominally allied and cooperative want to hold things back. they don't want to give up their security standing, that kind of stuff. thanks for joining us tonight. >> thank you, ari. coming up, president obama is this close to an iran nuclear deal. and vladimir putin is threatening to sabotage it, yes, over crimea and ukraine. that's next. ight damage your hair? 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[ male announcer ] be a weekender and bring your girls' weekend to life at hotels like hilton and doubletree. book now at hiltonweekends.com. >> as you and your families gather around the table, i want to extend my best wishes on this new spring and newee. i want to take this opportunity to speak directly to the people and leaders of the islamic public of iran. >> that was president obama today with a video message to iran's people and its leaders for the iranian new year, a tradition he started in 2009. >> when this season of new beginnings, i would like to speak clearly to iran's leaders. we have serious differences that have grown over time. my administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us and continue ties between the united states, iran and the international community. this process will not be advanced by threats. we seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect. >> it's yielded did i have did he understand recently, but it was actually controversial at the time. quote, happy new year mullahs. obama's message of weakness was the headline back then. it's the same criticism, of course, levelled against president obama by his republican opponents in both of his presidential campaigns. >> senator obama without precondition wants to sit down and negotiate with them. without preconditions. that's what he stated again, a matter of record. >> one of the challenges we've had with iran is they looked at this administration and felt the administration was not as strong as they needed to be. i think they saw weakness where they had expected to find american strength. we're four years closer to a nuclear iran. >> of except we're not. >> nuclear deal. an historic agreement is preached with iran that president obama says will make the world more secure. >> for the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the iranian nucle