Stay updated with breaking news from Radar information. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
breaking news in the search for malaysia airlines flight 370. just moments ago an underwater drone aborted its first mission, going back to the surface early after trying to locate the missing aircraft. this comes after learning new details about the copilot's cell phone. according to officials, a cell tower near penang malaysia detected the copilot's cell phone was on. at the same time, the plane went missing with 239 people onboard. i should emphasize, missing from radar. it was already off course at that time and communications systems had been turned off. nick is in kuala lumpur. you've been getting conflicting answers, so what can you tell us tonight? >> reporter: this is another one of those things where malaysian officials have given us conflicting, or at least nonconvincing, answers. we asked the defense minister,
the malaysian face, if you will, of the investigation here about that connection to the cell phone tower, was a cell phone call made was the question. this is what he said. >> as far as i know, no, but like i said, that would be in the realm of the police, and the international agencies. and when the time comes, that will be revealed, but i do not want to speculate on that at the moment. >> reporter: now you might just notice there he rubs the back of his ear during that statement. some analysts will tell you he is less than convinced in what he's saying, but it's an indication getting facts from officials is often very, very hard, straightforward questions don't do the trick. one thing this connection with the cell phone tower may add additional location, the altitude and location of flight 370. we were told radar information said that it was about 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level, 80
by international law, by local law as well. of course, of great importance, the extraction of that data. we've heard from the head of police here in malaysia, who have said that they don't actually have the expertise in malaysia to do it. we also heard from the acting transport minister over the weekend as well, over ruling essentially what the chief of police here has said before. chief of police has said all 229 passengers on board the flight were cleared as far as he was concerned in his investigation. the acting transport minister says that is not the case, we can't say anything conclusive until the black box is recovered. so, it does seem to be a waiting game by malaysian officials for the black box. that said, there are many details here that they haven't given, precisely who in the government knew when about the missing plane, about precisely when the military handed over their radar information about flight 370 to civilian officials here. that is a contested issue.
they can if they go back to the airport and they say the last known handshake with his cell phone was at this time and the flight took off at this time, which would indicate going this fast taking off, you know, that's probably about the time he took off and when we lost connection to his phone. >> right. >> the other thing, if his phone was just left on, it would have hit another cell tower somewhere else, potentially, because they did fly over the entire country in that one route that we suspect they went on. there's multiple cell towers there that they could have hit at that time, so it's -- we need one more piece of information to give that a solid answer. >> and we should emphasize from our viewers, from our reports on this topic over the last few days, you know, one tower has not ruled out whether it contacted other towers or not. obviously, this could be one of the most important developments in this story. "outfront" next, though, mixed messages from the malaysian government. they've changed their story again about what happened in the
that's the pressure at that depth. david kelly, president and ceo of bluefin robotics and bud vincent, ocean engineer with the university of rhode island, retired diver with the u.s. navy. both of you, obviously, in the center of this. david, let me just start with you. we, obviously, just got the news just a moment ago breaking on this program from captain matthews saying the bluefin had to abort its mission and come up early because it was deeper, it was deeper than they thought by about 330-so-odd feet. does that concern you at all? >> well, frankly, erin, although it's disappointing the mission ended early, it's not uncommon. we've operated these vehicles around the globe. it's not unusual to get into areas where the charts aren't accurate or you lack information, and the vehicles are designed to be conservative, there are safeties in them, there are checks in them so if they get into situations where the water is deeper than they
call. we know investigators have been looking at phone records from the first officer, the captain, and the passengers, and, again, no evidence suggesting that any phone calls were made, so just because there was a detection, doesn't mean that a phone call was made. but this does refocus attention on the cockpit, erin. what it doesn't tell us, however, who was alive, who was dead. the phone could have made connection, but we don't know if he was alive or what was going on inside the cockpit. also important to reiterate, this was information shared by malaysian authorities with u.s. officials and highlights difficulty in covering the story, there are several agencies involved and we don't know how reliable this data is. >> pamela, thank you very much. obviously, significant details there, and we're going to talk to a technology expert later in the show to see if they would have known the difference between a phone left on or a phone turned on, crucial, crucial distinctions. search crews right now are focusing the search under water. after almost a week with no new signal from what could be one of
spotted. now to see where it came from. the cell phone report adds this other layer of mystery of what happened and another clue but does it bring us any closer to the truth? we are inside the flight simulator. martin, bha do you make of this report? >> up until now we have had two real indicators of what the flight plan might have been for this particular airplane. one was the information that came from those handshakes once every hour. the other was from radar data that the malaysian government reported to us. now you have got a third level which is the cell phone. and apparently the cell phone seems to back up the radar information. in other words that the plane did turn off course. >> i'm sorry to interrupt you but we will go live to kansas city where a press conference is going on, the mother of the 14-year-old who was killed. here is her talking. >> we didn't want to hide and
>> it will take a few hours to go through that data, you know, technicians download that information from the vehicle. they then go through it using a computer, and what they are looking at is side scan sonar images. it's kind of analogous to taking a pregnant wife in for an ultrasound. the doctor is certainly better at reading what he's looking at than you or i would be sitting down looking at the screen, but that's what they are looking for, to see if there's any debris or items down there that would be characteristic of an aircraft debris field. >> and how strange is it to you there's been no debris seen on the surface? if the plane is down there, does it add up to you the fact that you haven't seen any debris on the surface? >> you can explain it either way you want to, right, currently we're at day 39, so it's been 39 days since the aircraft was lost. this is a rough part of the ocean. cyclone has passed through in the interim, so it would not be
what happened today, what can that drone actually get the job done and find the plane? plus, how low was the plane flying in order for the copilot's cell phone to connect to the cell tower? that could be the single most crucial piece of information we've had in a long time. and another mixed message from the malaysian government, this time about what happened inside the cockpit. 'll be here at lifelock doing our thing: offering protection that simple credit score monitoring can't. get lifelock protection and live life free. that's why i got a new windows 2 in 1. it has exactly what i need for half of what i thought i'd pay. and i don't need to be online for it to work. it runs office, so i can do schedules and budgets and even menu changes. but it's fun, too -- with touch, and tons of great apps for stuff like music, 'cause a good playlist is good for business. i need the boss's signature for this. i'm the boss.
sound. there are a couple of things. you have an emergency in your transponder or the radio is not working. if that is not working, there is no communication. this is what doesn't make sense. they turned around. if they did descent or was that data that is not accurate, they should have been talking if there is an aircraft emergency. that did not happen. >> another basic question. can a pilot skirt radar by altering his all ttitude or distance from land mass? we can chart this from satellite information and not from radar information. >> right. it sounds like they were out of radar range and that's why that wasn't happening. it is clear that the transponder