Possible Debris Found Outside Search Area; Families Hear Cockpit-to-Tower Recording
BLITZER: In the hunt for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, today brought an important milestone for the aerial search, plus a surprise nobody expected. Let's go live to CNN's Miguel Marquez. He's outside the search headquarters in Perth, Australia. He's got the very latest. What are you learning over there, Miguel?</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The search has come to an end, Wolf, which is bittersweet for the folks who are doing it. It was a lot of work for them, but -- and they were frustrated they weren't able to find anything from the missing airliner. This as we're learning from a company that says that they may have found it a very long way away, but those who know something about spectral analysis say their claims don't just add up.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): As the underwater search off Australia enters a new phase, a private company is raising the possibility that Flight 370 may actually have crashed several thousand miles away in the Bay of Bengal. The Australian firm called Geo Resonance says it detected metals consistent with a large aircraft that could be from the missing plane.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not saying that it definitely is, however, we believe it should be followed up.</s>MARQUEZ: Geo Resonance says the metals appeared in the Bay of Bengal sometime between March 5 and 10. Flight 370 went missing on the 8th. The company launched its own search for the lane, using technology originally created to find nuclear warheads and submarines. The Australian-led search team is dismissing the company's claims, saying it's satisfied the jet went down in the southern Indian Ocean, based on its analysis of satellite and other data. Flight 370 families are urging investigators to explore every possible lead.</s>SARAH BAJC, PARTNER OF FLIGHT 370 PASSENGER: We would like to see the government follow up on this. It seems valid.</s>MARQUEZ: Many relatives of the missing passengers attended a briefing today in China and heard new details about the investigation. For the first time they were allowed to hear the actual recording of the final words between the tower and the cockpit before the radio contact was lost.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Malaysian 370 contact Ho Chi Minh 120 decimal 9, good night.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good night, Malaysian 370.</s>STEVE WANG, SON OF FLIGHT 370 PASSENGER: Finally, they have given to us. I think it is a good beginning and we want them to keep on giving some more scenes. More acquired.</s>MARQUEZ: Back here in Australia, more than 600 military personnel marked the end of the air search, posing in front of the planes they used to scan the social surface for six weeks. Without finding any trace of Flight 370.</s>MARQUEZ: Now a couple of things about the GeoResonance information there, Wolf. One, the JACC center here in Australia says that the place where they put that plane is not even on that northern arc. The Malaysian government says they will look into it. But the folks that we've talked who know about spectral analysis said it's just impossible to see any of the things that they said they saw under the ocean, under any sort of water much less 1,000 meters down -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Miguel Marquez in Perth, Australia with the very latest. Thank you, Miguel. There's lots to discuss with our panel. Let's bring in our CNN aviation analyst, the former NTSB managing director Peter Goelz, our law enforcement analyst, the former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes, and in Denver, CNN safety analyst, David Soucie, the author of the important book, "Why Planes Crash." David, you knew -- you're familiar with this Australian company, GeoResonance, and you've suggested it has a pretty good track record. Do you think it's worthwhile actually going into the Bay of Bengal and looking for wreckage?</s>DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, you know, the experience I have with this technology is on land, it's not in water. So I really can't speak to whether or not the -- it can reach into the water. But it is something that we've used before in our mining company and to locate metals within the earth. So that's not new. What is new that it's in water. So there's that. So, with that, I think that it is -- it does have credibility, but why it's coming out at this point, why it hasn't been vetted properly before this, that's why I still hold in question.</s>BLITZER: And that's a good question, Peter, because apparently this Australian company said they notified Australian authorities, Malaysian authorities four weeks, once again two weeks ago. They got no response. As a result they decided to go public with this information. Is it time to go look in the Bay of Bengal?</s>PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, the investigators are in a terrible bind. I think they probably responded to the company or should have responded to the company, and say, listen we don't think there's anything here. We don't think the technology is applicable and as they announced today it's not even on the arc. But at this point, since there's not a shred of evidence, they have to track down every suggestion.</s>BLITZER: Even if it's -- goes against the grain, do you think they should go in the Bay of Bengal, Tom, and take a look over there?</s>TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think they're stuck. I think having this come up now, as Peter mentioned, not having any other evidence except the satellite information, they're almost going to have to do something or stall long enough to hope that the current searches come up with something first and they don't have to go up there.</s>BLITZER: Because, David, everybody seems to think that satellite information from the Inmarsat satellite, those so-called handshakes, the arc going into the southern ocean, coupled with those four pings that were detected from what they thought were one of the two black boxes, that was it, but they found nothing. So here's the question to you, how reliable is Inmarsat data and those four pings?</s>SOUCIE: Well, I'm still confident, Wolf, that those are coming from that aircraft. I've stayed firm with that. I think that the pings are undeniable in my mind. I think that the search has to continue. They went to the most probably ping but now they need to expand that search up to the north, to the south. And the reason I feel so strongly about that, Wolf, is because no one has given me any evidence to the contrary. No one has said, well, then, it's this, or then it's that, or maybe they did something wrong. No one has been able to prove to me or show me that there's anything else in the ocean that would have produced those signals. So until that's shown to me, I'm going to stick with that and say that I'm still very confident that the aircraft will be found down there. They just need to continue searching.</s>BLITZER: Yes. They've given up the surface search but they're going to expand the search underwater, at the bottom of the Indian Ocean over there. You heard the audio now, Peter. We heard -- we got the transcripts earlier today. They released the audio. It sounded relatively routine. Here's the question. What took them so long? Why couldn't they have released that audio several weeks ago and dealt with the anguish of those passengers' families?</s>GOELZ: It's inexplicable. This was clearly a routine communication. It should have been released weeks ago. It would have calmed the families at a critical point. I have no idea why they didn't release it.</s>BLITZER: Do you have any idea, Tom? You're a former FBI assistant director.</s>FUENTES: No. No, this is just their policy to hold everything close like that, whether they need to or not. Even when it's against their best interest to do it. They should have released it earlier. It would have been much better for them with the families, with the public, with all the criticism they were getting. With everybody assuming they're hiding something, we now see they weren't hiding anything. Just, you know, they do things that hurt themselves and that was one of them.</s>BLITZER: David, did you hear anything unusual in that audio, the -- between the cockpit and ground control?</s>SOUCIE: No, I sure didn't, Wolf. Nothing new, nothing unusual. Now there is some information that can be gained from the recording itself by, you know, assessing the engine speeds. The volume of the -- the noises in the cockpit can give you clues as to how fast the aircraft is going, but at that point during the transmission we already knew that, we knew that information. So there's really nothing to be gained there. But the fact that they hung on to it this long and didn't release it, again that's inexplicable.</s>BLITZER: Peter, the prime minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, he says they're ending the surface search now. It's a waste of time. Do you agree?</s>GOELZ: Absolutely. I think it should have ended a few days earlier. These crews have worked hard. They didn't find anything. It's now time to expand the underwater search, bring in some new equipment, retest the theories to see if they're in the right place and get ready for the long haul.</s>BLITZER: What new equipment should they bring in?</s>GOELZ: Well, either the REMUS 6000, which an automated underwater vehicle or a towed array. Let them make the decision on what the task is. Are they going to be looking in the three remaining pinger areas or are they going for the extended search?</s>BLITZER: Very quickly, David. If they go to the Bay of Bengal and do a quick search where this Australian company says they've seen some wreckage, it looks like a plane, how long will it take to either confirm or deny that it's something valuable?</s>SOUCIE: It will take very little time. We have an Orion aircraft sitting there. Fly them up there, find out what happened or call Bangladesh, have them check in. It won't take long to check. Go check it, the families will know that it is or isn't that aircraft.</s>BLITZER: David Soucie, Peter Goelz, Tom Fuentes, guys, thanks very much. We're watching dangerous storms developing across the deep south right now. Our reporters are in the field. They're responding to the latest threat. Stand by for a live updates. Also ahead, disturbing new evidence, the violence in Ukraine is now getting even more deadly.