New Radar Data Received from Missing Airplane; Indonesia Refuses to Approve U.S. Flight
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Jake, thanks very much. Happening now, the breaking news. We're following, the mystery of flight 370. Malaysia receives new radar data about the missing airliner but won't say what it shows. As investigators pore over the new information, an urgent appeal for more data goes out to countries in the region.</s>BLITZER: Anguish and agony from the families of the passengers. Distraught relatives are dragged away by authorities after begging the media for help. And the search narrows. Stunning new details on why efforts are now focused at the far end of the southern corridor in a remote area of a vast ocean. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. We begin with new clues that are emerging right now in the disappearance of Malaysia airlines flight 370. Here are the latest developments. A senior U.S. official says a route change, that abrupt turn to the west, appears to have been entered into the airliner's flight system at least 12 minutes before the last voice contact was received from the cockpit. The FBI is now looking at hard drives from the computers of the pilot and the co-pilot, including the pilot's flight simulator hard drive. A Malaysian official says simulator data was erased and investigators are trying to recover the files. And U.S. and Australian officials indicate the hunt the now focused on the far end of the southern search corridor, and that could put it more than 1500 miles off the coast of Perth, Australia in the middle of the vast empty ocean. Our correspondents and analysts there are all standing with the kind of coverage only CNN can deliver. We being with our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto who have some brand-new information -- Jim.</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well Wolf, CNN has learned that the Malaysian government has obtained new radar data relevant to tracking the path of flight 370 after it lost communications with the ground. And because this data could reveal sensitive military capabilities, Malaysia has yet to detail the new data or which country has provided it, however. It follows a broad appeal to all countries along this path for more data to indicate which direction it went and how far it went. Meanwhile, as every day passes without hard information about the plane's fate, there's leading emotions of family members to boil over.</s>SCIUTTO (voice-over): Begging for answers for one more day, today, loved ones of passengers on board flight 370 grew frustrated and angry.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through text): I don't know where my dear is. Twelve day. My son, where is my son?</s>SCIUTTO: And when the answers didn't come yet again, the disappointment was simply too much for some of them. Today, new attention focused on the pilots. The FBI is now reviewing a hard drives from their computers and the captain's flight simulator. Malaysian officials say data had been deleted from it weeks before the flight.</s>ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We are in ongoing conversations about how we can help and will make available whatever resources that we have, whatever expertise we have.</s>SCIUTTO: The massive search area in the Southern Indian Ocean is now narrowing significantly. Surveillance aircraft from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand are now focusing on a much smaller area, roughly the size of France, centered here, 2,000 miles off the Australian coast.</s>JOHN YOUNG, AUSTRALIAN MARITIME SAFETY AUTHORITY EMERGENCY RESPONSE: Today, the said area has been significantly refined. You can see here, the lines that were prepared by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board have been refined somewhat based on more detailed analysis.</s>SCIUTTO: Malaysian authorities say they are now getting new radar data after reaching out to every country along the presumed northern and southern flight paths.</s>HISHAMMUDDIN BIN HUSSEIN, MALAYSIAN ACTING MINISTER OF TRANSPORTATION: I can confirm that we have received from radar data, but we are not at liberty to release information from other countries.</s>SCIUTTO: U.S. officials tell me that one key reason they are increasingly focused on the southern flight path is that the northern route is so well covered by radar and by satellites that had the plane taken that path or like would it have been spotted. Though this southern area is becoming smaller and more refined, it is still huge and 2,000 miles off the Australian coast. Australian officials saying, Wolf, that even -- I mean, it shrank down, it's still going to take at least weeks to search the area.</s>BLITZER: Yes, even though it shrank on, still huge when you take a look at the relativity of the whole area. Now, CNN is getting some new information about the flight's initial turn west. What are you learning?</s>SCIUTTO: Well, here is the thing. Basically, I think it comes down to the details that when the computer's flying the plane, it's more refined and smooth than when the pilot is flying the plane. And the data is showing now that the way the plane directed itself to radar way points, as you can see on the map now, was so precise that that follows a plane following a path of what has been entered into the flight management system. That had the pilot taking those controls, say it made that turn in response to something in the cockpit suddenly, it wouldn't have been as refined path. So it feeds into this theory that we were reporting first yesterday that this turn was preprogrammed into the flight before that final good night.</s>BLITZER: For whatever reason, very disturbing. All right, thanks very much. We're also learning more about the reasons why the search for the airliner is narrowing and why the focus is now on that far end of the southern search zone. Let's go to our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. What are you picking up over that, Barbara?</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, Australia is searching a vast area, but right now, focus on about 117,000 square miles, big enough, isn't it, off that western coast of Perth. The map really tells you everything you need to know about this. How are they coming to this calculation? Well, what they've done is with the help of the U.S. NTSB, the National Transportation safety Board, look at the satellite transmissions, calculated the fuel, the range and how many, most importantly perhaps, how many days this has been going on. And that's what leads to the urgency about all of this, Wolf. As the days go on, the ocean currents shift everything around every single day. Based on what they know now, calculating all that data from the time they lost contact with the last transmission of the airplane, that's how they come to this box they're looking at right now. But officials are saying every day, the search box is going to change as time goes on and the urgency will probably grow.</s>BLITZER: And that box still the size of about New Mexico. So, does this mean they have effectively given up on the northern route?</s>STARR: Well, technically no. But I have to tell you, since this happened, every U.S. military and intelligence official I've spoken so says they've genuinely believe most likely it is somewhere sadly in the Indian Ocean. And why do they say this? Of course, it's because the U.S. has pretty good satellite coverage in Asia, especially China, Pakistan, those countries in there because they watch for ballistic missile launches. U.S., the most classified military satellites as far as anybody publicly knows right now, have seen absolutely nothing that indicates a plane is up in Asia. No country reporting legitimate verified, if you will, radar hits of a plane. Just simply no indication that it is up in Asia in any of those 11 countries and U.S. officials feel pretty confident as each day goes by, if there had been any information about it being up there, they would have heard it by now. The issue is satellite coverage in the Indian Ocean. Commercial satellites have been moved that way. U.S. satellites, the classified satellites regularly don't cover that area, but they are going back through everything they have -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thank you. Let's bring in our law enforcement analyst, the former FBI assistant director, Tom Fuentes along with CNN aviation analyst Mark Weiss, security consultant, former 777 pilot. So Tom, do you think that now that they've narrowed the search in the southern area, does that mean, you think, that they're getting closer to actually finding something?</s>THOMAS FUENTES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I don't know, Wolf. This is a phrase we've heard about ten times in the last 12 days. We've narrowed the search area. I don't know completely what it's based on. It seems to be based on a negative that surely, some country would have seen it had it gone north. Well, maybe yes, maybe no. We've seen where Thailand and other countries look back ten days later and say, well, it did come across our radar. So, I just -- I don't know much we can rely on just the fact it didn't show up there, or we don't think it did, to say it for sure went this way. Now also, you could speculate the reason the area is being narrowed is that maybe Australia saw that plane on their defense radar system and said, OK, it's over here, but don't tell anybody we told you.</s>BLITZER: So, the FBI is now looking at the hard drive from the pilot, the co-pilot, from their personal computers as well as the flight simulator that the pilot had in his home. What do you think, Mark, they are looking for?</s>MARK WEISS, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, they certainly going to look for any type of track that pilot may have put in to the simulator flying along that corridor because that would not be normal route to flight that the aircraft would be taking. That's what they should be looking for.</s>BLITZER: So, they're looking to see if there's anything suspicious that all that might indicate this pilot in effect or co-pilot, the case of the simulator, that the pilot was rehearsing, if you will. That's the keyword I've heard all day. They're looking for some indication of rehearsal.</s>WEISS: I mean, right now, nothing has been found. And so, certainly, you don't want to cast dispersions right now where they may not belong. But this is what they are going to look for. They are going to look for that smoking gun piece of information.</s>BLITZER: You're a former assistant director of the FBI, even if it look like it's going someplace sinister on that simulation, it could be a logical explanation.</s>FUENTES: Right, Wolf. Well, if it's going to the circle that they have put on the globe in the Indian Ocean, there's nothing sinister about going to Australia. Air Malaysia flies to almost every major city in Australia already. And this captain could have -- if he did search going to those location, it may be that he's going to have an upcoming flight to one of those airports or that he's going to request being able to fly there if they have him on a regular Beijing route, maybe he wants to go to Sydney or Melbourne or Perth or</s>BLITZER: And you are pretty -- from you're hearing from your sources, Jim, that they're pretty confident these FBI experts, that they can retrieve what was deleted on these personal computers as well as on the simulator.</s>SCIUTTO: To a point, they're confident they can retrieve something, not necessarily everything. They say it is like fitting together pieces of a puzzle, right? It depends on what degree the files were deleted, but they can get an indication from it. And these are teams that that's their job. They've got an expertise in looking on computers for things that people don't want to find on computers. So if you had a team who could pull it off, it would be this team.</s>BLITZER: But if may come this, the fact that the computer in the cockpit that they had a different flight path that was programmed about 12 minutes before that co-pilot said to ground control, all right, good night?</s>WEISS: Well, Wolf, I still don't know how that information with that 12 minutes really came from --</s>BLITZER: It came from law enforcement source who's been briefed.</s>WEISS: OK. My understanding of how that system would work, it wouldn't know that on the ground. That could have been programmed on the ground at Kuala Lumpur from one of the pilots or somebody getting into the cockpit. I don't know that that system actually would allow that transfer of information back to the --</s>BLITZER: But it's likely supposed to go from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, non-stop, five hour flight, why would someone program in on the ground that it's going to go somewhere else to the west?</s>WEISS: Well, that's the point. That, you know, somebody could have done it on the ground or even in the air, but I don't know --</s>BLITZER: Is someone mischievously would go into the cockpit before the pilot and co-pilot checked all the systems?</s>WEISS: Well no, it would have had to have been after the pilot and co-pilot checked the systems because what you can is you'd get a flight plan from your operations, you'd check that flight plan against the computers, the distances, the way points have to match, they would have agreed. But you've been on commercial flights when you've seen pilots get out of the cockpit and go to the bathroom. Go to talk to some of the passengers and people have been in the cockpit. Certainly at that point, something could be done. Or we've heard before that this has, you know, flights allowed other people into the cockpit. It's possible somebody could have tampered with it at that point.</s>BLITZER: And what are you hearing on that specific point?</s>SCIUTTO: You know what's interesting about this, in the investigation, we, the investigators, the U.S., the Malaysians, are using data in ways they never have before. And now that is partly because you don't have a plane or piece of the plane to get a lot of indications. But it's also because planes, devices, everything we do today sends more data than it ever has before. And the coverage of the earth, whether the satellites, radar, wireless communications from the plane via ACARS and the engines, these are systems that did not necessarily exist five, ten, 15 years ago. And it is incredible thing. Also I think relevant, we did a lot of reporting on the NSA story. This is not, you know, the NSA is not spying here, but it is an example of the society that we live in today, where there's data coming from everything we sit in, ride in, use, talk on, you know, in a number of directions at any time and this is helping investigators.</s>BLITZER: Quickly.</s>FUENTES: Also, Wolf, you want to know what's the bases of the information. If they're saying we saw this on the ground, the computer change, that would be one thing. But it seems like they're saying the flight turned so smoothly, it must have been programmed. And my question with that is they couldn't tell you for sure if it went up 45,000 feet, down 23,000. At that point when we question that, they said well, it was at edge of the radar zone, so it wasn't precise enough. Suddenly, it's precise enough to know the turn smooth --.</s>BLITZER: We are getting new information and president where they are getting --</s>BLITZER: Stand by. Up next, the CNN correspondent ready to go out on a U.S. search flight, but the American plane is refused permission to fly over Indonesian air space. I'll have a U.S. Navy commander in the region, what is going on. And based on the latest revelation, we've put together a new minute by minute timeline of what happened aboard flight 370.