Objects Detected in South Indian Ocean; Explaining Issues With Water Searches
BANFIELD: Being called the best lead so far, and 13 days after that Boeing 777 vanished with 239 people on board, here it is. Satellite photos appear to show two large objects in a very remote part of the Indian Ocean. In fact, one of the most remote parts. Our Tom Foreman joins us live from Washington with a virtual look at the scene. And now what's become a more focused search scene. Also still with me is safety analyst David Soucie. We're going to zero in on this, Tom, 2800 miles from where this plane took off. Before we even get to the point of why on Earth the plane would be out there, take me to that area and show me what we're looking at.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're looking at right now really is a high seas race to get more assets to that area. The bulk of all the search fleet out there, airplanes and ships, are moving down into what was the southern arc here which the U.S. officials have said all along they thought was the main place. And to that specific location because of these pictures. You were looking at them a minute ago and it is very easy to take a look at these satellite images and say, boy, there's really not much there. But one of our producers just had confirmed a short while ago that these are from an American company called Digital Globe. They've been supplying some satellite images to the search teams down there. So the Australians are getting these from Digital Globe. This doesn't look like much, but there's a reason for that. By law Digital Globe cannot release the highest resolution images, by U.S. law. So what the teams down there are likely looking at is a much, much higher resolution image than this. We don't know which particular Digital Globe facilities did this, but we know some of them have the facility to get down to like 14-inch resolution. Which would mean if I put a license plate on top of a car and you took a picture of it, you couldn't read it at 14 inches but you would know what color it is. What they may be looking at may be a lot sharper than this. That may be why as we move into the three things to check here, that may be why credibility seems high. Why the Australian government says we believe in this. What else do you have to consider whether or not this is real evidence? Obviously it's going to make a difference what size you're talking about. We're talking pieces here that are 78, 79 feet long. Think about this plane. This plane is about 200 feet, wing tip to wing tip, about 200 feet end to end, could you get a piece that big out of it? Yes, you could. Would it float? Well, that's a different matter. So that takes us to the last question, which is the notion of location. The location is right. We know that to be true. But you were talking a minute ago there about the idea of whether or not you could be right on top of it and not see it. Absolutely you could. Think about this. In any body of water, when you take an image from right above, you can see down into it a little bit, but if you're at the water level or near it in a plane or a ship, close enough to see a small piece, then you get all sorts of reflections, all sorts of white caps, many, many interferences that can make it harder for you to see what might be right below you. And, again, as you noted earlier, everything's moving. On top of that, when you start moving down into the water, even if you have good search capabilities, it gets complicated. We talk about the pinger all the time. The pinger that would be part of this flight-data recorder in the best conditions has a range of about two miles. Well, from where you would be on the bottom here in the Indian ocean, almost anywhere in the Indian Ocean to the surface, it's going to be about two miles. So, you can't just go along the surface and say, let's listen for it here. You can try, but your chances of hitting that range are very limited. So all of those things come together. That's why, as you noted just moments ago, you could be very close to the source and still have quite a hard time finding it. This is one of the hallmarks of almost all airplane searches, and some of them can make it very, very difficult, Ashleigh.</s>BANFIELD: It just makes you feel a little bit more hopeless as if the size of this entire search wasn't hopeless enough. In fact, what you just said, David Gallo was on last night with Anderson Cooper, and he just happened to mention -- he went over his old maps from the Air France wreckage and noticed that they were right on top of that old wreckage and did not even know it and went right over it. So it's so distressing to hear that. Actually, as luck would have it, I have just been told by my producer we've got David Gallo who's available. Mr. Gallo, can you hear me?</s>DAVID GALLO, WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION (via telephone): I can, Ashleigh. How are you?</s>BANFIELD: Oh, thank god. What perfect serendipity that you'd be on the air right now.</s>GALLO (via telephone): Well, my laptop's not cooperating, so I was hoping to Skype in and for my reason it says it's full. Too many movies, probably.</s>BANFIELD: I tell you what, go right to what I just said. I heard you say that on Anderson Cooper's show last night, that when you went back to your old maps. you discovered you were right on top of the wreckage. It doesn't bode well for laypeople like me who hear that and think we don't have a chance. How can we --</s>GALLO (via telephone): Well, you know what? Yes, and I don't -- and I'm sorry to give you the hopeless feeling, but because, you know, on paper these things work, the pingers work. They're the right frequency. The people that design them know what they're talking about. You should be able to hear them a long way away. But in practice if they're in a valley, if there's a mountain, and there's plenty of those at the bottom of the sea, or if there's thermal layers in the ocean, the oceans can play a lot of games with sound. That's the same way you can hide a submarine just beneath the surface -- beneath the thermal layer. No matter what the sonars are, you can still hide a submarine because the oceans do strange things with sound. So you have to -- it's something you've got to listen for because if it works it's fantastic. But, you know, we have to count -- plan to do other things, as well.</s>BANFIELD: You know, Air France wasn't that long ago, but I guess in the grand scheme of technological innovation it was light-years ago. So are we much better off now in terms of the gear that we have employed in this search than we were when you were looking for that wreckage?</s>GALLO (via telephone): Yeah, I think we're a little bit better. Make -- you know the ocean -- most people don't understand the whole world of ocean exploration. It's not the same as the world up here under the sun. We don't have GPS. It's pitch black. The pressure's crushing. So we have to deal with all sorts of obstacles. But we've made incremental things. But the thing -- I'm a bit frustrated because what we haven't done since Air France was come up with a system where we can respond rapidly to something like this. It's going to take a long time, in my estimation, to get the kinds of tools we're going to need onsite. The planes can get there fairly quickly, but to put a research vessel on the site with the kinds of tools you need to work 2,000-, 3,000-, 4,000-meters deep is going to take a bit of time. I think there's probably some things in Australia that can be used, but to bring things from other parts of the world is slow going. It's months.</s>BANFIELD: Yeah. And the Malaysians have already said they don't even have the submarine capabilities to do that kind of work in their fleet. David, thank you. And I hope you can stay with us throughout the program. I've got a lot more questions for you. David Gallo joining us live via telephone. Just fantastic information when it comes to the oceanographic aspect of what this search might entail. And when David said that it could take a long time, think about the families for a moment, because they've been waiting already two weeks, almost entirely two weeks. But if it takes years and years, they still need the answers. As you might imagine, the discovery of this debris that might have actually come from the plane is evoking a lot of different emotions for these relatives of the passengers. You're going to hear from some of these family members. They are absolutely desperate for anything they can get. But what does today's discovery mean for them? You'll find out, next.