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NEWS STREAM

The Search For MH 370 Continues; Crimea Preparing For Sunday's Referendum; The Making Of Titanfall; Syrian Refugees In Lebanon To Hit 1 Million; Interview With Global Ocean Commission Chairman David Miliband

Aired March 14, 2014 - 8:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MONITA RAJPAL, HOST: I'm Monita Rajpal in Hong Kong. Welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet.

Almost exactly seven days ago, a plane took off and disappeared and we still have no idea what happened to the 239 people aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Violence on the streets of Eastern Ukraine days ahead of a referendum in Russian controlled Crimea.

And saving the world's water as we speak to former British foreign secretary David Milliband on his new task at the Global Ocean Commission.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has now been missing for nearly a week and the mystery of its whereabouts is no closer to being solved. The hunt for the plane and the 239 people onboard has broadened to an unprecedented scale, but the 13 countries combing vast areas of ocean and jungle have turned up nothing. Malaysia's acting transport minister says searchers are following every lead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HISHAMMUDDIN HUSSEIN, ACTING MALAYSIAN TRANSPORT MINISTER: We want nothing more than to find the plane as quickly as possible, but the (inaudible) has forced us to widen our search. A normal investigation becomes narrower with time, I understand as new information focuses on the search. But this is not a normal investigation. In this case, the information we have forces us to look further and further afield.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJPAL: Well, let's take a look at how the search area has grown. Flight MH 370 was bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane at 1:30 am local time on Saturday over the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam. Search efforts focused on the South China Sea and then the Gulf of Thailand. It shifted to include the Andaman Sea after radar data suggested the plane tried to turn back.

Then, a senior Malaysian air force official said it was last tracked over Pulau Perak and the search expanded to the Strait of Malaka.

But authorities say they are still not sure if that radar blip was really the missing jet.

And that brings us to Thursday. A U.S. navy destroyer was deployed to the Indian Ocean at the request of the Malaysian government. U.S. officials say Malaysia has shared information indicating the missing plane flew several hours after its last transponder signal.

Now based on fuel estimates, that could be an additional 4,000 kilometers. Malaysian officials refused to comment on those remarks, but they confirmed the search area now includes the Indian Ocean as well as more of the South China Sea.

Well, let's cut through some of this confusing and conflicting reports on the fate of Flight 370. CNN's aviation correspondent Richard Quest joins us now from New York with more on that.

Richard, it is extremely difficult to try to piece together the pieces of this puzzle, because the pieces are indeed while significant, they're still pretty small.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not only are they small, in some cases they're nonexistent and pure speculation. Monita, the only thing we can say with any certainty is what the minister just said, this is no ordinary investigation. And that might as well be the touchstone for this whole investigation.

So we have two very distinct search areas on the eastern side of Malaysia out towards the South China Sea where they -- the sight of the last contact where you see the plane now flying towards. And then on the western side of Malaysia out towards the Strait of Malaka and the Andaman Sea and the Indian Ocean where we have these pings.

Now what these pings are, why are they searching on the western side? because they believe the plane -- the plane's transmission equipment tried to ping the satellite. It tried to say I am here. I am here.

No data was sent, but the plane apparently, or at least a plane, or at least a ping was received from an aircraft on the western side saying I am here. I am here.

And when you plot that -- those pings, according to the experts, it appears to show a route, a way path. It appears to show a recognized airworthy route.

RAJPAL: Is it possible, Richard, that there is information out there that authorities have not shared with the media?

QUEST: I would say -- I would raise the tenor of your possible to probable, likely and absolutely. Of course there is? They are not sharing information as they rightly -- first of all, under ICAA (ph) rules there a lot of information that can't be shared. The investigator in charge of the state of registry, which is Malaysia, that was confirmed today -- the state of registry, Malaysia is the proper authorized state until we know where the plane is. Once we know where the plane is, that may shift to the state of occurrence. But at the moment, Malaysia has -- is in the driving seat, if you like.

Now they will be having raw data from satellite, from ultra high radio, from their own resources. What we did learn -- let's say what we learned today, what we learned, Monita, is that the Malaysians admitted they are now handing data to others -- we can read as the NTSB, the AAIB, the FAA -- information that they said they would not normally release on national security grounds.

And what that means, Monita, they're handing over the raw data. They are basically saying to the Americans and the British experts, this is what we've got, you interpret it and help us understand what it means.

And that makes total sense, because they are the experts. The NTSB, the AAIB, the Europeans, they are the experts at looking at this and knowing what it means.

RAJPAL: Granted, more people knowing more information makes the search -- I guess I don't want to say easier, but at least there are more hands on deck here. That said, with an expanded search -- and we're looking at a vast area here, does that make it more difficult?

QUEST: OK, let's go back to the map, let's go back to the map and just sort of clarify this a little bit. Yes, it is an expanded search, but it's not a wanton and random search. It's not like -- they're not looking -- in this circle, we're not looking off the northwest coast of Australia and right the way down towards Papua New Guinea. Not yet anyway. You're looking at very much where it says sight of last contact into the South China Sea and following that arrow out on the way past -- across the northern west coast of Indonesia and towards the Andaman Island.

Now that is still a hefty -- that is still a hefty workload, to be searched, but it is -- and it is bordering on unmanageable. But again, experts know what they're doing. They know how to crisscross the ocean. They know how to plot grass on this sort of thing. So it will take time.

And to anyone, yourself, myself and everyone else included who expects this to be air crash investigation like the TV program, that it'll all be neatly wrapped up by the final add break, that's not going to happen.

RAJPAL: Indeed.

All right, Richard, thank you very much. Richard Quest there live for us from New York.

Well, we had heard the reports that a data system on the plane known as ACARS transmitted information hours after the last reported contact with the aircraft. Rene Marsh looks at the various communications systems on the plane and how they could be critical to the search.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Inside the cockpit of a Boeing 777, there are multiple ways pilots communicate with the ground. The ACAR system automatically beams down information about the health of the plane. Until today, we thought the last transmission was 1:07 a.m. local time. Now, there is word it may have been transmitting data hours beyond that.

(on camera): What information -- give me details what kind of information is being beamed down.

TOM HAUETER, FORMER DIRECTOR, NTSB OFFICE OF AVIATION SAFETY: Commonly it was download, engine parameters, temperatures, amount of fuel burned, any maintenance discrepancy.

MARSH (voice-over): Airlines monitor the real time data.

Another way to communicate: radio. "All right. Good night", the final call from the pilots of Flight 370 left Malaysian airspace, a common phrase when changing controllers.

ALASKA AIRLINES 261: We are in a dive here.

MARSH: In Alaska Airlines Flight 261, when the plane dived out of control, pilots radioed what was happening. But no mayday from Flight 370.

(on camera): In the event of an emergency, is communication secondary?

HAUETER: Yes. The first thing is to fly the airplane, navigate the airplane, and communicate. That's the order of precedence.

MARSH (voice-over): A third way to communicate, by transponder, 1:21, a.m., Flight 370's transponder signal goes dead. It transmits the plane's location, speed, altitude and position.

(on camera): Is there any good reason that a pilot would want to switch that off?

HAUETER: No. Clearly, if all of the power was lost to the aircraft or something happened to take out that part of the electronics, the electrical system -- yes, that would turn it off. But certainly, one aspect of turning it off is because you don't want to be seen.

MARSH (voice-over): Radar tracked Flight 370 flying for another nine minutes. At 1:30 a.m. local time, the plane vanishes.

But the one piece of the plane that is likely still communicating, the flight recorders. Only sonar equipment can detect their pings and time is of essence. The signal only lasts for about 30 days.

Rene Marsh, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJPAL: Well, as the search area is expanded yet again, a U.S. navy destroyer is being moved into the Indian Ocean. For more on U.S. military efforts in the hunt for this plane, Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins us now with more -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Monita, what we now know is that the destroyer, the USS Kidd is at the northern end of the Strait of Malaka, essentially the entrance to the Indian Ocean and it is expected to use its helicopters and equipment to move out into Indian Ocean waters and begin its hunt to the west of the Malay peninsula.

But also a U.S. navy P-3 aircraft has flown its first mission about 1,000 miles out into the Indian Ocean earlier today. It reports finding nothing.

This is the area of concentration right now to the west of Malaysia, because of those pings. They got that data from -- pings received by satellites, analyzed it and matched it to the profile of this type of aircraft, these type of engines and the plane that these pings came from had no operating transponder, there was no correlating transponder information. These are the clues they put together that make them believe the airliner was out over the Indian Ocean for four to five hours perhaps. No crash beacon ever went off, so they have no record of it impacting anywhere.

I think the bottom line is that investigators from Malaysia, from the United States, from other nations involved are searching and looking everywhere. They have a lot of , but no facts about what happened to the plane. They want to find the wreckage first -- Monita.

RAJPAL: What are military officials, U.S. military officials saying about this really unprecedented situation where almost seven days have gone by and a plane simply vanished?

STARR: You know, it's -- I think whether they are military officials or the agencies that are taking the lead, which is the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, those are the agencies that have people in Malaysia working with investigators there. They are just trying to work their way through this.

It's taking a lot of time coordinating with the Malaysians who have some information, are sharing some information. It takes a lot of time to go through all of that satellite data. It's an unprecedented situation. Certainly they would have hoped to have found it earlier, but they are working their way through it, they say.

RAJPAL: All right, Barbara thank you for that. Barbara Starr there live for us from the Pentagon.

Do stay with us here on News Stream. We take you live to Ukraine for the latest on tensions there as John Kerry sits down for 11th hour talks with his Russian counterpart. Ukraine's Crimea region heads toward a vote on whether to split from the country and join Russia.

Plus, the Syrian civil war is entering its fourth year. We look at a country torn apart by violence with no end in sight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJPAL: Welcome back.

In just two days, a referendum will decide whether Crimea should secede from Ukraine and join Russia.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov are holding talks in London on the crisis.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, tensions turn to violence between pro-Russia and pro-Ukrainian protesters on Thursday. This video shows what started out as two separate rallies in the eastern city of Donetsk. It ended in clashes. At least one person was stabbed to death. Several people were injured.

In Crimea, they are already experiencing the upheaval of historic change. Senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh shows us what that looks like.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORREPSONDENT: In Bakhchissaray town hall they're in overdrive 24/7, checking the electoral role for Sunday's referendum to be independent or join Russia, even though it's already invaded. Meeting whatever standard you can expect for a very hasty vote to join a country whose own elections are said to be pretty much rigged.

Still, they insist everyone will get a vote, even pro-Ukrainian soldiers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): If they are residents in Crimea they can vote. But soldiers who aren't, can't.

WALSH: Here, they count voters, but just down the road they count soldiers still loyal to Ukraine.

On Monday, the commander was kidnapped and now as later pro-Russian militia storm this base. Now, defections are happening fast.

It really is the bizarrest invasion you could imagine, barely a shot fired here since Russian troops have moved in to take it over. And as the referendum nears, it seems in some places what remains of the Ukrainian military is just melting away.

Captain Gunder (ph) is the new boss. The old kidnapped commander sacked. But the majority of his unit, 67 men, have surrendered.

CAPTAIN SERGEI GUNDER, A2904 BASE IN BADKCHISARAY (through translator): There was a surrender yesterday to the Crimean army. And 51 have stayed faithful to the Ukrainian people from which 15 spent all day and night on the base.

WALSH: Some of the Ukrainian soldiers still come to work, but aren't allowed into the base so stand in the parking lot all day then go home at 5:00.

Lost in this twilight zone as Crimea moves from a government that admits its military can't intervene here to a government that pretends its military hasn't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJPAL: Well, CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is now in the city of Simferapol, he joins us now live. And Nick, as if to add to the tensions or to even send a message the Russians are holding training exercises nearby.

WALSH: Absolutely. And that exercise on the eastern border of Ukraine -- 8,500 soldiers -- the Russian minister of defense saying they're familiarizing themselves with unfamiliar territory there. I think that's casting a shadow over this vital meeting in London, which Washington has been holding out as the last chance really for diplomacy here. John Kerry, Sergei Lavrov talking. There no suggestion before, and I think likely after, that we'll see the off ramp that the west is trying to hold out to Moscow being seized by the Kremlin.

They are moving ahead with their referendum on Sunday here on the ground, that is absolutely not going to change, as far as we can see. And that referendum will cast a vote taking Crimea out of Ukraine and perhaps voting for it to be part of the Russian federation.

Some citizens here saying quite simply, look, come Sunday night when the polls close I consider myself to be a Russian.

So things moving very quickly on the ground here, but also in the east of Ukraine, too, that's the real fear, I think here. That meeting in London perhaps going to be focusing on trying to prevent further Russian intervention at this point rather than try to talk about getting Russia to de-escalate or pull out of Crimea at this point.

In Donetsk we've seen reports of at least one dead in clashes yesterday and 17 injured between pro-Russian and Ukrainian rallies, which clashed in that eastern city. And of course as you mention 8,500 Russian troops in Kharkiv nearby also in the east.

Key to this, we've heard from Moscow's foreign ministry today. They say they reserve the right to intervene and provide protection for their compatriots, by that they're basically saying, like they did before we saw these unidentified troops, certainly Russian soldiers, moving into Crimea that they reserve the right to intervene and perhaps send people in to look after those that are considered loyal to Moscow who they believe are under threat from the new administration in Kiev.

I should point out most observers say there is no real threat to Russian-speakers here despite Ukrainian laws just passed trying to limit Russia's status as an official language here, Monita.

RAJPAL: All right, Nick, thank you. Nick Paton Walsh there live for us form Simferapol.

Still ahead here on News Stream, a sobering anniversary, people around the world hold vigils for peace as Syria marks three years of war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJPAL: This week marks three years since the beginning of the conflict in Syria. And despite two rounds of peace talks, countless conferences and diplomatic efforts there is still no end in sight to the violence and bloodshed. According to media reports, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights now says more than 146,000 people have been killed.

CNN's Mohammed Jamjoom has been covering this war from nearby Beirut. And he joins us now.

So Mohammed, we've been talking about the fact that there have been conferences, diplomatic efforts and yet thousands of people still being killed.

JAMJOOM: Oh, absolutely Monita. The situation is just so grim on the ground there in Syria. It's not getting any better. And there really is no hope in this part of the world that any more diplomatic efforts will yield anything. They haven't thus far. It takes so long to actually get the warring sides to any kind of a negotiating table. And then when that happens usually nothing really comes of that either.

Now today you have lots of different aid agencies here in Lebanon. Lebanon is the country that's absorbed the highest concentration of refugees from Syria. Let's talk about how staggering a number this is.

This is a country of just over 4 million people. There are now close to 1 million Syrian refugees here in Lebanon. It's a quarter of the population. And they believe, UNHCR and other aid agencies, that within the next couple of months they will actually hit the mark of the 1 millionth refugee that is in Lebanon. And that's just the number of registered refugees, or refugees who are waiting to register.

It is an untenable situation. The exodus from Syria, the people fleeing the war there, it's just getting worse every day.

And inside Syria itself, the reports are that barrel bombs are still being dropped in places like Aleppo, that parts of Damascus are still under siege. There is still intensive fighting not just amongst the rebels and the regime forces, but there is still this war within a war that's going on between the various rebel factions -- the al Qaeda linked groups versus the more moderate and just Islamist groups.

So it is a terrible situation as thousands of people dying every day. And it only seems to be getting worse by the hour -- Monita.

RAJPAL: The danger of a war like this, Mohammed, is that the longer it goes on there is a sense that people's focus will shift away from the plight of the refugees, from those within Syria as well who are displaced as well. And that's a real concern, particularly for the aid agencies who desperately need help.

JAMJOOM: Very much so, Monita. It's a very good point that you're making. And time and again over the course of the last year when I've spoken to aid workers, they talk about the fact that it is very hard to raise money when it comes to the Syrian refugee crisis. It is very hard getting international bodies, getting regular people to donate to the cause of the Syrian refugees.

This is a cause that's going to entail getting billions of dollars this year alone just to meet the minimum needs and requirements of the Syrian refugees who are now not just inside Syria and internally displaced, but in places like Turkey and Iraq and Jordan and here in Lebanon as well.

A country like Lebanon, it's worse than in most other neighboring countries, because here is a country where the political situation is tenuous, it's so fractious, that the government has not allowed for the construction of official refugee tented settlements. Because of that, you have makeshift camps all over the country -- in the mountains, in the valleys. But you also see refugees lining the streets of the capital city Beirut, in the commercially vibrant districts. It is a terrible situation. It is a humanitarian disaster. It's only getting worse. And the refugee agencies, the aid workers say they're going to need a lot more help than they're getting. And it needs to get here fast -- Monita.

RAJPAL: All right.

Mohammed, thank you. Mohammed Jamjoom there live for us from Beirut.

There are still not enough clues to piece together what happened to flight 370, or even where to look for it. Still to come, we'll take you back to basics with a closer examination of the plane itself.

So far the seas around where the jet disappeared have turned up many false leads. Later, we'll speak to the former UK foreign secretary David Milliband about all of the debris and oil slicks he's seen since joining the fight for cleaner oceans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJPAL: Hello, I'm Monita Rajpal in Hong Kong. You are watching News Stream. And these are the headlines.

Malaysia's transportation minister is not commenting on reports that missing flight 370 may have been flying for hours after its last contact. The search for the Malaysian Airlines plane has been expanded into the Indian Ocean. A senior U.S. official says pings sent to a satellite hours after the plane's last transponder signal likely came from the missing aircraft.

Washington's top diplomat is in London, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov are making an 11th hour push to dial down tensions over Ukraine. The region of Crimea is preparing to hold a referendum Sunday on whether to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Before leaving for London, Kerry told lawmakers the U.S. is not eager to impose more sanctions on Russia, but will do what it has to do.

It is day 10 at the Oscar Pistorius trial with a court hearing again from former police Colonel G.S. Van Rensburg. He was the first officer on the scene the night Reeva Steenkamp was killed. He has been cross examined and has revealed evidence of apparent police bungling. He says he saw a ballistics expert handling Pistorius's gun without gloves.

More than a dozen countries are involved in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It has been nearly a week since the plane vanished with 239 people on board. Aviation experts are baffled. The former chief of staff of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says no one has seen anything like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL GOLDFARB, FORMER FAA CHIEF OF STAFF: We have a plane that took off at Kuala Lumpur and disappeared. That's all we have. We have no facts. We have no debris. So what's happening is we're having kind of the breaking news du jour.

Yesterday, we were all excited about the satellite image...

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The Chinese satellite...

GOLDFARB: Because it was consistent with the flight path. We said, oh, you know -- and it was lucky. It was a lucky hit that they probably saw something in the ocean that would allow the investigation.

BLITZER: Turned out to be a false lead.

GOLDFARB: So now with the turn to the left it may be it is terrorism, maybe it is suicide. But let's just look at other theory, if the pilot in command turned that plane back, OK, and then was overcome in some manner through a slow decompression, through some kind of structural problem, but not a failure, Aloha Air -- Hawaiian Airlines disintegrated in the air, lost half of its hull and landed safely.

So the notion of catastrophic or nothing is not the way the investigators are going to look at this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJPAL: Well, lets get the very latest now from Kuala Lumpur. Jim Clancy joins us now live. And Jim, they've been holding news conferences there in Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur. What more are they saying today?

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are saying that they are aware certainly of all the reports that you have heard in the previous hours, reports that indicate the plane was automatically sending back data to satellites, pinging those satellites if you will, giving its altitude, giving its heading, giving its air speed all important information, there's no doubt about that, but it can be analyzed by the experts.

At the same time, Malaysian authorities here say that they are giving their raw data, their raw radar records to the U.S. investigators from the NTSB, from the Federal Aviation Administration and allowing them to plot the courses to figure out where this aircraft may have gone.

Remember, the Malaysians were reluctant really to talk about those radar records, because they said they couldn't prove that that was actually flight 370. Well, apparently the Americans looked at the data and came to the conclusion that it led them into the Indian Ocean, because that's where we saw a dramatic increase in the search today. The Indian navy reports that they anticipate that search area is going to be at least 17,000 square nautical miles, a huge expanse of the Indian Ocean.

Already, the USS Kidd is going to be heading in the direction from east to west, following basically whatever course they see, whatever course that data shows them that the plane itself took.

Now they say that the plane was aloft for perhaps as much as five hours -- and that was over an open expanse of ocean. It had no place to land. And that raises questions, just as you heard in the previous -- by the previous guest speaking there that perhaps the pilot tried to turn back and didn't make it in terms of being able to stay conscious and pilot the plane.

But the plane carries on. Remember it's got enough fuel not only to go to Beijing, but to go far -- a little bit beyond that. And that takes it deep into the Indian Ocean.

There have been a lot of conflicting reports, we've heard a lot of the false leads, probably more of them today. Chinese students at a university saying that they heard some audio that indicated the plane might have hit at a specific location.

And yet all evidence right now suggests to us this plane is nowhere near the South China Sea. It's somewhere in the Indian Ocean, perhaps at the bottom -- Monita.

RAJPAL: The danger of -- about this, Jim, is that because of all the theories and speculation there are so many stories that are coming out, families in Beijing, meanwhile, of the loved ones, of the -- of passengers and crew of the plane are waiting for any word. And they are even saying as our Pauline Chiou has been reporting that they actually hope that perhaps this was a hijacking that -- because that would mean that they -- that their loved ones may still very much be alive.

CLANCY: Yes. And that's understandable. That's the one thing that gives them a sliver of hope to hand on to, Monita. I don't blame them for that. It's not a likely scenario. It's one of the options. And all options are open, there's no doubt about that.

We also heard from Beijing today that the family members are demanding that the Malaysians sent a government official, a military official. They have some hard questions that they want to ask. They want to hear some answers -- Monita.

RAJPAL: All right. Jim, thank you. Jim Clancy there live for us from Kuala Lumpur.

Well, the missing plane is a Boeing 777 considered one of the world's safest commercial airliners. Martin Savidge has been spending time in a cockpit simulator. He joins us now from Mississauga in Ontario, Canada. And he's joined by a pilot Mitchell Casado who trains pilots to plane 777s -- Mary.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORREPSONDENT: Hey, Monita.

What we wanted to do was -- as you point out, it's a simulator, but sure it sure feels real.

This is a 777-200 cockpit, the same as Malaysia Air 370. And we've set it up so we're doing exactly what they were doing at the time they were doing it. In other words, we took off from Kuala Lumpur about 45 minutes ago. We're now coming up on Etod (ph).

This is a reference point here on this computerized map. Etod (ph) is the last known point that the aircraft officially reported in before whatever happened happened.

We're cruising at an altitude of 10,668 meters, or 35,000 feet. And we're 287 knots, exactly what the airplane was doing. It's a night sky. It was a night flight.

Let's talk about some of the important equipment here. The transponder. So much has been made about that. That is this rather -- what looks like innocuous looking little device right here. IT's crucial. Located on the dashboard of the aircraft. And this is essentially, Mitchell Casado who is acting as pilot here, why don't you tell me, what does the transponder do.

MITCHELL CASADO: The transponder sends the signal so the ground lets the air traffic controllers know where we are, who we are, where we're going, where we came from. It's all the pertinent information from the plane.

SAVIDGE: It's crucial, we can't stress that enough, Monita. Can you turn it off? Yes, you can. Let me show you how it's done. You've got the knob right here. Three clicks to the left and now the transponder is off.

Essentially, that means that we're no longer transmitting who we are. But on radar we would still appear, right Mitch?

CASADO: Yes. You would have a basic return. It would just be a blip, but there would be no information. So you'd have nothing to identify the actual aircraft.

SAVIDGE: And you wouldn't turn this off. I mean, normally there is no way in flight you would turn this off.

CASADO: Absolutely not.

SAVIDGE: One thing I should point out about the transponder is that there's another way to use it, Monita. And that's in the case of say a hijacking. It is possible to take this and enter in a specific code. I'm not going to enter the code, but I'll show you how it's done. You enter a code and now you're automatically transmitting, without going on the radio, that you have been hijacked. And Mitchell, what happens on the ground?

CASADO: That they're going to challenge that. They're going to call you up and ask you to confirm that that's the case. That's a very serious situation, so you're going to get an immediate call within about two, three seconds. And...

SAVIDGE: These are alarm bells that are going off essentially, saying, hey wait a minute, there's a problem.

As far as we know, that signal was never sent. As far as we know, there wasn't a challenge given to when the transponder shut down. We don't know why.

One last thing, could the plane be taken off course? Yes, it can. We're on automatic pilot right now, but if I did take it off. We shut that down. There's an alarm that goes off.

So nothing is done without those on board knowing it's happening, Monita.

RAJPAL: All right, Martin, thank you very much for that. Martin Savidge there in that cockpit simulator in Canada to give us an idea of what could and what should be happening when things are normal.

Still to come here on the show, searchers are scouring the oceans for the missing Malaysia airlines plane, but the search in the South China Sea is highlighted another problem. We'll tell you what that is when we speak to former UK foreign secretary David Millband next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJPAL: Welcome back. We still know very little about where Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 might be. But what has become clear is that debris and oil slicks in the South China Sea have provided false leads for search teams scouring the ocean for the plane this week. And that raises the question just how polluted are the waters in the region?

Well, for more on this, we're joined by David Milliband. He's the former UK foreign secretary and now co-chair of the global ocean commission. Mr. Milliband, thank you very much for being with us.

Certainly, the search for Flight 370 has certainly illustrated how difficult it is, because there have been many false leads as we've been saying, it's a vast piece of ocean that we're looking at, but that is just a small example of how difficult your work is right now to clean up what is essentially some have described as a dumping ground.

DAVID MILLIBAND, FRM. UK FOREIGN SECRETARY: You're right. There's too much going into the ocean and too much coming out. and it's the wrong things going in.

I was astonished we've got this three day meeting of our Global Ocean Commission today. Today, I learned 10 percent of the world's plastic ends up in the sea. That's 30 million tons a year being dumped at sea. And a lot of it ends up in the high seas, beyond the 200 miles limit that's the responsibility of every nation.

And so practically half of the earth's surface is really ungoverned, certainly undergoverned and is the kind dumping ground that you describe, but it's also the place where too much fish is taken out. So there isn't going to be the nutrients, the food security issues that are really raised by that kind of extraction on an industrial scale in a dangerous way.

RAJPAL: Well, see, that's interesting, because there are some who have described that the overfishing in the oceans right now is perhaps the most dangerous -- or perhaps more damaging to our oceans than any human activity other than that put together.

MILLIBAND: I think climate change is probably the most dangerous, not just for the ocean but for humans in general. But it's certainly true that overfishing is an ecological threat. It's a food security threat, because over a billion people in the world today depend on the ocean for their protein. But it's also an economic threat, because the world bank estimates that with the subsidies, with the loss in tourism that comes from the over -- from the depletion of the ocean resource, the cost is about $50 billion a year. So it's a big economic cost, too, to all of us.

RAJPAL: When you see more increased trade around the world and the seas being a vital route for countries to work with each other, this matter could only get worse.

MILLIBAND: Well, I don't think it's designed to get worse. I mean, we do have a UN convention on the law of the sea. If it's letter and its spirit was properly implemented, there would be free passage, but there'd also be sustainable use of the ocean resource. Remember...

RAJPAL: But that doesn't always work out that way. Whatever UN recommendations are out there or laws are out there right now it doesn't always work out that way.

MILLIBAND: That means we, the people of this planet, aren't actually managing our resource properly. And you're absolutely right that we're not -- there's too much short-termism, too much self-interest, not enough thinking beyond the next five to 10 years. And if there's an economic cost, an ecological cost, then we've got to start joining the dots and saying there must be a better way of doing things. That's what the Global Ocean Commission is trying to do. We think we can make a difference.

And what's interesting is that if we can ensure that the high seas are not over exploited, we can actually replenish the resource, the ocean had a remarkable capacity to renew itself, but we've got to give it the chance.

RAJPAL: The interesting thing is we can talk about what we need to do, what we should do. We can list out all the recommendations that are out there. I mean, I think from a moral perspective we understand that at least for future generations things need to change. But you mentioned climate change and that was -- we were talking about that 20, 30 years ago. And still it's slow in changing right now.

MILLIBAND: It is slow and it's going in the wrong direction and the consequences are becoming more dire. I think our job in the Global Ocean Commission -- we're producing our final report in the summer this year in June. This is our final meeting here in Hong Kong. We've got to sound the alarm. We've got to have some practical policies, the political leaders can actually run with, and we've got to build a coalition with the private sector and with consumers as well as with governments.

I think you and your viewers would be shocked to know that while you're talking about airlines and you're saying what's happened to the tracking devices, fishing vessels don't need any tracking device. So there's no tracking at all of the fishing vessels that are going out onto the high seas.

There are some very basic things that we need to get right. And if we do so, and if we can get that coalition I talked about of people and government and business. And I think we can make some quite fast progress.

RAJPAL: What's the top priority here? Do you think that -- when you look at it from an economic perspective, when it affects people's pockets only then will people start to listen?

MILLIBAND: Well, I think we're all paying twice for the fish on our plate now. We're paying the price on the menu and we're paying through the subsidy regime. So there's about just -- for the -- just for the subsidies, it's about $35 billion a year.

Now Europe is getting its act together after 20 or 25 years when it's not been a good example. But Europe is getting its act together.

In Asia, it's the case that five countries in Asia are the top five countries for fishing on the high seas and that's 10 percent of the total catch.

So there are some big issues of responsibility here.

Yes, the western countries have to step up, but there's also some need for some work here in Asia.

RAJPAL: Before I let you go, I want to switch gears just a little bit and I would be remiss if I didn't ask you this question. As former UK foreign secretary, when you look at the situation right now in Ukraine, a lot of diplomatic effort is going into trying to bring this crisis under control. There's a carrot and stick approach when it comes to Russia. Is diplomacy going to work right now? We are in the 11th hour. This referendum is going to take place on Sunday and by all intents and purposes based on what we understand from the ground, Crimeans will vote to join Russia. Where is diplomacy then?

MILLIBAND: Well, there isn't an alternative to diplomacy is the truth. And the absolute key is unity in defending the most basic laws of international relations and those are about the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states as well as about the protection of minorities in them. And there are minorities within Crimea as well as Crimea being a minority within the Ukraine as a whole.

And I think the challenge for Secretary Kerry that you showed on your program earlier for others who are concerned about this -- and there will be people -- there will be countries in this region sometimes which ally with Russia that will be very concerned about the prospect of part of a state being excised and joining another state. I think that for those, the question is the unity of response. And for those of us -- I used to live in Europe. I live in New York now running a charity. And the energy links are obviously important. And that's a two-way relationship. Europe has to be unified in how it engages with Russia.

And I would say unity is the issue. It's not about a choice between economics or military, because there isn't a military option in the Ukraine. But across a wide range of issues, there has to be a force standing up for international humanitarian -- international law including international humanitarian law, which is at stake in a number of places -- Ukraine, but you've also featured Syria. That's another area where there needs to be unity and standing up for the most basic aspects of international relations.

RAJPAL: All right, David Milliband, thank you so much.

MILLIBAND: Thank you. We'll be right back -- actually we're going to take a look at the weather conditions right now. Let's go to Mari Ramos at the World Weather Center -- Mari.

MARI RAMOS, CNN WEATHER CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Monita, we're going to go ahead and stay on the topic of air quality and pollution and that sort of thing. And I want to start you off taking a look at the air quality in Beijing. You know, we talk a lot about the air quality across northeast Asia, because it tends to be pretty bad, right, you know very few blue sky days, earlier this year you know just a couple of weeks ago we were off the charts here -- off the hazardous level in Beijing alone.

But look right now you're at 93, so the air quality is good, the air - - the weather helping with this.

And I want to compare it to another city that normally we wouldn't talk about their air quality and that's Paris. And look at this, they are at 185. So, technically speaking, right now the air quality in Beijing is better than the air quality in Paris and actually many other European cities right now suffering from very poor air quality in the unhealthy category in the red right in here.

What's going on? Well, you know, I hate to say we've got to blame the weather, because I don't think that's a fair thing to say. The weather is going to do what the weather is going to do. It's all the pollutants that we're putting in the air that's the problem, right.

But right now the weather definitely not helping.

We've been talking about how great the weather has been across central Europe. People enjoying the spring time, right, or this early burst of spring. That means we have high pressure in place. High pressure keeps the clouds away. It also -- high pressure means sinking air, that sinking air traps the particulates -- that particulate matter that we're putting out into the air. It traps it close to the ground. And as it keeps all of those particulate matter closer to the ground, that's where we are and that's where we breath it and that's the situation right now in Paris.

They're taking some steps to try to curb some of this right now, including free public transportation, encouraging people to not drive their private vehicles. They're lowering the speed limit around Paris and in many cities across France to try to slow things down.

But I want to show you here how Paris is not alone. It's hard to maybe for you to read some of these numbers, but you can see right there, there's a lot of red on our map right now across not just northern part of France, but also as we head in through portions of Belgium, 170, 169, all those red numbers and even across parts of the UK, all of those red numbers that you see there are all in the unhealthy category as far as air quality.

This is expected to last even as we head into the weekend, because high pressure will remain in place. It's kind of bummer, right, when we talk about this nice weather and then we have to deal with the air quality on the flip side. And this is a true and a real problem for big cities all around the world.

14 right now in Brussels, 17 in Budapest, 16 in Belgrade. Some of these areas here across the eastern Europe also having some problems with air quality as we speak.

It's 18 right now in Paris, so definitely quite warm. And 17 as we head into Munich.

When we look at the satellite image, there you have it. You can see the generally clear skies here, that's that high pressure that inhibits any kind of cloud formation where we don't have an area of high pressure here to the north. We do have a front that's coming along here across the north. And another disturbance down here as we head across the western Mediterranean.

That is a quick look at your weather. We will take a break right now here at News Stream. But don't go away, more news in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJPAL: Welcome back. Gamers in the UK are finally getting their hands on Titanfall, the next game from one of the men behind the massive Call of Duty franchise Vince Zampella in our latest addition of game faces, he talks about how he created Titanfall.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VINCE ZAMPELLA, CEO, RESPAWN ENTERTAINMENT: I'm Vince Zampella, I'm the CEO of Respawn Entertainment. And Respawn is the creator of Titanfall.

What we set out to do at Respawn is to create something that takes multiplayer gaming, but pushes the boundaries. So one of the biggest challenges in the game was making this balance between these giant Titans and these human sized pilots making these two kind of distinct styles of gameplay work seamlessly together.

The pilot is just as powerful as a Titan, just in different ways.

It's that dance of how do you make both of them feel really seamlessly interconnected, yet keep the same level on each.

A game like Titanfall is about -- it's about feel, like when you point the stick in this direction it goes in that direction, it does what you think it should do. It's really just about not feeling clunky. And you don't want to fight the controller, you want to fight the enemies.

So the iconic moment of the Titanfall, which you know the game is named after, it's when you call in your titan it's coming in from orbit through the clouds. You see this burst and this flaming thing coming -- flying down at you and it lands into the ground with this huge crash and this -- you know, the dust comes up and it's -- you know, for us it's this moment of it has to tie together -- the animation has to be right, the effects has to be right and the sound plays such a huge role in that, that you know there was a lot of tweaking to get that to the kind of perfect balance, because it is such an iconic moment for our game.

I think there was definitely, you know, people on the team that felt like, you know, how do you follow up something that's, you know, one of the biggest franchises in the history of gaming, you know. And a lot of the team came from that Call of Duty background.

The real answer is, you know, you use knowledge that you had as a game maker to make something that's great and polished, but you don't have to necessarily compete. You know, Call of Duty didn't become an overnight success it took years of building. So, you know, we're in the stage where we're starting over. So we have to be willing to do that again and just make something that's great and fun that we're proud of.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJPAL: And that is News Stream for this Friday. The news continues here at CNN. I'm Monita Rajpal. World Business Today is next.

END