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CNN Live Sunday

No Survivors Found in Greek Airplane Crash

Aired August 14, 2005 - 11:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: A Cypriot airliner slams into a mountainside in Greece, killing everyone on board. What happened? We'll have the latest and get perspective from a pilot who's familiar with that type of jet involved.
Welcome to CNN LIVE SUNDAY. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. That developing story straight ahead, but first now in the news -- Jewish set are moving out of Gaza just hours before Israeli troops and police begin knocking on doors telling people it's time to go. And if settlers don't vacate their homes by Wednesday, Israel says it will remove them by force. A full report coming up.

Iran's new president makes a move that's not likely to ease tensions over its nuclear program. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has named hard-liners to key ministries in his cabinet. If the cabinet is confirmed, it's expected to adopt a tougher stance with the European Union. The EU is pressing Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq maintains that the country's draft constitution will be finished by tomorrow's deadline. He's dismissing suggestions that work could drag on for several more weeks. You can hear what Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad will have to say about the situation in Iraq coming up at noon Eastern on CNN's "LATE EDITION" with Wolf Blitzer.

Topping this hour's news, tragedy on a Greek island. There are no survivors in the crash of a Cypriot jetliner about 25 miles east of Athens. The flight was traveling from Larnaca, Cyprus to Prague in the Czech Republic, but crashed in the mountains before its stopover in Athens; 121 people were on board the Helios airlines plane, a Boeing 737. Greek officials are ruling out terrorism as a cause of the crash and right now, first indications point to a possible technical problem. Journalist Paul Anastasi is on the phone from the Greek capital rather, joining us now. Paul, what's the latest?

PAUL ANASTASI, JOURNALIST: Well, unfortunately worst fears have been confirmed. There are no survivors among the 115 passengers and the six crew members. That's the most important thing. Rescue efforts are under way to try to retrieve the bodies, but a forest fire has broken out, a blaze as a result, which is making things more difficult. However, they have recovered what are called the black boxes or the orange boxes strictly speaking that are likely to give evidence, proof as to what happened in those fateful last minutes.

The government, as you mentioned is now ruling out the possibility of a terrorist act, at least that's that theory is receding. There have been no threats. There's been no indication. To the contrary, there are indications are growing that some fault developed in mid flight, something to do either with decompression or with the air conditioning system or with a leak, a leak that affected the oxygen supply and that this knocked out the pilot and led to the loss of control. That mystery is likely to unravel over the next few days.

WHITFIELD: And Paul, once it left Cyprus, how long was it in the air before it crashed?

ANASTASI: Well, the flight to Athens is normally 1 1/2 hours. It crashed after 2 1/2 hours. And this is the big issue now in the Greek media, among Greek authorities. For about one hour it was supposedly out of control, either on automatic pilot or not controlled by the pilot because for 50 minutes, 5-0, 50 minutes it was being monitored watched by two Greek air force jet fighters that rose to intercept it basically to find out what was happening with this peculiar plane that had entered Greek airspace and was giving no sign of life. For 50 minutes, it seemed to be out of control, doing circles. Something or other happened before it actually crashed because it crashed 2 1/2 hours after it took -- left Cyprus.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. So, Paul, obviously, those Greek fighter jet pilots will be interviewed extensively to find out more about their observations as they were tagging along that plane making observations. Is that in part why officials are ruling out any type of terrorist attack or activity because of the behavior that those fighter pilots observed?

ANASTASI: Yes. Those fighter pilots, may I remain you, came very close, could see inside the cockpit of the passenger jet. They saw the pilot was not there, that the co-pilot was slumped over the controls. They saw that the oxygen masks were down. They could not make any communication from the moment it entered Greek airspace. There was no communication with Greek ground control, with the airport control and nobody ever spoke to those pilots. What they did see, they saw that the -- it was doing some kind of signal, some kind of tipping of its wings going in a triangular motion which they say is the way they tried to indicate that we have lost our communication system; we are having trouble. And that's -- and the pilots and I believe are be debriefed right now and they're bringing photographic material as to what they could actually see from the jet fighter plane, what they could actually see was going on in the cockpit.

WHITFIELD: All right. Very interesting, thank you so much, journalist Paul Anastasi joining us from Athens, Greece, thanks so much.

To talk more about this tragedy in Greece, aviation expert John Wiley. He is a former Airbus pilot and you're familiar with these 737s. Well, he said some very interesting things, didn't he, talking about this plane flying out of control, seemingly, for quite a while, 2 1/2 hours in the air when it was heading toward a destination where it should be in the air for about an hour and a half. What do some of these things tell you? JOHN WILEY, AVIATION EXPERT: Well, when you go into the cockpit, you program the aircraft with your flight plan, these various navigation points that you're going to be hitting. The airplane will continue, even past destination if you don't have the flight plan continuing beyond that point. It will remain at the last command at altitude, the last command at air speed and the last command at heading unless something else happens. The Greek fighters have told us that the co-pilot appears to be slumped forward on the control column. That could have made a disconnect on the auto pilot and thus descending. Last time we saw an incident similar to this was a depressurization with Payne Stewart, a Lear jet that lost pressurization. The crew passed out from hypoxia and the aircraft continued that altitude until fuel exhaustion.

WHITFIELD: And flying out of control for something like 1500 miles, but in this case, the reporter, Mr. Anastasi, was also mentioning possibilities of air conditioning, decompression, all of these factors as to why, perhaps, they may have lost oxygen or in some way passed out, talking about at least the co-pilot who was slumped over.

WILEY: You have two different systems inside the airplane. You have a system of oxygen for the crew, the pilots up in front in the cockpit. You have an oxygen system in the back of the airplane for the passengers. Those little yellow cups deploy and drop down at 14,000 feet. The pilots will have indications of when the cabin is climbing. Normally when you're in cruise altitude, you'll be at approximately 7800 feet altitude which you can climb in the mountains and you can experience that lack of oxygen pressurization. I emphasize it's pressure, not oxygen. The oxygen content remains the same, It's just that you don't have the pressure to push those little oxygen molecules through the walls of your lungs and you pass out.

WHITFIELD: What might a scenario be that the pilot was not apparently in the seat but may have been in the cabin of the plane and it was just the co-pilot in the cockpit?

WILEY: The 737 cockpit is a small cockpit. So one of the things that we're looking at is trying to figure out was he out of the cockpit or was he possibly on the floor? All we know from the fighters, is they description is they only saw one pilot in the cockpit. Pre-9/11 we could leave the cockpit and go back for a cup of coffee, talk to the flight attendants. Post-9/11 you never came out of the cockpit unless it was for extreme physiological needs, i.e., you needed to go to the rest room.

WHITFIELD: This is a route that is fairly common with a number of these flights that take tourists back and forth throughout the barrier islands and Greece. This is an unusual set of circumstances. Where might this investigation begin following the conversation with those fighter jet pilots and their conversations and their observations, rather?

WILEY: Reports are telling us now that we have found the flight deck recording, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. So we'll have lots of information coming forth in the next week.

WHITFIELD: All right. John Wiley, thank you so much. We'll continue to look into this very strange set of circumstances of this crash in Greece. And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Updating a developing story now, the flight recorders have been recovered from a Cypriot airliner that crashed this morning east of Athens, Greece. All 121 people on board were killed. Greek officials have ruled out terrorism. There are early reports that something might have gone wrong with the plane's oxygen system.

Israel's historic pullout in Gaza and the west bank is due to begin tomorrow and Israeli soldiers will begin enforcing it in a matter of hours. But some Jewish settlers and thousands of ultranationalists say they won't leave without a fight. CNN correspondent Guy Raz is at a settlement and joins us live with the latest. Guy?

GUY RAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, the calm before the storm here inside the Gaza settlements. It's about 12 hours from now when the Israeli army is expected to begin fanning out throughout all 21 Jewish settlements to seal them out for one final time. And just a few miles from our location inside the settlements on the Palestinian side of Gaza, Palestinian security forces have started to deploy on the outskirts of the Jewish settlements in a bid to prevent Palestinian militant groups from launching attacks at the departing settlers.

The Israeli army has said it will respond swiftly and harshly to any attacks carried out by Palestinian militants during this period of evacuation. Meanwhile, inside the settlements today, the remaining residents marked the end of a three-week mourning period commemorating the destruction of two ancient biblical temples. Many of the people inside the settlements that we've spoken to are drawing parallels to between those ancient events and the demise of the Gaza settlements.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAZ (voice-over): A funeral pyre for a dying community, burning the things they cannot carry away. It's Tisha B'Av, the peak of the Jewish mourning period marking the destruction of the two ancient Jewish temples and destruction is on the minds of many.

The teary-eyed rabbi of this community, Josef el Mekava (ph) declares himself heartsick, comparing the demise of the Gaza settlements to the ancient tragedies that befell the Jews. Inside the settlement synagogue, the men rock back and forth, weary and hungry, fasting to cleanse their souls. Ritual demands they suffer the emotional pain of their ancient ancestors. Others in the settlement are less gloomy, though. Moti Oyahon is moving out before the army arrived on Monday.

MOTI OYAHON, DEPARTING SETTLER (through translator): We must again a new life. It's sad to leave here, but it's possible the new place will be better, a better life, a happier life. It's all possible.

RAZ: In the settlement cemetery, neighbors gather for a final memorial service for those buried here. These graves will soon be re- interred inside Israel where the majority of the country backs the end of the settlement enterprise in Gaza. But the ideological lines between secular and religious Israel are now sharper than ever.

MOSHE HAGER-LAU, SETTLER SUPPORTER: I hope that the Israeli society will think again about this step which they began to do.

RAZ: On a street in Neveh Dekalim, a family pulls out for one last time. The national flag waves from the truck for a moment right before it falls as well, the end of Israel's presence in the Gaza strip.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAZ: Sometime after midnight tonight, Fredricka, Israeli soldiers will begin streaming into the settlements. They'll go house to how and begin notifying the remaining residents that they've got 48 hours to pack up and go. Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: All right. Guy Raz, thanks so much.

Tomorrow marks another important day in Iraq's developing democracy. Iraqi leaders are hammering out their differences, but they say they will meet tomorrow's deadline for presenting a draft constitution. CNN's Aneesh Raman joins us live from Baghdad on that. Aneesh.

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, good morning. With hours to go, pressure is weighing heavily on the Iraqi capital. Right now meetings taking place at virtually every level of Iraq's political leadership as they try to reach consensus on what has emerged as the two main stumbling blocks, first federalism. How powerful would regional governments be in the north where the Kurds have a majority population and in the south, where the Shia have the same. Now both those areas of course where the majority of Iraq's oil is. Both those groups want strong regional governments. The Sunnis of course weary of any decentralized government in the capital city.

The other main issue is that of Islam. Will it be the source or a source of Iraqi law? Women's rights groups have been out for the past weeks on the streets calling to make sure that their rights not infringed in this constitution. But what we expect to happen is tomorrow a draft of some sort will be presented to Iraq's national assembly. Virtually everyone is saying that, because if they don't, this government is either dissolved or it has to pass a new law to give themselves an extension. We don't know with what specificity this draft will deal with those two main issue. The national assembly though will have some time to digest the document and a vote on it could come as early as Friday of this coming week or perhaps sometime into next week. So Fredricka, another milestone for Iraq laced of course with the desperate hope of all involved in these steps will continue to stabilize this country and will continue perhaps to curb the violence. Fredricka. WHITFIELD: Aneesh Raman, thanks so much, from Baghdad.

Straight ahead, we'll get a look at your weekend weather forecast and changes to the skyline makes for a particularly spectacular Sunday morning in Miami. We'll tell you all about that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Take a look at this. Now you see it now you don't. A former Howard Johnson's hotel in downtown Miami is checking out for good. The eight story building came tumbling down on Biscayne Boulevard early this morning. Developers imploded it to make way for a new 67-story luxury condo complex. If all goes as planned, the new building will be completed in the summer of 2008.

Now let's get a check of the weather with meteorologist Bonnie Schneider.

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's going to be hot in Miami that's for sure, too. We're looking at a lot of heat Fredricka in many parts of the country. Records shattered yesterday, Newark, New Jersey, Hartford, Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island, all managed to get up towards the triple digits and we're going to see a repeat today. This front is stationary. It's not moving too much. So really, it's going to stay hot and sticky all through the southeast as well where we're likely to see those showers and thunderstorms fire up once again today like we saw yesterday.

Out to the west, pretty hot in Arizona, but very pleasant actually on the west coast starting off with clouds in the morning in Los Angeles but warming up to pleasant temperatures. Cool, Canadian high pressure building into the upper Midwest and boy is that is making for some very nice conditions for today in Minneapolis. We'll look for a high of 75, Billings at 79. But incidentally, this part of the country got very cool overnight. We had some reports of low temperatures in the upper 40s, so already just a hint of fall in the air.

But of course it's still the tropical season. And Irene, thank goodness, is turning away from the U.S. mainland, posing no threat right now. The only effect we'll feel from it are large ocean swells moving from the south to the north as the storm works its way around this massive area of high pressure, eventually pushes out to sea. So that means rough seas and riptides, not a good idea to go swimming along the coastline because we are going to be seeing those strong currents building in as the storm works its way out to the north and east and eventually becoming extra tropical. The next one will be watching for, Fredricka is Jose. Hopefully we won't see Jose any time soon.

WHITFIELD: We're just getting through this alphabet aren't we?

SCHNEIDER: We sure are.

WHITFIELD: Man, all right, thanks a lot, Bonnie Schneider.

"Reliable Sources" coming up at the bottom of the hour. Let's check out what's in store.

HOWARD KURTZ, CNN ANCHOR, RELIABLE SOURCES: Coming up with the news business still reeling over death of Peter Jennings two ABC correspondents join our all-star panel to examine his life and his legacy. Where does ABC news go from here? Who will become its new anchor? And with Jennings the last of the giants to pass from the scene, are the 6:30 newscasts becoming dinosaurs? All of that and more ahead on "Reliable Sources."

WHITFIELD: And there's a Web site out there that claims to be for beautiful people only. Did our own Jeanne Moos make the cut? Find out right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Dating services are all the rage in cyberspace. Now a new site seems to push vanity to the limit. CNN's Jeanne Moos decided to see just what it takes to be beautiful enough for beautifulpeople.net.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All you beautiful people, you probably think this Web site is about you. Maybe both eyes, if you think you belong on an Internet dating service called beautifulpeople.net. Look at that. How am I supposed to compete with that?

Only beautiful people are allowed on chosen by the beautiful people who are already members. Some so perfect their wash board abs inspire laughter. Only one in 10 get in. We wondered what does it take to join the beautiful people? What we need is a guinea pig, not him, me. In a fit of journalistic excess, I volunteered. First stop, the makeup room where they sprayed every pore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And maybe some false eye lashes.

MOOS: No, we're not going that far. A beautiful photo is a must if you want to be among the beautiful people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like that little head tilt.

MOOS: datingheadshots.com specializes in taking pictures that look good on Internet sites. Photo finish, it was time to fill in the application with a little help from my colleagues.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are going to lie. We're going to lie on this one, too.

MOOS: We are?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

MOOS: Select body type, slim, averaged, toned, athletic, muscular, cuddly or ample. Next we had to write a profile, outgoing but reclusive. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, that's not going to work.

MOOS: We opted for over the top. Basically I'm here because I'm hot. Take my temperature.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

MOOS: We then had to choose from dozens of photos.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's too sensitive.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm too sexy for my whatever.

MOOS: Into cyberspace I went stacked up against cleavage and chiseled bodies and exposed, exposed, exposed flesh. Guys vote on female applicants. Women vote on men.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it elitist? Yes it is, because our members want it to be. Is it lookist? Yes, it is because our members want it to be. Is it PC? No it's not but it's honest.

MOOS: Did I mention you have to pick a user name? Mine was feastyoureyes. For three days they feasted. You can check out your rating in progress on a bar graph. Remember take my temperature? Temperature plummeting. Though nine out of 10 are rejects, that didn't soften the sting of the final e-mail. The members of beautiful people did not find your profile attractive enough but a producer up in showbiz got in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do think it's kind of rude. It is mean. It's mean and I do feel bad.

MOOS: Beautiful people have feelings, too. How old are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm 27 1/2.

MOOS: She has gotten e-mails from two guys and even a woman who called her absolutely stunning and offered to exchange numbers. What's a rejected guinea pig to do? Maybe start my own Web site, beautifulguineapigs.com. Dark-haired beauty with chestnut highlights, soft brown eyes, loves heavy petting. Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Jeanne, you are beautiful, inside and out. Up next, "Reliable Sources" takes a look at the career of ABC news anchorman Peter Jennings and who might replace him.

Then on "Late Edition," Wolf Blitzer interviews the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq and at 2:00 Eastern,

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