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President Obama to Deliver Commencement Speech Today; Plane from Pakistan Diverted from Manchester; Diverted Passenger Jet Lands in UK; Drivers Plunge as Part of Bridge Collapse; The Nation's Crumbling Infrastructure; New Jury to Decide Jodi Arias' Fate

Aired May 24, 2013 - 09:30   ET

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

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president getting ready to leave the White House now. This is an issue that he has been very vocal about in recent weeks. In fact there've also been some high-level meetings at the White House, concerns not only here at the White House on this, but also at the Pentagon after some high-profile incidents, specifically involving some of the leadership that is charged with dealing with this issue. So again, the president expected to address this during the commencement address as he speaks to young people, some of whom will be future leaders in the military, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Dan Lothian, reporting live from the White House.

Richard Quest is in London, and he's ready to talk more about this breaking news we've been talking you about the past few minutes. A Pakistani airliner diverted to another airport in London, escorted by a fighter jet. We don't know why. We know there is some sort of incident that happened onboard that Pakistani airplane. Richard Quest as I said, is in London. Do you know more?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes and no. I mean, I can tell you a lot of detail about where the plane was going from and to. From Lahore in Pakistan. It's Pakistan International Airways flight 709. Lahore to Manchester. In the northwest of England. 297 passengers on board. I can even sort of show you a -- you know, what happened.

The aircraft goes over the English Channel, goes across the coast of the UK, into the English midlands and instead of going up toward Manchester, it suddenly goes north, turns round to the top and at some point in there, it is escorted by typhoon fighters from the Royal Air Force. It then heads south, over the eastern part of England, toward Stansted airport, which is in the southeast of the country, and landed there a short time ago.

Now, that's a lot of facts about what happened, what we don't know is why, other than there was an incident on board. That can range the gamut from full-scale terrorist activity, right the way through to drunken abusive passengers, who caused a threat to the aircraft.

COSTELLO: And would it be possible, in light of what happened in recent days in London with the terrible murder that took place on the public street, might authorities in Britain be a little, I don't know, nervous? And that's maybe why a British fighter jet escorted this plane to another airport in Stansted?

QUEST: Absolutely no doubt, none whatsoever, about what you just said. Security levels have risen in UK. The threat level is high already. And as a result of what took place on the streets of Woolwich in south London earlier this week, no question, that any form of activity. The British prime minister, David Cameron, has made it clear: no stone will be left unturned, and everything done to ensure the safety of servicemen and the country. With that in mind, there can be no doubt that a heightened state of alert would increase the risk response and the threat response in an incident like this.

COSTELLO: All right. We also have reporters on the way to that airport to see exactly what is going on. Richard Quest, thank you very much.

NEWSROOM continues after a break. Stick around.

(COMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN BREAKING NEWS.

COSTELLO: We want to continue talking about the Pakistani airliner. It was set to land in Britain at Manchester's airport when something happened aboard that plane. A British fighter jet then escorted that plane to another airport. Diverted the plane to Stansted in Britain, that's in Essex, that;s east of London. We are wondering what this all means? We don't know. Are authorities just a little nervous in light of the terrible hacking of the soldier? We want to bring in our national security analyst Fran Townsend to talk more about this? Fran, first of all, is it extreme that a British fighter jet would be escoring this plane to another airport?

FRAN TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Carol, let's put it in a little bit of context for -- especially our American audience. Oftentimes if there is a garden variety unruly passenger, here in the United States we'll scramble jets to escort it in. If there's a person of interest on the plane because there is a late hit on a terror watchlist, we'll escort a plane.

Really scramble jets for people remember the Abdulmutallab underwear bomber, rarely is it an extreme incident like that that causes jets to be scrambled to escort a plane in. That's the American context.

A couple of things of real concern here. One, the British do this far more rarely than American enforcement authorities do it. Second, it is a plane from Pakistan, from Lahore, Pakistan, and so that would be of concern and third, you rightly point out, Carol, given the events -- the horrible events earlier this week, the assault against a British soldier, the British are on high alert.

We ought to presume because of the caution of British authorities in doing this sort of an activity, they had some reason. There is either someone of interest on that plane, there is -- there is a reason. The other thing is, the fact that they didn't want that plane to come into central London to the main airport, diverted it to an airport east where they would have more control, further away from central London, is also an indication of security concerns. We have to gather more facts on the ground, but we can expect that there is a very specific reason that British authorities scrambled this jet and decided to divert it.

COSTELLO: Okay, I'm going to ask you an obvious question: why Lahore, Pakistan? Why such concern over that particular city in Pakistan?

TOWNSEND: : I think actually, Carol, any city, Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, you would have been of concern out of that region. We understand that in the tribal areas, the Taliban and remnants of al Qaeda are still there. Along the northwest border of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan. You would have had some concerns regardless. That's particularly true of Karachi and Lahore, frankly, because of the concentration of extremists in that general area. So I expect, again, because of where it's coming from and the concentration of extremists that we've been battling, the coalition is battling there, that raises particular concerns for the British.

COSTELLO: Fran Townsend, thank you so much for enlightening us. We appreciate it.

TOWNSEND: Thanks, Carol.

Still ahead on the NEWSROOM, part of a busy interstate bridge collapses, and drivers plunge into the river below. So, what can you expect on a Memorial Day drive? We'll tell you if you are safe, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN BREAKING NEWS.

COSTELLO: We now have a picture of the Pakistani airliner, landed at the Essex airport in Britain, you see it there. I've been telling you, this airliner was escorted by a British fighter jet to this smaller airport. It was due to land at the Manchester airport,which is much larger, in the central part of London. We don't know exactly what's going on. We do understand there was some sort of incident on the plane. Nic Robertson is on the way to the Stansted airport, where this plane has landed, to give us more information. What have you found out, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know this is a Boeing 77 aircraft flying from Lahore to Manchester, in the north of England. Diverted, intercepted, by British fighter aircraft, diverted back out over the sea and brought into Stansted airport just near London.

Why Stansted? Why divert it to an alternate airport? Stansted is the airport that authorities in Britain often use or have used in the past when there have been incidents when aircraft have been hijacked or there are security incidents on board. Stansted is outside London, there is a large amount of runway space there. In the past, aircraft that have been intercepted have been moved to a remote runway and count (ph) the (ph) terrorism officers there rehearse there and have in the past, been able to get aboard aircraft and deal with aircrafts where there are security incident on board the aircraft. Stansted is an airport where the authorities have the space, the expertise, and certainly practice and the plan to put in effect whatever security procedures may be required. The question with this aircraft, we understand, is a possibility of loss of communication between the ground and the pilot or the cabin on board the aircraft.

Details at the moment are still sketchy. Essex police who have jurisdiction over Stansted airport, say there was an incident on board of some description and authorities are dealing with it we do expect further updates, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll get back to you when you arrive at the airport. Thank you, Nic Robertson reporting live.

Back to our own country. This morning in Washington state, investigators are looking into the collapse of part of this bridge. Drivers were driving over that bridge when it collapsed. Somehow all three drivers survived as they plunged into the Skagit river. Each day about 77,000 vehicles cross over the span on Interstate 5 just north of Seattle. One survivor said he was following an oversized tractor- trailer when it slammed into the structure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN SLIGH, INJURED IN BRIDGE COLLAPSE: When the dust hit, I saw the bridge start to fall at that point, forward momentum just carried us right over and as you saw the water approaching, there was just one of those -- you hold on as tight as you can, and just the white flash and cold water. It was definitely cold this time of the year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Oh the bridge collapse, it's just the latest incident to raise troubling questions about the nation's infrastructure and whether they are being aggressively inspected. Nearly six years ago an interstate bridge collapsed in Minneapolis during rush hour -- 13 people died, 145 more were injured. It turned out to be a design flaw.

A couple years after that, inspections turned up a cracked piece of structural steel on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. The emergency closure led to the discovery of even more problems, not at all uncommon for a bridge more than 70 years old.

And that brings us to our guest who says the nation's infrastructure, is crumbling all around us and it potentially puts all of us in danger. Barry Lepatner is a lawyer and author on the subject.

Good morning Barry.

BARRY B. LEPATNER, INFRASTRUCTURE EXPERT (via telephone): Good morning to you Carol.

COSTELLO: And this is just isn't -- this isn't just your take. Even federal experts say the problems are pretty scary right? LEPATNER: Fear is enough data from top flight engineers who design and seek to maintain our bridges to show that this is another example of our perilous infrastructure and it's a totally avoidable and tragic accident.

COSTELLO: And I want to -- I want to draw your attention to the bridge over the Skagit River, the one that just collapsed. Authorities had labeled it functionally obsolete which makes you wonder why cars were still driving over it.

LEPATNER: Well functionally obsolete in of itself as a designation for condition rating of a bridge does not necessarily make it unsafe. What it does indicate is that there are serious failures because of lack of maintenance and in fact, a bridge that is designed in 1955 could never have contemplated heavy, 18-wheeler trucks and the designs of the lanes themselves could be much shorter and permit a truck that's errant to hit a portion of the bridge.

What is totally, totally unacceptable is that bridges today have redundancy, so that where you have something hitting a structural element, there is other supports to keep the bridge up. Here, you saw a bridge sheared away, the deck shear and went straight down upon impact. And that's something bridge engineers understand, but politicians are not funding the needed, requisite, remedial work to prevent these failures.

COSTELLO: Well you know what's really sad. They probably will now, now that the bridge has collapsed and three people, three drivers went into the water.

LEPATNER: I will have to tragically and sadly disagree with you. We have had nearly 600 bridge failures since 1989. We have seen what happened to the I-35W, which is one of 8,000 bridges in our nation that is not only structurally deficient, which is worse than functionally obsolete, but fracture-critical, meaning they could go down at a moment's notice on a similar situation just like this.

Our politicians turn their back on this and do not see infrastructure as a high priority. And the American public and our economic system, is paying a terrible price for this.

COSTELLO: Barry Lepatner, thank you so much. We appreciate you being with us this morning.

LEPATNER: My pleasure, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, thanks so much.

A little bit of an update on that plane that was diverted in Britain, according to UK security sources, early indications say this is not a terrorist-related incident. As I told you a British fighter jet diverted this plane coming in from Pakistan to a smaller airport near Essex so authorities could wrap their head around what happened on board this plane.

But now authorities are saying this is not a terrorist-related incident. And I'm sure that everyone is grateful that it was not. More information when we get it.

Also after nearly five months of testimony, the jurors in the Jodi Arias trial -- trial become too emotionally invested. We'll ask a jury consultant.

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COSTELLO: A new jury will be called in to decide Jodi Arias' fate in the penalty phase of her trial after the judge declared a mistrial. Jurors deadlocked 8-4 in favor of the death penalty far from the unanimous decision needed. So can a new jury reach a decision the old could not? Richard Gabriel is president of Decision Analysis which offers jury consulting. Welcome, Richard.

RICHARD GABRIEL, JURY CONSULTANT: Thanks Carol.

COSTELLO: Thank you for being here. So does it surprise you that this jury is deadlocked on the penalty phase?

GABRIEL: It doesn't surprise me at all. I mean this is one of the paradoxes of the justice system. We have essentially jurors who are, who in almost all cases never have to decide what the penalty is going to be in a criminal case, in a robbery case or even in a normal murder case. And yet, in this case the most severe circumstance, they are deciding a person's life or death.

We also tell them, "Hey, you are not to decide based on passion or prejudice." They're instructed to do that. And yet, they hear wrenching testimony from both the family members as well from Jodi Arias and so it is the difference between on principal whether they are for the death penalty or whether it's personal for them. And it is very difficult for jurors. So I guess I'm not surprised that they actually couldn't arrive at a decision.

COSTELLO: We just heard from the jury foreman, he was on ABC News. And I want you to listen to what he said about seeing Jodi Arias, the defendant, for the first time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL ZERVAKOS, JURY FOREMAN: When I walked in the courtroom the first time and -- and looked at who the defendant was, you know, it's hard to put that in perspective when you look at a young woman and think of the crime. And then you see the brutality of the crime. It just doesn't wash. So it's very difficult.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So just take us through what exactly he said because the same jury, as you said, convicted Jodi Arias of murder. And yet, to look at her, even after months and months of testimony and all those gory crime scene pictures that the jurors saw, perhaps, some of the jurors still had in their minds this young, frail, confused woman.

GABRIEL: I think that's right, Carol. In the last 40 years, there's been approximately 8,300 death penalty convictions. Less than two percent of those are actually of women. Less than or about half of a percent of those women have actually been executed and I think it goes fundamentally to the fact that it's very difficult, societally that we think that women have a hard time reconciling this picture of them, a young, seemingly looking innocent woman and the brutality of the crime. I think that disparity sits with this jury, makes it very difficult for them to reconcile those two differences. Makes it hard to also then go to the next step and actually sentence her to death.

COSTELLO: So a new jury will be seated. The new jury will only decide the death penalty phase of this trial. So they'll get to go over the late testimony in the trial -- will this jury be better equipped emotionally to come to a decision?

GABRIEL: Well, I don't think so. I think there are a couple things that are going to happen before that. First of all, an 8-4 deadlock is quite a big challenge for the prosecutors. They have to talk to the families and say, look folks, do you want to go through this again and maybe have the same results the next time? That's a tough challenge by itself because this family has been through so much already.

The second aspect is actually selecting this jury and finding 12 people who haven't heard about this or at least if they've heard about this don't have an opinion about it. So there is a lot of big hurdles that both the prosecution and the defense have in order to even get to that next step.

COSTELLO: Fascinating. Richard Gabriel, thanks so much.

GABRIEL: Thank you, Carol.

Just ahead in our next hour of NEWSROOM, it's an agonizing decision for many women with breast cancer including our own Zoraida Sambolin. She'll tell us why she's decided to have the surgery to remove her breasts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello.

We want to get right back to that breaking news out of Britain this morning. A Pakistani airplane was diverted to a smaller airport in Essex by a British fighter jet. These are new pictures that we just are getting in from Reuters. This is over Stansted Airport. This is where that Pakistani airliner eventually had to land as it was being escorted in by that British fighter jet.

We understand two men aboard the plane have been taken into custody. Nick Robertson has more information. Nic what more can you tell us? What are these men accused of?

ROBERTSON: We're not aware of what they're accused of yet, Carol. However what we have heard from a --