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U.K. Nuclear Sub Joins Search For MH370; Six Confirmed Dead On Chile's 8.2 Earthquake; "Hobbit" Director's Private Jet Helps In Search

Aired April 02, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHHOR: Bottom of the hour. I'm Deborah Feyerick. Investigators have just admitted that the disappearance of Flight 370 has been considered criminal since mid-March. They've just cleared every passenger on board, but they've yet to do the same with the crew members including the pilots.

All this as the search zone again shifts. The previous area is coming up empty. So the Australians are switching their focus to an adjoining area to the east. They say the areas searched between March 28th and April 1st has been searched to the point where few new objects were being sighted.

It's now much closer to Australia. America's contribution to the search is an underwater pinger locator that is still en route. It's expected to arrive in just a couple of hours. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel just wrapped up a meeting with Malaysia's minister of defense who is expect to ask for more U.S. help and discuss the future of international search efforts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK HAGEL, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Like any of these tragedies, we don't know what happened. There is always lessons to be learned. What could have been or should have been done or needs to be done better. But coordination is a key part of this. How do we bring all of the full assets of nations together to cooperate and connect when you have these disasters?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: We have a new accounting of the U.S. contribution to the effort, the money, how much it is costing. So far the American government has spent more than $3.3 million on the search for the plane. Keep in mind, there many countries assisting in the search.

Well, not only are teams scouring a new search area. New search equipment is also joining the international effort. The HMS Tireless is a British nuclear submarine with sonar. It is reportedly now in the search zone. As planes search for debris, the sub like this device, called the TPL is focused on searching for the flight's recorders. Joining me now is Tim Taylor, a sea operation specialist who runs the research vessel company, Tebron. Tim, we have been hearing that the TPL, the towed pinger locator supposed to arrive can be used to search the range of the potential black box pinger. We are talking about two to seven nautical miles?

TIM TAYLOR, SEA OPERATIONS AND SUBMERSIBLE SPECIALIST: Yes, depending how -- lot of things in the water, but yes, three to seven miles is essentially the range of the pinger under water.

FEYERICK: One would ask, aren't these vessels going to have the exact same problem that the planes are having and that is they simply don't know where they are supposed to be searching or do you think they could get lucky?

TAYLOR: I think right now they are positioning the boats on location. If they find debris, if they can narrow it down, they are there. If they find it in the last few days and they try to launch up at Perth. They are days away from site. So they are positioning just in case. If they are looking with the towed pinger or the submarine possibly listening. It is the needle in the haystack scenario all over again underwater.

FEYERICK: Except the problem right now is that that haystack that we are talking about keeps getting larger and larger and larger because the tides, the currents, the time, that everything is moving. Do you think that these vessels should have been brought in a little bit earlier? Throw everything immediately at it and again, I know, it's far to get there.

TAYLOR: We are Monday morning quarterback end to move these assets around the world you don't know what they are obligated to and where they are. I'm sure plans are being made to bring these things in place weeks ago and they've been diverted I'm sure. These boats are assets that are being used all over the world and there is very few of them, maybe 15 or 20 type vessels that can do this kind of thing. So you know, it's extremely limited resource.

FEYERICK: And you know, you heard nuclear submarine. That's pretty some serious equipment. Why that submarine not a different kind of submarine.

TAYLOR: Well, probably because it's in the arena and they can get it there and the British government wants to help so they committed the resource. Now the submarine is possibly listening. They are not going to get down and search with sonar. They just don't have the depth capabilities and they put another set of ears under water that can listen.

FEYERICK: Do you think, for example, above water it's all visual. Below water obviously at least you are listening. Let me ask, the vessels on top of the ocean right now, do they have the same sonar capability to be listening. So are you coming from bottom and from the top as well?

TAYLOR: You know, you can put hydrophones in the water and back several weeks ago, there was an all call for high tech hydrophones. So there is probably some hydrophones on location that can listen behind a boat, but nothing like the TPL that can be lowered down to depth and get closer to the range. You know, you have to remember, this terrain down there, there is mountains and the hills and the sound doesn't go through that. It's in the mountain range under water and hits a ridge in the valley, that whole bubble goes down to where the sound gets hit. The more ears down there, the better.

FEYERICK: As a searcher, you and your team found a World War II submarine from 70 years ago. Do you think that this plane ultimately can be found in a short amount of time or does everybody have to get incredibly lucky for this?

TAYLOR: I'm of the opinion unless they are not telling us something on satellite information or an area, which I don't see why they wouldn't, that this will take a long time. This has to be a will. It won't be found for profit. It's a lot of money put into this by governments and organizations to find it. If it takes two, three, four years, which is what it could take even if they narrow down to 100 miles, it may be futile at some point.

FEYERICK: OK, thumbs up or down. It was the right thing to do to move the search area quickly?

TAYLOR: Thumb's up. You have to look. The west Australian current is moving up and things are moving that way.

FEYERICK: And if they move then they get criticized for not moving. OK, Tim Tylor, thank you so much. We always appreciate your insights. Thank you.

Coming up, how private jets are being chartered to assist in the search for the missing plane including big celebrity's private plane. How they've worked in past searches.

Next, Chile's powerful 8.2 magnitude quake could be a sign that a much larger quake, the big one is looming. The ring of fire can tell scientists about where the next big quake can strike. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: That quake that rocked Chile last night was a monster magnitude 8.2, one of the strongest. You can hear the fear in their voice. People who felt the quake strongest took to the streets in panic. Six are confirmed dead including two died of heart attacks. The quake was centered off the coast of Northern Chile at 8:42 p.m. Tsunami warnings issued as far north as Mexico have now been cancelled.

Here is one side of how strong the quake was. This deep crack in a roadway. Several thousand homes suffered structural damage and close to a million people have been evacuated. Keep in mind California in the past two weeks has experienced nine quakes of magnitude three or greater. And a lot of folks are wondering whether all of this is connected. Joining us now from Washington, Dan Vergano, the senior science editor for National Geographic. Dan, everybody wants to know with all the seismic activity along the Pacific coast, does this potentially mean that the big one is coming?

DAN VERGANO, SENIOR SCIENCE EDITOR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: Well, nobody knows for sure. We can't predict earthquakes sadly. There is a lot of concern that this region is due for a big one, this part of Chile. Quakes in California and Chile are connected by the ring of fire. They are all along the Pacific, but it's really hard to draw a connection between ones that far apart.

FEYERICK: Talk about the ring of fire specifically what that means to that entire area. What parts are affected just so we know?

VERGANO: Well, it's more of a horseshoe stretching from South America all the way to Alaska and down to Indonesia. What you have is the Pacific Ocean is spreading out and smacking into the continents along the edges. You have mountains and volcanoes and earthquakes. So earthquakes are happening along here all the time. Ninety percent of all earthquakes are along the ring of fire, which is the name from all the volcanoes obviously and 80 percent of the big ones happen along here.

FEYERICK: Now 8.2 clearly a massive earthquake. By comparison, some of the worst quakes in California are down there in the sixes. But help us understand what would happen if an 8.2 earthquake hit Los Angeles or San Diego or San Francisco?

VERGANO: It would be horrific. Estimates in Los Angeles, for example, a 7.5 magnitude, which is less, you would have upwards of $250 billion in damage, hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes and tens of thousands of people homeless and thousands of fatalities. That's the key point. Where it happens matters almost as much as how powerful it is. If something happens in the wrong place then you have a real disaster.

FEYERICK: The one thing you want to know is will there be tremors that sends a warning, sort of a pre-shock as opposed to an aftershock?

VERGANO: You don't know for sure until after the big one happens. There is some shakes before this one, there was some magnitude six quakes that led up to this one and there's been magnitude five ones or so afterwards. We can't give people a lot of warning of these earthquakes. There are some demonstration efforts that gave a few seconds of warning once coming -- that happened in California. But no, we don't have a great method of sending out instant warnings that can do more than a few seconds of heads up.

FEYERICK: All right, listening to these people, the fear in their screams as they ran panicked. All right, Dan Vergano, thank you so much.

VERGANO: You bet.

FEYERICK: And coming up, "Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" director, Peter Jackson is sending his private plane to the search area. What the government jets can't.

Plus an expert standing by to answer your questions. Can a plane crash intact? Should they send planes along the same route along the Flight of 370? That and a whole lot more coming up next.

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FEYERICK: A fancy private jet belonging to "Lord of the Rings" director, Peter Jackson who is from New Zealand is helping the search for Malaysia Flight 370. Jackson's $80 million Gulfstream jet was chartered for use in the search. The Gulfstream G650 is reportedly being used to help with communication. The jet is known for its sonic speed and ultra-long range.

Joining me to discuss is CNN's safety analyst, David Soucie. David, first of all, tell me about this Gulfstream jet. What can it do that military planes cannot?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: This jet is one of the most advanced commercial jets or civil jets that can you purchase. I actually know someone who has one. I've been able to have the opportunity to ride in that jet and what it has is this centralized communication. It has in essence in and out. So information from other jets all around it can be brought it and it almost has its own air traffic control center on board the aircraft.

So it can receive information from everybody around it and put it on central control. It is probably helping with traffic control like it used to in the military. The windows on the side are very big and amenable to visual searches if it's necessary and has a great fuel range at a lower or high altitude.

FEYERICK: And also you've got to keep in mind that there are so many planes in the area that the ability to communicate the information that is coming in clearly could save a lot of time in the search. We are answering your questions on the mystery of Flight 370.

David, the first viewer question, can a plane land perpendicular like divers so there is hardly any debris left floating like a stalling issue?

SOUCIE: Well, it's an interesting question. If that happened, it was going in as a solid piece. If you look at Flight 447, it didn't have a lot of air speed, but it did hit tail first. It did break into pieces.

FEYERICK: That's the Air France flight, correct?

SOUCIE: I'm sorry, yes, Air France flight. The only opportunity I can see the probability of it going in as one piece as the questioner is alluding to would be that if he made a flight on the Potomac-type landing -- which is improbable in that area just simply because of the rough seas. I think that would be difficult for that to have happened.

FEYERICK: Even on the plane that crashed in the Hudson, he had full control of it at all times and was able to make that landing. OK, so Reggie asks, why don't they send planes to re-fly the suspected flight path to see if any debris is spotted along the route? Good question. Why not? Why pull everybody out?

SOUCIE: I'll tell you what, I got that on the same question on my Twitter account. I wrote back and said brilliant. Why aren't we doing that? It's a very good question. I think that would be a brilliant thing to do and validate the data the Inmarsat data and you go on the suspected route and see does it do that? You fly at different speeds and have the exact implication of the Doppler data. The L band with propagation is what we are using to find the dots. There many theories as to where they went. They should get right on that and that would be the perfect airplane to start that with.

FEYERICK: Though obviously the big question is, do they have the resources to continue to do that given everybody is working so hard. All right, David Soucie, lots more questions. You can always send them here with us at CNN. Thanks so much. We appreciate your insight.

SOUCIE: Thank you, Deb. I appreciate it.

FEYERICK: Of course. Coming up, investigators say all passengers are cleared. How is that possible when we know so little about what happened on board?

Plus two passengers boarded the jet with stolen passports. Their families are suffering alone. You will hear from them and how they are grieving. This is CNN's special coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Flight 370 investigators say they've cleared all 227 passengers of any involvement in the plane's disappearance. Some families of loved ones on that flight are sharing their grief together, it is not the case for a family of a 19-year-old Iranian stow away who boarded the plane with a stolen passport. CNN's senior international correspondent, Sara Sidner, has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Of all the grieving families of missing flight MH370, the family of 18- year-old Pouria Nourmohammadi is suffering alone. Nourmohammadi and his friend, Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza, were two Iranians on the flight. Nourmohammadi's family stayed away from the epicenter of information. Not attending briefings or getting the counseling provided by Malaysian Airlines.

In this case the airline said it has not been in contact with the families. Their case it is said is in the hands of investigators. Nourmohammadi and Reza boarded Flight MH370 with stolen passports. Able to pass through security without a problem. At first they came under suspicion, but they were cleared of having anything to do with the plane's disappearance. On Facebook his mother pours out her grief. From the moment I became a mother, she says, "All I wanted and asked from God was to not see my children die before me, but of course, that didn't happen." We tried to talk to his mother, but she did not respond to our calls or e-mail.

We managed to get in touch with Nourmohammadi's friend who said goodbye to him at the Kuala Lumpur airport on March 8th. He refused to show his face for fear he will be harassed by authorities when he travels to and from Iran.

He said Nourmohammadi and his friend, Reza, are from Christian families. He was not particularly religious. Nourmohammadi's Facebook message days before he got on the plane shows him standing below the iconic skyscraper with the words feeling excited.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was so sat and she was asking me when my son was dead. If he was enjoying. I said yes, he was happy and enjoying and he was OK. And then she said thanks, God.

SIDNER: He says he saw the plane ticket with another man's name on it and questioned Nourmohammadi about it. He would only say he was trying to leave Iran forever to live with his mother in Germany.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said there is more freedom there.

SIDNER: Instead, he disappeared with the other 238 people aboard Flight MH370. His mother left these words for her missing son. I dedicated to my son, she say, and all I wanted is for them to be happy in life. I wanted them to live a free life. I had prayed that I would see him again, but that didn't happen. We will see each other in eternity now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, there. I'm Brianna Keilar filling in for Brooke Baldwin. Back to our special live coverage on the hunt for Flight 370 in just a moment, but first, President Obama speaking live at the University of Michigan talking about his push to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Let's listen.