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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Reported to Have Crashed in Ukraine Near Russian Border

Aired July 17, 2014 - 12:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I would like to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. There is breaking news at this moment. A Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 reported crashed in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border. Malaysia Airlines confirms it lost contact with this flight some time ago. We have seen a radar image of this flight simply dropping off the screen somewhere near the Russian border in eastern Ukraine. There were 295 people aboard this Boeing 777, 280 passengers, 15 crew members on board. Again, at this point, Malaysia Airlines simply confirming they lost contact with this flight.

But there are many obvious points that jump out. The minute you hear this information, the geography of where this flight has now disappeared, lost contact or crashed, based on those reports, is in an area of extreme conflict in this world right now between Ukrainian separatists, the government of Ukraine, the Russian military massed on the border there. Perhaps they are involved. The U.S. just increasing sanctions against Russia. A very, very tense part of the world.

Then, of course, what could just be a tragic, awful coincidence, the fact that this was a Malaysia Airlines flight. And this would be the second disaster suffered by this airline in just the last few months.

I want to bring in David Soucie. Mary Schiavo is with us on the phone right now as well. We have a number of experts that we are reaching out to, to find out as much as we can about this.

And, David Soucie, what we have right now is the geography, where this occurred in eastern Ukraine, which if this flight took off from Amsterdam, it does mean that it would have been at cruising altitude above 30,000 feet. And planes rarely just drop from the sky at 30,000 feet unless something happens to them, David.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST (via telephone): That's very, very true. Most of any kind of accident that we've seen has been in the takeoff or in the landing. Only a few are in the midair like that. And it makes it very suspicious. And especially beyond coincidental that it would have occurred in this area without some kind of interaction with what's going on there in the region.

BERMAN: I just do want to read you a tweet right now from the Malaysian transport and defense minister, Hishamuddin Hussein. We know him, of course, because we heard so much from him during the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 search, which is still ongoing and all the questions surrounding that. As of now, the Malaysian transport minister says there has been no confirmation that MH17 was shot down. So we are still waiting to see what might have caused this plane to go down. You will hear a lot of conversations and speculation about what might have brought it down based on the geography here. And it's responsible questions - they are responsible questions to be asking based on the conflict that has been going on there and what our Barbara Starr is now reporting that the Pentagon now believes that a Ukrainian transport plane was shot down by the Russians a couple days ago. So we know planes, it appears, have been targeted there in recent past.

Mary Schiavo, who is still with us by the phone there. Again, this area, if we know that planes have been shot down there in the last few days, should -- transportation planes. Should commercial airliners have been flying over it to begin with at this point?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST (via telephone): Well, you know, in retrospect, obviously, no, they should not have. And, you know, there's so many similarities between this situation or this developing situation and, not just Korean Airlines 007, but remember Iran Air Flight 655, which is the one that the U.S. (INAUDIBLE) shot down. And there, of course, there was an issue between the United States and Iran on whether the plane was squawking mode three, which is a commercial plane, or whether it was squawking in mode two, which is the military plane. Then, of course, the U.S. said that they believed it was squawking mode two. Subsequently, it was pretty much proven it was squawking the civilian jetliner code. But the hostilities made - put everybody on such edge that it was really a situation where they were, you know, going to shoot first and figure out which it was later because there had been so many, you know, hostilities, planes shot at each other, et cetera. And I think at this point it's clear to say the plane should not be there. But, you know, the previous data took the flight at 32,000 fleet, and you don't expect a surface-to-air missile to get you there.

BERMAN: All right, Mary Schiavo, thank you so much.

I want to bring back up that image we had a moment ago from flight radar. That radar image which showed the path of this flight. You can see that line as it moves across that image there, and then it simply stops in midflight. That is where the plane disappeared from radar. This Boeing 777 MH Flight 17 from Amsterdam headed to Kuala Lumpur. Reports from Reuters and Interfax that it crashed in eastern Ukraine. What we know at this point, Malaysia Airlines confirms it lost contact with that flight over eastern Ukraine. And by that image you're looking at right now, you can see where it lost contact.

I'm joined here in studio by Richard Quest, of course, and our military analyst, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona.

Richard, I want to start with you here.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

BERMAN: Based on what we know now, we don't know much, but we do know that Malaysia Airlines has lost contact with a very big plane with a lot of people on board. QUEST: Yes. We know a plane, they've lost contact. We've heard the

reports. You've seen the pictures. We know something has happened. Something clearly untoward and very, very serious has happened as regards this aircraft. And now the goal will be to work out what.

This is extremely unusual. This is in the rare, very rare category for an airliner potentially to be shot down at altitude, 32,000 feet, simply because of the profile of an aircraft. You can tell an aircraft. You can see - you can see a commercial aircraft. It looks like a commercial aircraft. It squawks the -- it squawks a commercial aircraft. So something is absolutely appalling that's gone on here.

BERMAN: Richard, hang on one second. Colonel, hang on one second. I want to go straightaway to Jim Sciutto, our chief national security correspondent in Washington.

Jim, I believe you have some new information.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, I've been in touch with officials in Ukraine, as well as other contacts on the ground there. The first thing I would just get across is that Ukrainian officials are scrambling right now for a reaction to this. They are very concerned, I'm told, about the circumstances under which this plane went down. That's the first thing.

But second, I'm told by contacts on the ground in Ukraine that around the same time that this plane, MH17, disappeared, that the defense minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republican, this is the Russian separatist -- pro-Russian separatist group, I should say, that established a sort of quasi-state in eastern Ukraine. That the defense minister of this quasi-state claimed around the time this plane disappeared to have shot down a Ukrainian plane. The timing, suspect. Of course, particularly in light of what happened on Monday, another Ukrainian transport plane went down, which as Barbara Starr was reporting, U.S. officials believe was shot down from the Russian side of the border.

But again, on Monday, these same pro-Russian separatist claim to have shot down a Ukrainian transport plane and indeed a Ukrainian transport plane was shot down. Now we're hearing that around the same time, I'm told, that MH17 disappeared, that the defense minister of the self- proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic claimed again to have shot down a Ukrainian military plane. Now, we can't connect those for sure, but the timing, again, among many things here, just like the location of where this plane went down over this conflict zone, certainly very suspect, John.

And I can add, if you don't mind, that over the last several days, Ukrainian officials have been telling me and others that they're concerned that separatists inside eastern Ukraine have been getting more advanced missiles capable of striking aircraft at altitude. Now, the ones we've been aware of so far, so-called man pads, shoulder- fired missiles, they're known to have a range of altitude of about 11,000 feet. This would, of course, be above it. But as Barbara said, indications that the plane that went down on Monday might have been shot down by a surface-to-air missile with a greater altitude range and the belief of U.S. military officials that that came from the Russian side of the border.

But anyway, you know, these are very worrisome clues as they are pieced together. But just to - just to -- as I know you will as well, John, just to warn our viewers, they are just, at this point, just clues as opposed to conclusive information.

BERMAN: No, they are clues. It is the context of what has been going on in that area where this flight lost contact. And based on Reuters, of course, may have crashed.

Jim Sciutto, thank you so much.

I want to tell our viewers right now that the White House says that President Obama is aware of the reports that a Malaysian Airlines flight is down. That is MH17. That's a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, 295 people on board, 280 passengers, 15 crew members.

We have Fran Townsend now with us on the phone, national security analyst.

And, Fran, I have to say, there are a number of national security concerns raised by even these early reports.

FRAN TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST (via telephone): Absolutely, John. And, you know, so the American intelligence and law enforcement community sources tell us they're doing all the things you might expect them to do. They take nothing for granted. You know, I agree with Jim -- what Jim has said and the likelihood that this may be a plane that was shot down by one of, you know, either on the Russian or Ukrainian side. But right now, what law enforcement intelligence folks are doing is going back, looking to see if there was any intelligence that would have suggested a direct or a specific threat to this plane.

I'm told initial - right, we've got to tell -- remind our viewers, this is only all very preliminary, but they don't see any specific threat to this plane from a terrorist attack. Law enforcement and intelligence officials are looking at the passenger list, cargo manifest, the pilot. You know, you're doing all these sorts of things. You're looking, as you said, John, for additional clues that might either give you a lead to what caused this plane to go down or sort of eliminate potential causes like terrorism. Don't know yet what it is. No reason to suspect terrorism. But they're looking at every single fact and every single angle.

BERMAN: All right, Fran Townsend for us. Again, Fran tells us the initial reports are that terrorism was not involved. We'll find out much more about what may have been involved in the coming minutes, hours and days, to be sure.

President Obama has been informed that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the reports are now that it has crashed in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border. Malaysia Airlines confirms that they lost contact with this flight. And we have seen radar images from Flight Radar, which just shows the track of this plane and the flight simply disappearing there over Ukraine. I want to go back now to Barbara Starr, our Pentagon correspondent,

who has some more information right now.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: John, what the U.S. is facing is two questions, what happened to this plane and if -- if the Russians who are responsible, what is going on inside Russia that would have led to this action. One of the problems right now is they don't have a good answer to that. Was this potentially an authorized mission, an authorized action by the Russian military, by Vladimir Putin? Why would he do that? It would mean two planes in two weeks following that cargo plane going down on Monday.

If it is not authorized by the Russian government, and they don't know why it would have been, do you have 12,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine that perhaps are so poorly trained or have some hair-trigger alert to shoot things down that they twice in two weeks have not been -- in one week have not been able to distinguish between essentially cargo passenger jet profiles and a military threat. Because as everybody has already said on our air, commercial air traffic flies through conflict or potential conflict zones over much of the world. And they have very specific procedures so commercial aircraft are very readily recognized. This happens all the time. This should not be a big mystery.

So why would the Russians have launched against this airplane if, in fact, they did? One of the reasons the U.S., again, circling back, so concerned that it might -- might have been from the Russian side of the border is on Monday, a Ukraine transport plane was shot down. The Ukrainians had immediately said they thought it came from the Russian side of the border. The U.S. was not so sure. Now the U.S. has gone through all of its intelligence, infrared, heat signature intelligence, electronic intelligence, everything that the U.S. intelligence community, including the military, can gather from its sensors out in the region. And they do think now it is very likely that Monday plane that went down was brought down by a Russian weapon fired from the Russian side of the border.

And right now the Russians are building up on that border. They're increasing their heavy weaponry. There are numbers of troops on that border. So all of this adds up to the concern about what is going on here even as they scramble to try and figure out the precise details literally as they are unfolding.

BERMAN: Right, Barbara Starr, thank you so much for that report from the Pentagon.

I do have a little bit of information, new information. The Ukrainian interior minister says that this passenger plane, MH17, was shot down. That's in a statement. What the statement does not say at this point by whom or how. We also should note that the source of this information right now, there is a conflict in that region between two sides, really between three sides. You have the Ukrainian government, you have pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists, and you also have the Russian government. So we need to find out more information for ourselves and certainly investigators from all over the world, including the United States, will be looking into that as we speak. We have a statement also from the Malaysian prime minister who says,

"I am shocked by reports that an MH plane crashed. We are launching an immediate investigation." Of course there is the coincidence, there's no better word for it, that this could be the second air disaster to strike Malaysia Airlines in just the last few months. It may just be a terrible awful coincident for this airline, this Boeing 777 with 295 people on board now reported crashed in eastern Ukraine.

I want to bring back in Richard Quest. Again, we have that issue of it being a Malaysian Airlines flight. But right now the focus, this discussion seems to be much more on where this crash happened in this area of military conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

QUEST: Oh, absolutely. I mean if you look at the map, Donetsk, right around that particular area on the Ukraine/Russian border, which clearly leads towards one answer in that point.

Barbara makes a very good point. Commercial aircraft are well used to flying around, over, through, avoiding conflict zones. Normally they're on notice to airmen, (INAUDIBLE). There will be all sorts of warnings. They've had it in Iran. They've had it in Iraq. They have it in Georgia.

Now, I'm not at all sure why in this particular case they wouldn't have been except that there wasn't the need to be. A ground skirmish is not the same thing as a full-scale ground-to-air missiles with the potential to bring down a commercial aircraft.

That said, this plane would have had a flight plan. It would have had a commercial plane squawk. It would have had a profile. It would have been moving quite slowly relative to other aircraft.

So you've got to look at what this was all about, and then you've got to say, why wasn't there any warnings?

BERMAN: Let's bring in retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona here. Air Force Colonel, you know about planes, about flights. Tell me what strikes you here.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, why this particular aircraft? If you look at that display which is the transponders coming off all these aircraft, why that particular flight? Why was that one singled out?

It doesn't particularly present any kind of a threat. Thirty-two- thousand feet, if that's what the altitude was, there's only one or two ways to knock something down. It's either air to air or surface to air. It's not a man pad. This is going to be a large surface-to-air missile.

Somebody had to make a decision to actually fire that. But why at that target? This is -- like Richard said, this is not an unknown flight path. He's in a civilian corridor. He's squawking a civilian code. He's under control of air traffic control.

I don't understand why this particular flight would have been singled out. That's probably what we need to find out.

BERMAN: You say air-to-air or ground-to-air. What are the different types of things that can do that?

FRANCONA: Air-to-air would be another aircraft, a fighter jet shooting it and knocking it down. We have no indication that that happened. All indications would be a surface-to-air missile.

BERMAN: Rick Francona, Richard Quest, thank you so much. I want to toss it now over to my colleague Anderson Cooper for continuing coverage of what appears to be an air disaster.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, the exact number of people on board this plane, not clear at this moment, but our Nick Paton Walsh is standing by with new information.

Nick, what are you hearing?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're hearing a statement from Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, who, since he came to that post, has dealt with catastrophe after catastrophe in many ways, the civil war there.

He is confirming at about 4:20 local time a Boeing 777 disappeared from radar screens. He pointed out that, in the last recent days, this is the third tragic incident in which planes have crashed in that area, saying that previous to an Antonov-26 transport plane and an SU- 25 military jet was shot down from Russian territory.

He goes on to say that the Ukrainian military were not at that stage at that time firing anything into the air, saying they had no potential desire or activity there that could have been responsible for this.

And he goes on to offer the condolences to all the families of those lost in this.

And also an adviser to the interior ministry has on his Facebook page, Anton Gareshenko (ph), he has said that there were 280 people on board, 15 crew as well, a total of 295. And he specifically blames an earth-to-air -- sorry, a surface-to-air missile system known as the Buk (ph) for shooting this plane down.

Now, also, Russian media is reporting that it's spoken to leaders of the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine. They've been in a months- long battle now, increasingly violent with increasingly heavy weaponry on their side.

But they have spoken to Russian media and said that they are not involved in this in any way at all, and they lack the capability to launch a missile at an aircraft at that kind of altitude.

So we know that this plane, according to the interior ministry adviser, was flying at 10-kilometers altitude. I've met rebels in those areas. They've shown me their surface-to-air, shoulder-launched missile system, (inaudible). It's a quite common model among Soviet or post-Soviet armed forces, but it's said to have a range of four on five kilometers, max.

So it's unlikely something small like that could have taken this plane down. If it was indeed shot down, it would point, as you said earlier, to a much larger potential system.

And the question is who has that system? And if it turns out, how on earth did they get possession of it? That's where Moscow, I think, and of course Kiev as well, will be under serious pressure to try and account for exactly what brought this plane down.

Anderson?

COOPER: And obviously when you're talking about ten kilometers, the flight altitude of this Malaysian plane, is about 30,000 feet, which is sort of cruising altitude, so very high for any kind of surface-to- air missile. You would definitely need some sort of advanced surface- to-air missile.

And the critical question is if, in fact, it was a missile, where would it have been fired from? Would it have been fired from the Donetsk region from inside Ukrainian territory or from Russian territory?

Nick, what are you hearing from Ukrainian officials? Because in the past several days, they have been saying that Russian military advisers, that Russian military personnel, are actually now stationed on Ukrainian territory fighting alongside these separatists?

PATON WALSH: Well, clearly, and we've seen ourselves a lot of Russian citizens, volunteers, many former military service who are accused of being controlled and run by Russian security services have been fighting along these separatists for some time, increasingly open about their Russian nationalities.

But what we have seen in the last few weeks, there are increasing numbers of amateur video that show heavy weaponry, heavy missiles that have come into Ukraine from Russia, according to Ukrainian officials. It kind of makes sense, really, given how enormous and often sophisticated these weapons are. You have to wonder where exactly did they come from.

And there have been accusations that the recent deaths of -- I think it was nearly 30 Ukrainian soldiers were caused by a ground missile system. That's a very heavy device that's mounted on a truck.

So the fear, potentially, here are one of three variations. The Ukrainians are already saying, no, it's not us, when we know they probably have the capacity to do that. But it wouldn't really make sense for them to be shooting planes out of their own sky because they're most likely to be Ukrainian military jets or civilian airliners. That doesn't quite hold up.

Could it be separatists? That, of course, is what I think many people will be suggesting. They've already denied it. But that's one potential, particularly what Richard was saying earlier about having to work out what the plane flying above them actually is.

Now, governments will have flight plans. They'll know the heights at which civilian airliners fly, what flights are supposed to be going where, so you would imagine the military would be able to avoid that mistake.

But would poorly trained or more ramshackle separatists who've suddenly got maybe their hands on a much more efficient missile system or a drastic missile system make a mistake? That's possible.

But then you have to also bear in mind, too, would the Russian government -- I'm speculating here -- would they want to see missiles in the hands of separatists who increasingly don't follow their orders or their script, it seems, increasingly.

So people will, of course, be wondering whether this missile, in fact, originated from Russian territory.

There are three potential options here. I have to say it's less likely that Kiev's forces are involved at this stage on a pure logic test. People are now going to be scrutinizing precisely where this missile was launched from.

And that's I think where NATO and Western officials who are poring over this area to analyze Russian troop movements may be able to shed light. But whatever we hear, it's going to be viciously political until we finally get more conclusive evidence, Anderson.

COOPER: We should also point out our Jim Sciutto is reporting Ukrainian officials have been pointing out separatists in that region, in eastern Ukraine were bragging about -- had announced shooting down what they said was a Ukrainian military transport plane about an hour or so before this plane was reported to have disappeared, to have gone down.

Whether or not that's just a coincidence, we frankly don't know. But it certainly is just one of the many things, many questions yet to be answered at this hour.

Our Michelle Kosinski is also standing by in Washington with some new information. What are you hearing from the White House?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Anderson. We know that the president is aware of this situation. It happened just as he was leaving for a trip to Delaware.

He's been briefed. He's asked his staff to be in touch with top Ukrainian officials. I think what's interesting is what came up during the president's trip to Delaware was that he spoke to Putin earlier this morning, and the White House isn't giving a real timeline of when this call happened. They said that that call was initiated by Moscow, and it was supposed to specifically be about the additional sanctions that the U.S. just imposed on Russia over the situation there in Ukraine.

But the White House press secretary was asked repeatedly, well, was this plane discussed? What was the timing of that? And all they would say at this point is that the press secretary is not in a position to disclose whether this was talked about between Vladimir Putin and President Obama, Anderson.

COOPER: Michelle Kosinski, I appreciate that update.

We should point out that a number of news networks have been airing some footage of what appears to be smoke rising on a horizon, apparently reportedly from a plane crash.

We cannot independently confirm that that is actually a plane crash from the Malaysian jet that we are referring to. It is possible it's something that occurred earlier in the day. It's why we have not been going with this video, though others certainly have.

I want to bring in our military analyst, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, who is here with us and also of course our own Richard Quest.

Lieutenant Francona, in terms of what sort of weaponry could actually bring down an airliner traveling at 10 kilometers, 33,000 or so feet, what kind of advanced weapon are you talking about?

FRANCONA: Your basic air defense missile will do this. The Russians have had this capability for decades.

COOPER: A shoulder mount?

FRANCONA: No, no, no. This would have to be something either carried on a truck or something in a fixed position.

The Russians have the capability to do this. All of their infantry units travel with this capability as part of the standard operating kit that they carry.

So the Russians are perfectly capable of doing this from where they are inside of their own borders.

COOPER: How large of a weapon are we talking about?

FRANCONA: Oh, you know, the missile would be about the size of a telephone pole. An SA-2, the old guideline that was used in Vietnam to affect against us could have done this.

This is not a maneuvering target. This is not an easy -- not a hard target to hit. It's basically flying on a flight path in a civilian air corridor, with no electronic warfare capability or anything like that.

So knocking this down would not be difficult. The question is, did they mean to knock it down?

COOPER: And did they know what sort of an airliner it was?

FRANCONA: Exactly.

COOPER: Would they have been able to identify an airliner traveling at that altitude?

FRANCONA: For me, it's inconceivable they wouldn't know what it was because it's on an air corridor. It's flying --

COOPER: A well-traveled flight path.

FRANCONA: Exactly. It's under positive control of air traffic control. There's a flight plan. And all of this has been, you know, published.

Everything, it's all available. That radar site that we were looking at earlier is available on anybody with the Internet.

COOPER: And, Richard, this is a flight path used frequently.

QUEST: Oh, this is the main highway between Europe and Asia. At some point you will go -- you'll go east towards Hungary, out over towards Ukraine, over Russia, out the other side and then down on into southeast Asia.

That -- and in fact, in many ways, Russia, of course, held the lock on the route from Europe to Asia, going over the Russian airspace.

FRANCONA: And you can see how many aircraft are on that image right there. So it's a well-traveled highway.

QUEST: I think the one thing I would perhaps take a guess at at this early stage is that the -- and it is just a guess -- the fact it's a Malaysian airlines aircraft I think is going to turn into a dreadful, horrendous, tragic coincidence. I cannot, at this point --

COOPER: There was any reason that they would have targeted a Malaysian --

QUEST: By all means --

COOPER: If this earlier report of -- and again, this is a report that Ukrainian officials are citing from separatists in the region, bragging about bringing down what they said was a Ukrainian jet earlier in the day, about an hour or so, to you is that a coincidence? Is that --

FRANCONA: I would be very skeptical of a separatist group having this kind of weaponry. Hitting something at 32,000 feet, although easy for a military force to do, would be very difficult for a separatist group.

QUEST: This thing is lumbering. It's going through the sky at a very --

COOPER: You're talking about the airliner itself?

QUEST: Yes, it's a 777. It's fast, 550-, 500-miles-an-hour, but it's lumbering. And it's a profile that's huge in the sky.

So it's not -- could it be mistaken for a transport aircraft? But even so, it's at 32,000 feet, and it's clearly got engines, jet engines, not propellers.

COOPER: There is a statement out from Boeing. Our Rene Marsh is in D.C. with that. Rene, what are they saying?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, we've been on the phone with Boeing, and I'll tell you, they did not know about this crash when we initially made the call, but they are now well aware of the reports, and they just sent us this statement here saying that their thoughts and prayers are with those on board the Malaysian Airlines plane lost over the Ukrainian airspace.

They go on to say that they stand ready to provide any assistance that is requested by the authorities.

We've also been in touch with the NTSB. We do know that they don't have anything on their record. Like many of the agencies here in the United States, many of them are aware of the reports but at this point don't have any confirmed information for themselves.

But if we can, Anderson, go back to that FlightAware.com graphic that we had there, because we actually had a chance to -- our producer, Mike Ollers (ph), had a chance to speak to the cofounder of this Web site.

And what we're looking at here, this -- that plane that you see there, that icon, he tells us that this is just two to three minutes before they lost contact with this plane. So that position that you're looking at there on that graphic, again, just two to three, possibly four minutes before they lost contact with the plane.

We do know that they are able to gain their information based on transponder signals, and they are working, as we speak to you, to gather more information. But the basic data points that we know about this plane at this time is that it was flying at some 33,000 feet traveling at roughly just over 500-miles-per-hour, Anderson.

Just a side note here, you know, totally separate situation, but this just so happens to happen on the anniversary of TWA Flight 800, which happened right here in the United States. And I bring up that up because, although we do not know what caused this plane to go down, the story will be told through the wreckage and just how this wreckage looks, whether it's very tiny pieces, whether it's large chunks. We'll get the story as far as what happens when that wreckage is found. Anderson.

COOPER: Rene, I appreciate it. I want to go to our Jim Sciutto, who is also in Washington I think with a new statement from Ukraine's president.