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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Malaysia 777 Crashes in Ukraine; No Official Cause Reported Yet for Crash

Aired July 17, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Also, I've been speaking to Ukrainian officials. I'll get to that in a moment.

Here's what Ukraine's president has just said in a public statement. Quote, "We do not exclude that the plane was shot down." The interior minister has gone further on record. He has said that the plane was indeed shot down.

I'll tell you, I just spoke with officials in the foreign ministry of Ukraine in Kiev, and from the foreign minister, I have this comment. Quote, "It is clear as day. They have been hunting our planes for weeks." It is clear as day, meaning that this was shot down, by their accusation, by pro-Russian separatists.

So you have the president there making something of a broad statement that they do not exclude that the plane was shot down, but other Ukraine officials going much further, and one there referencing in those very stark terms, Anderson, "they have been hunting our planes for weeks." And you can say that with some substance.

On Monday, we know the Ukrainian transport plane was shot down, as Barbara Starr reported earlier. U.S. officials believe that that missile came from the Russian side of the border. Of course, alarming. And there was a report just earlier today about a Ukrainian fighter jet shot down by pro-Russian separatists.

So you have Ukrainian officials now being very clear about where they place the blame for this Malaysian jet disappearing, and that is on pro-Russian separatists and their allies in Russia.

COOPER: And Jim, just stay with us. We're getting some pictures from the ground via Twitter that appear to show aircraft parts. This one, obviously pictured there, you see the side of the jet.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Part of the fuselage. It's clearly Malaysian airlines. There you have the ribs of the aircraft and the wing spurs, which you're looking at. That's part of the fuselage. That is -- I think --

COOPER: The Malaysian flag.

QUEST: The Malaysian flag and a 777.

COOPER: Jim, do we know what altitude the Ukrainian planes were flying at when they were shot down earlier this week?

SCIUTTO: We do know that the plane that was shot down on Monday was according to reports at 21,000 feet, so not quite the height of a commercial jet which would be 10,000 meters, above 30,000 feet. We're all familiar with those a little tut altitudes when flying commercially.

But above -- both of those altitudes are above what a shoulder-fired missile from the ground, those man pads we've talked about frequently, to my knowledge, beyond the range that they're capable of.

I know that at least one model that had been spotted in eastern Ukraine had an altitude range of about 11,000 feet. So the plane that was shot down on Monday was above that range.

And I think that's one of the indicators that gave U.S. officials a sense that this was shot by surface-to-air missiles as opposed to a shoulder-fired missile, so something that you'd have to move on the back of a truck or something like that.

And, of course, in this case, this passenger jet would have been out of the range of a shoulder-fired missile as well.

COOPER: And, Jim, of course, just over the last several days, Ukrainian officials in Kiev have been accusing Russia not only of re- massing more troops on the border, more than 10,000 troops on the border after having whittled those numbers down, but also they say of having people from the Russian general staff even inside Ukrainian territory, fighting and advising the separatist groups.

SCIUTTO: That's right. This has been a claim for a number of weeks now. Even when I was in Ukraine around the time of the election six, seven weeks ago, Ukrainian officials telling me that not only is Russia supplying arms to pro-Russian separatists inside eastern Ukraine, but supplying fighters, intelligence, intelligence direction command and control.

So, really, these are the kinds of things that President Obama was referring to yesterday as he announced new sanctions against Ukraine, was that Russia was continuing unlawful activity, in the president's words, inside Ukraine.

And it's interesting, Anderson, because we've had a lot of conflicts we've been covering, as you and I well now over these last several weeks in Gaza, in Iraq, but all throughout that time, the war has been brewing in Ukraine and part of that war has included the shoot-down of several Ukrainian jets, by my own count, half a dozen or so over the last several weeks, and just two this week, excluding whatever happened to this passenger jet.

So, you know, the separatists or possibly someone on the Russian side of the border has been shooting down planes over Ukraine for a number of weeks now, and that's the context we have as we come to the disappearance and now the crash of this jet.

COOPER: And that's certainly a contest, Richard, one can't ignore.

QUEST: Yes. And I want to just develop that point that Jim's been saying, because in our discussion in the hours ahead, let us not forget that this is a commercial aircraft with 295 people on board.

And exactly that operation that we saw with MH370 and that you see with every plane crash, relatives, distressed relatives, care and comfort of families, now has to build up all over again, not only in Kuala Lumpur, but this would have been a connecting flight from Amsterdam to K.L. to all those other cities in southeast Asia.

COOPER: You'll have people affected all around this region.

QUEST: China, Vietnam, Singapore, everywhere that would have connected on that Amsterdam flight over K.L. So we are now back to that situation.

God forbid, we've been having to say it, but where this massive operation as well as the military questions that we're talking about --

COOPER: And we do now have video of this crash that we're going to broadcast here, got the video, again, that along with the pictures that we have seen before.

Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona is with us as well. Does it surprise you that such large pieces of the aircraft would still be -- still be together if it was something that was shot at 33,000 feet?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It depends on what, you know, how it was hit and all that. A lot of these surface- to-air missiles have, some of them, they have an exploding warhead that throws out a bunch of shrapnel and it destroys the engine and it brings the aircraft down.

Others are a kinetic hit and blows the aircraft apart. So we won't know until we actually see more.

COOPER: We're going to take a short break. We'll be back in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back. Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the downing, the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight in eastern Ukraine.

A lot of details still yet to be resolved, but we are getting new information, video now. We are airing it just for the first time, just before the break, showing the crash off in the distance.

There is also still photos on Twitter, clearly showing Malaysian Airlines pieces of that Malaysian Airlines that's on the ground. Our Nick Paton Walsh is standing by with us. Nick, let's just review, for those who are just joining us, exactly what we know at this point and, as importantly, what we don't know.

And again, these are some of the images clearly you see from the fuselage of the Malaysian Airlines flight. There you can see the Malaysian flag on part of the plane, these taken on the ground in eastern Ukraine.

And before I go to Nick Paton Walsh, I'm told, Jim Sciutto, that you have new information now. What are you hearing?

SCIUTTO: Anderson, and this is one of those key questions, but I'm told by Ukrainian officials -- again, it is early -- but that there are indications that the plane came apart at altitude, and that, I think, gels with the picture that we're seeing from the ground, which is that a scattered debris field, relatively small pieces of debris.

But that would, again, just a clue, not conclusive, give more evidence of a strike at altitude that the plane would have blown apart and then come to pieces up there and then fall into the ground.

But that Ukrainian official telling me that there are indications that the plane came apart at altitude, disintegrated at altitude, which is yet another clue of a fairly alarming possibility, that this plane may have been shot down.

COOPER: And, again, some 295 people on board that plane.

Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona is with us. When Jim was saying, that the plane came apart at altitude, does that mean that it separated in the air?

FRANCONA: This would be the result of an explosive event. This is not engine failure. This is -- obviously everybody's saying it was shot down.

This would indicate a surface-to-air missile or an air-to-air missile. I think surface-to-air missile is probably the best guess right now.

COOPER: Surface-to-air missile, we've talked about this Buk system, which is a missile system that Russian forces actually travel with.

FRANCONA: Right. All of these air defense missiles are mobile in the Russian inventory, and they traveled as part of the division equipment that goes everywhere they go.

So the Russians on the other side of the Ukrainian border will have all of this weaponry available to them. And as we said earlier, striking this kind of a target for those kind of Russian air defense systems would be no problem at all.

COOPER: This is not -- this plane could not, at this altitude, could not have been brought down by a shoulder-fired weapon that separatists may have.

FRANCONA: No. Even the most advanced shoulder-fired stuff would top out at about 14,000, 15,000 feet.

COOPER: OK. Again, we don't know for sure who fired this missile or whatever device it was that brought this plane down.

Ukraine, the Ukrainian government, has said for themselves, the Ukrainian government in Kiev, has said that they did not fire any missiles around this time, so they're saying they have absolutely nothing to do with this, and they are clearly pointing the finger at separatists in eastern Ukraine.

And over the last several days, as they have for many weeks, they have also laid blame at Russia, not only for massing troops along the border, but for what they say is Russian incursion into eastern Ukraine and Russian advice, technical advice, and fighting alongside separatist rebels, who in the region where this plane went down are still very much in control.

It is still very much a contested region. The Ukrainian forces have begun to make advances over the last week or two. There's been a real turnaround in terms of the capabilities of the Ukrainian military, which early on in this three-and-a-half-month-long conflict really was not -- didn't show itself able to fight. We've seen a big change on the ground in that.

But several Ukrainian -- two Ukrainian planes have been brought down earlier this week, so whether or not whoever brought down this plane realized it was a passenger jet, that is simply not clear. The intent is certainly not clear at this point.

But the result, and you see the video of it right there, is very clear, 295 people on board, no word on the number of fatalities, though it would be certainly hard to imagine a plane being shot down at 33,000 feet that anyone could have survived on board that.

Our Nick Paton Walsh is standing by. Nick, as we continue to look at these images at what is clearly pieces of this Malaysian airliner, let's just review for our viewers who are joining us what we know, and as importantly what we don't know yet at this point.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, has said in a statement on his Web site that at about 4:20, this plane, a Boeing 777, disappeared from radar screens.

Now, he went on to point out that that's the third plane to crash in that area in recent days. The previous two, he said, shot down from Russian territory, a Ukrainian transport plane and a military jet as well.

He couldn't exclude the possibility Russian separatists potentially were involved but said the Ukrainian military wasn't involved. Malaysian Airlines have said, yes, they have lost contact with this airliner as well.

So we don't have anybody openly saying this was certainly an act of Russian separatists. The interior minister's adviser, a man called Anton Gareshenko, on his Facebook page said that a Buk rocket system was used, and the plane was flying at 10,000-meters height, 10 kilometers, tradition, as Richard was saying, for civilian airliners.

The major question, obviously, to be asked now is, if there was a rocket involved, a missile involved, where was it fired from, and who did the firing? Was it part of the Russian separatist tactics in the past few weeks to shoot down aircraft? Did they obviously mistake it, perhaps, in this?

Or, perhaps more troubling, could even have been fired from Russian territory? That's not something people are saying at this point, but it's something we shouldn't exclude, because we've seen an awful lot of very heavy weaponry passing from Russia into Ukraine as the separatists begin to lose the fighting increasingly in the past few weeks..

But you have to ask yourself whether they would include weapons able to shoot down aircraft at this particular height.

So the key thing we don't know, Jim is saying Ukrainian officials say it seems to have fragmented midair. We just simply don't know what caused that, although most indications now are pointing to some sort of explosion or catastrophe midair that caused this crash.

You're seeing pictures on the ground of wreckage now as well. And I think, obviously, the blame game is going to begin in the forthcoming hours. We've just seen a tweet from a man called Alexander Boradi (ph). He is a Russian citizen, but he is one of the separatist leaders. They're fractured and scattered, but he's a key face who turned up in the past few months and has taken the helm there. Also involved in the recent Russian annexation of Crimea. He has put out a tweet saying that according to initial information, he blames the Ukrainian military. And that's obviously in direct contradiction to the Ukrainian president. But he goes on to say the separatists don't have weaponry able of taking a plane out of the sky at 10,000 meters.

So a lot of misinformation around here. A lot of contradictory information, too. But most people, of course, have agreed on the disappearance of this Malaysia plane. It's clearly on the ground now. Clearly something happened midair that caused this loss of 295 lives. But now, between Moscow and Kiev, who have been at each other's throats for months over the Donetsk (INAUDIBLE) regions, a war that's got increasingly bloody and violent, civilians have fled and increasingly heavy weaponry has been used. This, of course, will be the focus of days ahead, Anderson.

COOPER: Certainly. And again the key question is, where was this weaponry -- where was it fired from? Who was in control of it when it was fired? As you said, the government in Kiev, the government of Ukraine has denied that they had any firings of any weapons, nor would they have any reason to try to shoot down any kind of an aircraft flying over eastern Ukraine. And they point to the fact that two other Ukrainian military aircraft have been brought down in previous days over this region.

Nick Paton Walsh, though, we should point out that there was, on a website, and the Ukrainian officials pointed to this, a statement by some separatists that they had, in fact, brought down a plane a short time before the reports that this plane was brought down.

WALSH: Yes, they're pointing to Twitter traffic, social media from one of the military commanders. A man called Egor Stracof (ph). Now, you have to be careful. You can't always have 100 percent authenticity to things like this because they can be hijacked and they can be pirated. But he pointed out, according to this Twitter account, that a plane was taken out of the sky. In fact, (INAUDIBLE), one of the Russian state media organizations, initially began reporting about an Antonov (ph) 26 transport aircraft being taken out of the sky.

Now, it's not clear whether (INAUDIBLE) had initially confused these two separate incidents that are, in fact, one, or quite what's going on here. But, yes, we've seen separatists now focusing on aircraft. They have since the beginning of the use of aircraft, particularly the assault on Donetsk Airport, where helicopters and jets were used heavily, begun to take planes out of the sky. They have that capability for low-flying helicopters and jets. The shoulder launch missiles I've seen on (ph) themselves in Slovansk (ph), a militant stronghold. But as we've been pointing out, their range is limited. They're not able to target civilian aircraft at 10,000 meters. For that, they're going to have to have a very large device indeed.

And looking forward now, people are going to ask if this did fall into separatist hands, and this wasn't the Ukrainian military, how on earth did that happen? Was it sold on the black market? Highly unlikely a device of that size. And fingers are going to be pointing towards the east of the border towards Russian authorities eventually.

Anderson.

COOPER: Nick Paton Walsh, we'll continue to check in with you.

From Malaysia Airlines' FaceBook page, they are just confirming there were 280 passengers on board this aircraft, 15 crew on board, departed Amsterdam at 12:15 p.m. Amsterdam local time. It was estimated to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6:10 a.m. Malaysia local time the next day. And again, they are confirming that the -- they've lost contact with the plane about 30 kilometers -- or about 50 kilometers from the Russia/Ukraine border.

I want to just check in with the number of personnel we have standing by. Bob Baer, formerly a -- a former CIA officer, intelligence correspondent as well.

Bob, what are your thoughts as you see this kind of drip of information slowly starting to come in?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, clearly it was a sophisticated missile. The important thing, it wasn't a man pad. It's trackable. I think we're going to be getting some more information precisely where it was shot from, if it was an SA-17, a Vuk (ph), we'll find that out. It leaves a trace, a footprint.

You know, you have to look at the Russian units in that area. I spent two years with the Russian military, and they're not particularly disciplined. You know, the firing orders, it's unclear. Was this a rogue shoot down? Was it -- did they mistake it for Ukrainian aircraft? I think in the coming hours we're going to find that out. But it's entirely possible it was shot down from Russian territory without the orders of the Kremlin. That's -- those are just some of my thoughts.

COOPER: In terms of this kind of a system, this Vuk system or whether it was some other kind of surface-to-air missile system, it's very possible that if it did, in fact -- you know, if it came from Russia, if it was actually a Russian system, that it was given to a separatist group. That certainly could be one possibility, Bob.

BAER: Well, I think American intelligence will know that already because these systems are so large, they're mobile, that they could see this from the air and they could tell if these systems had been given. I have seen no public information that this occurred, but it's not -- we can't exclude it at this point.

COOPER: Is it a difficult system to operate? I mean, is it something that requires --

BAER: No.

COOPER: A large amount of training?

BAER: Not particularly. They're (INAUDIBLE) accurate. And once you get a lock on an airplane, once you've identify it, it's pretty easy, especially an airliner moving in a straight line, to knock it down. The same with a sophisticated man pad.

COOPER: I want to bring in our Lieutenant Colonel Francona as well.

What kind of a training would somebody need to operate this sort of a system?

FRANCONA: Well, if they provided the people with the system, it wouldn't be a problem at all. They would just -- they would have the training. But you have to know how to use the radars and the guidance system. Once you've got it locked on, though, and fire it, this would be --

COOPER: So -- but this is not the kind of system that you -- I mean this is not kind of a -- the kind of, you know, shoulder-fired weapons that would have been supplied to the Mujahidin during Afghanistan? You just give it to them --

FRANCONA: But they still required training.

COOPER: Training.

FRANCONA: You still have to know --

COOPER: You have to have personnel who are trained to actually operate it? FRANCONA: Right. Yes. This is a very complicated electronic system.

It's got acquisition radar. It's got guidance radar. There's the missiles that have to be uploaded to the launchers. You know, plus the mobile gear that it's on. As Bob said, you couldn't just provide these to the separatists and people not know it.

COOPER: FAA -- I'm just getting some information here -- the FAA warned back in April that U.S. airlines should not fly in this region. I'm going to read you what they said. "Due to the potential for conflicting air traffic control instructions from Ukrainian and Russian authorities and for the related potential misidentification of civil aircraft, the United States flight operations are prohibited until further notice in the airspace over Crimea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Aza (ph)."

QUEST: And that's exactly for these sort of reasons. And I'm not sure whether that note (ph) was still -- that restriction had been widened or narrowed to account for where this is, which is, of course, is further up into Ukraine than the Crimea further south. And so this might not be within that area. And anyway, it's not a U.S. carrier.

But even so, this is a clear indication of the dangers that were known about, but nobody ever realistically thought that a civil aircraft, at 32,000 feet, with a profile and a flight plan would be at risk or at danger in such a way.

COOPER: Also, this now from Russia. The Russian president's website. The Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, informed the president of the United States of a message which arrived just before the phone call from air traffic control about a Malaysian airplane crash over Ukrainian territory. Again, the key question, where did this missile come from, who fired it and with what intent.

Michelle Kosinski is at the White House.

Michelle, what are you hearing?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: (INAUDIBLE) from the Kremlin. I mean they usually have a readout of these phone calls as well as the White House. So far there's no more information from the White House, though. We thought it was interesting, though, that this phone call happened this morning. I mean this was a call initiated by the Kremlin. It was supposed to be about the sanctions that the U.S. just imposed on Russia. But now there are these questions about whether this was discussed. So what the White House is saying at this point is that they're not sure of the timing exactly. The press secretary is still trying to gather the details on what exactly was talked about that -- about with Vladimir Putin in that phone call.

But, you know, over the last few weeks, we haven't heard much -- I mean there's been so much domestically that the White House has contending -- contended with that from a news perspective we haven't been hearing much day to day on the Ukraine situation from the White House. So several weeks ago, there was a background briefing on the situation there on the ground. It didn't really make headlines, but we found it to be shocking and interesting, the volume of weaponry moving over the border that the U.S. and other western governments believed was still continuing, and in some cases even escalating.

I mean at the time they were talking mostly about tanks. I don't think there was much discussed. And right now the White House isn't giving us any more information on their perspective of what they believed in terms of missiles or any surface-to-air capability flowing over the border. Mostly ammunition and tanks. At least that's what they were talking about publicly at the time. Again, this was in the last few weeks.

But consistently throughout the months of this crisis and the U.S.'s involvement from afar, one thing that has been on the minds of officials here and in allied governments was the broader security threat. I mean this particular situation, or something like this, a plane being shot down, was never mentioned. Nothing specific like that. But in terms of the broader security situation, you mentioned the FAA warning and prohibiting U.S. planes from flying over Crimea and the Black Sea, yes, something like this has been a concern.

I mean when we talk security threat of Russia moving in and arming rebels, it's mostly in terms of our alleys on the border region, what would Putin do? That's been the real question. But when you get deeper and deeper into the information that the U.S. has gathered about the movement of weaponry, about the rebels and how they've been, in the view of the west, armed and controlled by Russia, then, yes, a broader security threat to civilians beyond these borders has been a big concern.

COOPER: Michelle Kosinski reporting from the White House. We will check in with you shortly.

I want to go to our Jim Sciutto, also in Washington, who's been hearing from the Malaysian government.

Jim, what are you hearing from them now?

SCIUTTO: Well, the Malaysian government has just tweeted -- I think we're going to put the tweet up on the screen now so our viewers can see it if we have that. And here it is. "I am shocked by reports that an MH," that's Malaysian Airlines, "plane crashed. We are launching an immediate investigation."

And just an incredible tragedy for Malaysia, for the airline, for the Malaysian people so soon after the loss, of course, of MH370.

And social media also putting out another interesting tweet. Anderson, when you and I spoke earlier, I spoke about how a Ukrainian separatist, pro-Russian separatist leader, claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian plane around the same time that this Malaysian plane disappeared. And I just want to quote from a tweet that this separatist leader sent out around that time. A warning as such. "We warned, do not fly in our skies." You know, as a plane went down, he referred to it as a bird fall. Apparently this plane, this Malaysian jet, which he thought was a Ukrainian military plane or a Ukrainian jet of some kind, as it went down, he tweeted out, "we warned, do not fly in our skies." This is something that you and I spoke about a short time ago,

Anderson. The Ukrainian officials had told me that around the same time that this Malaysian jet disappeared, that pro-Russian separatist, that a pro-Russian separatist leader claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian military plane, and that we now have what he said at the time that that plane was shot down, this warning in effect and this claiming of credit as this plane went to the ground that he apparently thought was Ukrainian.

COOPER: I want to bring in our Jill Dougherty, former Moscow bureau chief for CNN. I was with Jill in Kiev in Ukraine just several months ago at the height of this crisis.

JILL DOUGHERTY, FORMER CNN CORRESPONDENT (ph) (via telephone): No, just say former CNN.

COOPER: Jill, this is Anderson. Can you hear me?

DOUGHERTY: Hey, Anderson.

COOPER: Hey, Jill, you're on the air.

In terms of the likelihood of Russian forces having been involved in this, what do you -- what do you make of this? Because, obviously, there has been an increase of Russian forces along this border. According to Ukrainian authorities, more than 10,000 or so right now along this border.

DOUGHERTY: Well, that would be a very, very serious step, if they did do that. I think the question is, you know, the capability and what, at this point, the rebels have as opposed to the Russian forces because if this is a well-known path where planes fly, the Russian military would be very well aware of that.

That said, according to the experts that we've been having on air, there was only one way that that could happen, if you had some major weaponry to be able to bring that down. But at this point, I think the most intriguing thing is that both by the separatist leader Storkof (ph) on social media that they shot down roughly an hour before apparently the Ukrainian -- I'm sorry, the Malaysian flight went down, that they shot down a plane, and the question is raised, of course, did they accidentally or inadvertently hit the wrong plane? And that, I think, is the hardest lead at this point as to what might have happened. It seems dubious that the Russian military, in other words, would want to take down a major passenger plane.

COOPER: Certainly with not the intent of taking it down. Whether -- again, we simply don't know who brought this down.