Return to Transcripts main page
NEWS STREAM
Air Algeria Flight Disappears Coming From Burkina Faso; Taiwanese Officials Investigating Plane Crash On Dengu Islands; FAA Lifts Ban On Flights To Ben Gurion Airport; Remains of 74 More Bodies Arrive In Netherlands; Amazon Releases Fire Phone, But How Good Is It?
Aired July 24, 2014 - 8:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM CLANCY, HOST: I'm Jim Clancy at CNN Center. Welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet.
Dropped off the radar, a passenger plane goes missing flying from Burkina Faso to Algeria.
Meantime, the remains of those lost in the Malaysia airlines tragedy almost one week ago return to the Netherlands.
And explosions heard near Tel Aviv's airport just after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration lifts a ban on flights.
We begin with breaking news this hour from North Africa. A search is underway right now for a missing Air Algerie plane. There is said to be
116 people aboard. Authorities say flight 5017 dropped off the radar some 15 minutes after it took off from the airport in Burkina Faso's capital
Ouagadougou.
It was bound for Algeria's capital, Algiers and was supposed to land some eight hours ago. 110 passenger, two pilots and four crew members are
aboard.
Mari Ramos joins us now from the weather center. Mari, what -- can you tell us about the weather conditions at the time this plane went
missing?
MARI RAMOS, CNN WEATHER CORRESPONDENT: Well, yeah, this is an area, a part of the world that can get some violent thunderstorms this time of
year. It was right under that intertropical convergence zone, which is where the tradewinds from the north and the south meet. And it's an area
that goes all around the globe.
Now we don't know of course if weather had anything to do with it.
Let's go ahead and start sort of from the beginning here, the areas that we're talking about.
This is the flight path that that plane was supposed to take from Burkina Faso to Algiers, as you were mentioning. It is about a four hour
flight. Now that we know where in the world -- what part of the world we're talking about here, I want to go ahead and show you the satellite
image. And you'll see a little bit better the kind of weather that we're talking about.
The satellite that's here behind me takes about four hours. So we went in and timed it to near the time when this plane was taking off from
this area.
This is the capital right over here where the plane took off from. And you can see some rain and thunderstorms coming through this area.
Now, according to the reports that we've heard, Jim, the flight disappeared off radar about 50 minutes into the flight.
Now, when you talk about weather and having to do with planes, and we just talked about this in the last 24 hours with what happened in Taiwan,
it's much more important to know what the weather is doing during takeoff and during landing for aircraft, that is when weather can have a bigger
role or play a bigger role into the conditions of the aircraft.
Larger aircraft, of course, more modern aircraft, can handle weather situations a little bit better. We don't know a lot about the plane in
particular that was involved in this situation, but there were some thunderstorms in the area around that time, not just here over Burkina
Faso, but as you can see back over toward Niger as well and into Mali. So we'll have to definitely continue to monitor this as we get more
information from authorities on this.
CLANCY: Mari Ramos there with some good perspective on this missing plane. Weather may have contributed to the problems. We don't know,
you're right. Thank you.
Well, it's been one week since MH17 was shot down over Ukraine. Today, 74 more victims are making their way towards the Netherlands.
And in the investigation into what brought this jetliner down, British authorities say they've been able to download valid information from the
plane's cockpit, voice and flight data recorders. We'll get more on that in just a moment.
Australia announced today it plans to send 50 national police officials to London for a possible international deployment to eastern
Ukraine. The end goal here: secure the MH17 crash site.
Now we may be, maybe, one step closer to answering the question that remains at the forefront of this investigation just who is responsible for
actually bringing down flight 17. A top rebel commander in eastern Ukraine told Reuters that separatists did have control of a BUK missile system,
that's a Russian missile system. Alexandr Khordokovsky (ph) also said that it may have come from Russia and that it was likely sent back to Russia in
order to, in his words, conceal the evidence of its presence.
But now that same rebel leader is backtracking on those comments, telling Russian media that his words were taken out of context. Reuters is
standing by its reporting on that story.
The question facing EU leaders is how do you respond to all of this? They've been meeting in Brussels. They are trying to come to some kind of
a consensus. The European commission says proposed sanctions against Russia will not be adopted before next week. Multiple reports indicate the
group is looking at possibly locking Russia's state owned banks out of the European financial system. The measures would block these banks from
raising capital in the European Union.
And as the west weighs out what the options are, CNN's Kyung Lah takes a look at the Russian president's response in the days since the crash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just hour after flight 17 was shot down, killing all 298 aboard, Russian president Vladimir Putin
squarely pointed the blame at Ukraine.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The state over which territory had happened is responsible for this terrible tragedy.
LAH: Putin's lieutenants fanned out, pushing the narrative that Ukraine's offensive in eastern Ukraine laid the groundwork. And a Russian
state media outlandish theories, like this one, that Putin's presidential plane and the Malaysian airliner are look similar. So the Ukrainians shot
it down in an assassination attempt.
Even as evidence mounted that the pro-Russian fighters brought down the plane and global outrage grew, Putin tried to appear pious,
photographed praying at an orthodox church. The Russian president continuing his drum beat, blaming Ukraine and its western backers.
PUTIN (through translator): No one should and no one has the right to use this tragedy to achieve their own selfish political goals. These events
should not divide, but unite people.
LAH: But behind the scenes, Putin has fueled the divide. A NATO military official tells CNN, Putin has been secretly adding to the arming
of the pro-Russian rebels. In the days after the plane crash, NATO says, Russian artillery, tanks, and military personnel are surging across the
border into Ukraine. The U.S. and other western countries are calling for stringent sanctions against Russia, perhaps the reason behind a more
conciliatory tone from Putin in his last public statement.
PUTIN (through translator): There are calls for us to influence the militants. We will do everything in our power.
LAH: But with two military jets just shot down, that influence appears to be anything but for peace.
Putin's next move, unknown. Years of the globe dealing with them, he's proven to be unpredictable and defiant. And with this country, Ukraine's,
long hatred of him, this will do nothing but drive a wedge further between them.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Kiev, Ukraine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CLANCY: Let's return now to the developing story, the breaking news, the search for that Air Algerie plane that's gone missing with reportedly
116 people aboard. It's operated by the private Spanish company Swift Air.
So let's got to Madrid now where correspondent Al Goodman is standing by. Al, how certain are we of a lot of the details here? Have we learned
something new?
AL GOODMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We are getting many more details about who may have been aboard that plane, Jim. The French
government now saying that there certainly may have been many French people aboard that plane. We have the Spanish foreign ministry here in Madrid,
the French foreign ministry in Paris, diplomatic outposts across Africa have been mobilized because of those two countries, the French and the
Spaniards, also a late report here that there may have been 20 Lebanese nationals on board as well.
Also, Reuters citing a diplomat in west Africa who says there may have been a storm that caused the plane to divert.
Now here's what we know. This was a flight that went from the capital of Burkina Faso. It was supposed to take a four hour flight straight north
in west Africa to the capital of Algeria, but it went missing after about an hour.
So this -- we have a search on there. We have the Swift Air company here in Madrid. This was an MD-83 that belonged to this Swift Air company
on some sort of charter or lease to Algeria's national airline company, Air Algeria -- Jim.
CLANCY: Al, the news that there was a storm in the area, the plane possibly diverted, all of these things yet to be confirmed. Who is
coordinating overall with this missing flight? Is it coming out Algiers? Is it coming out of Madrid?
GOODMAN: I think they are probably trying to work that out as we speak, Jim. Because you have -- you have various countries involved.
Certainly if there were a large number of passengers among the 110 who were French nationals, one would expect that France would be very much trying to
take the lead in this, but -- along with their former colony Algeria which is their national carrier.
Then you have Spain and we may also have the Lebanese authorities getting involved as well as the countries of Africa. And also there is
people are wondering if there was this storm and if the plane was diverted, did it divert over to some other areas where there are conflicts going on
in Africa -- Mali, for instance.
So, there are a lot of factors that are trying to figure out. But what we do know is the plane left the capital of Burkina Faso at about 1:00
in the morning local time. It was supposed to arrive in Algeria about 5:00 in the morning local time. That was many hours ago. So clearly a search
is now underway to find out what happened to this plane and the people aboard -- Jim.
CLANCY: All right. So, it took off from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. It was headed to Algiers. What do we know of the people that were aboard?
You talk about these different nationals. Was this a strictly commercial flight being operated by Air Algeria?
GOODMAN: We don't know that. But we can tell you that Swift Air, which is a company that's been around for almost 30 years and has operated
-- it started out as a cargo company -- it's been operating passenger flights for about 12 years. It ran almost 20,000 passengers just in Spain
last year. But it's business line is mainly focused on tour operators and companies who need a plane. So this may not have been a strictly
commercial flight where you just show up and you buy a ticket off the internet or at the gate, this may have been a different type of flight.
We're also checking on that -- Jim.
CLANCY: All right, Al Goodman is on the story there in Madrid continuing to follow what against an Air Algeria plane has gone missing
with some 116 souls aboard. Thank you, Al.
Well, still to come right here on News Stream, fighting in Gaza claiming yet more lives as diplomats try to push for a truce between Israel
and Hamas. Our reporters are in the region on the ground watching it unfold. We're going to take you there live next.
And new questions raised over lethal injection in the U.S. after one Arizona inmate's execution becomes a long, drawn out affair.
Plus, in Taiwan, rescuers picking up the pieces after a plane crash there kills four dozen people and investigators search for the reasons
behind it. There were survivors.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: Welcome back to News Stream.
More than two weeks of bloodshed between Israel and Hamas and little sign that there's any letup even as diplomatic efforts to end the fighting
are pressed on.
Bombs and rockets continue to fly, but Israel reported a reduction, a sharp one, in attacks, air strikes from -- on Thursday. Both sides have
calmed the fighting at least somewhat. The death toll, though, climbing ever higher. It stands at 732 in the Palestinian side, the majority of
whom were civilians. 32 Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been in the region, of course, shuttling back and forth pushing for a ceasefire. But no truce has been
reached. Still, he insists he's not giving up and that progress is being made.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We will continue to push for this ceasefire. We will continue to work with President Abbas and others
in the region in order to achieve it. And I can tell you that we have in the last 24 hours made some progress in moving towards that goal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: In the meantime, the fighting does go on. And aid workers are showing courage on the ground as they work around the clock to try to
rescue wounded from the rubble. In one district of Gaza that has been hardest hit by the Israeli onslaught, our own Ben Wedeman found that
pulling the victims out, bringing them to safety is no easy task.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They came to look for the living and the dead, but had to turn back under fire as did we.
Sniper back there.
The Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent entered the battered and embattled Gaza City neighborhood of Shezariya (ph). Red Cross veteran
Larry Maybee cautiously confident they could do their job.
LARRY MAYBEE, RED CROSS SPOKESMAN: Up until now, I'm relatively comfortable with the security situation. I expect it might get a bit more
difficult as we progress down this way.
WEDEMAN: Israeli military has shelled this area almost around the clock for more than four days as part of its offensive against Hamas, the
rescue workers well aware they needed to tread carefully.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obviously this (inaudible) nervous, OK. We don't want to make them nervous.
WEDEMAN: Some residents took advantage of their presence to retrieve possessions.
"My brother's house is gone," says this man. "Nobody there was a fighter. And now we're homeless."
Ahmed el-Haloup (ph) fled before the fighting began. His house is now in ruins.
"Do you see?" He asks. "They're hitting civilians. They didn't hit one of the fighters or any of their so-called military targets. Look at
what they did. They destroyed the houses, the street and killed civilians."
Fireman Kamel Abousasi (ph) tells me, "I've never seen destruction like this."
They tried, but failed to retrieve either the living or the dead. The shooting, it's not clear from whom, was too intense.
MAYBEE: And the small arms fire is increasing in intensity and directed at us. I think the problem is there are too many people here, too
many civilians. If it was just us it might be different. So we're coming back. There are two people trapped in rubble wounded. I want to try to go
in on foot to get those two before we go back.
WEDEMAN: You find anybody?
MAYBEE: No. If we go forward there's the front line there. And there's a serious fight.
WEDEMAN: It seems that given the risk here with explosions up the street and perhaps sniper fire, the risks for the Red Cross and the
Palestinian Red Crescent are simply too much. They're now pulling out of Shezariya (ph).
Ben Wedeman, CNN, Gaza.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CLANCY: Coming up right here on News Stream, witnesses say a death row inmate was gasping for air and took nearly two hours to die after being
given a lethal injection. The controversy is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: In New York City, investigators are trying to figure out just who climbed the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge and replaced their American
flags with white ones. But one thing they do know, security at one of America's most famous landmarks is not what it should be.
Pamela Brown reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's one of the most heavily guarded landmarks in all of New York City, yet somehow someone
snuck on to the Brooklyn Bridge and replaced two American flags with all- white versions.
JOHN MILLER, NYPD DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: We don't take these things lightly or as a joke or as art.
BROWN: That's because they know how easily those perpetrators could have planted bombs on the bridge, instead of flags. It's the latest
reminder of how vulnerable America still is to terrorist attacks, highlighted in this just-released 9/11 Commission report laying out a
growing range of diverse threats, from homegrown terrorists to overseas attacks on American computer systems.
TIMOTHY ROEMER, FORMER 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: This is a new, dangerous phase that the United States of America is entering in to.
BROWN: The 9/11 Commission warned a decade ago, if Iraq falls, terrorists will fill the vacuum. And as the commission's new report says,
that nightmare scenario may now be coming to pass. The terrorist group ISIS is taking over sections of Iraq and Syria and ramping up recruiting
efforts, convincing Europeans and Americans to come train with them in the Middle East. U.S. authorities worry they could come back to launch attacks.
ROEMER: People starting to come back from these training grounds into the United States, al Qaeda now -- pre-9/11, they were in a few countries.
Now they're in 16 countries around the world.
BROWN: And al Qaeda is still pushing to hurt Americans, its Yemeni arm recently laying out in an English-language terrorist magazine, "Inspire," a
list of the most coveted American targets, such as this summer's U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York.
Counterterrorism officials are concerned this will serve to encourage lone wolf terrorists flying under the radar. One of the biggest threats
right now didn't even register when the 9/11 Commission wrote its original report, computer attacks that could wipe out key parts of the
infrastructure, like the power grid or banks.
So, as the threats grow on every front, homeland security experts say the mission today is clear.
ROEMER: To understand, to be proactive, and to be smart about the changes taking place in the world before we are attacked again is one of
the most important lessons in our report.
BROWN: A lesson with a bold reminder right in the face of New York.
Pamela Brown, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CLANCY: The governor of the state of Arizona is ordering a review of how the state executes its death row inmates. This, of course, after it
took convicted killer Joseph Wood nearly two hours to die after receiving a lethal cocktail of drugs, that's was yesterday.
Poppy Harlow joins us now with more on the story from New York.
Poppy, the debate is back on. What happened?
POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, you know despite calling for a review of the process, Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer is standing by
this execution. She's calling it lawful. She said that, quote, "justice was carried out."
But it's also really important to note here in her statement after this she noted the excruciating suffering that Wood's two victims, whom he
murdered, what they went through.
However, as you said, this is the latest execution that is adding to the debate over the drugs being used in these lethal injections.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You hear a deep snoring sucking air sound.
HARLOW (voice-over): That's how some witnesses are describing the execution of convicted murderer Joseph Wood. Wood was convicted of a double
murder in 1989 for killing his estranged girlfriend and her father.
HAYDEN: Joe Wood is dead, but it took him two hours to die.
Wood's attorney filed an emergency appeal and reportedly called Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in an attempt to stop the execution,
and stating that the process violated Wood's constitutional right to be executed without cruel and unusual punishment.
DALE BAICH, ATTORNEY FOR JOSEPH WOOD: If the execution isn't bungled, there's no need to go in and ask the courts to intervene.
HARLOW: But there was a very different account of what happened from the woman whose father and sister were murdered by Wood.
JEANNE BROWN, DAUGHTER AND SISTER OF WOOD'S VICTIMS: I don't believe he was gasping for air, I don't believe he was suffering. It sounded to me
as though he was snoring. You don't know what excruciating is.
What's excruciating is, seeing your dad lying there in a pool of blood, seeing your sister lying there in a pool of blood. That's
excruciating.
This man deserved it.
HARLOW: Earlier this year, Oklahoma halted all executions after what some called the botched execution of convicted murderer and rapist Clayton
Lockett. One of the drugs used in that execution was also used in Wood's.
The Arizona Department of Corrections denies any claims of wrongdoing saying in a statement that the department, quote, "followed the execution
protocol," but adding that the department would conduct a full preview. But for the family of Wood's victims, the debate over drugs stirs up deep
feelings.
RICHARD BROWN, SON AND BROTHER-IN-LAW OF WOOD'S VICTIMS: I saw the life go out of my sister in-law's eyes right in front of me, as he shot her
to death. I'm so sick and tired of you guys blowing this drugs stuff out of proportion, because to me, that's B.S.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: And you just hear the pain from the victims' family members left behind in all of this.
You know, Jim, states here in the United States were really left scrambling for alternatives to a key drug that is typically, or was
typically used in the lethal injection cocktail because this sole U.S. manufacture of that drug actually stopped producing it in this country a
few years ago. Other countries outside of the U.S. that do produce it have actually banned the import of that drug to the U.S. because of their
objections over the death penalty and that has led to why this new drug mix has been used in these lethal injections.
We'll of course follow it and see what happens from here. Arizona is, as I said, reviewing this, but stands by the execution.
CLANCY: Poppy Harlow, nice reporting there and good look at the sentiments of the family members o the victims in this case.
HARLOW: Yeah, thank you.
CLANCY: All right, up next right here on News Stream, the solemn sight of bodies from flight 17 on their final journey. This in stark
contrast to the bitter blame game that is heating up as investigators begin to dig deep.
Plus, probes underway in Taiwan as well. They're looking into what might have caused another flight to crash. We'll have a report on all of
this right after a short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: You're watching News Stream on CNN. I'm Jim Clancy and here are your world headlines.
Searchers still looking for an Air Algeria jet that has gone missing with 116 people aboard. It was en route from Burkina Faso's capital
Ouagadougou to Algiers when it dropped off radar. That happened about 50 minutes after it took off. There are reports of a storm in the area that
may have caused the jet to divert from its scheduled route.
The Israeli military reports fewer attacks have been launched from both sides of the Israeli-Gaza border today. The IDF says its air strikes
hit 35 targets overnight, that's down from 187 the day before. Incoming rocket fire from Gaza also slowed Thursday morning, though it picked up
later in the day.
Top security officials in Norway say there is a possible and concrete threat of a terror attack in their country. They say they have information
that an attack maybe planned within a short period of time, just days perhaps, and that Islamist militants fighting in Syria may be involved.
The Sudanese-Christian woman who was persecuted for her faith back home has now arrived in Rome with her family. The Vatican reports that she
met with Pope Francis today. Miriam Ibrahim initially faced a death sentence for apostasy, but that ruling was later overturned. Italian
officials say she will stay in Italy for a short time and then continue her journey onward to the United States.
All right, let's refocus our attention for a minute now on the tragedy that is surrounding Malaysian Airlines flight 17.
Let's get right to Ukraine. Senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is live in Kharkiv where Ukrainian authorities have set up a
crash investigation center.
How is it looking there? How urgent is the effort?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's extraordinarily complicated, but the main focus now is trying to get as
much of the bodies that part of the evidence back to the Netherlands to try and give the relatives of those victims of MH17 some sort of closure, the
ability to bury their loved ones.
We all saw the remarkable scenes, the procession of hearses yesterday in The Netherlands taking them to Hilversum where they will be at a
military base, properly inspected, their identity established. That will continue again today not on as big a public scale with less dignitaries.
But today two of the cargo planes, a Dutch C-130 and an Australian C- 17 have now, I understand, taken off from Kharkiv Airport. They have 74 coffins on board. I say coffins, because part of the I'm afraid the grim
reality of this is that they're placing body bags, at times, into one coffin and then moving those remains altogether over a slow period of days.
And they hope that process, the opening of the fourth remaining refrigerated wagon will come to a close at some point today, tonight
allowing the last fights maybe to take off tomorrow. It's still a complicated task as they just don't know what they find in each wagon until
they open the doors.
But once all those human remains have got back to the Netherlands, then they can begin that more slow, but perhaps high tech task of trying to
establish quite how many human souls are represented by what rolled into Kharkiv two days ago in that refrigerated train from separatist held
territory and the crash site, Jim.
CLANCY: Is there any search ongoing for passengers who may still be missing who are known to be aboard the aircraft but their bodies may not
have been recovered?
WALSH: Because it's imprecise, they don't know exactly what's on that train, if it is all of the 298. They're not, in effect, searching
specifically for that already. There are international monitors around that scene. There are said to be moments when it's completely empty as
well.
International investigators want to get there, they want to secure it, but speaking to some of the people who do this for a living here, they say,
look, when a plane of that size is hit by a missile 10 kilometers above the earth, the massive devastation is spread all over a large area, it's tough
to find every single piece of wreckage, every part of the victims. And I think many people accept they will at the end of the day come to an
inconclusive moment when they can't continue their work any further. But they all feel obliged to push on as hard as they can.
The special representative of the Australian prime minister, he wants to go the crash site today. It is a war zone, so it's tough. It'll be
tough for the 50 Australian police who have flown into London who are heading to Kiev and perhaps the crash site to have safe guaranteed access.
And the idea of the kind of hermetically sealed perimeter through which they can then begin to plow through the crash site itself and forensically
pick up the wreckage.
Well, that's something they'd like to do. It'll be tough to put into place. And then of course there's the issue, people have been trampling on
that crashsite for quite some time -- Jim.
CLANCY: Nick Paton Walsh reporting there for us live from eastern Ukraine. Thank you very much.
Well, forensic investigators in the Netherlands will now begin the grim task of identifying those remains of the people who died in Malaysia
Airlines flight 17. I want to bring in CNN's Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He's also a member of the American College of forensic
examiners. He joins us now live from the Dutch city of Hilversum.
Sanjay, what is the identification process really like?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDCIAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's a pretty massive process, as you might guess, Jim. This is a military base
behind me just to paint a little bit of a picture for you. Obviously a lot of people are coming, paying their respects.
The road over here leads to the military base. And there are all the flags from passengers on that plane represented here flying at half mast
just over my right shoulder.
What happens is you have a large area sort of within the military base that's set aside for this task. Typically the goals of this sort of
process are to determine cause, manner of death and also identification.
As you well know, Jim, with regard to cause and manner, those things have pretty much been established. There may be some additional clues or
even surprises that emerge, but it really is about identification.
And the basics apply here, Jim. So they talk to families, for example, first of all, the loved ones of passengers on that plane. They
ask them about things that are distinctive to that person, everything from clothing and jewelry they may have been wearing, body identifying features
-- tattoos, piercings. And then also trying to obtain things like dental records, medical records, anything to try and identify a match. They also
will take DNA if they can find that to sometimes confirm that match.
Jim, there are some awful stories about entire families traveling together. Now only do they have DNA, but they also don't even have first
degree, first degree relative DNA. So you can imagine how much more challenging the task becomes.
But that's all taking place over here now, Jim. It's already started. I've talked to some of the folks here on the ground. 75 investigators
already starting what I just described.
CLANCY: All right, you've got 75 investigators. Any sense of how long it would take for the identification process to be complete?
GUPTA: Well, some of the rate limiting steps or some of the longer steps, they've got to talk to the families, Jim, and can you imagine the
conversations where they have to go ask the families about medical records, dental records, all these other identifying features. And they want to
make sure that they don't have to keep going back to these families. So they've got to develop these questionnaires and obtain a lot of that
information from the families once. So that takes some time.
They have already started that process.
It can take awhile. This isn't hours or days. I can tell you after the plane crash in Tripoli back in 2010 there were 104 passengers on that
plane. It took them about a month, 30 days, to conclusively identify. So it's hard to say.
You also have multiple countries involved with this investigation as well, Jim.
CLANCY: All right, some good perspective there. I want to thank Dr. Sanjay Gupta for outlining some of that for us. A lot of those are the
questions that people, particularly family members right now, have on their minds. Thank you, doctor.
All right, let's get back to the conflict in Gaza now. U.S. regulators have lifted the ban on flights to Tel Aviv. That ban was put in
place after a Hamas rocket struck close to Ben Gurion Airport. That happened on Tuesday.
Now Europe's aviation safety agency also rescinded its ban. That happened just minutes ago.
Martin Savidge is at the airport and joins us now live.
Martin, some developments on all of this. Two official bans are lifted. But how much of a difference is that really going to make?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's a very good question. I mean, that remains to be seen, Jim.
Right now, of course, it's had no impact as far as real international traffic or any change. They're in the routine at Ben Gurion. You know, it
is still relatively quiet. There are flights that come and go without a doubt, but nowhere near the number that you have seen for the big careers
from Europe with the exception of British Airways and certainly not from the United States.
So, the fact that this ban officially has been lifted by the Federal Aviation Administration is positive thing, certainly would be appreciated
by the Israeli government. However, we should point out that it was only a couple of hours after that lifting was announced when you saw not one, but
two barrages of rockets apparently fired from Gaza toward central Israel, in other words around the Tel Aviv area, in the general area here of the
airport.
And we saw and heard most definitely Iron Dome, which is their defensive system go after these incoming rockets and hit them with their
own missile.
So, we're told that they were effective on at least five or six of knocking them down, which is great, except you can bet that a lot of those
airlines are now going to be looking at that and saying, well, wait a minute here we're not sure that our airplanes, our passengers should be
sharing the same air space with rockets incoming from Gaza and intercept missiles going up from Israel.
So, the fact that it's been cleared by both the Europeans and the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't mean the planes are going to come.
We'll have to wait.
CLANCY: You know, obviously Israelis feel very strongly that by keeping the planes from not going there into Ben Gurion Airport you're
handing a victory to Hamas. Some Israeli pundits have even gone so far as to say it is this action by Hamas that has perhaps caused more damage,
economic damage, fallout, image being tarnished, these kinds of things through this airport closure than at any time in any other conflict that
they've had with the group.
SAVIDGE: Right. I mean, let's go back to 1991, that was the last time that any kind of conflict forced airplanes, airlines to stay away from
Israel. Very different time, of course, in two ways. One, Israel at that time wasn't as economically connected, interconnected with the rest of the
world. The other thing was -- that was wintertime, too, so you didn't have the tourist season that you have now. Everything is very different.
And you're right, it really comes down to, yes, dollars and cents, big impact. But it's also its international image. It is never good for any
country when other international air carriers deem that your primary international airport just isn't safe enough.
So, that was a great blow that was struck even if actually there was no rocket that struck on the grounds of the airport itself and even though
it appears the defensive system was effective today.
We'll have to wait and see what the airlines decide amongst themselves, Jim.
CLANCY: Not only what the airlines decide, what the airline passengers decide as well.
Martin Savidge reporting live from Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv.
Well, coming up right here on News Stream, dozens are dead after a passenger plane crashes in Taiwan. It was trying to make a second landing
attempt in stormy weather. The search for answers next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: Welcome back to News Stream.
We're learning more details about yet another air disaster that happened on Wednesday. Investigator in Taiwan are combing through the site
of a deadly plane crash there. The TransAsia Airways flight went down while it was trying to land on Pengu Islands during stormy weather. At
least 48 people were killed. But 10 others did manage to survive. The crash damaged nearly a dozen homes, but there are no reports of any
casualties on the ground
All right, obviously weather may have had something to do with this. Mari Ramos joins us now with more on that.
Mari, we've had so many plane crashes and so much speculation -- does the weather affect it? Was it involved? Can you blame it on the weather?
RAMOS: There are so many questions, of course, still. And investigators will be definitely, I think, looking at the weather
particularly in this case, Jim. You'll always here flight experts and you'll hear me say it, even though I'm not any kind of flight expert, say
that you know for airplanes takeoff and landings when it comes to weather are going to be the more critical times when weather may play a factor.
And in this case with the plane in Taiwan going into this island right over here, they were under the effect of a typhoon, a typhoon that had just
moved through Taiwan. The outer bands of the storm were still affecting Taiwan, including the island here just offshore.
Even though the center of the storm was already over China this is a very large weather system that was affecting this area and these are the
weather conditions at the time that plane was attempting to make that fateful landing there on the island of Pengu.
So very serious stuff.
Now when you look at a tropical cyclone, remember that these are very large weather systems that affect a wide area. And even now, it's no
longer considered a typhoon or even a tropical storm, but the remnants of this what was Typhoon Matmo have now just kind of dissipated and are all
scattered around east Asia affecting millions of people even right now as we speak with some very heavy rain, including the potential for flooding
across this southern portion right over here of southeastern China.
So that's very significant in itself. We can still see some remnants also of the storm affecting parts of Taiwan. So there is some rain in
those areas.
Any amount of rain that falls in this region is a concern because so much rain has fallen, in some cases half a meter of rainfall fell into
parts of Taiwan. And notice back over here across China some of these areas will also get some significant rainfall over the next couple of days.
And this forecast is for rain that's coming, not what you've already had. So these totals that you see here, add them to whatever you had
already.
The other, of course, tragedy that we're talking about is the plane that is missing out of Burkina Faso. And I wanted to show you the
satellite image over here. Very telling in itself. Here's Burkina Faso. There's where the plane took off from. And this is the intended flight
path that we went ahead and drew in for you.
You can see here on this satellite image that there are some strong thunderstorms in the area.
Now, I just said, you know, it's more important during takeoff and landing, right? In this part of the world we tend to see very strong
thunderstorms. It's the intertropical convergence zone. And it's basically where the tradewinds from the northern hemisphere and the
southern hemisphere meet. And they go right along this area. This is where those tropical waves form and then make their way across the Atlantic
and eventually could become tropical storms or even hurricanes.
Well, there's a lot of lift, there's a lot of activity in this area. And sometimes planes have to divert from their intended flight path, Jim,
because of turbulence or potential turbulence. There was a turbulence forecast for this area up to 52,000 feet so that would be something pilots
would definitely want to avoid.
Turbulence, though, does not bring down aircraft.
Back to you.
CLANCY: Mari Ramos great perspective. Thank you.
Well, up next on News Stream. Amazon's highly anticipated Fire Phone is out. But the question is just how good is it? We'll bring you the
lowdown right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: Welcome back to News Stream.
Well, Amazon's first smartphone is now out and on sale. The Fire Phone, as its called, has a couple of features that may help it stand out
in an already saturated market. First, the much talked about 3D display, enabled by sensors that track and respond to your movements.
Second, the Firefly draws on Amazon's strengths as an ecommerce giant, allowing users to scan, identify and possibly buy anything that's in front
of them. And you would be buying from Amazon, of course.
Critics say the Fire lacks what it takes to be a really good Smartphone.
Now let's find out some more on this. Let's speak to someone who has actually had it in their hands and used it. I'm talking about David
Pierce, smiling there, assistant managing editor of The Verge. He joins me now from New York.
David, I was rather faint praise in your review when you wrote, "the Fire phone is as good as it needs to be and nothing more."
DAVID PIERCE, THE VERGE: Yeah. I think Amazon has a lot of really good ideas about how to help you buy things from Amazon. And I think
anything beyond that just didn't seem important. Building a really beautiful phone didn't seem important. Really doing things with third
party apps and developers didn't seem important. I think Amazon wanted to build a phone that is really great for buying things from Amazon. And they
more or less succeeded. There are a bunch of things about Firefly in particular that don't work all that well, but it's a really great way to,
you know, rent movies or read books or what have you all from Amazon and everything else just kind of falls short.
CLANCY: Well, wait a minute, let's now go though the basics. First of all, you've made a phone call on the phone. Did it work?
PIERCE: It did. It does make phone calls. It send text messages. You can look at the internet. You can, I don't know, read books, all the
basics are there. So I guess I have to give Amazon, you know, credit where credit is due for that.
CLANCY: OK. It's got a good camera, 13 megapixels.
PIERCE: It does have a good camera. And there's a couple of interesting things that work with camera like with this 3D perspective you
were talking about.
The camera is not great. And with a camera you really have to make something exceptional. Nokia has done some work in really exceptional
cameras that really sell phones. But if you're going to make a camera and have it be a selling point for a phone it has to be incredible. And
Amazon's really isn't. It's very good, but it's not something that's going to make you want to run out and buy this phone.
CLANCY: All right, let's talk about 3D display. What do you think?
PIERCE: It works technically really well. And it's sort of a remarkable thing that Amazon was able to pull that off at all, because many
have tried and almost every other one has failed.
But what Amazon didn't really do is convince me or anyone it seems like why this is a useful thing to have. I think having tilt scrolling
where you're holding the phone in your hand and you sort of tip it back to scroll down or tip it towards you to scroll up just isn't all that useful.
It's no more useful than using my thumb. And it's the same with, you know, there are these gestures where you flick the phone back and forth to open
menus. And the menus are cool and there's interesting stuff in there, but they are hard to find and they're sort of complicated.
And this is the kind of phone, and my big worry, is that this is the kind of phone that if I hand it to most people they just wouldn't have any
idea how to use it. And I think until Amazon solves that the 3D stuff here is cool looking and it's fun to show people, but it's not really all that
useful.
CLANCY: OK. How did David Pierce, let's talk about the shopping aspect here, how did you end up ordering $36 worth of toilet paper from
Amazon?
PIERCE: Well, it's -- it really is remarkable how...
CLANCY: How many rolls was that, by the way?
PIERCE: It was nine rolls, I think, which I feel like I got horribly ripped off. I'm not clear on how this actually happened. But I have big
box of toilet paper waiting for me at home right now that I don't quite know what to do with.
But it was -- it -- Flirefly is remarkably easy and simple and I was showing it to somebody in Duane Reade here in New York City. And I held it
up and you tap the button and I was like, oh, and then you just go right here to buy it and then it was one second later I had bought toilet paper.
And I was like, well, I guess now I have that. But it's just a testament to how easy it is. And it's -- for that particular purpose there's some
really remarkable technology going on here.
CLANCY: Well, does it allow me to go into a store -- oh, I see an item. I'm interesting. I see the barcode and there's, what, five
different cameras on this phone. You know, it can scan those things. And then I can instantly find out maybe I can get it cheaper online.
PIERCE: Right. So that's the idea is that you're walking into, you know, Best Buy or Duane Reade. It's not really for toilet paper, I would
think, it's more for more expensive devices in particular like if you're buying a television, say.
And you walk in and you say, OK, I have this. And it's in front of me. But maybe it's cheaper on Amazon. So you'd scan the thing and then
the beauty of Amazon's Prime service, which comes for a year for free if you buy this phone early in the process. I don't know how long that'll
last, but is that you get two day shipping. So it's -- you're not losing that much. And Amazon can say we're going save you money. It's going to
be really easy and it's just going to appear at your door in 48 hours. And that's pretty compelling.
CLANCY: All right. David Pierce, I want to thank you very much for trying out the iPhone -- not the iPhone, the Fire Phone. I'm not sure
we're going to get rid of our iPhone or Androids, but it's something to look at, there's no doubt about it. Thanks, David.
PIERCE: Thank you.
CLANCY: And that is our report on News Stream. The news continues, though, right here on CNN with World Business Today next.
END
