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At This Hour

Airspace Over London Restricted Due to "Technical Problems" at Heathrow; Beverly Johnson Speaks Out Against Bill Cosby; CIA Interrogation Program Architect Defends Program

Aired December 12, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm John Berman.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And I'm Michaela Pereira. Right now @THISHOUR, we have breaking news.

BERMAN: Yeah. This is breaking news out of London. This will affect thousands and thousands of travelers and snarl air travel for hours. Airspace over London right now is restricted.

PEREIRA: We understand that a technical problem is to blame.

We want to turn straight now to Jim Boulden, who is in London. Give us an idea of what you're hearing there on what caused this failure.

JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right now, they're telling us a technical problem here at the main air traffic control system, which controls the entire southeast of the U.K. We're talking about London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, major airports.

We're talking about all those flights, of course, coming in from the U.S. Many dozens that will come from American Airlines, United, and Delta, all being hugely disrupted.

Originally we were told that the airspace was closed because of a computer failure. Now they're saying a technical problem or power failure, and they're saying that the area around Southeast London, Southeast England, is restricted, so they are restricting the number of flights in and out of the airspace.

It was believed that it was going to be -- the airspace would be closed completely until 2:00 Eastern, but they are now stressing that the airspace is open, but we are restricting traffic volumes in accordance with capability because of course they're having this issue.

It may just be nothing more than a power failure, but it's certainly been enough to certainly cause -- as you say, will cause chaos.

London International airports, not just take flights to and from, there are a lot of people who travel through here on the way to Africa, to the Middle East, and of course into Europe. You are talking about an enormous number of flights from the U.S. that will be affected by this and a number of people who may have their flights canceled and flights that either will be massively delayed out of Heathrow, for instance, or canceled altogether.

So anybody who is traveling in this region or expecting people to be traveling in this region, you can imagine the amount of chaos we're going to have for the next few hours at least.

BERMAN: Yeah. To call London a major hub, Jim, is an understatement. Hundreds of thousands of passengers pass through there every day, and it's not just Heathrow. There are five airports in that region.

I'm curious because for several minutes, half an hour, we heard the airspace over London was completely closed. Now we're being told it's restricted.

Why the change? How long might this last?

BOULDEN: Well, they were saying -- the interesting thing about Europe is you don't just have the FAA where you can go to them and get one answer. In Europe, it's like many other things; it's quite complicated. So Euro Control, which is the E.U.'s control center, told us that it was the London airspace was closed due to a computer failure and would stay closed until 2:00 Eastern U.S. time.

Then we heard from NATS, that's the air traffic control management company, to say, well, actually, we're still open but things are very restricted. It's too early to say it's a computer failure. And then they wanted to say it was a power outage possibly. And then we're hearing them saying we're going to call it a technical problem.

Well, this is a heck of a technical problem they're having. You think about the amount of airplanes that come through here, and you think of all the backup systems that you would have for this airspace. And something has gone terribly wrong.

PEREIRA: So obviously then, given the three potential options of what it is, they're scrambling all sorts of people to figure out what is going on.

Have you been given a sense of what is being done to fix the problem?

BOULDEN: Well, when we heard they were going to close the airspace for three and a half hours, that led me to believe they're talking about a massive failure, and they have to start and reboot the system and then test it, and that could take a long time.

I think they're probably using obviously extreme caution. There is no room for error here. You are talking about airplanes in -- coming into the airport, and then their screens go blank.

They still have visuals, of course, and they still have -- thank goodness they'd still be able talk to the control centers and to the towers, but for the towers not to be able to seep the planes is something, of course, there's a reason why you would see them not just restricting but closing.

I think we could take some relief that they are restricting airspace but not closing it completely. BERMAN: No. This is not just something you can "Ctrl, Alt, Dlt" your

way out of, Jim, and as you were saying earlier -- I was listening to you -- in theory what's happening here is those screens that air traffic controllers are looking at just went blank, so you can understand why they're taking safety measures here.

Who's in charge, Jim? In the United States as you said, it's the FAA. Who will now be running this fix? Who will ultimately say it is safe to fly through this airspace?

BOULDEN: Well, there's what's called the CAA here, so the Civil Aviation Authority in the U.K. Unlike other things in Europe, it isn't controlled by a European Union group. You still have airspace that you are completely in control of, so the CAA would have done it.

NATS is the management company that manages the airspace for the Civil Aviation Authority, NATS, and that's the company whose system, however it happened, has failed. And that controls such a critical part not just of the U.K., not just of Europe, but of the world's airspace. So this is something they're going to have to obviously be investigating.

We have had this failure before, I have to say, a few times over the years as the system was upgraded, for instance. So NATS is something that we all keep our eye on.

I don't remember this kind of situation where at least we were told in the beginning that they would close the airspace outright, not since we had the ash cloud of 2010. It did sound in the beginning to be quite a dramatic step to take.

At least now we're being told the airspace is open but restricted. But if you're flying from, say, Denver or L.A. or Seattle, your flight might not take off because they may not want you to start that journey with other airplanes, having to take planes that have not been able to go into London Heathrow.

PEREIRA: Let's talk about that for a second, Jim, because I think that's a very important point that we should talk about. It is, what, the twelfth of December. Likely there are going to be people traveling for the holidays. This is a very, very busy travel season. Maybe people are looking to board a flight today to head overseas.

You were talking about United, Delta, American. They see a lot of flights going from various points here in the United States over to London. This is going to impact a whole lot of travelers the world over. Not just here in the United States heading to London.

BOULDEN: Exactly. I mean, Heathrow takes planes landing, taking off every 90 seconds. There is no room for margin of error at London Heathrow. There are only two runways as well. Most people think it's much more but it's only two runways.

So when you have any situation, whether it's snow, whether it's the ash cloud, whether it's a strike, it does affect people in other parts of the world. I can see a lot of these flights heading to places like Amsterdam. I can see them going to Frankfurt where there are many runways. But if you're the person on that plane, and you're now Frankfurt instead of London, then your day has been disrupted. And who knows when it --

PEREIRA: Imagine if you went to sleep, had a nap and woke up in Frankfurt instead of London.

BERMAN: When it happens in the United States, we end up in a different city in the United States. If you're flying right now in Europe, you're going to end up in a different country, which creates a whole different set of complications.

Jim, stick around. We're going check back in with you in a second. We're looking at live pictures right now of London's Heathrow Airport. A lot of planes, we see a lot of planes there. Not sure if that means there's some kind of a backup there.

There's always a lot of planes on the ground, coming and going at Heathrow. I don't see any planes moving on the ground, which might be telling.

I want to bring in Chad Myers from the CNN Weather Center in Atlanta. We're looking at the situation on the ground, Chad. You may have a sense of what's going on in the air around Southwest London right now.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: In the air and what's not happening in the air. No more planes likely taking off, especially short haul planes, taking off toward the London area, toward anywhere from Wales, Manchester south. That's where this technical problem is.

You get to the north part of the country, north part of the U.K in good shape. Get toward France in good shape. But if you're sitting in Amsterdam, a short flight to London, you're going to be sitting there on the tarmac, or you're going to go to the penalty box because you're not going to be able to take off. They don't want that many more planes in the airspace as you get closer to Heathrow. So that's what people are experiencing.

What we call it here in America is a ground stop. It's kind of a misnomer. It doesn't stop the airport that you're landing on. It stops you at the airport you're going to take off from, and so you don't want to get more volume in the sky.

And this restricted airspace, this amount of distance you have to have between planes, as he was talking about, 90 seconds, it's amazing to me. I have a great view of the Hartsfield Airport and how these controllers can stack planes for miles and miles and miles. And you can see them coming for 30 miles, one after another after another. Now those planes are going to get farther and farther apart, more visual.

Now I think it's safe to say that they didn't lose the primary and secondary radars. They can still -- they would still know where these planes are. It's just a little bit more difficult to get that stacking tin, if you remember that old movie, just getting them closer and closer. They're going to separate them to make sure they can get there.

So they're going to have to send them, likely, to other airplanes. Planes have plenty of fuel to get to other airplanes. Look at all of these blue dots here, here, here, here, here. This is not like Denver to Salt Lake City where there's nothing in between. There are many, many airports that can take all the airplanes that are in the sky right now.

PEREIRA: Chad, we really appreciate that. I want -- can we bring in Rene Marsh real quick? Because I think it's worth talking about, the effect this is going to have here in the United States.

Rene, we can talk about that in a second, but I want to talk more about the technical aspect. People hear something like this and they think. "OK, I have a loved one in the air. I'm a little afraid of what this could mean."

What kind of technical problem could this have been? What could it have stemmed from?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: We really don't know what caused this computer glitch. It's not something that you hear about often, a computer glitch. Essentially, at one point, we were told that the airspace is shut down.

Of course an investigation will go into what caused that, but as far as what are the concerns and why they're taking this so seriously, I mean, taking the step of closing the airspace at one point, I mean, it just goes to show. The bottom line is this. When you have such a very crowded, tremendously crowded airspace, going into one of the busiest airports there -- we're talking Heathrow, a major international hub -- you want to make sure that when you have so many planes in the air at once, that air traffic controllers know where these planes are, they can communicate with the pilots, they can safely keep these planes spaced apart, and that's really critical and truly the bottom line here.

So that's why we're seeing the actions -- them taking the actions they are taking because the chance you do not want to take is that that these flights somehow lose the correct separation. You always want them to be safely separated, so that's why we know that there are restrictions in which they are cutting back on the number of flights within this airspace, also diversions where some may have been bound for Heathrow but will not be able to land at Heathrow, may have to land at another airport.

And we know from past stories, whether it's weather, whether it's something technical like this, once you have an issue in which you're shutting down an airspace, this is a ripple effect that's not going to last hours; it could last days. We are talking about a very busy travel point at this point.

BERMAN: In fact, Rene, we now have a statement from the FAA. Let me read it out loud here. It says, "Euro Control advised London ACC it has a computer failure affecting air traffic. Airborne traffic will continue to be accepted However no departure traffic into London ACC will be released in Europe. This will include any departures out of or through London ACC to North America. Departures from north America are not in any stops to or through the London ACC at this time."

That means planes from the United States and North America can leave to go to London, but if you're in London, wanting to come back to the United States --

PEREIRA: Not happening right now.

BERMAN: Not happening right now.

This don't seem like a dangerous situation; it just seems extraordinarily inconvenient and frustrating.

PEREIRA: And the timing couldn't be worse with the heavy travel season, and of course, it takes after this kind of ground stop, if you will -- it takes -- there's a trickle-down effect. It takes a while for it to catch up.

BERMAN: This could be until tomorrow.

PEREIRA: It really could be. So stick with us.

Rene Marsh, our thanks to you, Chad Myers and Jim Boulden as well.

BERMAN: We're going to continue to follow this breaking news out of London, which will have an impact far beyond London, and we'll bring you any updates as they come in.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: We turn now to the Bill Cosby scandal. Another accuser speaking out. This time, top model Beverly Johnson. She joins more than two dozen women accusing the actor and comedian of drugging or sexually assaulting them. She told her story in an essay published in "Vanity Fair." This morning, she gave our Alisyn Camerota some of those details. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEVERLY JOHNSON, MODEL/COSBY ACCUSER: He gave me the cappuccino, I took one sip, and I felt something very strange going in my head, and then I -- well, the first sensation was, you know, a little woozy and so then I took another sip and after that second sip I knew I had been drugged. It was very powerful, it came on very quickly. The room started to spin. My speech was slurred.

I remember him calling me over towards him as if we were going to begin the scene then and he placed his hands on my waist, I remember steadying myself with my hand on his shoulders. And I -- I just kind of cocked my head because at that point I knew he had drugged me, and I was just looking at him and I just asked him the question, that you are a MF, aren't you?

I immediately went into survival mode. I knew that he had drugged me and I wanted him to know that he had drugged me. So the only word I could get out -- and I don't swear -- was MF, and I kept saying it to him louder and louder and for a moment he stood there looking at me like I was crazy and then -- it happened very quickly. He immediately grabbed me and started to drag me towards the stairs that went downstairs to the outdoors, and I was stumbling around, trying to grab my handbag, and I really didn't know where he was taking me, but we ended up outside and it was still -- it was dusk, so it was pretty light out and all I remember is him grabbing me by one arm and him flailing for a taxi with the other.

I remember kind of looking around at people and, you know, people really recognizing that that's Bill Cosby and a taxi stops, he opens the door and he throws me in there and he slams the door shut and I somehow get my address out to the taxicab driver.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Johnson says the attack took place in Cosby's New York townhouse in the 1980s.

I want to bring Alisyn Camerota who joins us now. Alisyn, that was a terrific interview, riveting. Couldn't take my eyes off it. What we have now is just this growing number of women. I've lost count of how many women, it's over 20 now. And not only the numbers that are interesting, but it's also the consistency in some of their stories. I will say, there's still the consistent question with many of these, which is why come forward now all these years later?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Well, many of them tell the same story, that Bill Cosby was an incredibly powerful, connected person, and they didn't want to ruin their own reputations and their own careers. Beverly Johnson spoke to that. She also didn't want to bring down this man who, as she described, was a beloved entertainer. And he had this wonderful reputation. She thought she was alone. She didn't know, at that time, that there were other women, and she didn't want to be responsible for the downfall of this man who had done so much for the black community. It was more complicated for her.

PEREIRA: It was really interesting to hear her speak with you, too, because she spoke about the fact that coming forward with this, it meant something to her family, too. And there was a conversation she had to have with the people that love her and that she loves.

CAMEROTA: Today she had to have a conversation, she said in the past 24 hours, also because she didn't want to add, right now, to the narrative of "there's so many race relations," "there are problems in America for black men." She felt that it somehow emits the conversation of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. She also didn't want to talk about another black man who was flawed and having problems, but she did talk to her family, and she decided that this story was separate from everything else that the country is going through at this moment, and she should speak out. BERMAN: Beverly Johnson is unlike many of these women, too. I mean, Beverly Johnson was, at that time, a powerful, famous woman who, in theory, had support and a structure behind her. So in some ways, her story, her coming forward now is a little different, even than all these others.

CAMEROTA: She was connected at that time. She's a beautiful supermodel, but he was more connected, and she says that she just knew that he would have made mincemeat out of her. That she just felt that because he was so big that she couldn't take down Bill Cosby. And also, she was at a vulnerable time, she talks about. She was going through a divorce, she was in the middle of a child custody battle. Bill Cosby played on that. He tried to mentor her, he was very compassionate, he said come to my house, I'll help you. So there was a lot going on for her at that time in the mid-80s that also made her not want to go public.

PEREIRA: Sort of how we see this play out, usually, is one of these women will come forward, we talk about it, the media talks about it, and then there will be a statement, a fairly aggressive statement, from his legal team. Anything after Beverly's --

CAMEROTA: Nope. His legal team has not responded to the "Vanity Fair" piece, they have not responded yet to CNN. Today, it's possible that they're just going silent. Now what more can they say? I mean, what they have said all along is these are fabricated, fantastical stories, they didn't happen. It gets harder and harder to say that after the 20th woman, the 21st, the 22nd comes forward. But that's been their position, and they might just never say anything.

BERMAN: Does she say she'll come forward with any legal action? Does she have any plans to take this any further?

CAMEROTA: No, she doesn't want anything, she said, from Bill Cosby. She doesn't have any legal plans. She said that what she wants to do is give a voice to victims everywhere. She wants to give a voice to victims of assault, of sexual assault, and she feels that the more people speak out publicly, the more shame it removes from that experience. So she doesn't care about Bill Cosby, she cares about other victims.

PEREIRA: I really was moved by the fact that she said that she works with young people who have been through their own share of traumas and she said, I felt like a hypocrite, I had to speak. Alisyn, that was an excellent conversation with her.

BERMAN: Powerful stuff.

PEREIRA: Thanks for joining us today. Have a great weekend.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. You, too.

PEREIRA: Ahead @THISHOUR, growing controversy over the Senate CIA torture report and the newest twist.

BERMAN: Also, a key figure in the CIA's interrogation program is breaking his silence, but not breaking ranks with the spy agency that paid him millions.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES MITCHELL, RETIRED AIR FORCE PSYCHOLOGIST: I think it's a partisan pile of crap. It's an attempt to smear the men and women of the CIA as the Democrats leave their position of authority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: That was a psychologist who admitted to CNN that he was one of the people that helped to develop the CIA's interrogation program. His name is James Mitchell. He made his stance on the Senate report and its scathing conclusions about the harsh tactics pretty clear.

BERMAN: Mitchell did admit to CNN that he is one of the two psychologists mentioned in the report as an architect of the program, but there are questions about whether he had the qualifications to do it. Also, how much he earned in the process. He was paid apparently a very large sum for his work.

Our Chris Frates has been digging on this story and, Chris, you know, we spoke yesterday and Mitchell would not confirm his involvement, although everyone pretty much suspected it. Why now has he decided to come forward?

CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIONS: Well, when I talked to him last night, John, he said that the nondisclosure agreement that he's under has been partially lifted. So he can confirm now that he was one of those psychologists mentioned in the report, but he wouldn't say which one. Remember, both those psychologists are under pseudonyms, and so we're not quite sure which pseudonym is his in that report yet. But I think, you know, it was becoming clear to everybody that it was an open secret that he was one of these psychologists and he said he is now allowed to confirm that. But he's still under this NDA, and he wouldn't do any more interviews. He didn't want to talk anymore and answer anymore of my questions, John, saying that now that he's confirming that he is in that report, he has to have a lot more of what he said reviewed.

PEREIRA: You would think that he'd want to set the record straight. I'm curious what he makes of the question about his credentials. Did he address that at all?

FRATES: Well Michaela, he did. Of course when I talked to him, he wouldn't say whether or not they were his credentials being called into question in the report, but when you look at the report it talks about these psychologists not having any actual interrogation training, saying that they weren't experts in al Qaeda and really questioning why these two guys came on and were able to get an $80 million payment to run this interrogation program. And when I asked him, you know, do you think your credentials are being misrepresented in the press? He says that he believes they are and that if this NDA is lifted completely, he'd be happy to talk, he'll take responsibility for what he did, but he doesn't want to take responsibility for things he didn't do, kind of seeming to suggest that there's a lot out there that he'd like to set the record straight on.

BERMAN: Whatever he did or didn't do, Chris, he got paid a lot for it. What's the justification for such a big contract, more than $80 million to his firm?

FRATES: Well, that's exactly what the Senate wanted to know and didn't get answers on in the report. But the CIA, when they responded to that report, they said, look, we would have been derelict not to take these two guys up. We thought they had very special insight into the interrogation process; they had run a survival and invasion program in the U.S. Air Force and that it was their responsibility to - to employ these guys.

The question of were they worth the money and how did they get a $180 million contract, and of that get paid $81 million, John, still really a big question out there.