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Search for Missing AirAsia Flight 8501; Virgin Plane Having Landing Gear Trouble; Two LAPD Officers Shot At, Neither Wounded

Aired December 29, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

LES ABEND, "FLYING MAGAZINE": Generally speaking we try to deviate left or right as opposed to climb because we know and in this particular that thunderstorms are built so high climbing is not always going to be a successful way to get out of turbulence. And if we do get above the tops of the clouds it still may be turbulent because it's a building system.

But trying to avoid weather totally sometimes is a difficult situation in that you have to -- you do have to pick the path of least resistance.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Ok. Path of least resistance. And you know, I talk to experts all the time and they say planes can take a lot.

ABEND: They can.

COSTELLO: They can take a lot. So tell us how much a plane can take.

ABEND: They can. And if you've ever gone to the videos on the Internet and watched Boeing take wings of, for instance, a 787, they can actually fold those wings and make them touch above the top of the fuselage of the airplane. So they flex quite a bit. It's designed and it has to be certified to withstand certain levels of G-forces and structurally be able to withstand turbulence.

Now, turbulence in the form of up-and-down drafts continuously can be an issue, especially if the pilot attempts to maintain altitude and then you get into scenarios that could cause problems.

COSTELLO: And what I'm getting at here, Mary, is it's unlikely that the plane broke apart in the air somehow.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: That's very unlikely because of the way they are constructed and built. And in the history of aircraft accident, there have been very, very few commercial jetliners that have broken apart while flying at altitude even in really bad weather. It's a little different for smaller planes but this is obviously a very big plane. And that site that Les is talking about, Boeing actually put it out. And they took the wings of a 777 and a 787 up to the point where they broke them from the fuselage -- and I'm going to use my hands here, sorry I'm going to talk with my hands, but the wing went like this clear up to here flexing before it broke. So it was quite a sight. They're tough, they're really tough.

COSTELLO: Ok, so could the pilot have made the decision to turn around and go back to the airport?

SCHIAVO: Of course. Yes, absolutely he could have made that decision. He would have done it in conjunction with the airline and we don't know that conversation, if that conversation ever took place but there have been cases in the past where the pilots have not coordinated with each other in terms of one challenging the other as crew resource management and also sometimes there has been -- and we don't know if it happened here -- but there's been pressure by the airlines to go. We call that get-there-itis.

COSTELLO: I was just going to ask Les about that, you know. How much pressure is placed on pilots to get to their destination on time?

ABEND: Well, you know, the airlines know that that's a really touchy thing, especially with safety concerns obviously. But more pilots have a mission packing type philosophy and we want to get our mission done. That being said, we don't have any problems saying we can't go there. And if necessary we declare an emergency. We say unable that route, we need a heading to such and such and we deal with the paperwork on the ground. But for the most part, none of us at professional levels really feel that kind of pressure, at least with the airline that I'm working for.

COSTELLO: Well, here in the United States, but it could be a whole different story in that part of the world, right?

ABEND: It could possibly be different -- absolutely.

COSTELLO: I do have some breaking news and it concerns airplanes, unfortunately so, Mary and Les. Stick around. We're getting some breaking news. This is out of London -- seeing this for the first time. Breaking news out of London.

A Virgin Atlantic U.S. spokesperson confirms to CNN that a flight is making a return to London's Gatwick Airport and preparing for a non- standard landing procedure due to a technical issue with the landing gear. Ok. So what is a non-standard landing? Mary, I'll suppose that question to you.

SCHIAVO: Well, it could be things, for example, we've seen this many times before where the nose wheel, for example, won't lock into place or maybe one of the other landing gear won't come down and they don't have the lock light on meaning that the gear is down and locked into place. That can be a non-standard landing procedure.

And they could have other problems. They could have problem with speed brakes or any other part of the plane to help them slow down. But the thing we've seen most often is where the nose wheel does not lock into place.

COSTELLO: All right. It's a VS-43. What is that, Les? Do you know?

ABEND: I'm not familiar with a VS-43 -- no.

COSTELLO: Oh, that's the flight number. Sorry, this is a plane out of London so I'm not familiar with the flight numbers that sound like that. It's a Virgin Airlines plane.

ABEND: It seems to indicate that it may be an Airbus, Virgin flies a lot of Airbuses. It looks like that it has a landing gear issue potentially which could mean that a gear door is not closed, a gear is not coming down, there's an indication of it not coming down. It could be a hydraulic issue with the landing gear. It's hard to say.

COSTELLO: Ok. I've been through that as a flier. It's pretty standard problem -- right.

ABEND: It is.

COSTELLO: Hopefully so, anyway.

Les, Mary -- thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, two officer-involved shootings happening in two different corners of the country where authorities are actively searching for suspects they say fired at police officers for no apparent reason.

We'll be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The weekend disappearance of AirAsia Flight 8501 brings back eerie memories of the Malaysia Airlines mystery back in March. And sadly these are not the only aviation disaster of this past year. Rene Marsh is our aviation and government regulation correspondent. She has more from Washington. Good morning.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning -- Carol.

You know, it's a major headline that we would like to see a lot less. We're talking about commercial passenger jets with hundreds of lives on board ending with a fatal crash. What does it say about aviation industry's safety record?

This morning we have a reality check.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice over): The disappearance of 162 people on board AirAsia is the second missing passenger plane in Southeast Asia in less than a year.

PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: It is eerie. It is unusual. It's just kind of spooky that this would happen in this area. But we don't know the facts yet.

MARSH: After nearly ten months, Malaysia Airlines flight 370 and the 239 people on board have still not been found. Authorities are convinced the Boeing 777 crashed in the Indian Ocean.

STEVEN WALLACE, FORMER FAA ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR: Malaysia 370, there's good evidence to indicate that it was flown a long, long ways and, again, most likely as a criminal act either by a rogue pilot or an intruder or something like that. Whereas we have no indication of anything like that in this case.

MARSH: Just four months later, July 17, Malaysia Airlines would suffer another loss. Pro-Russian rebels are blamed for shooting MH-17 out of the sky using a surface-to-air missile. All 298 people on board that Boeing 777 died.

One week later, more than 100 people perished after Air Algerie Flight 5017. The aircraft disappeared from radar after changing its light path because of bad weather.

The disappearance of AirAsia flight 8501 is the fourth high profile commercial plane disaster of 2014. But the former managing director of the NTSB says the skies are still safe.

GOELZ: I think when you look at the overall picture, there may have been 600 fatalities this year in aviation. That's a relatively low rate when you compare it to the massive numbers of people who are flying today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: And to that point, aviation has expanded throughout Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe at an extraordinary rate. So many more people are flying because it's so much more accessible. But when you look at the accident rate in relation to the millions and millions of flights flying every year, the safety record truly is extraordinary. Especially here in the United States -- Carol.

COSTELLO: That's good to know. Rene marsh reporting, live from Washington. Thank you.

Back to our breaking news right now. As I told you just a short time ago, Virgin Atlantic Airline says a plane of it had to return to London's Gatwick Airport. It was preparing to make a non-standard landing there. So what does that mean?

We'll let's head to Max Foster. He has more information for us this morning. Good morning -- what do you know?

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, well they seem to have some problem with the landing gear, we were told about that a bit earlier on and the aircraft has been circling around southern England presumably to burn off fuel in preparation for a landing. I just spoke to military or an aviation expert and he says if there is any sort of non-perfect situation with the aircraft, if it's -- turns into a non-standard landing. But we know there's a problem with the landing gear. This was an aircraft, the flight towards the Virgin Flight VS 43 traveling from Gatwick to Las Vegas leaving about four hours ago.

It's had to return because of this technical problem and now they are attempting to implement a non-standard landing. So that could happen soon. We don't know exactly when. We do need to know at what point that fuel has burned off so they're prepared to land. But the aviation expert I spoke to said if the landing gear is partially down, not completely down, they can attempt a landing and effectively see how it goes. But if it's completely within the aircraft they probably wouldn't be trying it, I'm told.

COSTELLO: I was just going to ask you that question. They can't make a belly landing, right?

FOSTER: No, that's an extreme situation and very, very dangerous, indeed. So until we have more information we'll have to get a sense of what that is. But if they've been burning off the fuel with the intention to coming into land the assumption is that it's down but not completely down, there's some concern about how stable it may be when they do land.

COSTELLO: All right, I want to head to Atlanta's Weather Center and check in with Chad Myers. You have a flight tracker there. What are you seeing?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We've been watching Flight Radar 24 on this plane for hours. It tried to take off and did really well, likely got a warning light here as the door didn't close or whatever may have happened. The light is likely on, that's why the pilot knew. Came out over here -- over the Atlantic, circled a little bit, got very low in altitude and we talked about how high the other plane was over there, AirAsia, 36,000 feet, that's when you burn very little fuel because there's not much air up there and you have less drag.

This plane was down to about 5,000 feet and flying around circles south of Gatwick, that lower altitude makes a lot of drag and you use a lot of fuel to burn off. That's when you're trying to burn off fuel, you go to a lower altitude, use that air as a drag and burn the fuel off faster. Now the plane has made the left-hand turn back toward Gatwick and either just a flyover from a visual from the tower or about to take that plane down to the ground and make that non- standard, as they're calling it, landing -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I can't help think but of what the passengers are feeling. I know you've been on planes too that had to circle and circle and circle before landing. You don't quite know what's going on. It's frightening.

MYERS: It certainly is and I always want my pilot to tell me or my first officer to tell me what's going on. I don't want to be sitting in the back in the fuselage just waiting, just sitting in my chair going what is going on? Just talk to the people out there -- tell them what you're doing and I'm sure the pilots are in good communication with those passengers because it's a fearful time if you only have three pieces of landing gear.

Now we don't know whether it's main gear or whether it's nose gear that has the problem. Main gear if both of them are down, we have a nose gear problem the plane will land and yes it will slide on the nose but it's better to have two of the main gear, both main gear down than only have one main gear down and the nose because all of a sudden that's not a very good landing.

COSTELLO: No. And I'm sure there are emergency vehicles all along that runway, right, Max, waiting for this plane to land?

FOSTER: Yes. Sussex fire and rescue have said that they've been braced for this and they've got all of their emergency services on the scene on standby. They say that's the standard procedure when there is a non-standard landing. So not too much to read into that at this point but certainly the airport, Gatwick Airport, one of the U.K.'s main airports is fully braced for this non-standard landing.

COSTELLO: All right. Max Foster, Chad Myers -- thanks to both of you.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. Back to our breaking news -- we've been telling you about this Virgin Atlantic plane circling London's Gatwick Airport. Apparently there's something wrong with its landing gear and it has to burn off fuel before it can land. It's been up in the air quite a long time but actually left Gatwick at 6:45 our time so it's been up in the air for four hours. Can you imagine that.

I don't think it's been circling Gatwick for four hours but the plane has been in the air a very long time. Let's go to our aviation analyst Mary Schiavo -- so that's a long time. Four hours. Did they not notice the landing gear? How does that happen?

SCHIAVO: Yes. That's a little disconcerting and it wouldn't have been long enough that they would have already been across the ocean and gone to put the landing gear down and got a warning. Typically what they find is that they get some kind of a warning light that there's an issue with the landing gear, the door, the failure to retract, failure to come down, but that's usually on takeoff or landing.

So, I mean the best they can hope for is that it's just merely a light that there's a problem with the door, et cetera. But I've been on a flight where the nose gear hadn't come down and locked and there are many procedures to do that. In fact CNN has cover many of these where it comes down.

There's a particular way you have to land, very slow, as light as you can get it, they're going to burn off as much fuel as possible and the pilot will touch down just lightly like a feather and hold that nose wheel up. Keep the wheel back as long as possible and let all the force of the landing rest on the back wheels -- if that's what's wrong.

Now, if it's one of the two back wheels, that's a much tougher situation. That's harder. You have to kind of hold one side up from the other.

COSTELLO: Hold one side up from the other? What exactly does that mean?

SCHIAVO: Right. You have to try to keep the -- it's incredibly difficult. When you land you actually have to try it at the last minute adjust so you touchdown on the wheel that you have on that one side. It's very -- that's difficult. The pilots are trained for the nose gear problem. It's a lot harder to do anything else. If you don't have the gear down and locked into position and all that, it's tough.

You know, there's a lot of talks sometimes they stay they foam the runways -- I haven't seen any pictures that they've done that here. If they have -- and I guess I would suspect that it's a nose gear problem or maybe even a door problem.

COSTELLO: So how much fuel do they have to burn off? Does it have to be nearly empty before the plane lands?

SCHIAVO: Ideally, yes. Because they want to get it as light as possible because if it touches down and it's heavy, you know, they don't have as many options to have a very light landing, to hold that nose gear up as long as possible. And then also you have much more fuel at a site, for example, if the tank would come open, if you'd have a tear in the tank and sparking you would have a much worse situation than if you have empty fuel tanks.

So if they had only gotten four hours into the flight, you have to carry enough fuel to your destination, which is across the Atlantic, plus enough fuel to your alternative safety reserve airport, plus another 30 minutes beyond that. So they had a fair amount of fuel on board that plane and they obviously have to burn a lot off.

COSTELLO: I think, Mary -- that is the plane so I'm assuming the plane has landed. Is that the plane, producers? I'm sorry, that is the plane. It looks like its landing gear is down, Mary. Looks like it to me, anyway.

SCHIAVO: Very good. Very good. It must have just been a problem with the light or the door and that is a very happy result and happy ending.

COSTELLO: We believe this is the plane. We're trying to triply confirm it. Chad, you've been tracking the plane. Do you think that's the plane?

MYERS: I do, Carol, because it has stopped moving on our Flight Aware 24 or FlightRadar24.com. And it is -- what appears to be on the ground. And that right there would be safe and sound on the ground. Look at the plane, a very large jumbo jet that was carrying a lot of fuel. It flew low to the ground for a long time. There's more drag closer to the ground, that drag burns off more fuel and there you go. There's the happy situation for the pilots and the passenger there.

COSTELLO: You can see the emergency vehicles there. That's another clue that that is indeed the plane. Like you said, Mary, like every precaution had to be taken, it's not like you can pop out the door and see if the landing gear can come down.

SCHIAVO: That's right. I always say there's no rear-view mirrors in the cockpit. COSTELLO: So we're glad this ended happily. Thank goodness, I'm

really happy. All right. Thanks to Mary and to you, Chad.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. Back to our breaking news and this all ended happily -- I'm so glad about that. This is a Virgin Atlantic plane that was circling the Gatwick Airport in London for hours and hours burning off fuel because they thought they had a problem with the landing gear. You're taking a close-up look at the landing gear right now -- apparently most of it came down and this is my untrained eyes. We can see one wheel didn't come out there, right? Is that right? That's what it looks like.

Ok. So the plane landed on I guess three sets of wheels but as you can see it landed safely. Emergency vehicles were surrounding the plane. They're now gone and we assume passengers are still on board that plane. We have not seen them get off. They'll be getting off shortly but again that Virgin Atlantic plane circling Gatwick Airport lands safely. Everybody's ok.

All right. In other news this morning, just one week after two New York City police officers were killed while sitting in their patrol car, police have been shot at in at least two different cities. On Sunday morning, someone opened fire on two sheriff's deputies near Tampa, Florida. Police say they were doing traffic enforcement in a church parking lot when they heard three shots fired. Nobody hurt but a reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest.

That same day across the country -- another shooting, this time in Los Angeles; authorities searching for someone who they say fired shots at two police officers. For the latest on this, let's head to Los Angeles and CNN's Sara Sidner. Good morning.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, the scene is still here. They've cordoned off about six but they have taken down the alert and so the manhunt has been stopped at this point in time. But two officers say they were simply going on a call and that there was an unprovoked shooting and it was towards their particular vehicle, they were in a black and white, they in uniform, they saw the muzzle go off of a gun and the bullets were coming towards them.

One officer according to the LAPD was able to shoot back. They did apprehend one suspect but there is still another suspect that they have been looking for. The scene here is going to be coming down in about 20 minutes or so, but this is one of the situations that the officers say this was completely unprovoked. Listen to what a captain told us a bit earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. LILLIAN CARRANZA, LOS ANGELES POLICE: This was a completely unprovoked attack on a police officer. We are very fortunate that both of them are not injured. We are confident that we will be locating and arresting this individual.

We have reached out to the community through our notification systems and requested for them to be aware that we are looking for a suspect who is wanted for an attempted murder on two Los Angeles police officers, that they need to secure their residence, if they have pets to bring them indoors and if they have any suspicious activity or complaints to immediately call 911.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: That was Capt Lillian Carranza. We did talk to a detective out here who said that they have not yet interviewed the officers whenever there is an officer-involved shooting. They have to interview the officers and do that investigation. They are still looking at the car to see whether or not it was actually hit by bullets.

I do want to mention this. You know, this department -- as departments across the country are very aware of the protests that are happening and I asked if this is something that is unusual here in L.A. And they said yes, it's unusual that it's unprovoked. They weren't trying to arrest these two suspects who they're now after. They weren't on a call that involved these two suspects, it was just random. And the officers, of course, were not ready for it and were not expecting anything when it happened.

And they are on alert trying to deal with some of this. But they don't believe that this has anything to do with the protest. Though they say they certainly have seen and are aware of what happened in New York to the two officers who were killed there. And certainly the officers are concerned about any further violence towards them -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So they told you that these -- the shootings -- whoever shot at these officers weren't because of the protests going on across the country?

SIDNER: Right. They don't believe that has anything to do with the protests, though in speaking to one of the detectives she said, look, we know there is a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people who are so angry with police that they want to hurt them. But they don't necessarily believe that these two had anything to do with the protests that had been happening. There was a big protest here on Saturday -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Sara Sidner reporting, live from Los Angeles. Many thanks, I appreciate it.

Thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

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