Return to Transcripts main page

Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Theories Surround Fate of AirAsia Flight 8501; Relatives Wait for Answers at Crisis Center

Aired December 29, 2014 - 12:00   ET

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


JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Jake Tapper.

It is midnight in Indonesia where theories surrounding the fate of AirAsia Flight 8501 are still only that, theories. Almost 42 hours after the AirBus A-320 bound for Singapore disappeared from radar, no confirmed debris has turned up, though the head of the Indonesian search team says early conjecture puts the plane and its 162 passengers and crew on the bottom of the Java Sea.

But here is what we know. The surface search will grow at first light from seven zones to 11 between the islands of Borneo, Java and Sumatra. And the list of participating countries is growing as well. Beijing now says Chinese ships and planes are on the way. The search has been hampered thus far by the same kind of weather that is believed to have been at least a factor, if not the primary cause, of Flight 8501's apparent demise.

My CNN colleague David Malco (ph) is at the airport in Surabaya, where Flight 8501 originated.

David, thanks for joining us.

What is being done for the families of passengers and crew?

We just lost our satellite feed with David Malco. We're going to get it back, but let's move on until we do.

Like many Indonesians, the captain of the missing AirAsia flight goes by only one name, Iriyanto. "The New York Times" reports that Iriyanto was a veteran of the defunct airlines Adam Air (ph), which folded after a deadly crash in 2007. Iriyanto has more than 20,000 hours in the cockpit, including more than 6,000 at AirAsia flying the AirBus A- 320, according to the airline. Government officials met with Iriyanto's family today at their home on East Java. "The New York Times" says the family is still in mourning over the recent death of Iriyanto's younger brother.

Let's bring in a couple of experts now. CNN business anchor and aviation correspondent Richard Quest joins me via Skype, he's in Florida, CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo is in Charleston. Mary's a former inspector general at the U.S. Transportation Department and she now works for a law firm that represents victims of airline disasters.

Thanks, both of you, for being here.

Richard, let me start with you.

We know the pilot was trying to avoid the bad weather. We also know that he did not, at least according to officials there, issue a distress call. Does that tell you anything?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It tells me that whatever happened completely consumed the time of the cockpit crew. The fact the captain and the first officer. And that's not unusual. If you look at the recent cases, they're dealing with whatever's happening. They are - you know, whatever took place as a result of the bad weather and that climb that we now believe took -- was happening when the incident took place, they are dealing with it. And, of course, if you are in a deep storm, and the plane is falling out of the sky, you are trying to work out -- first of all, you may not realize what sort of a bad situation you're in and, secondly, how to get out of it. And the last thing you're necessarily doing is thumbing the mike and shouting mayday, mayday.

TAPPER: Mary, right now investigators are taking all the facts that they know of this case, trying to piece them together to find the most likely outcome where they can find the plane. What do you think investigators are making of reports that the plane was rising and flying about 100 knots below cruising speed?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I think it's a very, very important piece of information for the investigators because if that happened and if the plane exceed its climb capacity and stalled, in other words, lost its airflow and then the plane would have fallen from the sky, in a situation like that, the plane often comes to the earth kind of like a leaf floating in the wind, and that means it would have impacted the water with great force and would have broken up right where it impacted the water. So the wreckage would be more tightly contained. And once you found any floating debris at all, what you would do is work backwards or you use various flow patterns and a grid system to find where the impact was, and that's where you're likely to find the black boxes.

TAPPER: Richard Quest, quite a few other planes were in the general area at that time.

QUEST: Yes, there were.

TAPPER: Do you think that suggests that this flight crew did something wrong or that it suggests that there was a mechanical failure?

QUEST: Oh, I wouldn't be so presumptuous at this stage to suggest anything in that sense. Yes, there was an Emeritus (ph). There were a couple of other low cost carriers that were all in the area. And what that tells me is that there are thunderstorms and there are nasty storms in that area. I mean I've flown through that area many times. I've even been on the flight deck of a - in the cockpit and seen those cumulus clouds going way towering up. They're used to it, these pilots. They know what they're doing. Now, they go around them. They go up, they go around, they go down. They go around these thing. This is their meat and veg every single day. What they're going to be looking at, the investigators, is why on this

case, not that they were there, but that they didn't get out of the situation before they may have found themselves. There were other aircraft flying through that area. May not have been dangerous on its own. It's the way you fly within it that will become the question.

TAPPER: Mary, Indonesian investigators said that early conjecture -- this is their language, not mine -- early conjecture is that Flight 8501 is probably at the bottom of the sea. Again, their language, not mine. Why do you think they have reached that -- it's not a conclusion, but why are they saying that?

SCHIAVO: Well, what I'm hoping that signals is that they have obtained radar information and tracing information, satellite imaging that they have obtained from not just Indonesia but from all of the other neighboring countries and governments, a wealth of information on positioning so that they can use that information to help pinpoint where it is and that they can rule out the fact that the plane went elsewhere. A luxury - I shouldn't say a luxury, I mean a situation that did not exist in 370, where you did not have universal cooperation of all the government and countries around it to provide data. So what I'm hoping is that they have really good radar and satellite data and maybe even positional information perhaps from other pilots or eyewitnesses from the shipping lane.

TAPPER: My CNN colleague, David Malco, who we lost earlier before on satellite, is now on the phone. He's at the airport in Surabaya where Flight 8501 originated.

David, thanks for joining us again. What is being done for the families of the passengers and the crew?

DAVID MALCO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Hi, Jake.

Well, that's right, I'm just outside the crisis center here at Surabaya International Airport. It's just past midnight, as you mentioned earlier. Earlier today, a few hours back, this was buzzing with dozens of members of the media, law enforcement, officials from the airline and we saw several dozen family members, maybe 70 or so, come in about twice, two different times during the course of the day, get a kind of formal briefing from the AirAsia CEO, Tony Fernandes, the vice president of Indonesia, who's sort of the face of this search effort was here as well. They are staying - some of them are staying nearby at their homes in Surabaya. About 70 of the 155 passengers are on board are local. Others have chosen to be put up at a nearby hotel to stay as close as possible for updates.

I think one important thing to mention, and Richard and Mary have both mentioned this too, is that the next few hours, as the sun comes up here on Tuesday, the second full day of the search will be critical in the search and rescue mission to try and find that aircraft and see if there are any survivors and certainly those family members are clinging to hope tonight.

TAPPER: Such a tragic situation. David, have investigators alluded to anything being ruled out at this point? I know they haven't reached any conclusions as to where the flight is or what may have happened to it, but is there anything they have said, no, that's not a possibility?

MALCO: Yes, details are hard to come by now and just - you know, Mary and Richard are obviously much more experts on this than I am, but we talk about the pilots requesting that altitude change and whether they took it or not, I don't think we are sure at this point. But the fact that they requested that because of weather, does that necessarily mean weather was a factor in the cause of the aircraft's disappearance? We just don't know. And if you talk to, again, the CEO of AirAsia Group, Tony Fernandes, he says, we don't want to speculate. Our priorities right now are to find that aircraft and to also look after the next of kin of the passengers and the crew.

TAPPER: All right, thank you, David Malco, as well as Richard Quest and Mary Schiavo. Thank you so much.

We are now finding out about the people on board the missing plane. The fiance of a passenger says that her loved one was on a last holiday with his family before their marriage. She is one of many family members waiting for word of what happened to someone on board. We'll bring you more of the passengers' stories, 162 souls on board that plane, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back. I'm Jake Tapper.

As darkness falls upon the Sea of Java and the search for AirAsia Flight 8501 ends for the night, the families of those 162 people onboard face what can only be described as an excruciating wait. People crying, yelling, demanding answers about how a plane can just vanish without a trace. CNN's Rosa Flores is following the plight of these families closely.

Rosa, thanks so much for joining us. What are you hearing about these families? What are they going through?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's a really tough time for them, Jake. I just got off the phone with Ulia Wang (ph) and she is the principal of the Surabaya Cambridge School and she knows five people on board, three of her students and the students' parents. She's devastated. She tells me that that community is praying and hoping that the people on that plane are going to return safely. So it's a really tough time. Just imagine having to think and wait. That agonizing wait, she says, is one of the things that's killing them.

Now, we're also learning more about some of the other people on board. One of those, a man. A bride -- excuse me, a groom-to-be of this woman. Take a listen to what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOUISE SICHARTA (ph), FIANCE WAS ON MISSING FLIGHT: My fiance and his family was on that plane. And in the morning, we lost contact, but I didn't think of anything. I didn't have any feeling at all. And when I was on my way to the airport, I listened to the radio, local radio, and they said that his plane was missing. That's all. And, yes, it was supposed to be their last vacation before us got married, which was to be his last vacation with his family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: And a lot of those people on vacation to spend New Year's somewhere else, to spend New Year's in Singapore.

We're also learning of the nationalities of the passengers. Take a look at your screen. Most of them are from Indonesia, 149 passengers from Indonesia, one from Singapore, one from Malaysia, and, of course, this is passengers are crew, what you're talking a look at on your screen.

Here's the other thing that we're - that we're hearing. I want you to take a look at this tweet because we're also learning that Choi Chi Man (ph) is a U.K. energy executive. He was on board. And the power company that you see tweeting this out. It says, "search operations have resumed this morning. We extend our thoughts to Choi Chi Man's family during this very difficult time."

Now, the pilot and the crew, we're also learning more about them. Their families also waiting. I know we have video of the pilot, pictures of the pilot and video of his family waiting. It's a difficult, agonizing wait, Jake. And I've got to tell you that from talking to this principal in Surabaya, she is just heartbroken. She says it's very difficult for them to wait, to hear nothing when all that they're hoping for is good news.

And, of course, you and I know that at this hour it's not looking very good for them.

Jake.

TAPPER: Rosa, has the airline been in touch with these families in any way?

FLORES: You know, the CEO, Tony Fernandes, has been very vocal on Twitter and on social media. Asia Air being very out front on FaceBook. Yesterday they started posting messages and statements on FaceBook, letting them know phone numbers where they could call, letting them know of the status of the search, letting them know every step of the way. So they have been very vocal. I know that the CEO is very savvy when it comes to social media and he's using it in this case to communicate with those families.

TAPPER: Where are the families gathering? Are they all at the airport? Is there a particular place that they are at the airport?

FLORES: You know, they have been gathering at the airport. We saw kind of -- almost like a control center, an area where these families were able to gather. They even posted the manifest on one of these walls. And we saw video of families rushing to these manifests, to this list of names. Some of them, of course, Jake, probably hoping that their loved one was not on that list, that possibly, in some way, that maybe that they had lost their flight. Of course, many of them disappointed because they did find those names on the wall.

TAPPER: That's right. We have heard of families that got the opposite news, learning that their loved ones missed the flight. But for 162 people, that's not the case, obviously. Rosa Flores, thank you so much.

Let's talk now about this torturous road ahead for these families with Heidi Snow. She lost her fiance on TWA Flight 800 in 1996, just off the coast of Long Island. Her loss inspired her to start Access, which is a non-profit that provides grief support for those who have survived or lost loved ones in air disasters. She's also the author of "Surviving Sudden Loss: Stories from those Who have Lived It."

Heidi, thanks so much for joining us and providing your perspective.

What type of help do these families need right now and I guess also in the longer term?

HEIDI SNOW, LOST FIANCE IN TWA FLIGHT 800: Yes, I mean, all of us at Access know all too well what it's like when we first learned of our loved ones being lost. I remember so well going to the Ramada Inn and just needing answers and just wanting as much information as possible. And it was so difficult going back and forth. At that point his body was not recovered and I remember just going back and forth just saying, is the possibility he survived because they have not found his remains? And I know for these families, it's the same thing, they don't have anything tangible to hold on to. And for me it took five weeks before my fiance's remains were found. And in that time, I sometimes thought for sure he'd swim to shore. I thought for sure sometime he'd just show up at the door and he survived. And I feel like those families are clinging on to hope, while at the same time they're grappling with the unspeakable truth that unless a miracle occurs, that their loved ones, you know, may actually come back to them. But it's such a state of limbo and it's so difficult.

And at that time I really just needed people to listen. And there's - in that -- I remember being in that grief site and just -- the families, so many different personalities and some people were wailing, some people were just quiet with their heads down and some people just were like overly busy trying to take care of all their other family members. And it's just a very intense location and everybody's going through so many things and it's just most important that the people caring for them really listen to their needs and each person seems to have, you know, different needs. But as long as the airline and the care teams are there to listen and find out what it is that they need individually, that is really the most important thing that can happen.

TAPPER: Does Access work internationally? Do you have plans to reach out to these families?

SNOW: Yes, we do. We reach out via the Internet. We have a help line that's up and available for the families. I mean at this point a majority of our calls are now coming from those who have lost loved ones in past air disasters who are coming forward and really reliving their losses as they watch this on TV. It's very difficult for all of our families. We just -- people call us for help from crashes since 1958. And since this incident occurred, and the last Malaysia incident and the one before that, this past year, we just -- our help line just gets heated up with calls from people from past air disasters really reliving what it's like to go through this.

TAPPER: How important is it for an airline to communicate with these families and to do so in a specific way? I know we saw some really poor handling of communication earlier this year with the MH370 flight. What is the lesson for airlines?

SNOW: I think in this case I feel like it is being handled quite well. We train airlines and one of the things that we focus on is really having the airlines say they're sorry. Due what's been happening here in this case with the social media, I think it's been really well-done by the CEO. And I think that develops a trust that with past air disasters families have not had. I really believe, in this case, they really do believe that information is being relayed in a timely manner and that has not been the case in the past.

And maybe the information was coming forward in a timely manner, but the people in charge were not relaying it in a way that they felt that they trusted the source. And this is one of the few times that I really am seeing a change that is an improvement than what we've seen before.

TAPPER: Heidi Snow, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for what you do. I hope you have a peaceful and uneventful 2015.

SNOW: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: We know that the pilot of the missing Asia airplane was dealing with some horrible weather. He had requested a higher altitude to escape it. But there was apparently no escaping it. Details on that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Weather appears to have been a factor. Perhaps a major factor in Flight 8501 vanishing over the Java Sea in Southeast Asia. A weather tracking firm says lightning strikes occurred near the plane's path and that pilots requested a diversion because of the bad weather. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers joining us now live from the CNN Weather Center in Atlanta. In New York we have CNN aviation analyst David Soucie, a former FAA safety inspector and author of "Why Planes Crash."

Chad, let me start with you.

What was the weather situation precisely and can you explain what that might mean for a plane to stall and how that might have happened here?

CHAD MYERS AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know, as drivers, we think of stalling when the engine actually stops, but that's not what the word means in aviation. Stall means that the wing stop lifting the airplane because there's not enough air going over that wing and so the plane doesn't have any more lift. And we know what happens when that happens.

There's significant thunderstorms, 55,000 feet, 53,000 feet, 50,000 feet right in the plane's path. And not just one, but a line of weather called the ITCZ, the Intertropical Convergence Zone. It's an area that goes all the way around the globe, very close to the equator, where air comes together. And when air comes together, it can't go down because the ground is in the way. It has to go up. And that rising air, just like a cold front or a mountain range, will create severe thunderstorms. And that's exactly what the pilots ran into.

We are in the rainy season now. This is right in the middle of where Indonesia gets all of its rainfall. The ITCZ right over the area. So this isn't unusual weather. What was slightly more unusual was that fact that the plane was flying through an area, a line of storms, 150 miles one way, 75 miles the other way and all of those storms were lined up like a fence and the plane was trying to get through those severe thunderstorms, Jake.

TAPPER: So, David, this weather isn't so odd in this part of the world. Is it unusual for a pilot to take the route that Flight 8501 was on?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, remember that when he took off 40 minutes earlier, these clouds may not have been in that position at all, but it is expected and they would plan for that and they train for this type of situation. In the airman's information manual, the A.I.M., it talks about the ability to turn around. And everybody -- I've been asked that before today, why wouldn't he turn around if he sees those clouds? Well, for two reasons. One is, it could have closed in behind him. The other is that, you know, the maneuver of making a turn to turn around would put him in danger for a longer period of time. And typically it's quicker just to stay in it and finish out and go all the way through the storm. So that would have been one of the decision-making factors at this point.

TAPPER: Chad, generally speaking, pilots say it's better to try to go around thunderstorms instead of flying into them, if you have that kind of lead time. Was this storm simply too big for the pilots to get around it or fly above it?

SOUCIE: Well, as Chad -

MYERS: A couple things. It was a very wide system, but it was also - it was also a rapidly developing. These storms were going right up in front of the pilots. That happens during the day when this convergence that we talked about comes together. Every once in a while you'll get a line of weather, like we're seeing today in the rescue area or in the recovery area, we see that every once in a while where these storms line up and they all act together and they all really kind of - they make each other bigger because they're pushing out outflow boundaries. Some of this area here, the water is very shallow. I think the black boxes will be easy to find. But that shallow water is warm as well. The warmer the air, the faster that air can go up, and the faster these storms can develop right in front of you. TAPPER: I have some breaking news I want to report right now. CNN's

Jamie Crawford (ph) at the White House reporting that, according to a senior U.S. official, the government of Indonesia has formally requested that the government of the United States help in its search for missing AirAsia Flight 8501. They're still working through the details in the process, but the official request has come in.

David, let me turn back to you. I keep hearing that the pito (ph) tube might have been iced over. This is the tube that provides air speed information. Don't these aircraft have anti-icing equipment?

SOUCIE: Yes, they do. As a matter of fact, in the Air France 447, the dash 1 pito tube was installed on that aircraft and it had been recommended that those dash 1 tubes be replaced with a dash 2 tube. And that dash 2 tube has prevention for ice crystals. So ice crystals, even though they're heated on the outside, the ice crystals can enter the pito tube opening and they block that and crystallize inside there and connect together making a block so that the air speed indicators don't work properly. In this situation, there was an air (INAUDIBLE) directive issued against the AirBus 320. However, AirBus 320-216, which is this aircraft, was not affected by that air witness (ph) directive. It had different angle of attack indicators installed in the aircraft so that it didn't apply to that.