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Recovering Flight 8501 Wreckage; Families Devastated by Tragedy; Possible Reasons for Catastrophe; Who's Really Behind Sony Hacking

Aired December 30, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Welcome to our vieweres in the United States and around the world. Thank you for joining me today.

Darkness falls amid the last glimmer of hope and it fades. AirAsia confirms that debris found overnight off the coast of Borneo is, indeed, the wreckage of Flight 8501. Crews have recovered at least one body, but hospitals are bracing for the grim task of identifying the remains of the 162 people on board. "The Jakarta Post" detailing the final communication. The captain asking permission to climb to 38,000 feet to escape a storm. Two full minutes pass as the controller assesses air traffic in the area. When the controller approves the assent, flight 8501 does not respond. Just a couple of hours ago, we learned that Navy destroyer the USS Sampson has arrived in the Java Sea, but what had been its original mission, searching for wreckage and possible survivors, now turns to recovery.

The search now embraces a dual mission both equally important, respectfully recovering the bodies of the passengers and crew and retrieving the wreckage to help explain what doomed the flight. CNN's Paula Hancocks boarded a boat with some local civilians who desperately wanted to help in the search efforts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was a little choppy but the visibility was quite significant. There was only a little bit of rain, nothing to talk about, so visibility would have been good as well from the air and clearly as you can see the aircraft did spot parts of the debris. So it was -- the weather did hold and that was very conducive to the search-and-rescue operations certainly. Now, as soon as we did hear the reports that, in fact, the location have been identified, the fishing boat we were on turned around and came back to harbor. It was just a local fishing boat who had offered to help, just showing the community here wanting to be part of this and wanting to do everything that they could. As you can imagine, the mood coming back to the harbor was very somber. These fishermen were not only trying to help with the search-and-rescue operation but they are fellow Indonesians and certainly most of these passengers and crew on board this flight were Indonesian as well. One man who was part of the fisheries ministry, he was on board to try and look for some of the debris said that he was extremely sad, he was relieved that it had been found, but very sad that there was no sign of survivors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right, Paula Hancocks reporting. Let's head to the weather center and Chad Myers. He's going to describe the part of the sea where the plane went down. Take it away, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very shallow, Carol, which is good for recovery because you don't have to try to get down there with an ROV at 15,000 feet like we think MH-370 is in at this point in time. But the debris is to the now what we call the East-Southeast of where was the last spotted plane was on the radar. People are asking why did that happen? Well, the wind has been blowing in that direction for a very long time. And even at 35 miles per hour at times, but also the current is moving that way as well.

So, here's what happened. I'm going to back you up 24 hours. This is when they actually found the debris.

Pretty clear skies. It all looks cloudy here, but this is not thick cloud cover, the orange and the red, that's the thick cloud cover. And now I'm going to push you ahead till just about the exact same time, 48 hours later, that the plane was lost. Storms popped up and that exact same time they do this every single morning over this warm water, over this area here called, you know, the Java Sea. And all the way around an Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone showers pop up in the morning. I know we think in America that the storms pop up in the afternoon and the heat. It kind of works the opposite way when you separate the atmosphere.

This is what we're seeing right now. A couple of storms in the search area but still pretty good conditions now, night fall, it's going to be harder for the planes to see anything. This will mainly be a ship operation at this point. So let's drill down now on Google Earth and we'll show you what's going on here. About 125 miles from the really - the closest airport and the water is somewhere between 100 and 140 feet deep.

I say that because if the plane actually -- the body of the plane, the rest of the plane that didn't float is down here in the slightly deeper water, it floated, the wind pushed it into shallower water, so we don't know whether it's in the 140 or is it possibly in the 100- foot area. This is pretty good news, although this is also an area where the water is kind of turbid. All the wash-off from the land can come in here and make the water slightly muddy.

We do have reports that back out here toward the south, probably the southeast, maybe 100 miles, there are some dive sites. And those dive sites, obviously, indicate that the water can be clear at least at times. We'll keep watching it. The water temperature is warm, but we just look and hope that survivors can be there in the water or in life rafts, but for right now that none of that has been found. Carol?

COSTELLO: No, it hasn't. Chad Myers, thanks so much.

International assistance is under way. A U.S. destroyer has arrived at the Java Sea that's helping search and recovery efforts. Crews aboard the USS Sampson are working with Indonesian authorities to provide any assistance needed. CNN's Rene Marsh is following that part of the story. Good morning.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This morning, we just learned from the Pentagon that a second U.S. ship has been dispatched towards the region. We're talking about USS Fort Worth. You are looking at images of the ship. We do know that it usually carries a helicopter on board. It is a combat ship. However, this helicopter on board will be very useful as they continue to recover wreckage off of the surface of the ocean. Also dispatched and already in place is USS Sampson. We do know it usually carries two helicopters so we believe that that would also help in the efforts of recovering wreckage off of the surface. However, the Pentagon confirming today that at this point the U.S. Contribution is what you're seeing right now, those two ships. But we are not ruling out that it could expand once the search goes under water. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We have the destroyer, the USS Sampson. She's actually on station now as of this morning and she will be prepared to assist in any of the surface recovery efforts that are going on right now, the debris field and that kind of thing. One of the things you learn in an operation like this is the need for good communication and coordination with your partners and to make sure everybody knows sort of where they fit into the scheme of things. We are very much willing and able to support. We know we're not in the lead on this. We'll work through the State Department and through the embassies in the region to provide the support that they need.

We want to help and we don't want to certainly hinder any of the efforts at all, but you learn the importance of everybody bringing to this effort what they're capable of and every country, every nation that participates in this, you know, has unique capabilities and, again, we want to focus on those that we can provide that might be of help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right. So, again, we believe or we could see in the coming days that the U.S. Contribution will expand even more once the search goes underwater. We know that Indonesia has already officially asked the United States for sonar equipment. We just heard Chad talk about the heavier parts of the aircraft sitting on the ocean floor. That sonar equipment will be very helpful in trying to find the heavier parts of the aircraft so that they can remove it. Also, the black boxes. That is so critical here in moving forward in this investigation because the black boxes are going to have lots of information, lots of answers to the questions that we have at this point.

We know that the U.S. has what's called the towed pinger locator, we talked about that a lot during MH-370. Essentially that piece of equipment is put down into the water so they can listen for that pinging sound.

Remember, only 30 days, roughly, before that pinging sound from the black boxes stops, Carol, right?

COSTELLO: Rene Marsh reporting live from Washington. Thanks so much.

AirAsia's CEO was quick to reach out to the heartbroken families who are waiting. Tony Fernandes tweeting "My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ-8501. On behalf of AirAsia my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am." Let's head now to the Indonesian City of Surabaya, that's where the flight originated and where distraught family members have been huddling these last agonizing days. CNN's senior producer David Molko is there with more. Hi, David.

DAVID MOLKO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol, good evening from here in Surabaya. Just behind me the crisis center here at the airport. Earlier this is where families of the 162 people on board that flight, passengers and crew, came to hear the news that it was very likely that their loved ones would not be coming home.

Carol, tonight this is fundamentally a country in mourning. This is a human tragedy, the country of Indonesia has not seen in some time. And you talk to family members here, we just spoke to a couple, they had four family members on board, including two grandchildren traveling for holiday to Singapore and now they're hearing with almost certainty that their relatives will not be coming home and that they will not see them again. It's interesting, though. While they are losing hope, there still is some hope. The couple was telling me, look, there's still -- we believe that there's still a chance. There's a five percent chance that at least one of our family members might have survived. Carol?

COSTELLO: Where are the family members waiting?

MOLKO: Well, Carol, there's about 80 of the families here, about 80 of the passengers on board from Surabaya itself, this city of 3 million people in East Java. The others from various parts of Indonesia and outside Indonesia so some of them have gone home. As I mentioned, the couple I just talked about, they're from about three hours outside of Surabaya. They've been here for the past three days hoping, waiting, and praying for some good news.

Now they're at a nearby hotel, the airline has put them up, is trying to provide some information, you know, and take care of them.

The interesting thing, and I've been hearing this from many of the family members I have been speaking to, is they feel like that they are getting as much information as possible from officials. You'll remember, too, the president, Joko Widodo or Jakoya (ph) as he's known, was here in Surabaya, just a few hours ago. He met with family members, he spoke to media and he said something very touching. You know, putting - putting emphasis at the priority right now. They are searching and trying to recover any human remains, parts of the airplane out there, that the emphasis is on taking care of the next of kin on those on board and he told them, you know, "I feel your loss, I pray that you find the strength to be able to face this." and that's the mood we're hearing tonight. It's one of loss and potentially great loss, but also one of strength. Carol? COSTELLO: David Molko reporting live from Indonesia, thanks so much.

Still to come in "THE NEWSROOM," the final moments of flight 8501. What should have been going on in the cockpit? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Now that debris from the AirAsia plane has been found, investigators will be focusing on the final moments of the flight, that two minutes between the pilot's request to change course over the Java Sea and when it lost contact with air traffic control. So, let's talk about that this morning. Scott Miller is a former pilot for Northwest Airlines and Jeff Wise is a science writer and author of the book "Extreme Fear." Good morning to you both.

SCOTT MILLER, FORMER NORTHWEST AIRLINES PILOT: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning, so Scott I want to focus in on this two minute lapse. So the pilot calls into air traffic control and he says, you know, I need to ascend, I have to get around this storm. Air traffic control says there's too much air traffic in the area and they go silent for a full two minutes, at least with flight 8501. And by the time air traffic controller reconnects with this plane there's no answer and it's apparently gone. Is a two-minute period of time normal? Is that unusual?

MILLER: Well, not if there was conflicting traffic in the area. The one thing that I did find interesting about this is, of course, they did ask for the claim but they also asked for a deviation in their route. When I was flying and had to deal with avoiding thunderstorms on my route of flight, we typically used the lateral deviations to go around the thunderstorm, particularly with this type of storm building in the morning, they're pretty hard to outclimb. We typically use altitude to try to find smooth air. Most likely it was turbulent and perhaps they were both trying to get around the storm and trying to find some clear air, but the fact that they asked for both at the same time I found to be a little unusual.

COSTELLO: The other thing that I found unusual, Scott, is the plane was supposed to take off at 7:30 in the morning but it took off at 5:30. They upped the flight two hours. Is that normal?

MILLER: Again, with the weather that has been experienced in that part of the world, the monsoon wind patterns have been pretty strong, driving some pretty severe weather, as we've seen. I wasn't aware of that specific fact, but the fact that the flight was moved up could be an indication they were trying to beat the storms. In the United States, we don't have that type of extreme weather so those types of schedule changes would be very rare, but in that type of the world, that very well may be what they were trying to accomplish, getting the flight in ahead of the severe weather that was expected to build that day.

COSTELLO: And Jeff, I asked Scott that question because some of the family members were concerned about that, why did that happen? JEFF WISE, SCIENCE WRITER: I've looked into this. I'm not entirely

convinced personally that that fact is, in fact, true. I've seen conflicting information. I can't imagine how one could logistically move a flight forward. I mean you fly a lot, I fly a lot. You know, you have your plane ...

COSTELLO: They found the paperwork, they absolutely did.

WISE: OK. OK. Because in some other sources that showed that the plane left at the normal time. So perhaps - OK, I will defer to you then in that case. It is hard to imagine how you get every on this - 100 plus people to all show up at the airport two hours early in the pre-dawn.

COSTELLO: Some of the passengers said they missed the flight because they didn't get the e-mail in time because, you know, the airline sent out an e-mail saying the flight had been moved up two hours.

WISE: Right.

COSTELLO: The other thing, I know that air travel is growing at an explosive rate in Asia. Lots of planes in the sky. That means there's not enough experienced pilots or experienced air traffic controllers to go around. Do you suppose that we'll be part of the investigation?

WISE: Well, that's certainly something a lot of people have brought up. Indonesia does not have a good record for air travel. Many of its carriers are banned from traveling to the European Union, for instance, the largest carrier, Lion Air, is banned from traveling to the European Union. However, AirAsia is a very different case. It is a fast grown - we very - considered very well managed, has a spotless record. Now, has this effect sort of flowed over into AirAsia? I think it's too early to say, but clearly that's going to be a question on people's minds.

COSTELLO: Yeah, but, Scott, you're only as strong as your weakest link, right? So, let's say the air traffic controllers were not the best, right? That's possible. Should that be part of the investigation?

MILLER: I'm sure it will be part of the investigation, but the thing that we have to keep in mind is for good or ill the pilots are ultimately responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft. And in the United States if I was faced with a similar situation where weather had closed in, I would hopefully have done my homework a little bit ahead of time and wouldn't find myself in that situation as would, I'm sure, many of my fellow pilots. But if we were found in that situation, we can use a number of tools up to and including some emergency authority to ensure that the aircraft's flight path is kept safe at all times. And perhaps these pilots tried to accomplish that as well. The pilots are ultimately responsible for the safety of the aircraft and once the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorders are located we'll be able to get a very clear picture in a very short period of time just what exactly did happen during that two-minute time. COSTELLO: The wreckage spotted in the Java Sea was like an emergency

room - emergency exit door and some life jackets. And some of the passengers' bodies, of course, have been recovered. From the wreckage, Scott, can you tell if the plane came apart in the air or closer to the water?

MILLER: Well, my initial impression on hearing that is that I do believe the aircraft was probably fairly intact when it made water contact. If it had come apart in the air as with Malaysia 17 that we learned, the debris field would have been much larger and I believe found probably a little bit quicker than it was. The fact that it appears the wreckage is in a fairly close area just based on the small amount we've seen to this point kind of tells me that the wreckage itself is probably pretty small. The thing we need to keep in mind, as well, the sea state over the past 48 hours has been, I'm sure, quite turbulent with these storms, with the wind, making it pretty hard to find these pieces.

COSTELLO: Scott Miller, Jeff Wise, thanks for your insight, I appreciate it.

Still to come in the "NEWSROOM," the devastating cyber-attack on Sony. What if the hacker was not North Korea but, rather, a former employee? We'll get the FBI reaction to that one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's a whodunit that is as intriguing as it is potentially embarrassing. What if North Korea wasn't really to blame for that devastating cyber-attack on Sony? On CNN last night, the head of the cyber security giant Norse says the evidence suggests the hack was an inside job, including a former employee.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAM GLINE, CEO NORSE SECURITY: And these suspects have -- at least one had ties to critical knowledge of Sony systems, IP addresses, credentials, et cetera and also had motive for being what I would say would be upset at Sony due to reorganization that happened within the department.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Pamela Brown is the CNN's justice correspondent. Pamela, what are your sources telling you?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, bottom line is the FBI is not backing down from its original assessment that the reclusive country, North Korea, is responsible for this hack. An FBI official reiterated to me this morning that exact point after a meeting last night between the agency and representatives from a U.S. cyber security firm. There were these data scientists with the company Norse who shared evidence they collected pointing to the involvement of several people, including one former Sony employee, as you just heard the CEO of that company talk about, and the company says the former employee worked for Sony in Los Angeles for ten years before being laid off last May. So Norse would not say how they could be so sure that the employee and the others were behind this attack, but, Carol, we know there was a wealth of private Sony information, including human resources data that was dumped on to the Internet by these hackers. It's interesting, though, because Norse was not the company that was brought in to actually help with the investigation.

An FBI official I spoke with says that the conclusion that they made, that North Korea is behind the hack, was not only their assessment, their intelligence, but was also a combination of intelligence coming from the Department of Homeland Security, foreign partners and the private sector, Carol.

COSTELLO: So I could go all conspiracy theory on you right now, right? Maybe the insider at Sony was working for the North Korean government?

BROWN: There's been - you know, from the very beginning there have been theories and one of the theories was, of course, a Sony insider was a part of this. But I asked my sources at the FBI what they thought about all of this speculation. And a lot of it is also based on the evidence that was presented publicly. And I'm told, Carol that what was presented publicly is really just the tip of the iceberg. There's other incriminating evidence that the FBI simply wouldn't release in a public setting because of operational sensitivities, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Pamela Brown reporting live from Washington, thanks so much.

Let's talk about this some more because it is fascinating, right? Cyber and privacy expert Mark Rasch is here. Hi, Mark.

Can you hear me, Mark?

MARK RASCH, FMR. JUSTICE DEPT. PROSECUTOR FOR CYBER CRIMES: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh, good, you can hear me, that's a good thing. You're also a former Justice Department prosecutor for cybercrimes, so I'm eager to know what your take on this is.

RASCH: Well, you know, I feel like North Korea is the person who gets arrested four minutes into an episode of "Law and Order." They may be the right person, but there's a good chance that they're not. This kind of attack just doesn't feel like the kind of attack you would expect a state sponsor to be doing. It looks much more like a rogue employee or a rogue employee working with hacker groups.

COSTELLO: So the rogue employee maybe wanted the U.S. government to believe that North Korea was to blame?

RASCH: Well, remember that the original demands that were made of Sony had nothing to do with this movie "The Interview." They all related to things like pay grades and the bias between how much women were paid and other things. It was only after a couple of communications that they even mentioned North Korea at all and made it try to look like it was North Korea. So these investigations are really difficult to do. They involve lots of different kinds of information. All I can say is stay tuned, there will be more information.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: So the FBI surely had sources that we don't know about that led them to believe that North Korea was involved.

RASCH: One of the problems is not so much the quality of the information that the FBI has, it's sort of the bias that you go to the investigation with. So if you're looking for evidence that it was North Korea, you're clearly going to find a lot of evidence. You're going to find that the tools that were used were the same tools that North Korea used to attack South Korea a year ago. But those tools are readily available to anyone, any hacker group can use the same tools. You're going to find that the Internet protocol addresses, or the computer addresses are the same as ones that were used to launch attacks. But, again, those things are readily available and can be scooped or authored or modified, so a lot of the information is capable of multiple interpretations. Not just the data, it's how you look at it.

COSTELLO: All right, we will stay tuned. Mark Rasch, thanks so much, I appreciate it.

RASCH: Thank you, Carol.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello, thanks so much for joining me. Heartbreaking news this morning for the families of those who had loved ones on board AirAsia Flight 8501. Searchers have found two bodies and spotted debris from the plane off the coast of Borneo. It's about six miles from where the airliner vanished on Sunday.

Hospitals in the Indonesian city of Surabaya are preparing to house and help identify the bodies that will be recovered. This is AirAsia CEO offers his condolences to the family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY FERNANDES, AIRASIA CEO: The only slight benefit is that for the people in there there is some closure. This is a scar with me for the rest of my life. It doesn't change anything, and - but little percent there is at least some closure as opposed to not knowing what's happened in - holding out ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The Navy destroyer, the USS Sampson has arrived in the Java Sea to help in the recovery efforts. A second U.S. ship will soon head there.