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Search for Flight 8501 Wreckage; Pilot's Family Speaks to CNN; Bad Weather Hampering Search for 2nd Day

Aired January 01, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin this hour with the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501. The investigators search for answers. The families search for closure.

Just a few hours ago, Indonesian authorities confirmed their first identification of a victim; the woman is among nine bodies recovered so far. For the second straight day, bad weather is hampering the search for more victims and the wreckage. Strong wind, heavy rain and big waves are holding back divers and their investigation of a so- called shadow on the ocean floor. Now without confirmation that it's the bulk of the airliner, officials say it could take a week to locate the so-called black boxes. They contain the crucial information that could explain what catastrophe struck in mid flight.

So let's get the latest for you. CNN's Andrew Stevens is in Surabaya, Indonesia, where that doomed flight took off on Sunday morning. Hello, Andrew.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, you're absolutely right, enormous frustrations for the search crews here. They just haven't been able to catch a break with the weather whatsoever. In fact, what they're having to do is work around the weather, when there's a little clear patch, maybe for an hour, maybe for two hours, they get in there and do what they can. The wind whips up again, the rain comes back, the seas rise up again, and they just have to ride it out pretty much. So very, very frustrating.

There was a glimmer. A few hours ago now, Carol, Tony Fernandes, the head of AirAsia, he actually sent out a tweet and it says, and I quote, "We're hoping the latest information is correct and that the aircraft has been found." Since then, there's been virtual radio silence.

Obviously it hasn't been found. They're still searching for that elusive shadow. The best way to go about it, they say, is to pick up a ping from the black box. They've got 25 days of battery life left on those black boxes. But to get the ping they really need the sonar detection, the acoustic detection underwater. They have the devices there, but have only been able to get one in the water. And because it's also shallow where the plane is believed to have gone down, maybe 120 feet, there's a lot of other noise coming from the sea, so it's actually quite a confused picture down there.

So overall, Carol, a very, very frustrating day. Really not a lot further ahead. There's multiple vessels on the scene but they just can't do anything. No divers in the water, no aerial reconnaissance. It's just tough, tough breaks at the moment.

COSTELLO: You're not kidding. Andrew Stevens reporting live from Indonesia this morning. Thanks so much.

Let's talk about the grim task of identifying those bodies. CNN's Paula Hancocks is outside the hospital where victims will undergo the first steps in identification before being returned to their families. Good morning.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, just eight bodies have been through here since that accident happened, and of course, that's just a fraction considering there are 162 passengers and crew who were on that flight. This is the first stop, though, for those bodies that are pulled out of the waters of the Java Sea.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS (voice-over): Sirens in the night announce their arrival. Victims of Flight 8501 on dry land and rushed into this hospital at Pangalanbun. The next morning two more bodies arrive. Red Cross and hospital workers take them to a private wing to be prepared for the next stop, identification by distraught families.

The hospital director says he's here 24 hours a day to give the deceased the respect they deserve. Because they've been in the water some days, he tells me, the bodies are swollen, but otherwise they're intact.

Patients look on somberly, their own ailments forgotten in the face of such tragedy. Coffins are being delivered to give dignity to those who lost their lives so suddenly.

(on camera): This hospital has never had to deal with a tragedy on this scale before. They have about two dozen caskets at the moment being built as we speak. The hospital director says they will have 162, one for every victim of this crash.

(voice-over): A final prayer for each soul. Leaders of six different religions take their turn. The victim's religion may not be known but customs must still be observed.

Their time on earth is over, says this pastor. So many of our prayers are for the family. We ask god to receive their body answer give the families strength. One step closer to their final resting place.

So few victims have been found and treated, so many more still wait to be pulled from their watery graves.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS (on camera): Now this is turning out to be a slow process, and of course fears are acute now that the numbers coming through this hospital may dwindle even further. The very fact that that weather has become so bad that officials are warning the next two or three days could be just as bad, so the search and rescue teams effectively sitting and waiting and hoping for a break in the weather. Carol?

COSTELLO: Paula Hancocks reporting live for us, thanks so much.

From parts of the plane to pieces of the engine, search teams continue to scour the Java Sea for anything from Flight 8501. From the water's surface to the sea floor, putting back together that gigantic puzzle is the investigator's best way of figuring out what happened to the doomed flight. Tom Foreman has more for you.

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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are really three layers to the physical search right now. The one we've been talking about the most right now is on the surface of the water. We know where the plane took off, we know where it disappeared. We know where they have found debris and the search area. We know the water here is very rough at times.

The surface matters because the surface is where you get your first clues most often. Things floating on top of the water may or may not tell you a lot about the cause of the accident, but they are indicators because when you move to the second layer which is the water column beneath them and you start reverse engineering their position against all the competing currents below, you can get an estimate on where they came from, and that can lead you to the third layer down here which is the heavy bits on the bottom because those are the ones you really have to get.

What are we talking about? We're talking about big parts of the plane, parts of the wings and parts of the tail, parts of the landing gear, the electronics, the flight data recorder, the voice recorder, the engines which are each about 9,000 pounds -- all of these are critical. Because if you collect enough of them as they did with TWA 800 which was also in about 100 feet of water off the coast of Long Island, you can reassemble the plane in effect. And when you do that, you can look at all these pieces and see what went wrong. Was there a fire? Was there an explosion? Did it simply tear apart? Did it hit the water intact and then sink? All of those can be critical clues to understanding what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right, thanks to Tom Foreman. CNN safety analyst David Soucie is here; he's a former FAA safety inspector. Thanks for coming back. I appreciate it.

So we have a few interesting clues this morning. Reuters is reporting the plane was traveling at 32,000 feet and asked to ascend to 38,000 feet. That request was denied because of air traffic in the sky; we know that. But here's what's new. Sources tell Reuters radar data appear to show that the aircraft made an unbelievable steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the plane's limits. Translate that for us.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, the steep climb, I'm not sure how they would know the attitude. When you think about climbing, you think about pulling back and climbing up with the aircraft. There's two different ways the aircraft could have climbed though. That's one. The other is a strong updraft, hot air coming up from the bottom, coming up from within a thunderstorm can lift an aircraft thousands of feet in just a matter of seconds. So there's two possibilities as to why and how it climbed.

COSTELLO: When they talk about steep climb, the plane would be going up an angle like this?

SOUCIE: Correct, correct, pulling back, flying the aircraft up at a steep angle.

COSTELLO: That wouldn't be unusual, wouldn't it?

SOUCIE: Very much so, yes.

COSTELLO: It would feel bad if you're a passenger in the plane.

SOUCIE: Oh yes. It's like turbulence packed into one event. All of this horrible that you feel bouncing around in the aircraft, this is talking about literally almost falling off a cliff or approaching a cliff and going straight up.

COSTELLO: OK, and as this plane supposedly was doing this, it was losing speed. What does that mean? What would that do to the aircraft?

SOUCIE: Well, this is interesting, because they talk about losing speed, they say how slow it was going at that time. But they are talking about ground speed. In airplanes, everything's relative. So if you're in a head wind and that head wind is at 200 miles an hour and you're going the opposite direction, your indicator in the aircraft is going to say I'm going 350 miles an hour, but on the ground speed you're only going to be going 150 miles an hour. Does that make sense? It's relative to what the wind is doing at any given time, so that's why some of these facts don't appear to line up but they really do.

COSTELLO: It's still strange -- this was a very experienced pilot though, right?

SOUCIE: Very experienced.

COSTELLO: It seems unlikely he'd do this, because it's not the smartest thing to do.

SOUCIE: Well, he may not have been aware of it. In Flight 447, that's what happened. Experienced pilots trying to deal with information that doesn't make sense. So you've got to make the transition in your mind, do I trust my instruments? Which you're trained to do over and over and over. Don't trust how you feel about where the airplane's going, but trust what the instruments are telling you. And so you're constantly trying to decide what is real, what am I really experiencing here?

The other thing, too, is that with these thunderstorms, they change so quickly and you see clouds but that doesn't mean it's a thunderstorm. So you fly through clouds day in and day out, but identifying whether that particular cloud has enough tumultuous activity in it to worry about and to say, hey, I'm not going to fly into that, that decision- making process that's not cut and dry.

COSTELLO: Flying into a thunderstorm, that's a big no-no, you never do that.

SOUCIE: That's correct.

COSTELLO: You never do that.

SOUCIE: That's correct. And -- but once you find yourself in that situation, which you can, you can get boxed in from both sides, I've been in that situation a couple of times where I'm flying into something, you know, I don't like that, I try to turn around but behind me it's closed in, too, so you have to make a decision. Making a turn is dangerous because it can change the propensity to stall the aircraft.

So sometimes an airman's information manual it says if you're in that situation, keep flying even though it might be rough but keep flying because if you turn, you're probably going to stall.

COSTELLO: And turbulence isn't going to break apart the aircraft either, right?

SOUCIE: No.

COSTELLO: So --

SOUCIE: But we're not talking about turbulence here.

COSTELLO: Right.

SOUCIE: We're talking about significant changes in the relative air flow on the airplane, which is reactive. If you're flying into that storm, and that lifts you up, you have to slow down because you'll overspeed the aircraft when do you that and then suddenly you're back into the regular air, now you're going way too slow so then the engines aren't capable of -- of firing up fast enough to make up that difference.

COSTELLO: And we keep talking about the pilot. What would the copilot have been doing at this time?

SOUCIE: Well, the copilots there, it depends on the pilot in command or the pilot in control at that time. It could have been the copilot that was in control of the aircraft at this time and -- which is typically the case during cruise is the co-pilot will take command of the control of the aircraft, the pilot will take care of the communications and the navigation part and -- so one of them is flying the air plane, that's their role.

The other one is handling everything else in support of the other of the pilot in control of the aircraft at the time, but it could be either one of them. We assume the pilot is in command, but that's not necessarily the case.

COSTELLO: OK. So the bodies that were found in the water were intact, right?

SOUCIE: Yes.

COSTELLO: And there was some debris floating on top of the water but not very much.

SOUCIE: Right.

COSTELLO: And supposedly they see this large shadow underneath the water. So what the plane did go into this steep climb and then went into a stall, how would it have hit the water?

SOUCIE: The two don't really make -- they're not interdependent.

COSTELLO: Connected. OK.

SOUCIE: Right. If it did stall there's 50 different kinds of stalls, first of all. But if it was what we call a deep stalk, which is the power is on and it's flying through and it's a steep angle attack and it stalls quickly, that's very difficult to recover from, like a flat spin. The aircraft really has no way to get over the wings to control it. So that's the first thing to consider. The second thing is that, even if it did stall you're at 36,000 feet. That's a long time to recover. I've had stories of pilots that have lost boast engines, and still had time to restart an engine to recover from a stall in that altitude.

So there's a lot of variables here. There's a lot of riddles, we're getting little pieces of each riddle. But at this point the biggest clue to me is the fact that the bodies were intact. I just learned that this morning.

I've never done a accident investigation in deep stalled that resulted in an accident in which the bodies were intact. Never. Not one.

So this really indicates to me that it was recovered, that the aircraft no matter what happened in the sky, the number one clue are those bodies, and that's all we have really right now so looking at that would indicate to me it is not consistent with a flat drop or any kind of dramatic enter into the water because those bodies would not be intact if that were the case.

COSTELLO: David Soucie, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, CNN has granted rare access to the family of Flight 8501's pilot. You'll hear his daughter's touching tribute next.

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COSTELLO: Friends and relatives of Flight 8501's pilot have been showing up at his home to pay respects and support the family.

CNN's Gary Tuchman was allowed into the pilot's home. He talked to the people who loved him.

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GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what it looks like today in the home of the captain of AirAsia Flight 8501. This is Captain Iriyanto's 24-year-old daughter Angela and wife Widya, his 7-year-old son Arya. This is his father. This, his mother, in a house full of family and friends, a house so full that more people are outside in front of the home, as well as out in the street.

This is a liat (ph), the Indonesian name for the traditional visit made when there is a death in the family.

But Angela still talks in the present tense about a father she adores.

ANGELA ANGGI PRASETYANI, DAUGHTER OF AIRASIA PILOT (through translator): He is kind, wise, and humorous. He's easygoing. He's intelligent. He never raises his voice. He's never angry. I'm very proud of him.

TUCHMAN: Family and friends occasionally glance at the TV that stays on with nonstop coverage of the AirAsia crash. Pictures of Iriyanto are all over the home, a wedding photo, a picture when he was an air force pilot. He went from the air force to one of Indonesia's airlines for 13 years and moved on to AirAsia six years ago.

One of Iriyanto's friends paying his respects, is a pilot for another airline.

(on camera): What kind of pilot was your friend?

PIETER DAORLWOE, FRIEND OF AIRASIA PILOT (through translator): He is a very responsible pilot. We used to be in the air force together. He's very loyal. He's very kind. In his work environment he's very kind to his co-pilot, his cabin crew, his ground crew and all the people who fly with him.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Model planes of jets Iriyanto flew are part of the decoration of the house. His wife says the outpouring of support at their home is invaluable right now.

WIDYA SUKATRI PUTRI, WIFE OF AIRASIA PILOT (through translator): I'm happy so many people are here. It gives support to me and my family.

TUCHMAN: Like so many families of AirAsia victims, there was significant hope of survival among members of this family, when the wreckage was still missing. But Iriyanto's daughter doesn't want to abandon all hope, at least until her father's body is found.

PRASETYANI: Of course, I still expect that he's alive but at the same time I have to accept the reality.

TUCHMAN: And that's why many of these same family and friends will be back here tomorrow and for days after, offering their support and their love.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Sidoarjo, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: rough winds, heavy rains and high waves, see what crews are facing in the search for that missing airliner.

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COSTELLO: It's all hands on deck when it comes to the search of AirAsia 8501. Ships, planes, and helicopters all trying to find victims of the disaster in the Java Sea.

Today, a brief break in bad weather allowed officials to resume the search. Some of their biggest challenges, of course, the rough winds and the heavy rain.

So, how will rough weather play out over the next few days and what will it mean for search crews as they scramble to find something?

Let's bring in CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.

Good morning.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.

You know, the weather gets better when it comes to rain, but it gets worse when it comes to wind. So, I don't know what they would rather, with the lack of rain, at least you can get planes in the air because you don't have low ceilings and you can look down and look for parts of the aircraft, but with the waves coming in, we're still going to be 15 or 20 feet tall here, that's going to be the problem I think for a lot of this forecast, we're going to have those big waves.

A couple storms overnight popped up but things are calm right now. You don't see the orange over that box area right there. That's where the debris was located the first time. Couple showers still this morning, this is now. This is tomorrow morning. We start to move you ahead day after day.

You see a lack of rainfall. You don't see big storms right over that. That's what I'm talking about, but as the rainfall goes away, for some reason the wind with a storm that's coming out of the north really picks up. So, these winds have been pushing this debris now for days and days and days, and the wind doesn't change directions so still pushing in the same way.

Jangmi affected the Philippines for a couple of days. That was a tropical system. It's not going to drop down here, but some of the moisture, sometimes we talk about the tropical moisture can get into Arizona if it's in the Pacific or the tropical moisture can get up even into the Midwest from a system that comes into the Gulf of Mexico, well we're not going to get a hurricane here or a tropical system but we're going to get some of that tropical moisture that comes back on Saturday and Sunday.

So, couple days of a break but no break in the wind, 10 to 15 miles per hour. When you see that orange, that's 30 miles per hour, and you have white caps looking for white parts of an airplane, Carol. It's just not the best situation.

COSTELLO: I can understand that. Chad Myers, thanks so much.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Checking other top stories this morning, at 24 minutes past the hour.

Protesters took to the streets at New Year's Eve celebrations overnight.

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PROTESTERS: I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

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COSTELLO: In New York City, people chanting "I can't breathe" and carrying signs marched towards Times Square at midnight. The group called for law enforcement changes after the killings of unarmed black man Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

In Boston, activists staged a die-in during the city's first night celebrations. Protesters laid down in the street as the names of several men and boys recently shot by police were read out loud.

And what was expected to be a peaceful march to the St. Louis Arch ended with handcuffs, chaos unfolded as demonstrators stormed police headquarters, more than two dozen people were arrested after police pepper sprayed the crowd.

The funeral for slain New York City police officer Wenjian Liu is expected to blend police traditions with Chinese customs. Sunday's police ceremony will be followed by a Chinese service led by Buddhist monks. Thousands are expected to attend including the FBI director. Liu will be laid to rest at a site chosen with the help of a Feng Shui expert.

Several families in China are spending their first day in 2015 at a makeshift memorial in Shanghai. This after a New Year's Eve celebration in Shanghai ended with a deadly stampede. At least 36 people were killed, nearly 50 others injured. Many of the victims reportedly female students.

The stampede began shortly before midnight as thousands packed the annual event in China's financial capital. Firsthand accounts differ on the cause. Still to come in THE NEWSROOM, it is a daunting task. Scouring the

ocean floor for AirAsia Flight 8501. But one of the biggest challenges still ahead: getting the wreckage out of the water.

CNN's senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns has that this morning.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the search for pieces of the plane right now is tough and frustrating. The weather is not making it any easier. And when they finally locate pieces of that plane, it's going to be even tougher to get them out of the water. I'll have that, coming up next.

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