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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Crash of AirAsia Flight 8501; 36 Dead in Shanghai Stampede; Actor Edward Herrmann Dead at 71

Aired January 01, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: And the next big break in the AirAsia search may depend on a break in the weather. You wouldn't know it from the scenes like this, it looks calm, but weather over the search zone in the Java Sea today was once again terrible. Helicopters were unable to fly, divers could not get into the water. They couldn't leave their ships.

To date, the remains of nine people of the 162 passengers and crew from AirAsia flight 8501 have, in fact, been recovered. Eight have been taken ashore.

Authorities today made their first positive identification, a woman who was pulled from the sea Tuesday. Well, a remote Indonesian hospital is proving invaluable as bodies of AirAsia victims are rushed there by recovery teams.

Our Paula Hancocks is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sirens in the night announce their arrival. Victims of Flight 8501 on dry land and rushed into this hospital at Pangkalan Bun. 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 unsomberly, 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 that are 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 bodies and 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.

Paula Hancocks, CNN, Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: And the process of identifying the victims of this or any plane crash can be fairly straight forward, or it can take time, skill, and experience, also a bit of luck.

Few know the process better than my next guest, Lawrence Kobilinsky, is a forensic scientist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

How big an enemy is time when it comes to ensuring that all passengers and crew are identified, especially since they are in the water?

LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Well, the time plays a major role here, because, obviously, after a person dies, there is a process of decomposition that goes on. Bodies that are totally immersed in water generally decompose at a slower rate than if they were exposed completely to air. However, the waters here are relatively warm, which would promote decomposition.

It sounds to me like the bodies are now in a bloat stage, and basically gases are being produced. There are multiple processes that break down the body chemically into smaller components. In any case, it does become more difficult to identify a body over time. I think part of this problem is to get the bodies as soon as possible, clearly, to perform the identifications, and, of course, we also have to know what killed these people.

I mean, we're assuming it was a blunt impact upon the plane hitting the water at the relatively high speed, but we won't know that until the bodies are examined, and that will tell us, was there a fire, was there an explosion, although not likely, we need to look at the cause of death first, and the identification will then proceed -- either visually or through medical dental records, through fingerprints, and ultimately DNA, and I understand that the families of the victims have already been asked to provide DNA to the analysts.

FEYERICK: Yes, and it's just so painful, you know, from the perspective of returning identified remains to family members, clearly, it would be preferable if victims were still strapped into their seats, because the process of recovering and then returning perhaps even intact would be significantly greater.

KOBILINSKY: Well, that's a good point that we don't even know if all the bodies are in one location or not. If the plane did, in fact, open up and bodies have been just propelled outward, they could be in various locations, making the search and recovery more complicated.

FEYERICK: And just such a tragedy for these families, many of whom were simply traveling to celebrate the New Year.

Larry Kobilinsky, thank you. We appreciate your insights.

KOBILINSKY: Sure, pleasure.

FEYERICK: Next, a rare close-up look at the pilot's family and how they are coping with the tragedy. Also a touching tribute from his daughter.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: The man behind the controls of that AirAsia flight was no rookie. He was an experienced f-16 fighter jet pilot with more than 20,000 hours of overall flying time.

Investigators will not know exactly what he was dealing with in the cockpit in the final moments until they find the all-crucial black boxes. The people closest to the captain, his family, aren't consumed with the investigation today. They are still coping with the tremendous shock of losing him.

CNN's Gary Tuchman visited the family.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TUCHMAN (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)

FEYERICK: And what's ahead for the victims families in the wake of this aviation disaster. Next, a preview of legal action they may take against the airline. Our panel will weigh in on this tragedy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Well, the families of the passengers and crew on Flight 8501 are coping with immense loss, unimaginable loss, eventually some of them may sue for compensation.

Let's bring our legal experts in to discuss the potential liability in this aviation disaster. We have CNN legal analyst Paul Callan, and HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson.

Paul, from a liability perspective compared to Malaysia air flight 370, how much does it help that these families at least some parts of the plane have, in fact, been found?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think it will help them immensely because this gets complicated in terms of what they can recover, Montreal convention where they could recover at least a minimum of around $170,000, or the Warsaw convention, which is a much lower number, could be around $8,500.

Indonesia signed only the lesser one, the Warsaw, so they are looking for the big pocket, which would be suing the American-owned airline and the parts of the plane might indicate that there was a product defect that would get them into the American court system where they could sue for millions, so that's a good thing for them if they can find something wrong with the plane. Of course, maybe they don't find anything wrong with the plane.

FEYERICK: Joey?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Could be problematic, and here's the point, where you sue, Deb, has a lot to do with how much you recover, and perhaps it shouldn't be that way, but that's our reality. And, of course, U.S. courts are friendly towards this, as much as you can get a lot of the money in U.S. courts.

In the event, though, you can't establish a United States connection, you know, then you have a problem. If you look at it, it's hard to establish a United States connection unless you can show carriers U.S., principle places of business in the U.S., whether tickets were issued in the United States, so jurisdiction is going to be a big issue. If they get jurisdiction it's one thing, if they can't, there are limitations as Paul mentioned in terms of liability.

FEYERICK: What's interesting is that from a U.S. perspective, there is a sense of sue, get money, be made whole. Is it the same culture in Indonesia and the surrounding countries where they will want to take on that kind of legal battle, or do you think they are going to trust that the airline and Tony Fernandes will actually do the right thing to compensate, to make them whole, Paul?

CALLAN: There's a very different approach to this in different nations. I mean, how do you value loss of a human life? In American courts, we look at pain and suffering, lost earnings, how many dependents were there, and you can get up into $10 million, $15 million, $20 million sometimes depending on who died.

Now in other countries, particularly third world countries, the values are less because the income level is less, and even though human life is worth the same, I think every place --

FEYERICK: Of course.

CALLAN: -- it gets valued by salary and other things like that, and so you get very different numbers and different places.

JACKSON: There's another -- sorry.

FEYERICK: Please, go ahead.

JACKSON: There's another issue, that is a business decision issue, and what I mean by that, whenever there's a disaster like this, and God bless these families and their losses, do you really want matters litigated and want to extend this? I mean, there's right and there's wrong, and the public relations disaster that comes about from litigating a case and particularly an airline disaster could be very problematic.

So, oftentimes, business decisions are made to settle the case, and those decisions are predicated upon insures and get back to some of the issues Paul mentioned in terms of how old were the passengers, earning potential, dependents they have, and evaluate that, they'll pay out the families, they'll grieve and move on.

CALLAN: But it takes a long time, Deb. You know, in that plane crash we covered so intensively back in March, those families, some of them have received some compensation.

FEYERICK: Others have not.

CALLAN: Most have not received compensation, even now.

FEYERICK: It's very interesting, you know, I was reading "The New York Times" today had a very interesting article about the safety record of Indonesian airlines. Now, AirAsia has a very good safety record, however, I was really surprised at some of the countries that don't have an agreement to sort of FAA safety standards, including Barbados, including Curacao, including St. Maarten.

Should airlines be required, especially in a place like Indonesia, where their airline is just really growing by leap and bounce, they should be required to tell passengers or make them aware of issues that might exist?

JACKSON: Absolutely they should, but we have to remember, I looked at the article you looked at, it's troubling, problematic, you look at the safety record, of course, a burgeoning economy and based on that there's more flying.

But we also have to know that notwithstanding the fact that the flying record is poor, this is still very rare. I think they said 1 in a million passengers versus 1 in 25 million --

FEYERICK: Correct.

JACKSON: -- in the United States and other jurisdiction. So, at the end of the day, certainly, you want to put passengers on notice. But the likelihood of this happening, of course, is rare.

CALLAN: Of course, the other thing, international travelers are used to confronting third world conditions.

(CROSSTALK)

FEYERICK: I've been to that region, jumped on a lot of airlines, I'm surprised I'm sitting here today with Paul.

CALLAN: Harrowing trip on a bus, as a matter of fact, she forced them to stop the bus and get off.

So, would they have an alternative even if they knew there was a bad safety record, in most third world countries, they would not. And it probably wouldn't make a difference. But why haven't they signed the Montreal convention, which would guarantee a minimum of $174,000? Why hasn't Indonesia signed it?

FEYERICK: Well, right now, premiums are much more expensive also for Indonesian Airlines according to that article.

Thinking about all of this, do you think it's important for the -- do lawsuits provide the kind of information that improve ultimately airline safety? Is that one of the benefits?

JACKSON: That's the issue, because lawsuits are not only about the monetary recovery, it's about what can we do to make things better, to make things different, to improve safety regulations, and, obviously, as a result of the fallout that lawsuits bring, of course, there are improvements there. But there's a process in lawsuits called discovery, the exchange of information that attorneys have to provide, and oftentimes in providing that, you find things that are sub-standard, so one of the things you can hope for is in any litigation there will be improvements moving forward and that there'll be money invested in safety and in passengers.

FEYERICK: And again, we do want to reiterate AirAsia has had a good safety record, but some of the other airlines in Indonesia less so.

Gentlemen, happy and healthy New Year, thanks so much for coming on today.

JACKSON: You, too, Debbie.

CALLAN: Thank you.

FEYERICK: And the missing AirAsia jet is the same type of aircraft that pulled off the miracle on the Hudson six years ago, still one of the world's most popular passenger jets. A close-up look at the Airbus A320, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: And here are the hour's top stories on CNN.

Thirty-six people dead, 47 injured in a stampede on New Year's Eve in Shanghai. The tragedy happened near the city's popular riverfront, roughly 25 minutes before midnight. It only lasted 30 seconds. It is still unclear what caused the crush. Chinese authorities are investigating.

And tents really aren't meant to fly, but during Rose Bowl preparations yesterday, the wind picked up so badly, those tents went airborne. Pasadena Fire Department says four people were treated for minor injuries.

And two New York City streets are being renamed to honor the two police officers who were murdered in their patrol car on December 20th. Mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement yesterday saying the detectives Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos are our fallen heroes and they will never be forgotten.

And actor Edward Herrmann, you may remember him from "Animal House", died Wednesday at the age of 71 in New York. The cause of death is a brain tumor, according to his manager. Herrmann was a talented actor, best known as his performances as FDR and the father in "Gilmore Girls." It's a career that lasted over four decades and his most recent role being in the series "The Good Wife."

And crews have recovered more debris, along with nine bodies from AirAsia flight 8501. They still have not found the plane, the missing jet is an Airbus A320 and with over 6,000 produced, that model aircraft is one of the world's most popular planes.

CNN's Miguel Marquez looks at the Airbus A320 from nose to tale.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Worldwide, more than 3,600 Airbus A320s are flown by more than 400 airlines, charter companies and private entities. Eight American carriers combined have more than 450 A320s in their fleet. Among the biggest, JetBlue with 130, United has 97, Delta and U.S. Airways, 69 each.

In the short to medium range world, the A320 is second only to Boeing 737, which has delivered nearly 8,000 of its ultra popular medium size planes. The A320 family of planes includes the A318, 319, and 321, all similar in range and control. Airbus says every 2.5 seconds, a plane from one of its 320 family is taking off or handling somewhere in the world.

A350 designated QZ8501 was delivered to AirAsia in October 2008. Since then, the airline says it has taken off some 13,600 times, logging approximately 23,000 hours in the air. AirAsia 8501 was carrying more than 18,000 pounds of fuel when it departed, enough for about three and a half hours of flight.

Shortly before disappearing, the pilot asked air traffic control if he could ascend to 38,000 feet. That request was denied. The A320 is certified to fly up to 39,000 feet. Its absolute limit is 42,000 feet. Weight, temperature, weather and fuel all play a role in how high the plane can fly safely.

In its history, 16 A320 planes have crashed. Nine of those crashes were deadly, resulting in 656 deaths, on the planes or on the ground.

The first crash, shortly after the plane started service in 1988. Air France flight 296 skimmed the top of trees during an air show demonstration flight. The cause: the fly-by wire system and pilot error.

In 2007, Tam Airlines flight 3054 crashed on handing in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A reverse thruster had been deactivated, the plane unable to stop crashed into a cargo terminal, 187 passengers and crew died, plus 12 on the ground. The deadliest crash for an A320. Cause, likely pilot error mechanical failure.

And who could forget the 2009 ditching of U.S. Airways Flight 1549? On takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport, the plane collided with a flock of geese. Both engines failed. Captain Sully Sullenberger successfully landed the plane on the Hudson River, all 155 aboard survived.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: Thanks so much, everyone, for spending part of your day here with us. I'm Deborah Feyerick wishing you a happy 2015.

Brianna Keilar picks up our special coverage of the crash AirAsia Flight 8501 right now.