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Crash of AirAsia Flight 8501; "Life Itself" Tells Roger Ebert's Story; Ohio State vs. Oregon in National Title Game

Aired January 02, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

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CAROLS COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Search crews believe that a shadowy image resting on the floor of the Java Sea is likely the bulk of the Asia airliner. To be sure, divers have to reach the wreckage. Monsoon season has whipped up the seas and made it too dangerous for them to spend any significant amount of time underwater. CNN's Paula Hancocks has more for you.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're down in Kumai Port just on the west coast of Borneo and, as you can see, preparations are under way for one of the search vessels to head out to the search location and try and locate some of those bodies and also some of the debris.

This is a police boat. It's also going to have search-and-rescue on board. Some of the divers are going to be on board as well. They've already been out a couple of times but many of them say they couldn't get into the water, it was simply too dangerous. Today they know they have waves of four meters, or 13 feet high and it's simply too dangerous for them to get in. One diver said he would basically be giving up his life if he tried to do that.

They're very frustrated. Sometimes they just have to sit and wait and hope for a break in the weather so that they can try and bring back more bodies and bring some closure to those distraught families.

Paula Hancocks, CNN, Kumai Port, Indonesia.

COSTELLO: The big question now, whether rough weather will let up over the next several days so that divers can go underwater.

So let's bring in the man who knows, Chad Myers. Good morning.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning -- Carol. It does get better. It gets better on Sunday so we're still talking maybe 48 hours from when we really see the wind die off and from the storms go away but I know you lived near Lake Erie when you were a kid and you could tell that those waves were different than ocean waves. The waves in a shallow lake like Lake Erie 20-30 feet are very sharp. They're like this, where an ocean wave is kind of a roller.

We don't get rollers. So those waves that Paula Hancocks were talking about, not 13-foot gentle up-and-down swells, these are big sharp -- because this is only 100 feet deep -- these are big sharp waves and it's very dangerous to get out of a boat and even into the water as that boat is slapping up and down on the water and you're trying to get out of the way as you're a diver going down.

This gets better though, the winds die off, the storms go away. The storms are even going away now. There will be storms south of the search area later on tonight into tomorrow. But even tomorrow afternoon some sunshine -- that will help. It's a lot easier to search when the sun is out than when the clouds are out. Plus you can't see that shadowy figure down 100 feet. The water's pretty murky in the first place.

And in the second place if it's cloudy you don't get enough light down there to actually try to identify what's down there before the divers even go down.

There will be some rain, about an inch of rain in the next 48 hours, but not significant rain wherein that we have to like call off the air search and call off everything else. It's the wind that really is the problem right now. It will still be a problem tomorrow. This shows about ten to 15 miles per hour, maybe even some gusts to 20.

But as I push the button and the colors go away, that means Sunday, by Sunday afternoon the colors are completely gone. Maybe a wind gust to ten, that's it. You get a wind gust like that, your waves go down rather quickly, only two to three feet in a gentle breeze and they will take that. That will be the best weather they've had the entire time they've been looking.

Sunday is the best day for a long time and they will use it. They will use it all day long. They'll be out there waiting for sunrise, not leaving at sunrise, they'll be out there waiting for sunrise to come up right on site -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I'm sure you're right. Chad Myers, thanks so much.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: As searchers struggle with brutal weather, officials are trying to make sense of what they found so far. Of the 30 bodies recovered, many were intact and clothed. Crews also retrieved a manually-operated exit door, as well as an inflatable exit slide, a blue suitcase and what appears to be a window panel.

What does that say about the flight's final minutes? Did the plane try to make a water landing like Captain Sully Sullenberger's miracle on the Hudson? Given that this is monsoon season in that part of the world, would that even be possible? Would it be possible, anyway, in any season? Joining me now on the phone, a man who knows the conditions along that rout very well, former pilot Alastair Rosenschein -- welcome, sir.

ALASTAIR ROSENSCHEIN, FORMER PILOT: Hello.

COSTELLO: Hello, I'm so glad that you're joining us. Can you hear me Alastair?

ROSENSCHEIN: Yes, I can hear you perfectly.

COSTELLO: You can? Oh good. Good, good, good. I was scared there for a second.

You know, I just wondered, when accidents happen like this, you as a pilot what goes through your mind?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, I mean the first thing which current pilots would be thinking right now is could this have happened to me? What could I have done that might have avoided it? Or if I'd been in that situation how could I have avoided ending up having an accident? I mean these are things that go through one's mind.

Now, immediately one can think of it being a weather-related accident and so there isn't a great deal more that any pilot could do than they're already doing which is to avoid all major thunderstorm cells, especially in the tropics where they're particularly large.

COSTELLO: You know, pilots do such a great job because let's face it, air travel is very safe. There are very few accidents when you consider all of the flights that take off everyday. I think that sometimes people attach herculean qualities to pilots because there's this theory out there right now that this pilot actually could have landed the plane on the surface of the Java Sea. Is that possible?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, you know, it is possible, of course, to land an aircraft on water. In fact, all pilots are trained to do this in a simulator. It's called ditching and they're very specific ways of doing it. But I don't think that's really applicable in this case because it looks very much like the aircraft was either out of control or was damaged in some way due to the storm.

The other thing is, can you land a plane at night in the sea, which is in the dark in horrendous conditions? I would say that that is pretty much impossible to do without having an accident. So he may have been trying to do so, we don't know yet. We'll find out when we get the black boxes but it is entirely possible.

I mean we're putting that every pilot would have tried to control the aircraft so, you know, we can't know until we get those black boxes to be sure.

COSTELLO: The other thing I was wondering, and I don't even know if you can answer this question, but if the pilot did go into a steep ascent and the plane did go into a stall, could the pilot in some way have gotten semi-control of the plane to make a gentler landing?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, let's be clear here. When an aircraft stalls, we're not talking about the engines stalling here like in a car. We're talking about the air flow stalling off the wings so the aircraft effectively is not flying. It is descending. It's literally no longer in control. And the pilots can move the controls as much as he likes, but they're really not going to be very effective in controlling the aircraft until he gets some forward air speed.

To get forward air speed, one has to get the nose forward and down and there are certain types of stalls in jet aircraft which become very difficult to recover from and require a great deal of airspace, you know, below the aircraft in order to get the nose down and to get flying speed in control before you impact the ground or the sea. So in this case obviously they didn't have control at the moment of impact and so we've ended up with an accident.

COSTELLO: Does this preliminary evidence we have, that the pilot did go into this unbelievably steep ascent and then the plane stalled, does that make sense to you?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, it does in some respects. Look, there are two things -- there are several things that can cause an aircraft to go up at a very rapid rate of climb. One is pilot-induced, pulling the nose up although it's very difficult to maintain any high rate of climb at high altitude because the aircraft performance is insufficient to maintain a high rate of climb. You could get an initial high rate but then it would very quickly drop off as the aircraft stalls.

The other way is an updraft in the thunderstorm. If there's a very strong updraft, then an aircraft could in theory climb at great rate. But you know which ever way you look it, you can't -- there's only so much power from those engines so unless you've got forward air speed, you do not have control of the aircraft and it will stall.

COSTELLO: Alastair Rosenschein, thank you so much for joining me once again. I sure appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, she knew the risks but she loved to fly. The family of a crew member on board Flight 8501 shares memories of their daughter.

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COSTELLO: There were 162 people on board when Flight 8501 vanished, one of them 22-year-old flight attendant known by friends and family as Nisa. Earlier today AirAsia CEO tweeted this, quote, "I'm arriving in Surabaya to take Nisa home to Palembang. I cannot describe how I feel. There are no words."

Her parents say Nisa had an adventurous spirit and loved to travel and even though her job took her hundreds of miles away from home, she brought passion to everything she did.

CNN's David Molko has more.

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DAVID MOLKO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Step by step toward their final resting place, each bearing a number, each number a soul. Casket 4 no longer nameless but identified as the first crew member of Flight 8501 still wearing her uniform. Her name Khairunisa Haidar Fauzie, or Nisa as she's affectionately known by her family, including her father Haidar and mother Rohana.

HAIDAR FAUZIE, FATHER OF NISA (through translator): Nisa is an obedient daughter. She's always tidy. She loves to learn. Lots of her friends love her.

ROHANA FAUZIE, MOTHER OF NISA (through translator): Just like her dad.

MOLKO: In the family hotel room, Nisa's parents smile and even offer a laugh as they share their memories. She cared about her family very much.

R. FAUZIE: Yes.

MOLKO: Pictures from their daughter's Instagram account show a poised young woman with a giving heart, her mother says, and an adventurous spirit that took her hundreds of miles away from the family home in Sumatra.

R. FAUZIE: It's a dream. It's fun. She's never complained. She already knew the risk.

H. FAUZIE: She knew the risk but she loved this. It was her dream. She loved traveling.

MOLKO: Their reflections suddenly cut short by a phone call, the call no parent ever wants to get. Leaning on Nisa's two older brothers and cousins, their smiles vanish, replaced by a sense of urgency and finality.

A few hours later -- a solemn transfer of remains. Her parents say they've already made preparations for their daughter's burial as she begins her final journey home.

R. FAUZIE: Good-bye. Good-bye, Nisa.

MOLKO: David Molko, CNN, Surabaya, Indonesia.

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COSTELLO: Still ahead in the NEWSROOM, movie critic Roger Ebert became legendary in a profession not known for producing legends. He was in the business of reviewing films. At the end of his life, he became the subject of one. That's next.

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COSTELLO: Film critic Roger Ebert reviewed thousands of motion pictures. His long-running show "At the Movies" became a ritual for a generation of Americans. But in his final work, Ebert turned from being a reviewer of films to the subject of one -- a documentary about the man himself.

CNN's John Berman is here to talk about that. He was amazing.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: He was amazing. The film is amazing, the director is the documentary filmmaker Steve James who made "Hoop Dreams" and other terrific films. He talks to Roger Ebert, profiles Roger Ebert -- a man who writes about films who all of a sudden found himself the center of this film.

Let's watch.

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BERMAN: So it's about a man, this movie, but it's also about, to me at least, a couple of relationships -- a couple of amazing relationships.

STEVE JAMES, FILMMAKER: Yes.

BERMAN: There's this love story with Chaz which is just beautiful.

JAMES: Yes.

ROGER EBERT, FILM CRITIC: She is the love of my life. She saved me from the fate of living out my life alone, which is where I seemed to be heading.

JAMES: To be able to witness that up close was to see the depth of that relationship which was astounding and the love and the sort of connection that they had. I mean that was, you know, I can't think of a more inspiring relationship.

And for me as someone who's done a lot of films about race over the years, to kind of see this interracial marriage that was just so remarkable for what it didn't matter that they were black and white. That's what was amazing.

BERMAN: It was just love. It was just pure love for a long time and through an awful lot of different things.

The other relationship is the famous relationship with Gene Siskel.

GENE SISKEL, FILM CRITIC: This is Roger Ebert from the "Chicago Sun- Times".

EBERT: And right over here is Gene Siskel from the "Chicago Tribune" and Channel 2 News.

JAMES: Yes. They didn't like each other a lot of the time and especially at the beginning. Chaz would tell you that for the first six years or so of that professional relationship they really didn't like each other at all because they were competitors for different newspapers. They came from different backgrounds.

But, you know, what's interesting is as that relationship went on professionally it became more complicated and it's not like a Hollywood version where they went from vitriol to love. It wasn't that pure, it wasn't that simple. But they did come to kind of love each other in their own way, even while they were still very competitive.

BERMAN: And even the way that -- you know, when Gene Siskel died, I think -- I was not aware that Roger Ebert did not know for a long time.

JAMES: You know, it's really interesting because even in the way in which they both approached fatal illness and death they did it differently but both with a tremendous amount of courage and a perfectly honorable and beautiful way. Gene intensely private and Roger because of the way it happened with Gene, making this decision that if this should ever befall him he wanted not to lead it publicly out of an ego sense but to share it with the people he cared about and then he ended up sharing it with the people that followed him in a way that was intensely moving and educational.

BERMAN: Do you have any doubts or concerns about showing Roger as he was after all the surgeries? Because at first, as the viewer, to me, at first you're like, wow, this man has been through a lot and it's jarring to see what happened to him physically. I forgot about it by the end of the movie.

JAMES: That's what I went through as a filmmaker. When I started meeting with Roger and Chaz and I saw him not when he -- the way he would go out publicly which was always with a black turtleneck which was very stylish and often times with a beautiful scarf, I didn't realize when I saw that public Roger what it was masking, essentially, which is he had this hole down here.

So when I saw him at home with the white bandage, I first was like, oh, my God, I'm not sure how people are going to handle this when they see this in the movie. But then Roger smiles and you see that twinkle in his eye and it's like oh that's Roger. You get accustomed to it. I wanted the viewer to go through that same process.

BERMAN: The final question I'm sure you get asked all the time is how would Roger Ebert review this film?

JAMES: Well, I defer to Chaz on this. You know, she says that she thinks he would love the movie. And he would love it not because it's about him. He would love it, she says, because it's the kind of film that he responded to; that, you know, it's entertaining, but it's emotional and it's honest.

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BERMAN: It would get two thumbs up for sure. It's incredibly entertaining. You learn so much and it's uplifting despite the fact you're watching the last months of a man's life. So it's really an amazing thing to see.

COSTELLO: He was so much more than just a movie reviewer because let's face it, not many movie reviewers become as famous as he became.

BERMAN: No, very true, very true.

COSTELLO: I can't wait to see it.

Thank you very much, John Berman. I appreciate it. The critics love this film, you said it and we do too. "LIFE ITSELF" airs this Sunday 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Let's talk a little sports -- my favorite topic. We have got the teams for college football's title game. Oregon and the Ohio State University advanced to the first ever championship matchup after winning their respective bowl games. CNN's Andy Scholes is in New Orleans where the Sugar Bowl became an instant classic. Good morning.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Good morning -- Carol. You know, it sure did. I've been to a lot of college football games. I would say last night's Sugar Bowl was probably the best one I've ever been to.

The momentum swings, they just kept going back and forth, back and forth. Alabama took a 21-6 lead and everyone thought they're going to run away with this game but that was not the case. Ohio State came storming back behind. Their third string quarterback Cardale Jones, he led the Buckeyes on a run where they scored 28 straight points and they were able to hold off a late charge by Alabama to pull off an upset for the ages, 42-35.

URBAN MAYER, OHIO STATE HEAD COACH: Maybe the big 10 is not that bad. Maybe the big 10 is pretty damn good. It's certainly getting better.

CURTIS GRANT, OHIO STATE LINEBACKER: I just can't believe it. We stuck together and we said we have to go out in the second half and quit the mental mistakes and just go play the game.

DARRON LEE, OHIO STATE LINEBACKER: You could see two best teams playing for it all and it's an honor to be in there. I'm glad the playoff system is intact now.

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SCHOLES: Meanwhile, at the Rose Bowl, unfortunately, some tasteless off-the-field actions are making headlines today. After ending Florida State's 29-game winning streak, some Oregon players were caught on video mocking the Seminole's tomahawk chop. Take a look.

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CROWD: No means no, means no.

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SCHOLES: All right. So they were chanting "no means no". They seemed to be referencing Jameis Winston's sexual assault allegations which he was never charged for. In a statement Oregon said this was unacceptable and the players will be disciplined. Those actions came after the majority of Florida State players did not shake hands with the Ducks after the game. They were clearly frustrated after having an epic meltdown in the second half. Florida State turned the ball over five times, including a Jameis Winston fumble that rivals the infamous Mark Sanchez butt fumble when he played for the New York Jets. Oregon scored on that play and they cruise to a 59-20 win.

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JAMES WINSTON, FLORIDA STATE QUARTERBACK: No one likes to lose, man. I mean that's -- losing is really not in my vocabulary, to be honest with you. But, you know, we fell short today. MARCUS MARIOTA, OREGON QUARTER: It's an incredible feeling. You

prepare all week and to find success and to be able to execute the way that we did, it definitely feels good. And hopefully we can take a little bit of this momentum heading into the next game.

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SCHOLES: All right, so the stage is now set. It's going to be Ohio State taking on Oregon in the first-ever college football playoff national championship game. It's going to take place January 12 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

And Carol, no surprise, Ohio State is once again an underdog. Oregon favor by seven, but history is on their side. Ohio State and Oregon have faced off eight times and the Buckeyes have won all eight. So they've got that going for them.

COSTELLO: You should never underestimate the Ohio State University. Andy Scholes, you should know that by now.

SCHOLES: I do.

COSTELLO: You do. I know you do. Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

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

"@THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" after a break.

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