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Importance of Black Boxes; Search Continues for AirAsia 8501; Do Pilots Rely on Automation Too Much; Uber Angers Customers with High Prices; Obama Authorizing New Sanctions on North Korea.

Aired January 02, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Now, the name is a little misleading because they are actually orange. And when we're talking about a black box, we're talking about two different boxes, one being the cockpit voice recorder, the other being the flight data recorder. Together they weigh anywhere between 20 to 30 pounds. They have to be crash proof. Black boxes can survive just about anything, temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour, forces that are 3400 Gs. That's 3400 times the force of gravity. They are waterproof and they can save record data for two years. And it's a lot of data.

The cockpit voice recorder records the crew's conversation and background noise. By listening to the ambient sounds in a cockpit before a crash, experts can determine if a stall took place, the RPMs of the engine and the speed at which the plane was traveling. When these sounds are cross referenced with ground control conversations, they can help searchers locate a crash site.

Then there's the flight data recorder. It gathers 25 hours of technical data from airplane sensors recording several thousand discreet pieces of information. Data about the air paid, altitude, pitch, acceleration, roll, fuel and the list goes on and on. But to make sense of the data first you have to find it. Not an easy thing to do when a plane crashes in to the ocean.

Both black box extents are outfitted with under water beacons. They send pings once per second and can transmit data from as deep as 20,000 feet for up to 30 days when their batteries run out. On land, there's no such pinging to help guide the search. Investigators have to sift through the wreckage until they find it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Rachel Crane with that.

Let's bring back Richard Quest, CNN aviation correspondent, host of "Quest Means Business"; and CNN aviation analyst, Peter Goelz, a former NTSB managing director.

Richard, about 24 days before those pings go dead. Why is it taking so long --

(CROSSTALK)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: It hasn't. It hasn't.

CABRERA: It's been almost a week.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: Putting that in perspective, given that these black boxes have the pingers that they're sending out.

QUEST: The ping can be picked up by a matter of a couple of miles, or two or three kilometers depending on the nature of the sea. You're not going to put the locators in there to search for them until you're pretty certain that you're in the area. It would be an act of desperation to go in, to just wantonly put the locator in the water on the off chance you'll find it. The moment you start hitting a large debris field, then you do put it into the water.

CABRERA: So is this the time?

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: No, we're not. We're still away from that. We're hitting isolated pieces of debris that might coalesce into something more in the days ahead. Certainly, the rumors they've seen the tail or an outline of a tail. That's what you're looking for. The moment you start to get to the position of sizable pieces of debris, lots of it, then you say we're in the right area, put in the locator. If you become desperate because the clock is running against you, you might put it in the water.

CABRERA: Then it's all hands on deck.

QUEST: It's all hands on deck.

CABRERA: Got it.

Peter, let me turn to you.

What's the process of extracting information from these black boxes once they are recovered? Is it as simple as plugging it into a computer.

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: If the boxes haven't been damaged significantly -- these are digital recorders -- you would get to it the appropriate lab -- and either the British, the French, the Australians or the Americans have the appropriate labs -- and you first drag the voice recorder out and data recorder out and then carefully download the information. I would think they would be able to do that in a number of hours once they recover the recorders and got them to the laboratory.

CABRERA: Peter is saying this information could be extracted within a number of hours.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: We're hearing from Indonesian officials once they process or analyze the data from the black boxes, because reportedly that's where these black boxes are going, that they plan to make public the information within about three months. What do you make of that timetable?

QUEST: Well, we don't know how they are going make it public. And different countries will do it in different ways. They get the data. It depends on what it shows. If it shows initially that, you know, quite clear cut example of what happened, and I'm think field goal you look at recent incidents where the black box data recorder -- let's take for example the virgin galactic where within hours of it information showed that the veins at the back deployed early. That was made obvious. And it was released. Asiana released a lot of information.

But here, Peter, the way you and I might differ, in a sense, that in the U.S., there is a greater tendency to make information from black boxes and from the investigation more freely available than in other parts of the world.

CABRERA: Would you agree, Peter?

GOELZ: I would agree. What I meant is you can -- the investigators can have access to the data. Whether they release it or not is something entirely different. And the key point is if they see something in the data, which indicates a problem that needs be addressed, they will address it immediately.

CABRERA: And I imagine they would try to reach out maybe to other expert eyes to see what else is in there.

Peter, I have another question that I don't think we've talked about, even though we've been talking a lot about these black boxes. So much has been said about the information they contain. Do these recorders record just the data from other parts of the plane so everything is interconnected or do they operate autonomously in the sense that they have their own sensors that record data if the plane breaks apart and falls to the ground?

GOELZ: No their power source is the same power source that runs the airplane. That's been an issue that's been debated about whether recorders should have an independent power source. But when the power source to the plane ends the recordings end. In this case, on the data recorder, as was reported, it literally is monitoring thousands of pieces of information on a second by second basis.

CABRERA: Peter, do you think we will find these black boxes here within -- what kind of a timetable?

GOELZ: I'm in agreement with Richard. I think the searchers are getting closer. They are narrowing down the search area. The ocean is an awfully big area. When you're searching something the size of the state of Rhode Island, that's a lot of place to look, and it will take a little time, but they are going to find it. CABRERA: All right. Richard Quest, Peter Goelz, thanks to both of

you.

Up next, new pictures of debris, including what appears to be part of the plane's window panel.

Plus, we're getting word of a possible detection of the plane's tail with sonar equipment. But where is the plane? An experienced investigator joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: So many signs have pointed to a possible location of AirAsia flight 8501. We got the oil slick, possible detection of the jet's tail by sonar equipment, and this, what appears to be a window panel from the doomed jet. Bad weather, huge waves are still making the search very challenging. So far, crews have not been able to pin down the location of the plane's fuselage.

Shawn Pruchnicki, who investigated the crash of Conair flight 5191, is s back with me now.

Shawn, again, we just went through some of the discoveries they made in the past 24 hours. We also know several more bodies, more debris has been found. Yet, officials aren't saying with any confidence that they found the fuselage. Are you surprised?

SHAWN PRUCHNICKI, AIR SAFETY EXPERT, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: No, I'm not surprised at all. The way this works, as Richard and Peter had alluded to, they are marching backwards, looking at the drift of the debris, marching backwards trying to find the field. And the fact that with this sonar they said what they think possibly could be the tail of the aircraft, too early to tell. The reason why this is a little bit elusive is there's a lot more junk, if you will, at the bottom of the ocean, in addition to a natural outcropping of formations and much more stuff down there. So a lot of times in these investigations they are finding other things, right? They are not quite sure. They need to get a closer look it a. I agree with Richard said. Once they finally do find what appears to be the initial debris field on the floor of the ocean things will go a lot quicker from there as far as accelerating this discovery phase.

CABRERA: And worth noting, again, this is a very busy shipping channel, highly traveled, and so it would make sense there could be other debris in the area. We now know there are five acoustic hydro phones being used in the area. How sensitive is the equipment and what exactly are they used for?

PRUCHNICKI: These phones, that's what's looking for the pingers, if you will, that are on the boxes we're after. And what's important to understand is that a lot of times there's a lot of noise down there. There's a lot of noise within this frequency range. These devices really are only truly sensitive within several miles or so, anywhere from three to five miles somewhere in that area. And so what happens is you have to have a better idea of the location of the field. So once we can narrow it down to say we think this is the area, we believe we're starting to see a debris pattern that's consistent with finding a large aircraft, it's an A320, at that point in time, that's when you want to deploy these resources. It's important to understand these things are expensive to use and time consuming. You don't want to waste these resources just putting them any place in the water in a random sense but rather narrowing the field down.

I think they are doing that. I think they are heading in the right direction. Little bit more time. I would be really surprised if by the end of this week they haven't found this airplane yet. I think it will happen.

CABRERA: How does weather impact the effectiveness of some of these tools?

PRUCHNICKI: Well, certainly utilizing these because obviously these are ship based. Weather on the surface of the area does play a role in how effective these devices are and really how difficult they are to deploy them, in fact. So a lot more noise. And because this water is so shallow that rough conditions on the surface do affect in shallow water their ability to determine where this wreckage is. If the water is rough enough because we're around 150 feet in this area it can actually move debris, and that's considered shah, low it can move the debris field and move things around. Weather does challenge. It poses a risk for those on the surface trying to do the job safely but the effectiveness of the device they are using to accomplish that task.

CABRERA: We did hear from the chief of search-and-rescue Indonesian agency talking about fighting tooth and nail and how difficult the weather is making for this search.

Shawn Pruchnicki, thanks for your insight. We appreciate it.

PRUCHNICKI: Thanks.

CABRERA: Up next, autopilot, meant to help pilots maneuver, a complex piece of machinery. But are pilots relying too much on autopilot? Should they be controlling the plane more on their on?

Also ahead, more U.S. crews on the way to help in this search for the missing plane. A look at some of the hi-tech machinery they are packing to assist in this search.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Roughly five days now after the AirAsia flight 8501 went down. There's still no clear-cut evidence that pilot error was at hand, but the crash could be connected to how the pilots, the co- captain -- the captain and his co-pilot handled the thunderstorm and the tragedy is re-igniting a long time debate in the aviation industry, do pilots rely too heavily on automation.

Here's one veteran's pilot thoughts on the opinion site, "American Thinker," and I quote, "a dangerous overreliance on automation and subsequent degradation of pilot hand flying skills has led to a change in the traditional pilot mindset. Pilots now assume everything selected will function and, if it doesn't, the computers will warn them and take care of it. The degradation of flying skills is endemic throughout the airline industry."

Joining me now to discuss more, currently pilot, attorney and certified airline accident investigator, Captain Bill Savage.

Bill, first off, you brought something in to show us, to show how much an airline pilot has to look at as they fly. What's next to you?

CAPT. WILLIAM SAVAGE, PILOT & ATTORNEY & CERTIFIED AIRLINE ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR: Well, this is a flight training panel of a Boeing 777, and it indicates all the forward controls and the pedestal controls of Boeing 777. And the first officer would be sitting in this position. The captain would be here. And they jointly run the flight control panel above on the glare shield. That's the autopilot flight director system that controls the maneuvering of the airplane when that -- when these systems are connected. All of it can be disconnected and hand flown, which pilots do quite frequently, in both landing and takeoff.

CABRERA: There's a lot going on. You explained the benefit of having autopilot. Do you think are pilots relying too much on autopilot and the computer systems?

SAVAGE: Well, pilots today in modern airline operations are trained to operate in an automated environment to the highest level that they can because it actually is a workload decreaser. And the pilots become the management capability of the system as they manipulate these controls and read the instrumentation and operate the power systems of the aircraft. And, for example, in a turbulence situation or in a bad weather situation where you're landing, I used to just slide the seat back about six inches to get a better view of the entire cockpit display and be able to, to scan through all of the instruments to have a counter balance as to what the aircraft was doing, what I was looking at and how the airplane was operating. All of this is within hand reach. It's about the same distance that I'm sitting now, although you would be facing forward. But both pilots can easily reach the flight control panel, you know, within a hand reach. So, while it looks very complicated, the training is so in depth that it becomes second nature to operate all of these switches and buttons and dials.

And it becomes much easier to fly the airplane when it's automated state. If all else fails, the pilots can disconnect the auto throttle, flight director and the autopilot and hand fly the airplane. All the modern airplanes fly very well. And the pilots are all highly train, highly experienced hand flying pilots because, even in the interview sessions, they are tested for their hand flying skills in the simulator during their interview process. There's no such thing as amateurs at the airline level.

CABRERA: Would more than flying have made a difference, perhaps, in this case?

SAVAGE: Well, without the black boxes, we don't know what condition the airplane got into, so it's hard to then draw an analysis of what they should have done. But I can tell you that the airplane is very stable and it's very difficult to get them out of control, unless some horrendous situation developed, like flying into a thunderstorm or some turbulence that would cause the plane to leave control flight.

CABRERA: Experience makes a difference. The captain had about 20,000 hours of flight experience, about 6,000 or more on the Airbus A320. Is that enough?

SAVAGE: Oh, yeah, that's quite sufficient. That's a highly experienced pilot.

CABRERA: Bill Savage, thanks so much.

SAVAGE: You bet.

CABRERA: We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Welcome back. The ride-sharing service Uber started in 2015 by angering yet again a lot of its riders. The New Year was in its infancy when social media started lighting up with complaints of those sky-high rates and alleged price gouging.

Let me bring in "CNN Money's" Cristina Alesci.

Cristina, to be fair, Uber warned people, because of the way their system worked, the prices would likely to go up with the demand going up. How high are we talking?

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: About six to nine times the normal rate based on the data we collected. You put it actually very nicely. Demand was very high. Between the peak hours of 12:30 a.m., and 2:30 a.m. local time, across the country, Uber said they saw a spike in demand, 180 percent increase, and that led to the price increases. Because Uber's whole argument is we need to get more cars on the road, we need to incentivize the drivers. In New York City alone, we saw a ratified six times the normal rate. I was with an Uber driver this morning who said he made a quick 300 bucks on a ride, Manhattan to Brooklyn, only a couple of miles that evening. So to put into context how high the bills were. In Orlando, Florida, nine times as high. This went on across the country.

What was most surprising to me was the fact that, at 1:30 in the morning in New York, you couldn't get a car. It didn't matter. What Uber does say is we're using this price-surging policy to make sure that you will always have a car or that you'll never miss a ride, right? But then, at 1:30 in the morning, even with whatever price you wanted to pay, you couldn't get a car. So it kind of undermines their argument, this price policy, that they have really ensures that you can get a car all the time.

CABRERA: What's the backlash? Anything?

ALESCI: It's funny because I was actually looking and I saw the normal angry Twitter comments this morning. One thing that struck me, in San Francisco, the drivers were upset because there wasn't enough of a surge pricing for them and they were looking to make a lot of money that night, and they didn't get as much surge pricing as they wanted. That's probably because party goers in San Francisco either smartened up and made plans in advance or competitors are starting to eat into Uber's market share. Because there was a competitor called Fly Wheel that was directly going after Uber, saying, we'll take you anywhere for 10 bucks on New Year's Eve. That's a pretty compelling argument, right --

(CROSSTALK)

ALESCI: Exactly. I don't know if those cars were fully available though. We'll have to see how many people got a $10 ride.

CABRERA: It seems Uber is dodging and weaving these different --

(CROSSTALK)

ALESCI: They are. They came out and said, if you don't want to pay a lot, here are the hours we anticipate that you're going to have to pay a lot. Plan your evening around that or share the Uber with someone and you can reduce your bill.

CABRERA: All right.

Cristina Alesci, thanks for bringing us the update.

Well, Siskel and Ebert became household names with their television show, which they gave those movies thumbs up or thumbs down. The film critics have gotten along on screen. Off-screen, however, Siskel and Ebert were full of tension and competition, sometimes very icy encounters.

Watch this clip from the CNN film, "Life Itself," in which the colleagues describe how the relationships played out behind-the- scenes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Roger is an only child. He was used to getting his way. Absolutely. And he could be a real big baby when he didn't get what he wanted. Gene, on the other hand, would just go in there and pummel you until you agreed with him. All right, Gene, OK, you're right. Got it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It wasn't a came with him. He saw something he wanted to it happen. He made it happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gene was very good at reading Roger's date book upside down. As soon as he saw L.A. and the date, he knew what films were coming out. He knew what big star that Roger would be going out the interview. And that's all it took for him to make sure that he got the interview before Roger got it. Fumes. You could almost see coming out of Roger's head. Gene had done him in again, that's rascally rabbit.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABRERA: "Life Itself" airs this Sunday, 9:00 p.m. eastern here on CNN.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CABRERA: Top of the hour now. I'm Ana Cabrera.

And we have new developments in the search for flight 8501. We'll get to those in just a moment.

But first, some breaking news involving North Korea. President Obama now authorizing new sanctions on Kim Jong-Un and the North, partly in response to the big cyber attack on Sony a couple of weeks ago. You'll remember the theater chains pulled the movie "The Interview" over threats by hackers. The film depicts the assassination of Kim Jong-Un. The U.S. standing firm that North Korea is, indeed, responsible for this attack.