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Search and recovery team for AirAsia Flight 8501 says 30 bodies have now been pulled from the sea; 17-year-old Joshua Alcorn committed suicide

Aired January 02, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again. I'm Ana Cabrera.

In the hunt for the missing Flight 8501, forensic investigators are now examining a window panel and more bodies, which they were able to pull today from the Java Sea, with the help of many countries, including the U.S.

In the hunt for missing flight 8501, forensic investigators are examining a window panel and more bodies which they were able to pull today from the Java Sea with then of many countries including the U.S. And now we hear Russia too is sending planes and divers to help with the search. Crews are now focusing on a more concentrated area some 2,000 square miles, roughly half the size of the Los Angeles metro area.

Now a top Indonesian official says it is the most probable area in the java sea where the plane's fuselage might be. Officials say 30 bodies have now been pulled from the sea. Four of those victims have been identified so far. But local reports suggest many of the remaining passengers on the plane are likely together still strapped in their seats in the plane's main cabin.

CNN cannot confirm that report but we're working hard to confirm information for you.

Do these new discoveries mean that crews are getting closer to where the plane is or are the 13-foot tall wave due to bad weather really impacting the crash site?

With me is Les Abend, CNN aviation analyst and contributing editor to "Flying" magazine. Also with us, Bill Savage, a pilot attorney and a certified airline accident investigator.

Les, I want to start with you. We know there's still bad weather in this area in the Java Sea. What was it do you think that made the difference today in being able to recover so many more bodies, more debris than we've seen in days past?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I mean, honestly, with this tumultuous is that those seas sound it's amazing they got that far with it. That's pretty severe conditions out there. You know, I fear for the divers and the teams out there.

The fact that recovered three more bodied, there's another piece to the puzzle, you know, unfortunately. At least the families will have -- those particular families will have a better understanding of where their loved ones are. But that being said, now we can take these passengers, trace it back to where their seats are. That's an indication of where possibly the airplane broke up. How they were strapped in their seats, where they were strapped in their seats, and that piece of debris that seems to indicate that maybe the interior window panel. That may or may not, you know, help with the situation if they can trace it back to where the airplane broke apart. That would be helpful.

CABRERA: Bill, do you think that some of these clues are suggesting that crews are indeed getting closer to the crash site or is it just because of all the currents that are bringing stuff to the surface?

CAPT. BILL SAVAGE, BOEING 777 CAPTAIN: It is indicative of either both scenarios. Heavy seas like that with the currents and a shallow sea like the Java Sea could drive those loose bodies quite a distance over time. And the decomposition factor the bodies, is causing more of the bodies to float to the surface. And some of the light pieces of the aircraft that may have broken apart may have also surfaced by now. We're just going to have to see what happens as they start to put together and collect the majority of the aircraft.

CABRERA: And, Bill, the U.S. did just send a guided missile destroyer, the USS Sampson to the Java Sea and it has helped to recover two of those victims. What does the Sampson have that other search units haven't had already? Does it have special equipment?

SAVAGE: Well, all naval vessels have very sophisticated rescue equipment on board for their own personnel that may go over board or particularly in combat situation where they either have to help other damaged ships or crew members that may be in the water and the crews are highly trained and have specialists on board that are very prepared to go over the side of their ships into the water and help rescue sailors that may be in the sea.

And so these people would be very helpful in any effort that America was trying to lend to the search folks on site. And also, the communications capability that the guided missile crews have would be very, very helpful to keep on top and abreast of what, what is transpiring there both with weather and the search efforts.

CABRERA: I see.

Les, I read that at least a couple of the victims, maybe three of the victims according to the local reports there were together. They were still strapped in their seats. So presumably that means that whole chunk of the airplane came to the surface, right?

ABEND: Well, maybe not came to the surface but it is indicative of how it broke apart, perhaps. You know, we lead back to that. The fact that they are, if they were all found together, you know, if that's accurate information.

You know, that once again that says well -- it seems to me that the airplane -- it's leaning more towards the airplane having impacted the surface whole as opposed to maybe broken up in flight. Anything is possible. And I don't want to rule that out. But that seems to be that, you know, the three folks strapped in their seats together.

CABRERA: And again with the window panel that you spoke of earlier fairly significant chunk of the plane.

ABEND: Well, it is yet to be seen how significant it is. It may show a location and just be a further confirmation of where these particular passengers were. But a lot of debris starts to float up. And with these choppy seas, it's got to be awful out there.

CABRERA: Got you, OK.

Les Abend and Bill Savage thanks to both of you. We always appreciate your times.

Up next, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world. But there's a small number of Christians there and one church in particular lost 46 members on flight 8501. We'll take you inside to hear from friends and family.

Plus, given the clues so far more experts are raising the possibility of a water landing or a water touching. We'll break it down next.

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CABRERA: As families mourn their loved ones who boarded flight 8501 there's one group hit especially hard by this crash. More than 40 members of this small Christian community were on that ill-fated flight.

CNN's Gary Tuchman met with the pastor who is seeing the families through this very difficult time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are so many sad stories to tell here in Surabaya, Indonesia and this is just one of them. Involves a church, you know. Indonesia is the most populace Muslim nation in the world. But there's a small Christian denomination in this country that had nearly one-third of the passengers aboard this flight.

(voice-over): They are people who have something in common; they belong to the same protestant denomination. But as they come into a church sanctuary used by the police in Surabaya, Indonesia, they arrive with something else in common. They are all people who lost loved ones aboard AirAsia flight 8501.

The heartbroken people here are members of the charismatic Mawar Sharon Church with 45,000 members across Indonesia. Sadly, many of them had packed the flight to celebrate the New Year in Singapore. The (INAUDIBLE) is a church pastor.

Forty-six people from this church were on the plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TUCHMAN: That's almost one-third of the total people on the plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct. We put trust in God's hand.

TUCHMAN: The 46 members of the church were not all traveling together. It was just a coincidence so many of them ended up on this flight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something that's happened in our lives, sometimes we just don't understand what God's really intent. And in that way, we just put our trust completely in his hand because he's going to bring everything is the best for our life.

TUCHMAN: None of the bodies of the 46 members of the church have been recovered yet. The pastor telling me that until they are accounted for, they are in a place between life and death.

Church members prefer not to talk on camera. But sometimes you don't need to hear words because when you look at their faces you understand how they feel.

TUCHMAN: Our hearts go out to those people and all the family members, all 162 people aboard this AirAsia plane.

This is Gary Tuchman, CNN in sub area Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Thanks, Gary.

Now one working theory is that the jet stalled after climbing too steeply and then dropped into the Java Sea. Now, if that's what happened, the captain and the co-pilot would have had only seconds to react to something that they likely never experienced before.

CNN's Brianna Keilar spoke with Captain Chesley Sully Sullenberger who, as you know, successfully landed his crippled jet on the Hudson River five years ago after a bird strike. Brianna asked him what a pilot should do in the event of loss of power or stall.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHESLEY SULLENBERGER, FORMER U.S. AIRWAYS CAPTAIN: Well first, you maintain control of the airplane. And you learn to find out what you can trust and what you can't. If you have visual references, of course, if it is daylight and you are in clear of clouds, you can use the natural horizon. Otherwise use your flight instruments.

Recovering from a stall is something all pilots practice, mostly in smaller planes. In fact, you might not know that most airplane pilots have never stalled an airliner, certainly not intentionally. In our flight simulators, there are currently are not programmed to be able to practice a full stall up an airliner in the flight simulator.

I've had a chance to go the airbus factory in Tulles, France to fly with test pilots and especially I with airbus in under controlled conditions actually stalled the airplane. Something few airline pilots ever had the opportunity to do. But inadvertent stall at a high altitude in a cloud will be a very shocking series of events. So you have to respond very quickly. You have to correctly solve the problem. You never faced in reality before and get one chance to do it right. And that's why recent --

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Presumably --

SULLENBERGER: That's why recently improvements in safety rules have required that going forward we begin to practice doing that.

KEILAR: That makes total sense. And I am imagining when you went through that, in France, it was probably clear skies, very unusual circumstances that you had the chance to do that. But you're in clear skies. What did it feel like and what did you have to do to regain control?

SULLENBERGER: Well, again, in clear skies with flight instrumentation, more than most airplanes have with flight engineers monitoring your progress as well as the test flight in the other pilot seat. But it was really not a violent event at all. There was some shaking, some vibration as turbulence of the airflow over the wings began to occur as the airflow success disrupted as the angle of the air against the wing was too great. And then when you could feel a settling as you begin to lose lift and then you would quickly and responsively begin lowering the nose, lowering that angle that the wing makes with taxpayer and increasing thrust to recover.

But like I said a sudden unexpected stall in cloud in an unusual latitude be a different occurrence and much more challenging. And if it wasn't quickly handled, very quickly, it could lead to loss of control of the airplane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: What questions do you still have? We want to know. And our experts are here to answer them like has an oil slick been found. Did sonar pick up the tail fin? Your questions #8501QS and our experts answer next.

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CABRERA: As the search for AirAsia flight 8501 has unfolded, we have been asking what questions are on your mind and you've been answering us with your questions.

Joining to us give you some answers to those questions is CNN aviation analyst Les Abend. Les, is of course, a 777 captain, also a contributing editor to "Flying" magazine.

OK, Les, let's get ready to -- got quite a few this time. Our first question is about the flight data recorder. And this viewer asks, can you ask why the black box doesn't have a floatation device attached to it so it can float and be easily found.

ABEND: Yes, the military has such a thing. I mean, it is the technology is already there. Why don't we have in a commercial airlines, the only that contribute to is cost, perhaps cost. And because you have to weigh the benefit of this, this is what we call tomb stone technology. This is after the fact. You know, what now -- let's prevent the accident from happening rather than determining why it happened in the first place. But it's not a bad suggestion. This has come up before. Once again I think it's attributed --

CABRERA: Could it end up making it more difficult to find them, though, if it's floating on top? It could be a moving target then?

ABEND: Yes. That's true. It could make it. But once again if you recover the black boxes and they have a device that can you locate them, that would be a good thing.

CABRERA: Interesting.

OK, our second viewer question. Is it possible that the plane flipped and then lost control followed by that uncontrolled descent?

ABEND: Well, you know, the flipping part is little new. More than likely, you know, airplanes just don't flip. You know, they go into unusual latitudes. But you know, more than likely, we're looking at potential stall scenario, you know, where the airplane, the wings lose lift, doesn't mean the engines quit, it means the airplane stalled by losing lift. So that's more of a scenario rather than the airplane flipping.

CABRERA: Would that have made a difference, really, in terms of the outcome?

ABEND: Well, yes, could it have. If the airplane flipped and was not recoverable, it certainly would impact the water in a pretty bad state. And that being said if it did what we call flip and not exactly a technological term, but it did flipped, it would be on a lot more fragments than what we are finding.

CABRERA: I have a question from a viewer about regulations in this part of the word. It says can you ask if the Asian airlines have the same standard or governed by their version of the FAA. What are the differences?

ABEND: Yes, that's a great question. I'm not quite familiar with what their standards are. But the United States is the guidance for it. Now they follow the ICAO rules, the international civil aviation organization rules. You know, how they are regulated with their owned version of the FAA, I can't really answer that question.

CABRERA: All right. Then there is this one. If one of the passengers recorded that the last minutes of the plane on their phone camera, is it possible to recover that?

ABEND: I would think it would be because there is some hard drive capability on a cell phone. Salt water, of course, is going to damage that hard drive. But if it's kept in the salt water and then analyzed right away after its been immersed, you might be able to find some information on it. But, you know, this happened so quickly, I'm not sure a passenger was savvy enough, you know, to take out a cell phone and start filming.

CABRERA: That's a really good point. But we do know that some people, you know, still had their IDs on them. So maybe if their cell phone was in their pocket, that could be recovered.

ABEND: That's always a possibility.

CABRERA: What are your thoughts on the theory that the plane could have landed on the surface of the water and then broke apart in the high waves? I know we've discussed this a little bit. Where are you at now?

ABEND: You know, Dave Soucie and I have been talking about that possibility. It seems that there's more fragments that this wasn't -- it certainly wasn't a successful ditching if it occurred after, you know, with the sea sign after breaking apart. Chances are, it might have rolled over, maybe broke off a wing or an engine. But I don't think the seas themselves would have broken that airplane into pieces. I think we would have seen something not quite similar but analogous to the A320 that Captain Sullenberger just sky landed on the Hudson.

CABRERA: Got you.

I just want to say on this last one real quickly, asking about the tail of the plane, there have been reports there locally that it's possible the tail has been spotted by sonar. What would the tail of the plane contain? That's presumably where the black box is, right?

ABEND: It depends upon how much of it is back there. We call it the (INAUDIBLE) which includes the tail and all stuff and that part of fuselage. But, it would contain on the airbus A320, my understanding, is that there -- one of the black boxes or the recorders is all the way in the tail. The other is up near the bulkhead. So how much of the tail is there? I don't know, but those data recorders could be found and that would be good news.

CABRERA: And it could be a very vile part of the plane. All right.

ABEND: Absolutely.

CABRERA: Les Abend, thank you so much.

ABEND: My pleasure.

CABRERA: Up next, a teenager's last words, striking a chord all around the world. Josh Alcorn who, went by the name Leelah, wanted to live as a woman, as a girl, but he says his parents or her parents wouldn't stand for that. So she took her life. And now her mother is speaking out to CNN about her child's suicide note. Don't miss this story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CABRERA: I want to end this hour with a teenager's last words. They are striking a chord around the world. This 17-year-old came into this world as Joshua Alcorn. But after much confusion, discovery and despair left it as Leelah, hit by a big truck on an Ohio interstate in an apparent suicide. Leila sense of hopelessness is clear in the note she left online.

And it reads quote "please don't be sad. It's for the better. The life I would have lived isn't worth living in because I'm transgender. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy's body and I have felt that way ever since I was four. When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After ten years of confusion, I finally understood who I was."

Now Leelah finally told her mother, but quote "she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn't make mistakes, that I am wrong."

And Leelah ends her note sayings, "the only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was. They're treated like humans with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something."

Joining me now, Shane Morgan is founder and chair of the advocacy group, TransOhio.

Shane, thank you so much for your time. I know you have been in Leelah's shoes. Help us to better understand just how challenging this can be.

SHANE MORGAN, FOUNDER/CHAIR, TRANSOHIO: Well, I think that's when I transitioned, which was about 15 years ago, you know, things were quite a bit different. We didn't have necessarily the support groups and the organizations that we have today.

But being a transgender youth is complicated, especially if you're living under, you know, your parents' house and their rules. You know, sometimes those rules and the parents just don't understand, which is unfortunate. And I wish that Leelah could have still been here to understand that, you know, she didn't have to die for her life to mean something and that things may not have necessarily been OK, but things would have definitely changed.

CABRERA: And she talks about feeling so alone and just a sense of hopelessness. How did you break through? Did you ever have those feelings, too?

MORGAN: Yes, I did. And I think that still for me to think about that and think back to, you know, that time when I was in that really dark moment of despair which wasn't just one moment of despair, it went on for several years. I completely understand that.

And you know, thinking about it, I'm going to be 40 in a couple of months. And I'm still -- I'm very shocked that I'm here today. But I also feel very fortunate to be here today to, you know, meet the people that I have met and grown into the person that I've grown into and to be able to share stories and to do community work the way we do.

CABRERA: Leelah's parents have received a lot of backlash after her letter because in her suicide note she describes not feeling accepted, not feeling supported by her own parents. Here's what she told CNN, the mom, in an exclusive interview with us.

She says, we don't support that religiously. But we told, and she still refers to her child as her son, we told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what, I loved my son, and people need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy.

What's your response, Shane?

MORGAN: You know, I'm not surprised with how Leelah's mom is phrasing that, you know. I think one thing that we need to remember as a society, as a community, you know, anger is OK and grieving has to happen. At the end of the day, this family lost their child, you know, brothers and sisters lost their sibling. And we need to remember that. They need to grieve. And I think through that process, they'll also learn more about the experiences that Leelah was feeling and also probably the experiences about the Trans-community in general. I know that they've been receiving a lot of backlash and a lot of just, you know, unacceptable meanness. And it's not acceptable. It is an OK. You know, these folks have lost a child and we need to remember that.

CABRERA: Of course in the past few years, there has been seemingly a greater amount of acceptance of more people, states have passed laws to allow gay marriage, civil unions. Do you think society is progressing when it comes to being more inclusive, more accepting?

MORGAN: Of Trans people? I think that we're getting there. We have a long way to go. When we talk about identity documents and nondiscrimination and having laws that protect people in the workplace and laws to protect youth in schools and allowing people to really be themselves in whatever kind of form that looks like, you know, we live in a society that is really when you talk about Trans people and kind of stepping outside the typical binaries or the traditional binaries of masculinity and feminity (ph) or what it means to be a man or a woman, that those don't exist anymore. There is so much gray area and we need to really be accepting of that and supportive of our youth to explore that regardless of what that looks like.

CABRERA: Well, Shane Morgan, we really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks for your eloquent speaking and spending time with us today.

That does it for me. Thanks for being here on this Friday. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts now.