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Taiwan Plane Crash; Jordan Vows Retaliation; NYC Train Crash

Aired February 04, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me.

We have to begin with just this heart-stopping video of this plane crash. It is a crash that we now know has taken the lives of more than half the people on board, while others - look at this. I mean I've seen this so many times today, it's just -- you're speechless. The cab. Then it clips. They're just injured. Let me talk about those whose lives are lost, the number killed, we have just learned now stands at 31 people. A total of 58 were on board this TransAsia flight that was headed to a coastal town in China and its doomed conclusion was caught, as you can see, on someone's dash cam.

This is video that was obtained by our Taiwan affiliate TVBS (ph). And perhaps what is just incredible about this whole thing is the footage of the aftermath. The toddler you see here, we have him circled, the toddler and all the people around in this photo, they are among at least the 15 survivors and they are bloody, they are bruised but remarkably they are standing, seated here in this raft on their own. And they made it out of this.

Here again, the crash, but at a much, much slower speed. You can see how this ATR-72, this is a twin engine plane, hits this taxi, clips the bridge, goes over the side into this river. This is in the city of Taipei.

Little context for you. This is the second deadly crash TransAsia has experienced just in the last seven months. Family members of those on board were obviously quite distraught and angry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We had to contact the airline first. The airline didn't pay attention to us. They're busy confirming information. Their attitude is terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let me bring in our CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest.

And let's just begin with -

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BALDWIN: Other than it's so rare, you know, you were --

QUEST: That's the point about this. That is the point.

BANFIELD: The video.

QUEST: Think about every single plane crash where a plane falls out of the sky, this is what happens. The difference here, of course, is, we have real time pictures -

BALDWIN: We're seeing it.

QUEST: Which brings home the awfulness of it.

OK, now let's go through this in detail.

BALDWIN: What do you see?

QUEST: The -- well, let's start, the plane takes off. It gets to about 1,300 feet and then it starts to fall out of the sky. As it's doing so, we need to understand - we can see - we know the propellers are turning, although you can look on this particular one, you can't really see too closely on that last picture. The propellers were giving some form of turning, but obviously were not providing sufficient lift.

We believe that the pilot made a mayday call to say he'd lost one of the engines. That's not being confirmed. We haven't heard that yet.

BALDWIN: OK.

QUEST: If that's the case, then the issue becomes, why wasn't the aircraft able to continue to fly on one engine?

BALDWIN: Right.

QUEST: Which, of course, it's entitled to do and is built to do so. Then you're starting to look at how the plane was being piloted. As the plane stalls, starts to fall out of the sky, as you can see it's level and then the wing dips down quite dramatically to the left.

BALDWIN: Why is that? Because I've heard other people saying maybe it's because the pilot was aware and tried to ditch away from the city, away from the tall buildings, away from the people. It's just too early to tell?

QUEST: That -- I mean it's straight -- it's flying straight to there and then that turn. Maybe he was trying to aim for the river. Maybe he was trying to turn away from the buildings. We don't know. Or it could have been an aerodynamic effect of one of the propellers not turning, not being feathered properly. It could have been a drag. It could have been the rudder. There are a thousand and one reasons why that plane might have suddenly done that very sharp left turn back, which took it off to the side.

BALDWIN: Why is it that incredibly a number of people survived? Was that just based upon where they were seated in this aircraft as it hit the water?

QUEST: Luck.

BALDWIN: Luck.

QUEST: Pure, unadulterated luck. It's where they were seated in the aircraft. Now there will be some people who will happily be tweeting me saying, ah, but we've heard it's safer to sit at the back than to sit at the front because the front hits first, but then you've got tail strikes. The reality is, the statistical difference of where you're sitting in the plane is so small that you really wouldn't want to base any judgment upon that.

In this situation, the plane hits the wall, goes into the river first and the front part of the fuselage goes under the water. Look at where the plane is in the water and you see it the - well, we had it just there a second ago. That's the propeller. It looks like it stopped turning. But it probably hasn't. My microphone looks like it's just fallen off.

BALDWIN: Oh. Oh.

QUEST: Which it has. Bear with me. Here we go.

BALDWIN: No worries.

QUEST: Soon sort that out. On we go. And you see, it looks as if the propeller stopped turning, but it's hard to tell from this particular picture -

BALDWIN: Too tough to tell.

QUEST: Of its exact (INAUDIBLE). But it's the front of the aircraft that eventually goes into the water first and that's what happened.

BALDWIN: To your point, I mean, this is exactly what planes look like when they crash, but it's just so rare that we actually see footage like this.

QUEST: I mean this is what MH 370 would have looked like when it went into the ocean.

BALDWIN: Yes.

QUEST: This is what AirAsia -

BALDWIN: Right.

QUEST: 8501 would have looked like, but you never see it like that.

BALDWIN: All right, Richard Quest, thank you.

Earth-shaking retaliation. That is what a key U.S. ally is vowing after the horrific murder of one of its own. The Jordanian fighter pilot, 27 years of age, Muath al-Kasaesbeh, caged and burned alive. If ISIS wanted to repulse the world with this shocking video, it succeeded. But if it wanted to terrorize Jordan into banning the U.S.- led offensive, well then ISIS failed. Jordan's king and his top tier security officials just met, declaring a quote/unquote "relentless war" against ISIS. Already now Jordan has executed by hanging the Iranian suicide bomber whose freedom ISIS had demanded, along with another jihadi prisoner, both with ties to the originators of the terror group. This swift revenge here savored by the dead pilot's father and he says he wants more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAFI AL-KASAESBEH, FATHER OF MURDERED PILOT (through translator): I demand that revenge should be bigger than executing prisoners. I demand that this criminal organization dies (ph), should be annihilated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, Atika Shubert.

Atika, let's just begin with, hearing the pilot's father, you know, calling for his government to execute all prisoners with any ISIS links. I mean when you look at the numbers, that could mean 250 Islamic militants currently in prison, two others on death row. What are you hearing about the potential of future expedited executions?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's certainly a possibility, but I do think we have to remember that these are -- that the two that were executed earlier this morning had already been convicted and were already on death row. It's simply that for a while Jordan had suspended the death penalty for a while. Clearly, it resumed again this morning. So we could see further executions.

But what we are more likely to see is a ramping up of air strikes carried out by Jordanian planes. In fact, a U.S. official has told CNN that Jordan has specifically requested to do more air strikes. So that is working its way up the coalition command structure even as we speak.

But there is no question that King Abdullah is under tremendous pressure to hit ISIS and hit ISIS hard. The big question is going to be whether or not public opinion will hold for the next few days, weeks, and months. What we could see is a change of opinion if, for example, another pilot is downed, if another family finds itself in the same traumatic position. ISIS may not only be trying to disrupt the Jordanian governments in the coalition, but trying to drive a wedge between the public and the government.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Also, Atika, in the wake of the brutality in this particular video with this pilot, you know, one of the big concerns of the other hostages that ISIS has, particularly the two western hostages, do we know anything about the two of them?

SHUBERT: We do know that ISIS has been holding a number of hostages. And we know, for example, from President Obama's interview with NBC recently that there is a woman hostage, a female hostage, being held by ISIS currently. We believe she's an aid worker, 26 years of age, and that she was kidnapped around August of 2013, but that's really all that we can say at this point.

And, of course, the other hostage, western hostage that is well-known is John Cantlie. This is the British journalist who is featured in a number of ISIS propaganda videos. And he's an unusual case because he features very prominently giving these sort of reports, these sort of mock news reports from inside Kobani, inside the ISIS heartland. So what the position is of these two hostages remains unclear and how to get them out is another matter altogether.

BALDWIN: Atika Schubert, thank you so much.

Coming up next, you will hear from a man who survived being held a prisoner by ISIS. Find out what he is saying, including one detail, the fact that his captors never ever mentioned the Koran.

Plus, a train collides with an SUV, causing the deadliest crash in the history of one New York rail system. We'll speak live with someone who survived this.

And in the murder trial of a former NFL star, Aaron Hernandez, the victim's mother takes the stand today and it actually gets awkward from the very first question. We'll share that with you.

Stay with me. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Just in to us, we are now hearing about this chilling new video that's just been released showing ISIS supporters in the unofficial ISIS capital of Raqqa in Syria apparently cheering as they were sitting around and watching the video of the caged Jordanian pilot burned alive. In fact, apparently, at one point, a child says he would, quote, "burn the pilot" himself if he had a chance.

In Jordan, the video of the pilots demise was met with prayers and protests. Much of this anger centers not just on this 27-year-old's death, but the way he was killed, burned, an act condemned by the Prophet Mohammed in the Hadif (ph). A little surprise to a man who spent more than 10 months as an ISIS hostage, who says despite what they preach, these captors, these ISIS militants. They care little about religion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIDLER FRANCOIS, FORMER ISIS PRISONER: But it was more hammering what they were believing than teaching us about the Koran because they don't (ph) seem to use a Koran. They didn't even have the Koran. They didn't (INAUDIBLE) to give us a Koran. So it's not that -- it has nothing to do with Koran.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So these are not religious fanatics?

FRANCOIS: No, it is - it is what they believe, what they think and they try to hammer it into you because that's what they trust (ph). I mean it has nothing to do with (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Hmm. Let's talk about that with Fawaz Gerges. He's the author of "The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World." He's also the chair of contemporary and Middle East studies at the London School of Economics.

Fawaz, it's truly a pleasure to have you on.

FAWAZ GERGES, AUTHOR, "THE NEW MIDDLE EAST": Mine too, Brooke, thank you.

BALDWIN: Let's just begin. That was a hostage who was speaking with Christiane Amanpour and here he was saying, you know, in his time being held by these captors, he never once heard or saw any mention of anything from the Koran. I mean point being, this is not noble Islam as King Abdullah has said.

GERGES: Brooke, for your own American viewers, if you want to understand the so-called Islamic state or ISIS by looking at the standard theology, I think you're missing the big picture. This is not about Islam. This is not about religion. It's about the twisted interpretation of the faith. It's about power. It's about supremacy. It's about creating their own vision or rather nightmare.

And, yes, they use religion, but they use religion according to their own interpretation. Take, for example, the methodology, the barbaric and savage methodology of burning Muath al-Kasaesbeh, the captured Jordanian pilot. Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of Islamic scholars, of Islamic thinkers, of theorists basically prohibit such a thing. This is the ultimate crime in Islam. Only God, Muslim scholars and theorists say, only God can really use fire. And yet ISIS - what does ISIS say, they rely on a single radical preacher called Ebantania (ph).

A long time ago, for your own viewers, who said, quote/unquote, "if they kill you, you kill them. If they burn you, you burn them." So one particular radical religious preacher use and abused by ISIS in order to do this savage killing.

And the reason why we should not really focus on religion, the idea, the strategy behind it is to strike terror and fear in the hearts of the people of the states that are basically part of the international coalition to basically convince their followers, the rank and file, that the so-called Islamic State is standing tall, resilient, strong, bleeding the nose of its enemies. So it's not religion here. It's about politics, about using barbaric methods in order to terrorize its enemies and basically go off (ph) and convince its cheerleaders that basically it's winning.

I mean in Arabic -

BALDWIN: But -

GERGES: Final point, Brooke. I know time is very limited. BALDWIN: Yes.

GERGES: The title in Arabic, the title of the video in which Muath al- Kasaesbeh was burned, was called an Arabic (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) In Arabic means to unburden the chest, to cure, cleanse the chest out of hate. This is what's really all about is to basically provide the rank and file of ISIS with this particular brutal message, to convince them that all the setbacks in Kobani, in Iraq, of course, forget about everything, we are still winning, we're killing the enemies of our, you know, Islamic, the so-called Islamic State.

BALDWIN: But, Fawaz, despite the barbarism, and you perfectly explaining how this is against, you know, the religious teachings, how many of these militants or even jihadi wannabes are truly scholars? I mean do you think - because we talked about, there is a video now of others standing around cheering on the burning of this young pilot. I mean do you think this could be a moment where some members of ISIS could say, enough is enough? I can't imagine it would, sadly.

GERGES: No, Brooke, I'm sorry to say, I hope and I pray that but this is once you're part of ISIS, we have reports in the last few months that there's some internal bleeding. More and more in particular foreign fighters are basically trying to get out of this particular hellish place. But still a very, very small flow of young people. But one of the studies, I mean, I - as you know, I've written a lot on this particular phenomenon. We did a study on basically what do potential jihadists who go to Iraq and Syria, what kind of books they basically buy, the purchase before they join this particular organization? I would have thought they would purchase books by Islamic thinkers, by theorists, by extremist militants.

BALDWIN: Right.

GERGES: Guess what books they purchase? Islam 101.

BALDWIN: Right, Islam for dummies, I've heard people say.

GERGES: Islam 101. Their - what does it tell you? They can be brainwashed. They can be basically taught whatever I mean ISIS wants and that's exactly what ISIS is trying to do, to convince them that they are the interpreter, that they are -- basically they have the most authentic vision of Islam. And, yes, it's a big problem because when we're talking about 32,000 or 40,000 fighters in the ranks of ISIS, this is a very serious phenomenon and this is a very complex and costly fight. It's not just about military, it's about ideology. How do you respond? How do you counterbalance this basically savage vision of the faith and humanity as well?

BALDWIN: Let me ask -- let - let me ask you about response, specifically from Jordan. I mean every single expert I had on the show yesterday, I asked, in the wake of this video, do you think that Jordan will expedite the execution of this failed female suicide bomber? Every one of them said no, it is not Jordan's way. Instead, we now know Jordan hanged two people who were on death row. Your response to that? GERGES: I'm sorry to say, I was not surprised. We had known that

Jordan was going to execute in, you know, a day before, in fact. There's a great deal, as you know, Brooke, a great deal of anger, a great deal of rage, a great deal many calls in Jordan for event, even the father, as you had him on your show. I mean you had a quote by him. He not only wants revenge in terms of basically executing militant extremists, but he wants basically a deeper evolvement in the war against ISIS.

My fear, and this is my fear, Brooke, is that this is not -- Jordan should not really fall into the trap of ISIS. Jordan should not really act out of, you know, in order to really - to exact vengeance against ISIS. Jordan is a state, a respectable state, respect the judicial system, values, and rules. But the reality is, in the short-term, my take on it, you're going to see a more intensified Jordanian participation in the American-led coalition. In the long-term, well, there is -- there are question marks because they reel (ph) a position among Jordanians for really a deep and prolonged involvement in the fight against ISIS.

BALDWIN: Fawaz Gerges, please come back. You have written so much about this, author of "The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World," also with the London School of Economics. Thank you so much, sir. We'll see you again.

GERGES: Thanks, Brooke. Thanks. Thanks.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, the deadliest crash in the history of one New York rail system after a train crashes into an SUV. I'll talk to a passenger who was on that very train, what it was like in those moments after the crash when passengers scrambled to escape.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It is now considered the deadliest accident in the history of New York's Metro North commuter rail system. This was a collision between a train and this SUV, the SUV driver stuck on the tracks at the height of rush hour. A county official telling CNN the railroad safety gate came down onto this car. The driver got out, tried to lift the gate up. She managed to get back into her car. But within mere moments, that is when the train hit. The collision was so incredibly intense, it pushed the SUV 400 feet, knocked the third rail of the track into the first train car. Investigators say five people inside that first cab were killed, mostly burned beyond recognition. Witnesses describe the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARC WELTE, PASSENGER ON TRAIN THAT CRASHED: There was a passenger that ran past me. He had blood on his face. And people were pulling the windows off, trying to get out through the emergency windows, screaming, yelling. It was just total panic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): And once I knew the train was kind of on fire and they weren't giving any instructions, that's when I knew it was time to get off. And I guess people that were by the doors, they, you know, broke open the glass, opened up the emergency doors where I eventually made my way out of the car, which was also very difficult because I think there was, you know, maybe 12 inches of snow on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That last passenger you just heard from, we'll actually be talking to him live in our next hour. But first, joining me now, another passenger, Alex Bernier. He was on the passenger - on that train, and he's with me today. In fact, he just told me, he took the train into the city to be with me. So not afraid of that despite being part of what we just saw, the deadliest accident ever. My goodness. I'm glad you're OK.

ALEX BERNIER, PASSENGER ON TRAIN THAT CRASHED: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thank you for coming in. So you were the third car back.

BERNIER: Correct.

BALDWIN: Describe for me what you heard, what you saw when it hit.

BERNIER: Well, a lot of commuters, we have our headphones on, kind of zoned out for that hour, so I was listening to an album in and out of sleep and the train pushed me back in my seat way more severe than I had ever experienced. Then -- and I took my --

BALDWIN: Pretty sharply?

BERNIER: Yes. And almost like skidding, it was happening so fast. And at that point I took my headphones out and it was silent on the train. Usually you can hear some humming, like the h-vac, and there was no noise. So all the other commuters in our car were looking around. And at that point the conductor announced that we had struck a car and to stand by. And shortly after that --

BALDWIN: Hang on. When you heard that, when the conductor comes over the speaker and said you hit a car, did you understand what that meant at the time?

BERNIER: It made sense, but I didn't get the magnitude of the condition of the front car. And no one in the back cars really did till we got outside.

BALDWIN: How did you begin the process of getting out of the train? Was there an orderly evacuation? Were you just bailing out the windows? How did that work?

BERNIER: Well, shortly after that announcement, people started pushing through from the front of the train, maybe the second car, and they said it smelled like gas, and to move towards the back. So I grabbed my stuff and joined the crowd. And at that point we were all kind of pushing towards the back, waiting for instructions.