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Prosecutor: "Deliberate Attempt" to Crash Germanwings Flight 9525. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 26, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:00] ALYSIN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to go now to CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson. He is live at the staging area in the French Alps.

What do we know, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what the prosecutor has told us all now, he's also told the families of the victims. And they'll be arriving here, which is the closest location they're going to be taken to today in the next couple of hours. Closest location for crash site.

So what the prosecutor has said, as he considers Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot, to have acted intentionally to put the plane into descent. He put it to descend at 1,000 meters, that's 3,000 feet a minute. That he intentionally continued to keep the door of the cockpit closed and shut and locked, stopping the pilot getting in.

And he tells us also some very alarming, and these will be the difficult details that the family of the victims will be digesting today. And that is in the last minute or so on that audio recording in the cockpit, screams can be heard. And the prosecutor believes these are screams of the passengers as they realize what is happening in the last minute of the descent. He says, of course, that death was instantaneous.

The prosecutor says he doesn't consider this a suicide. He says, how can it be suicide if 150 people are aboard that aircraft? This was an intentional act, an intentional act to bring the plane down.

CAMEROTA: Nic, it is so, so devastating to think about those final moments and, actually, all of those 10 minutes of what was going on onboard that flight.

Thank you for the update.

We want to get right now to Karl Penhaul. He joins us by phon. He was in that news conference in Marseilles when the prosecutor made all of these revelations.

Karl, what's the latest there?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Well, the French prosecutor Brice Robin dropping an absolute bombshell in that press conference. Of course perhaps he had to come clean with the media after press leaks suggested part of this information overnight. But nevertheless, it left many journalists open mouthed and shaking their heads.

The core message that the prosecutor delivered was that the co-pilot crashed this plane in a deliberate act. He said -- the prosecutor said having read a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder, said for the first 20 minutes, that flight was absolutely normal. A conversation between the pilot and co-pilot being carried out in German was cordial and professional.

It was only when the pilot began to brief the co-pilot on the routine about how to descend into Dusseldorf Airport that the prosecutor said that the co-pilot became laconic, in his words. Only brief responses, quite calm, quite quiet. It was after that that the pilot got up and left the cockpit. We don't know why. And at that point, the prosecutor says that the co-pilot automatically locked the door, took manual control of the levers. The prosecutor also says that the co- pilot dialed in the descent and then proceeded to crash the plane.

Now, also, judging by the information from the cockpit voice recorder, the prosecutor said that the plane bumped on part of the mountain first, deflected off, and then made the final crash. And in the last few instance on the cockpit voice recorder, you hear the passengers scream.. They appear to have been aware of what was going on. And throughout the last eight minutes, also according to prosecutors, the pilot making repeated efforts to get back into that cockpit.

First of all, communicating with a co-pilot via video intercom. And then banging on the door. And in the final moments, trying to kick in the armored door to try and get back into the cockpit, all to no avail.

The other key thing the prosecutor says is that according to the cockpit voice recorder, there is no sign that the co-pilot was unwell. He said there was nothing to indicate that the co-pilot was suffering a stroke or a heart attack, saying that his breathing sounded normal throughout.

Back to you.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Karl Penhaul. There's so much to process here. We want to turn to our panel, Richard Quest, our CNN aviation correspondent. David Soucie is alongside him, CNN safety analyst, former FAA safety inspector. Tom Fuentes also joins us, he's a CNN law enforcement analyst and a former assistant director for the FBI.

We couldn't do this without Mary Schiavo. She is CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportaiton.

And Mary, I'll begin with you. So often we are so hopeful that the voice recorder, the cockpit voice recorder will be recovered. They have found it, it has revealed a tremendous amount of information, first and foremost, that this was indeed deliberate. MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, and certainly the French

BEA --I mean I've worked previous cases where they were the investigative agency and there, you know, quite competent. And at the press conference yesterday when the investigator was asked from the BEA about those last eight minutes, he seemed shaken, he seemed clearly he'd heard something but he would not comment.

[09:05:02] So I suspect that this is -- this is correct and what they have revealed to us will turn out to be the case because it's the BEA and the prosecution. But at this point, this is a criminal investigation. So the criminal prosecutors will be the lead agency. The BEA will continue their work, the recovery of the remains will continue. But it's vitally important that they start grabbing every piece of criminal evidence.

You know, when I was a prosecutor, when something like this would happen, you send all your criminal agents out to start grabbing information, Facebook pages, social media, anything at the airline, all of the records at the airline. I mean, this is a major criminal investigation now.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Mary. So we're going to need more information. We heard from the prosecutor. That was big. We're going to hear from the CEO of Germanwings. That's going to happen at 9:30 Eastern Standard Time.

We know we have our viewers in the U.S. and around the world to consider right now. So again, that's 9:00 Eastern Standard Time. 9:30 Eastern Standard Time. Of course, we'll take that full here. But let's get back to the main consideration right now.

What happened is now much less in doubt, according to the French prosecutor. The big question is now, why they believe this happened.

And, Richard, what is the first main clue that takes this prosecutor in the direction of a deliberate act in his own words?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The initiation of the descent. The way in which he put it, he dialed in the descent.

CUOMO: More important than the captain being locked out?

QUEST: Yes.

CUOMO: Because?

QUEST: Because the way the prosecutor put it, he first of all put it in terms of the first officer took advantage, to use his words -- took advantage of the captain leaving the cockpit. He then, he says, locks the door. He doesn't respond. No word, not a word, not a single word.

I wrote it down. No response, silence, and he dials in the descent. So it's one thing just to lock the guy out, it's another thing to initiate the process that's going to take the plane to the ground. CAMEROTA: Another detail that we just heard from Karl Penhaul. And I

want to ask you if you know about this, David, it was that the pilot was trying to communicate with the co-pilot in the cockpit. Once the pilot was locked outside, he said, through a video intercom. Is there video where they can see each other?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: You know, I thought previously because of the year this aircraft that it didn't have it. But obviously it's been retrofitted with it if that's what the case is. So with that --

CAMEROTA: So when you're outside the cockpit, you can see into the cockpit?

SOUCIE: Right.

QUEST: Just as common just by the door. He was probably just trying to attract his attention.

SOUCIE: So that takes off the table for me the fact that the guy didn't know how to get in the cockpit because if he didn't know to get into cockpit and then the co-pilot was doing his normal job, he would've looked at the video and said, oh, let me let you in.

CAMEROTA: I see.

SOUCIE: And unlock it.

CAMEROTA: You can see outside of the cockpit.

SOUCIE: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I understand.

SOUCIE: Right.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

PEREIRA: Another interesting point that I found is what they've learned from -- this is for the benefit of the people just joining us now, that the co-pilot was alive until impact, that he was heard breathing, which seems an odd thing to hear or to listen for. But it's important, right, Richard, because they hear him breathing, quote-unquote, normally. One would think that if an emergency is happening, you'll get short of breath, you might panic a little bit, make some noise, say something, ask for help.

QUEST: There's four or five microphones, one of which is actually on the headset of the -- of the first officer. So yes, you're listening, and what he said is, he said those -- the breathing was normal. It was not the breathing of somebody who was having a stroke or a heart attack or, basically, a medical emergency.

CUOMO: Now Tom -- let me bring you in, Tom Fuentes, because you had an interesting insight into what doesn't seem commonsense about this with breathing. We, as we're discussing, would think that we'd be very panicked if we were in this kind of situation, if we were at all conscious. You say, not necessarily, why?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, what I say is that the person has made the decision. And once the final decision is made to commit what is going to be a mass murder along with his own personal suicide, oftentimes we see just a calmness come over that person. Decision's made, there's no more strife. There's no more turmoil, mentally, with them. They've decided what they're going to do, they just calmly go about doing it.

CUOMO: The prosecutor also said, Tom --

FUENTES: And we've seen that in many cases.

CUOMO: He said, I don't see this as terrorism yet, in part, probably yielding to -- we just learned this information. His guys are just digging in. But we also haven't heard from any groups, right? Usually they would like to somewhat early on take credit for something like this in their own perverse way.

What are the first few steps that they have to take to figure out what this was about for the co-pilot?

FUENTES: Well, they'll go about what they would have been already doing. And that is getting the co-pilot's any social media postings, phone calls, e-mails, contacts with friends, neighbors, family to try to determine if there's any affiliation with a group or any desire to be affiliated with a group that might cause a motivation to do it or whether there's any signs of personal mental problems or personal strife in his life. Maybe going through a divorce, maybe about to be fired.

You know, any number of things that could be going on for that person personally to make them want to do this. But, again, they're not committing just suicide as the prosecutor mentioned. They're committing mass murder.

[09:10:01] And I'd like to add one more thing. The French system of justice, unlike the U.S., if this was in the United States, the criminal investigation involving crime person aboard an aircraft, the FBI has the jurisdiction. In the French system, the prosecutor runs the investigation or the investigative magistrate. So they direct the police. If the police don't direct themselves and that's a different system of justice from the American system.

PEREIRA: Great information for us there, Tom. We appreciate that. Because we know there are some differences when you're looking at these international issues.

Mary, I want to talk about, speaking -- jumping off what Tom brought up about looking into the background of digital footprint of this pilot. The co-pilot. It occurs to me, the talk about that this was a situation you took advantage of. When the pilot left the cockpit. So it almost seems like a crime of opportunity because I would imagine I've been on two-hour flights when I've never seen the pilot leave the cockpit.

You can't necessarily plan that that they're going to leave.

SCHIAVO: Well, and it was a short, and relatively speaking, it was a short flight. But, you know, in the United States of America, pilots can bid on certain routes and they can bid to where at different pilots depending upon their seniority and their seniority number. So some pilots say well, I -- you know, bid to fly with this one. Bid to fly -- there was a recent accident in the U.S. where there's a lot of information that came out that pilots were bidding not to fly with a particular pilot, in that case because of skills and personality, not because of anything criminal tendencies or anything like that.

Didn't mean to suggest that. But it would be interesting to know what Lufthansa and what Germanwings system is as to who gets paired with who in the flight. Now usually, you know, they say, well, there's a problem if you pair a very, very senior officer with a very junior. But here, 6,000 hours is not that senior. Six hundred hours is very junior. But we'll want to know from Lufthansa and Germanwings what their system was for who gets paired with whom.

And also, the most important thing I want to hear in this press conference is, what was their policy of allowing someone to be alone in that cockpit? Because that just does not happen in most major aviation nations.

PEREIRA: And of course maybe the co-pilot asked the pilot to go out and get him something and we just don't know what the scenario was to make him leave. But one of the most heart-wrenching, you know, heart- wrenchig thing about all of this is to hear the prosecutor say, that yes, in fact the, passengers did know what was happening because it was captured on the cockpit voice recorder.

He said that that's something that the families, of course, wanted to know if their loved ones suffered. And he had to answer to them. They only knew, he said, in the final moments because it was -- it was not a rapid descent. So in the final moments, he knew that they knew because he could hear their screaming.

QUEST: And there is nothing one can add to the -- we've all flown, we've all been on descent. We can now imagine what -- or maybe we can't imagine because the horror of it, of what that descent would have been like when you realize that it's early, it's continuing, there's been no announcement, and the ground is coming towards.

CUOMO: Right. And to -- you know, keep what we don't know in perspective, and there's plenty of that, by the way. From the interest of the humanity of the situation and the dignity of those who lost their lives on that plane, I think it was good that the prosecutor was light on detail about what he knows about what those passengers dealt with.

What he tells the families, that's something separate. Our fascination right now should be on why this happened and that's what we're doing this morning. There's a lot of information coming in that's new. There are two additional press conferences scheduled that have been scheduled. We're going to take both of them for you here live at CNN. It'll be

continuing coverage of this remarkable turn of events in the crash of Flight 9525. Let's continue our coverage right now. We have our man Anderson Cooper in the chair for you in New York -- Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Chris, thanks very much.

Good morning, everyone. I want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world.

We are following the breaking news this hour with the jaw-dropping development. Stunning developments in the crash of flight 9525. Just minutes ago, a lead investigator wrapping up a news conference confirming the greatest fears, the crash which killed 150 people, appears to have been a deliberate act. Just as horrifying, it was carried out by a co-pilot locked alone inside the cockpit, intentionally locked alone.

Right now, we're seeing first images of police at the home of that co- pilot in Montabaur, Germany. These early findings gleaned from the flight voice recorder.

Now here's the French prosecutor heading the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRICE ROBIN, MARSEILLE PUBLIC, PROSECUTOR: At that time, the co-pilot is alone at the controls. That is when he's alone. The co-pilot manipulates the flight monitoring system controls to accelerate the descent of the aircraft. In the last eight minutes, this aircraft went from maybe 10,000, 12,000 meters, 30,000 feet to virtually 2,000 meters and the mountain that it hit is between 1,500 and 2,500 meters high.

[09:15:02] So he used this button for -- to lose the altitude for reasons that are totally unknown at the moment, but which could be analyzed as a deliberate attempt to destroy the aircraft.

We hear several requests from the pilot asking to have access to the cockpit using what is called a cockpit call system, which is intercommunication system. He identifies himself, but there's no response from the co-pilot. So he knocked to ask for the door to be opened, and there was no response from the co-pilot.

And then we hear a noise of breathing in the cabin, and we will hear that until the final impact. I reckon that the victims only became aware of what was going on at the very last moment -- let me finish -- because on the tape, the sound that we're hearing, the screams are only in the very last moments before impact.

So, we can conclude that in all circumstances, it's deliberate. At the moment, I consider it to be deliberate. First of all, refusing entry to the cockpit. Second, maneuvering the lever for loss of altitude, we've said not so much, but it is 1,000 meters a minute as if he was landing.

We're above the mountains, aren't we? So, and there's no other airport, which could receive an Airbus 320 anywhere near.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Two deliberate acts, he was talking about by the co-pilot refusing reentry of the pilot into the cockpit, though the pilot himself was trying to break the door down yelling trying to get in over the course of the time, the eight minutes it took to crash that plane, as well as the steering of the plane, the initiating of the descent of the aircraft.

We are expecting a lot more information in about 15 minutes or so. We're going to hear from the airline, and we'll carry, obviously, that news conference live.

But first, I want to go to our Karl Penhaul who is at the news conference. He's on the phone from Marseilles, France.

Really, a stunning development. We got wind of this last night, Karl, with the "New York Times" first breaking the news based on one source. But at that point, it wasn't clear whether, perhaps, the co-pilot had been incapacitated in some way through a medical emergency. Now, the French prosecutor staying very clearly this was a deliberate act.

PENHAUL (via telephone): Yes, absolutely, Anderson. In many ways, the French prosecutor Brice Robin was forced to come out and give an open and frank press conference because of those overnight leaks. In fact, the prosecutor said he'd only seen the final and full translated transcript of the cockpit voice recorder in the early hours of this morning. So, certainly, an action to kind of contain the damage from those leaks.

But when he did make his announcements, it was a bombshell. And it left many of the journalists standing here in the press room with their mouths open and shaking their head. And the prosecutor was categoric, he was very firm, and he didn't mince his words to say that he believes that this was a deliberate act by the co-pilot.

When asked if the co-pilot could've fallen unwell after the pilot had left the cockpit, again, he was pretty categoric on that, as well. He said that there was nothing to indicate that the co-pilot had fallen ill, he said the cockpit voice recorder transcript suggested that the co-pilot continued to breathe normally and said there was nothing indicative of the co-pilot suffering a stroke or as a heart attack.

That's why he's concluding that the co-pilot carried out a very deliberate act to take manual control of levers, to dial in the rate of descent, and deliberately crash the aircraft.

Also, he was saying about how the aircraft crashed. He said if it came down, only in the last moments do you hear passengers begin to scream at that point. They realized what was going on. At that same time, you hear the pilot desperate, trying to try to tear down the door back into the cockpit because --

COOPER: Karl -- I've got to interrupt you. We're going to take the German transport minister who's speaking now. Let's listen. ALEXANDER DOBRINDT, GERMAN TRANSPORT MINISTER (through translator):

We have close contact with Lufthansa and also discuss questions of the accident with regard to conclusions. Lufthansa is actively helping with these questions and Lufthansa is cooperating closely with us.

[09:20:07] In the coming days and hours, we will, of course, need this good communication in order to investigate properly and then have the appropriate conclusions.

The French public prosecutor explained today in detail a lot, and this is, indeed, shocking.

Are there concrete surveillance operations for pilots? Especially with regard to the co-pilot that there possibly could have been details. Of course, there are medical examinations and other examinations of pilots at any time.

These are data which are made available to Lufthansa, data that the prosecution service, of course, will request. But we, the federal ministry, do not have access to that.

Minister, do you have any clues with regard to the door to the cockpit, any analysis? Any more details?

The technology of the doors was as follows. There was always the opportunity to open a door from the inside. And if that is not possible, then you can open the door from the outside via code. Otherwise, the door is blocked, explicitly.

This procedure has been introduced. And a lot of aircraft have been refitted in that way to make aircraft safer.

Did the co-pilot say anything?

Do you have any more statements?

When the captain, the pilot left the cockpit, that was when the flight reach a certain altitude. At this point in time, we do not have any details with regard to the time when the captain left the cockpit if there had been any conversations. The French public prosecutions are investigating. There were no talks, no words. We do not have any knowledge of that.

COOPER: A statement by a German transport minister.

Again, we are awaiting a press conference, anticipated about six minutes from now, Lufthansa and Germanwings joint press conference, looking to hear more details, though, they seem to be as surprised as anyone.

Last night, Lufthansa when we contacted them based on the leaks to the "New York Times", indicating that this had been either an intentional act, or some sort of emergency in the cockpit that one of the pilots have been locked out. They said they had no information on this.

So, we'll be waiting to hear what they have to say this morning. I want to bring in our panel, CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest is with us, CNN safety analyst David Soucie and Mary Schiavo, also CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, and retired airline pilot and airline safety expert John Ransom.

Richard, stunning developments. And we talk about this an awful lot last night. But we are starting to learn new details and you juxtapose the screams of the passengers in the final minutes with the silence from inside the cockpit, the calm, steady breathing of the co- pilot heard.

[09:25:02] QUEST: I made a list of what he said. He took -- the prosecutor told us. He took -- the co-pilot, the first officer took advantage of the captain leaving. He locked the door. He started the descent.

We're getting numbers this morning from the auto pilot showing how he started that descent. He moved the autopilot from 38,000 feet to 100 feet. That initiated the descent down. I consider it deliberate.

Never have we heard anything of this magnitude.

COOPER: There had been two other instances that we talked about, David Soucie, last night. We discussed Egypt Air and also I believed was SilkAir, that was believed to be by one of the pilots.

SOUCIE: Right.

COOPER: But this, not an immediate crash, this was a relatively slow descent when you think about it. Eight minutes into the side of the mountain.

SOUCIE: Definitely a different pattern here. There's a slow deliberative attempt to calmness and the fact it was controlled all the way down. Just think about that maneuver. You know, there has to be something that went haywire to be able to say, for nine minutes, to sit there knowing with intent what you're doing --

COOPER: Tom Fuentes, what we do not know at this point, which the Marseilles prosecutor was not able to address, which no doubt investigators is now on the top of their list is a motive here, the motive of this co-pilot. Was this something that the co-pilot had preplanned? Had thought about in the -- thought about, had planned to do on this day on this flight? Or was it simply something that, perhaps, they'd thought about, but took the opportunity when the pilot went up to go to the bathroom?

FUENTES: Anderson, we may never know the answer to what was in his head, unless he had postings on social media or disclosed to family members, friends, colleagues, some other person or persons that he may do something like this, or they discovered that he belonged to some extreme group that may have been a motivator for him to do something like this.

But if he just decided this on his own, even if he preplanned it for a while to do it on his own and didn't share that with anybody, he's going to take that information to his grave. And we're not going to know.

COOPER: It is possible, and the prosecutor said there's no evidence of terrorism at this point. No evidence that this is not motivated by some sort of desire to make a statement about something.

FUENTES: Well, we just don't know. I mean, that's just premature. They don't know yet. They'll do, obviously, a tremendous extensive investigation to look into his background, to try to figure out what may -- what he may have been thinking, what motive there may be. At this point, they just don't have that. And don't want to speculate.

COOPER: Our Fred Pleitgen is standing by outside where the Germanwings press conference is going to be taking place.

Fred, you and I talked about 12 hours or so ago on my broadcast last night. You had gotten a statement from Lufthansa which was them not denying "The New York Times" initial reporting on this, but essentially saying they did not have any information. Clearly, now, they have this information from the prosecutor.

Do we know when they were informed?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they were certainly informed at some point late last night. I spoke to one of the representatives for Lufthansa early this morning or just after we got here, and he said, you have to understand that the situation has now changed for us, as well.

So, it does appear that at the time, we were broadcasting yesterday, they might not have had the full information or at least might not have been in a position yet to disclose the full information at that point in time.

Now, of course, we do expect to hear a lot more information from them, especially on who exactly this co-pilot was, what he was -- what his experience was, whether or not there might have been some sort of incidents in the past, as well. Certainly, we're getting information from the flying club that he was apparently a part of in the town of Montabaur, that said that he was a positive individual, he was someone who loved flying.

For him, this was very much a dream job. He was 28 years old, he was also part of a recreational flying club, as well. And there are some media reports here in Germany also here, Anderson, stating that people saw no sign of any sort of psychological trauma or any sort of psychological issues with them.

Of course, that's something that we're going to be looking into in the next couple of days, as well. But right now, Lufthansa is going to give -- and Germanwings are going to give additional information as to what they know, what exactly happened. Certainly, we're going to hear more about that in addition to what we've heard from the prosecutor. We're probably going to also hear more about who this co-pilot was and what they believe might have driven him to do this.

COOPER: It will also be interesting to see, Fred, if Lufthansa, if Germany wings initiates changes in the procedures, perhaps making it a requirement that a cabin crew member would have to be in the cockpit if one of the pilots chooses to leave. Currently, it's really -- there's no regulatory mandate that a co-pilot cannot be alone in the cockpit.

PLEITGEN: That's absolutely right. And that's absolutely true.