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Germanwings Co-Pilot Background; Saudi Arabia Bombs Yemen. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 26, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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


[14:00:06] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Wolf, thank you so much. We'll take it from here. Good to be with you on this Thursday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN's special breaking news coverage of this just stunning revelation today in the downing of Germanwings Flight 9525.

We are now being told that the co-pilot deliberately crashed this plane into the steep slopes of the French Alps. The audio file inside of this mangled cockpit voice recover revealing the chilling moments the captain, who left the cockpit momentarily, is heard banging on the locked cockpit door, desperately calling out to the co-pilot inside. The co-pilot is then heard, quote, "breathing normally," but is eerily silent as officials say he activated the descent of this aircraft.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRICE ROBIN, MARSEILLE, FRANCE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR (through translator): It does seem that he was breathing normal. It's not the breathing of somebody who's having a stroke or a heart attack. And he doesn't say anything - not one word. I repeat it, absolute silence.

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 it's 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)

BALDWIN: What is still unknown is the why? Why, according to the French prosecutor, would this man here, a 28-year-old German national with no terror ties and 630 hours flight experience, want to destroy the aircraft and kill everyone on board?

And with the news of this crash apparently, you know, no accident here, German police swarmed the home of this co-pilot just outside of Frankfurt. Meantime, back at the staging area, in the French Alps, more families are arriving there, absolutely stunned, as they are also now learning that their loved ones could be heard screaming in those final moments as they realize their plane was plunging from the sky and into the mountains.

Joining me now from Cologne, Germany, is Fred Pleitgen, who has just landed this exclusive interview with the CEO of Lufthansa.

Fred, what did he share with you?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke.

Well, of course, one of the centerpieces of the interview was the mental status of Andreas Lubitz, of that co-pilot who apparently locked his colleague out of the cockpit and then started that rapid descend. Now I asked the CEO of Lufthansa whether or not there had been any other issues that this co-pilot might have had. And he said, even after their evaluation process, he said there was nothing that came to light. He says Lufthansa has a system in place where if colleagues notice that someone might be mentally unstable, they have to report that person. They can do that anonymously so that person wouldn't even know who was - who was saying this about him. And so he said that there was absolutely no indication within the airline that this co-pilot might have had any sort of mental issues.

I also asked Carsten Spohr, the CEO, how he could be so concern that there was criminal intent behind all of this. Let's listen in what he had to say to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARSTEN SPOHR, CEO, LUFTHANSA: Apparently after the pilot - after the captain has left the cockpit, he tried to regain access where there were knocks on the door, according to the French authorities, and the door was either kept locked or not opened in the way it was supposed to be. And that, for sure, is a clear indication that the remaining pilot, the co-pilot, didn't want the captain to return.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So he actively tried to prevent the captain from reentering into the cockpit. That, of course, is something that's very significant, not just to the airline here, but, of course, also to the criminal investigation that is moving forward now as well. And I did ask the CEO of Lufthansa whether or not the evaluation process or mental fitness for their pilots might be flawed, whether there are changes might be made. And he said, look, it's worked for us for several decades, this evaluation process, but of course they are going to see whether changes need to be made, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Changes perhaps there, changes perhaps in this two person cockpit rule. There's a lot to be looked at. But the big question is still the why. Fred Pleitgen, thank you.

You know, as to this why, why this co-pilot apparently took down this plane killing himself and 149 others, investigators still don't know. But here's what is clear, prosecutors say the pilot, as Fred was just mentioning, was locked outside of the cockpit after stepping away for a short time. Even if he did try to enter that key code from the outside, the co-pilot - the captain inside the cockpit still could have manually overridden that.

[14:05:05] So I want to explore that with David Soucie. He's a CNN safety analyst and a former FAA safety inspector. Also I have Captain Bill Savage. He's a pilot and a certified airline accident investigator.

So, gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

And, David Soucie, I mean I was - I was - forgive me, I was peppering with you questions earlier in the day and I just want to have this conversation on TV because I think it's really important to explain to people, if you have, in this situation, the co-pilot in the cockpit, the pilot leaves for a brief period of time, wants to re-enter.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Right.

BALDWIN: Walk me through the different scenarios upon which he could get back in.

SOUCIE: Well, first of all, there's no latch or door knob to open that door. There's a handle that you could pull it with.

BALDWIN: From the outside to the inside of the cockpit?

SOUCIE: Right. Exactly. So - so, first of all, you can't get in there unless some - the pilot allows that at first. Now - at this phase.

BALDWIN: Right.

SOUCIE: So what's happening now is they notify the co-pilot. And we're going to go through this the way that it's been conveyed to us here by the - by the CEO - by the CEO.

BALDWIN: OK.

SOUCIE: So what they're saying is that he then tried to enter the cockpit. So what that would have involved is a notification, which is a little button that they can push, which gives a beep up front, or he can just typically just pick up the inner phone and say, hey, I'm ready to come back in. Let me in.

BALDWIN: Uh-huh.

SOUCIE: I suspect that that's what happened, but there was no response. So he gets to try it again. He pushes the button. he tries to get in. No response. So the third time now he's going to say, well, there's something wrong here. Maybe he's incapacitated. Let's see what we can do. There's a secret code they put in. That code goes in there. As soon as that code is entered, a loud beeper goes off for 30 seconds inside the cockpit that says, err, you know, you've got to respond, you've got to respond. It's very loud. It's very annoying. It's impossible to miss. And we would hear that on cockpit voice recorder if that did occur, so we will know if the pilot tried to access the cockpit -

BALDWIN: We will hear that loud, piercing alarm going off in the cockpit.

SOUCIE: Yes. Yes. Yes. So - BALDWIN: So, to follow on that, once that happens, if that person inside the cockpit, they can either open the door -

SOUCIE: Right.

BALDWIN: They can choose not to open the door -

SOUCIE: Right.

BALDWIN: And hit lock?

SOUCIE: Yes.

BALDWIN: Or, after the 30 seconds of this piercing alarm, it automatically opens.

SOUCIE: Correct. That's right. But it didn't automatically open.

BALDWIN: But it didn't automatically open. Which leads you to believe what?

SOUCIE: So one of two things. Well, one of two things. Either the - the co-pilot locked the door or something we haven't talked about yet, maybe he forgot the code. Maybe he forgot how to get in. Maybe he just was in a hurry. Now, remember -

BALDWIN: Could he ask someone else for the code? Do other crew members have the code?

SOUCIE: They do. But remember, at this point, the aircraft's descending. If the pilot senses that, which he's going to sense immediately that that aircraft is starting to descend, he's going to rush out and he's going to start banging on that door, you know? So there's a couple of different complicating factors that need to be clarified but none of them, none of these other things take away from the fact that this pilot did not want that, as he put it, that this pilot did not want the captain to get back into that cockpit.

BALDWIN: I'm going to come back to you.

Bill, here's - here's my follow up to what Fred Pleitgen is reporting as he was talking to the CEO of Lufthansa and they were asking about the psychological testing. I mean you can - you can become a pilot - you can become a pilot in a lot of cases for 20 years. You still have to undergo physical tests. But once you pass that psychological test, from what I understand, you never have to undergo that kind of thing again. And I'm wondering why.

CAPT. BILL SAVAGE, CURRENT B-767 PILOT/FORMER 777 PILOT: Well, the interview process at most airlines includes some cursory psychological examination. Different companies do it different ways and at different levels. So there's not a standard to it and there's no standard created by the FAA for initial new hires to undergo psychological testing, although the companies generally do do it themselves for exactly this type of reason. BALDWIN: Are co-pilots and pilots, for example these two on board this

particular plane, would they have flown together? Typically are people matched together often on certain legs? Would they have a sense of familiarity? And I'm asking this only because I'm wondering if red flags would have, you know, been raised over this co-pilot and it would have been up to the pilot to say something.

SAVAGE: Well, generally speaking, pilots fly with one another for a month. There can be interruptions in that, whether people are on vacation or trade trips or whatever they might do. The thing that troubles me about this is, on a short flight like two hours, how would the co-pilot been able to know that the captain, after one hour, would get up to go to the bathroom or exit? That would either be just a happenstance or they'd flown together quite often and that this was a habit that the captain did when they got to altitude and therefore the co-pilot was ready for that. But that's strictly speculation. You have no idea if the co-pilot just took advantage of an opportunity here to, you know, take this action just because the captain got up. That would not be something you would be, you know, be able to ascertain in advance, so how would the captain know?

But if the captain were having problems with the co-pilot at all or had any kind of trepidation about the - about the individual, he wouldn't have gotten up at all and he probably would not have even begun the flight if he had some question about his co-pilot's physical or mental stability.

[14:10:08] BALDWIN: OK.

And then, David, when we hear that this co-pilot activated the descent, what does that mean?

SOUCIE: That means that he started - he went from a straight and normal flight to a descending flight.

BALDWIN: But does that mean plugging in numbers ahead of time and pushing a button?

SOUCIE: Well, there's a couple ways to do that.

BALDWIN: OK.

SOUCIE: One is, just put the flight control forward to the place where you want it to be and then you release the flight control and it will maintain that - that descent. The second way is to turn the rate of descent knob, which is up in the flight control management - flight management system above and right over the windshield, we call it the eyebrow, but right there you turn that down and you spin it and you spin it and you spin it. It was probably at 38,000 feet - or, excuse me, it was probably at zero, because you're at stable flight. You're not climbing or descending. You can turn it up to go up. You can turn it down to go down. So he's - he turned it down - all the way down to 100 feet. Now, remember, that's 5,900 feet below where they hit the ground. So he set it below where the ground was. He set it at 96 feet to be accurate. So that was very curious. Very curious. That's where we know - BALDWIN: Curious. Intentional. I mean I'm just asking -

SOUCIE: Yes.

BALDWIN: Is there a shred of doubt that it could have been accidental?

SOUCIE: You know, accidental -

BALDWIN: It's tough.

SOUCIE: The only thing that could possibly accidental is if it - if he fell forward and pushed that stick forward and then started the descend, which would have overrided - overridden the auto pilot. I don't know. We're stretching now because now we're trying to find out why he didn't do this instead of why he did.

BALDWIN: OK. Right. Right. And -

SAVAGE: You would have heard the autopilot disconnect chirp if that was the case.

SOUCIE: Yes.

SAVAGE: You also - the primary way they change altitude is to roll the altitude window down to the desired altitude, which could have been zero, and the plane would then leave the altitude, you know? And - or you could use the rate of descent wheel, as David indicated. But it's unlikely that he just pushed the stick forward. You usually would do it off the flight control panel in the two or three ways and it would require, too, hitting the flitch (ph) button on the flight control panel. The flight change square.

BALDWIN: OK. OK. Also, I mean I just have so much more and we're going to explore this later through the two hours, but also just mindful of these, you know, 149 people also on board and the screams that were heard on this cockpit voice recorder those last few moments which to me indicates an awareness. And also you have to think that the people in the front of the cabin would have seen or heard this pilot banging on the cockpit door. We've got a lot to talk about. David Soucie and Bill Savage, for now, thank you both very much.

Coming up next, an FBI expert will tell us what exactly these investigators will be looking at, who they'll be talking to. What about items inside this co-pilot's home? Plus, how they're tracking down anyone who knew him.

And, we will take you live, as close as we possibly can here, to this crash recovery site. As you see them now, these families, the friends, the loved ones of these victims begin to arrive.

Stay right here. This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:17:20] BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Answers, clues, that is what investigators are digging for right now

at the home of German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz. The FBI has even brought in to help on this one. Here's what they're looking at. Investigators are talking to friends, family, coworkers, anyone who could shed some light on why Lubitz, according to this French prosecutor, deliberately activated the descent in this Germanwings Flight 9525 in the French Alps, killing himself and all other 149 people on board.

I've got CNN justice correspondent Evan Perez. He's getting some new information on what exactly investigators are looking for.

So, Evan, we're going to come to you in just a moment.

But to Diana Magnay we go first. She joins me on the phone from Montabaur, Germany.

And this is the town where I understand this co-pilot's parents live. You have been trying to knock on doors and talk to people to glean a little bit more information on this young man. You talked to members of his flight club. What did they tell you?

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, they said that he was a fairly regular young man. That they really couldn't understand how the Marseilles prosecutor had come to the conclusions that he'd come to. He basically went to this gliding club, just on the outskirts of Montabaur, from the age of 14 until he was about 20. He was a regular fixture there. And - so he was well known to members. And they applaud him, really, for making him dream into his career and said that he was extremely proud of being a Germanwings pilot. One of them I had spoken to said he saw him the year before last and he talked about how proud he was of the - of the sort of career that he'd managed to make.

Here's a comment that one of the other member of the club had to say about him. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETAR RUACKER (ph), MEMBER OF SAME FLIGHT CLUB OF ANDREAS LUBITZ (through translator): Andreas was a very nice young man who underwent training here. He was a member of the club. He was funny. Sometimes maybe he was a bit quiet. He was a boy like many boys we have here. He was integrated well and he had fun here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MAGNAY: He grew up in this town, Brooke, it appears. His parents still live here. Their house now is shuttered and guarded by police. When we were standing there, clearly men who were plain clothes were investigators. They went into the house. The police were saying, who are you? And then clearly they must have said, we have access, and the police went in with them. So investigators are clearly looking around the house for any kind of clues. People are very tight-lipped. It's quite a small community. I met a few people who said that they knew Lubitz but who refused to speak to the press. And the news had spread extremely fast. Everybody knew just a couple of hours after that prosecutor's statement what the accusations were against Lubitz. So, yes, a sort of community in shut-down really and shock at these accusations.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Diana Magnay, please continue to talk to people and get as much information as you can to set up this picture of who this young 28-year-old co-pilot was. Thank you.

Still ahead here - right now, Evan Perez - Evan Perez standing by.

Evan, forgive me. I know you spoke with a former TSA administrator, asking some of the questions as far as what investigators would be looking for. What did he share with you?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, I was talking to John Pistole, who was a former administrator of TSA, and he was also the number two official at FBI. He was the lead investigator for the 1999 Egypt Air crash, Brooke, if you remember that one. Over 200 people were killed. And the conclusion that the FBI reached in this case, and Pistole's investigator's reached, was that it was a suicide operation by the co- pilot. The pilot, in that instance, left the cockpit, and the co-pilot decided to crash the plane. Now, in that instance, the co - the pilot actually managed to get back into the cockpit and they fought, but he was not able to stop the crash.

Now, Pistole was telling me, you know, a couple of insights as to what investigators will be looking at at this moment, including, you know, trying to build a profile of this co-pilot, his entire life. You know, looking at everything from his genetic background, his medical mental history. They would look at what kind of things turned up when they - when the German carrier did a background check to determine whether or not he was fit to become a pilot.

And the last thing he mentioned was, you know, whether there was anybody on the passenger manifest that had a relationship with this co-pilot. And that - that's a key question because in the Egypt Air case, what the FBI found from intelligence sources was that there were 31 Egyptian military officers on that flight, Brooke. And there was speculation, at least from the - in the investigation, that perhaps the co-pilot crashed the plane because he was trying to kill those military officers as a result of some beef he had with the Egyptian military or his family had.

Now, the FBI looked for and could never, you know, find any proof of this. But it is something that's going to inform what this investigation is doing right now because you want to know perhaps, you know, if he wasn't in his right mental state, was there someone on board this flight that he was trying to kill? And, obviously, this is something that, you know, no right-minded person would do, but that is definitely something the investigators will be looking at, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Eighteen nationalities. We know of Spaniards. We know of German high schoolers. We know of babies and opera singers and Americans. Still working through exactly who was on this plane as they are asking all these very important questions.

Evan Perez, thank you very much, in Washington, D.C.

PEREZ: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Still ahead right now, some of the victim's families are now being taken to a site not far from this crash location there in the French Alps. We have much more on what is happening during what can only be described as just an absolutely gut-wrenching emotional visit there.

Also, 24 hours ago, when we reported the breaking news that the ousted president of Yemen, a key ally to the United States, had fled his country amid this rebel uprising. Today, major developments in that region, including an air assault now led by Saudi Arabia against those very rebel forces. We'll talk to Fareed Zakaria. He'll join me next on that. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:27:50] BALDWIN: The power vacuum inside a key U.S. ally is even now bringing in more countries who are also key allies of the United States in the war against terrorism. Yemen, as we've been reporting here, really on the brink of civil war, being bombed now by Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states. The Saudis, and we have video here, of their warplanes. They're getting military help from five other Arab nations, including Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. They make up what is called the Gulf Corporation Council.

Why is all this happening? It's complicated. Let me just say that. But because the Houthi rebels have control of Yemen's capital Sanaa and are Shia Muslim. Iran is also Shia. Supposedly it's backing the Houthis. Iran denies this but the Saudis and the GCC fear the Iranian influence seeping beyond Yemen's borders. And that's key. We're going to talk about that in a second.

So now they have rained down a lot of fire power on these rebels. Houthi militias say 18 people have been killed in Yemen's capital alone. And all of this is happening here, there is also these other layers of this story, the ongoing concern that al Qaeda and ISIS will gain an even bigger hold in Yemen. So a lot of players involved here.

Let me bring in Fareed Zakaria, host of "Fareed Zakaria GPS," to help sort all of this out.

Let's begin just with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states now bombing Yemen. What is Saudi Arabia's biggest concern?

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, CNN'S "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Well, Yemen is right on its border. And so the Saudis, I think, are concerned about is - is two big things. One is instability and jihadi groups coming, you know, infecting the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the other is the Houthis gaining strength and maybe gaining power in Yemen. The Houthis are, as you put it, supposedly backed by Iran. It's not entirely clear how much Iranian influence there is. What is clear is that the Saudis perceive a Shia government in Yemen as a - as a big problem. The Saudis are hard core Sunni and they tend to be very anti-Shia. So you have religious stuff going on, but you also have this regional power gain between Saudi Arabia on the one hand and Iran on the other. It's playing itself out in Syria and now it's playing itself out in Yemen.

BALDWIN: OK, because as I was looking - if we could throw the map back up just quickly, I'm a visual person, it helps me understand when I see Saudi Arabia and then you see this sliver of Yemen and you realize that Saudi Arabia doesn't want the Iranian backed Houthis essentially knocking on their doorstop right there on the border.