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A Year in Space; Plane Crash Investigation Continues. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired March 27, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:08] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Just to repeat that, if you couldn't fully hear the prosecutor, he was saying that this note from a doctor was found ripped up and thrown in this co-pilot apartment's trash can stating that this co-pilot was -- quote -- "unfit to work," unfit for duty, on a number of days, including Tuesday.

Tuesday was the very day Lubitz apparently decided to lock his captain out of the cockpit and, with no apparent confirmation, steer this Airbus A-320 straight into the Southern French Alps.

The move now seems to have been predetermined, new data revealing that minutes before the crash, the plane's autopilot was manually reset from that cruising altitude to 38,000 feet to just 100 feet, 100 feet being the lowest possible setting.

We have our CNN crews and correspondents fanning out all around the world, covering this crash from the site itself in the French Alps to the American flight center where this co-pilot did spend months training.

But, first, let first go to Will Ripley, who is at the apartment in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Will, we know, investigators, they are not specific as far as what medical condition this young man was suffering from. But I know you have been looking into his background. You have been talking to people who knew him.

What are you finding out?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're finding out that outwardly at least, Brooke, there were no signs of trouble. This is coming from neighbors, this is coming from business owners in the area where this young man used to go in. Seemed like he was polite, seemed like he was normal. People keep using that word normal on the surface.

However, it appears that investigators feel they have something here. Just a short time ago -- in fact, I want to show you some brand-new video that we just sent in, Brooke, because in between our live shots -- and pardon how dark it was, because this all happened very quickly -- but a group of people, we don't know what agency or department they're from because they were not in uniform.

But they did appear to be investigators of some kind, officials of some kind. They were in suits. They were carrying boxes and briefcases. And they entered the apartment of Andreas Lubitz, the apartment right behind me. And they have been in there now for more than 15 minutes. We don't know exactly what's going on in there.

We do have a camera stationed right by the door to try to find out what information we can. But it just goes to show that apparently investigators feel this apartment may hold some sort of answer, some sort of clue into why this happened. You talked about the medical records.

But we also need to talk about what has not been found as far as we know in that apartment, which is any sort of suicide note or any other indication of why this horrific tragedy may have happened -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Will, back to this medical clinic that we know treated Mr. Lubitz once in February and once in March. They are saying these reports that they treated him for depression, that that's wrong.

What are the privacy laws there where you are in Germany in terms of patient confidentiality? Will the public ever know?

RIPLEY: Very strict patient confidentiality laws, which of course is restricting the access of information, information being leaked out.

But this one particular clinic, the University Medical Center in Dusseldorf, did say definitively that this young man, just 27 years old, was treated there, but was not being treated for depression. However, there are a whole host of other conditions that could potentially impact somebody's being able to fly. They might have a reason why they might want to hide that from their employer.

And so while this one clinic is saying depression is not a factor, they're certainly not ruling out any other type of mental illness or physical illness that he was being treated for. And as of right now, we just don't have the answer.

BALDWIN: OK. Will Ripley, thank you so much. Keep asking those questions in Dusseldorf for us.

Still a lot of questions here about what drove, what was the motivation for this co-pilot to do the unthinkable?

I want to bring in John Ransom. He's a retired airline pilot and director for safety standards and safety operating systems. And I see Richard Quest out of the corner of my eye

Come on over. And you can join this conversation as soon as we pop a microphone on you.

But to you first, John. When you hear that a medical doctor declared this young man unfit to fly or unfit for duty, what would that entail? Could that be anything from a sore knee to mental illness?

JOHN RANSOM, SAFETY OPERATING SYSTEMS: Sure.

There are a bunch of things that could be the reason that he's unfit to fly, anything from a sinus infection to a fever to problem with a knee or something. It could be a number of items. But most of those are going to be quite temporary.

BALDWIN: OK.

Richard, let me just turn to you. And, John, I will ask you as well. I can understand it is in the pilot's best interest if you go to the doctor and the doctor says let's say you have a sinus issue and you think, OK, well, I'm fine to fly a plane with a sinus issue, it's my responsibility to wave my hand and tell my airline I'm technically not supposed to go according to my doctor. But I don't want to be grounded, right?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: This is the big problem all pilots have. We're not worried so much in the case of a sinus infection because that's a fairly straightforward thing. You can say I have got a sinus infection. Everybody knows of course antibiotics will clear and, bish, bash, bosh, you're flying again within a week.

[15:05:12] BALDWIN: But if it's way worse than that?

QUEST: If it's anything that could require a suspension or a temporary suspending of your license, that's when it gets difficult.

I will give you an example.

BALDWIN: OK.

QUEST: If you take, for example, the issue of depression or some form of mental illness, there, you may be required to take tablets. There, you may have suspension of a few months. And it may be up to a year before you will be allowed to fly again.

Now, you will be allowed to fly again, but the hoops you will have to go through, through the system to get that are very difficult. And pilots are reluctant. They know the danger and they know their responsibility, but they also know their livelihood.

BALDWIN: As a pilot, John Ransom, let me just put the same question to you. You or any of your colleagues who you have flown with for years, how many of you really, honestly have wanted to continue to fly even though you had to maybe be on some kind of medication, even though maybe you're not supposed to be flying?

RANSOM: I have to say from a pilot's standpoint, observing the FAA, the federal air surgeons, the last two of three of them seemed to be a lot more reasonable when it comes to pilots continuing to fly.

The SSRI change that went into effect a few years ago that allows a crew member to take certain medications for depression, it used to be that you had to stand down for a year and be evaluated. The FAA has changed that recently to six months. They're trying to make it easier for a pilot to comply with the self-reporting and still not have so much of a disruption in their lives.

Now, certainly, there are pilots that it takes a strong person to walk in there and check the check mark that says, yes, I have had a DUI or I have had something else. But the other side of the coin is if that person is on medication for reason that they didn't report and they end up with an incident in an airplane, almost immediately, they're drug-tested.

And if that shows up in their system after this incident and they didn't report it, the FAA will look very unfavorably at that.

QUEST: John, if I can just ask you, you're aware that it happens, rarely maybe, but there is a -- in some cases, whether it be a kidney stone or physical or a mental, there are occasions when pilots quite legitimately do fear for the future of their employment if they fess up to something. I'm not talking about a major situation, but something that should be reported, but isn't.

RANSOM: You're absolutely right, Richard.

I would have to say most pilots separate their family physician from their flight physician. It's very rarely the same person.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I was wondering the same thing.

RANSOM: And in some cases, a family physician or even a psychiatrist has no idea that their patient is actually a pilot.

There's no communication there that would normally take place. There are some failsafes, however. There's an FAA hot line. And if you happen to know somebody who is a pilot that's having a problem, many calls have been made to this hot line to check this airman to make sure that they're OK.

(CROSSTALK)

RANSOM: Go ahead.

QUEST: I want to ask John. Sorry. I'm sorry.

But I just want to ask you, John, John, do you -- have you or do you know of anybody who's ever used that line?

BALDWIN: It's a good question.

RANSOM: I know third- and fourth-hand of people who have used that line from another carrier.

BALDWIN: OK.

RANSOM: They were concerned enough.

But there shouldn't be the need to do that. There should be other ways to work on that when you have flown with an individual that you think might have problems. Most of the major airlines have a cooperative effort between the union and the company. When somebody is having a problem that their fellow crew members, and they, quite frankly, are the best professionals to tell if somebody is having a problem, where they can get those people help, as opposed to just letting it fester.

BALDWIN: Let me back up though to your point about there are different kinds of doctors obviously. If you were this co-pilot and you went to an aviation doctor, would that aviation doctor, if they determined you're unfit for duty, have to tell the airline?

Or could then there would be loophole where you go to a private doctor, you get checked out and you keep that to yourself?

RANSOM: There are some carriers that use a company doctor for FAA physicals or the equivalent in Europe. But most likely the data stream is between the patient, the doctor and the FAA in the U.S.

The company would not be in the loop. What would happen is the airman would then call the company and say, I have been removed from flying because of X, Y, and Z and I won't be able to fly again until whatever the time is.

[15:10:07] BALDWIN: Go ahead.

QUEST: What John is eloquently explaining is this -- there are two purposes here.

The first is, I'm not feeling well. I'm going to the doctor to have it treated. Or I have got a problem and I'm going to the doctor to have it treated. But the second -- and what John is referring to there -- is when you're going for your physical, when you're going for your certification, your annual checkup.

On that situation, there's a direct lineage between going to see that doctor for the purposes of a medical certification for aviation...

BALDWIN: No, I absolutely understand.

QUEST: ... and therefore it goes straight for -- you and I can't -- to some extent, we can't really understand this. If you and I...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: We don't have to have physicals to continue doing our job.

QUEST: If you and I are unwell, we walk over to the office over there and say, I'm taking a week off. I have got a few problems and I need to sort them out. And we're told, come back next week when you're ready.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Right.

QUEST: Pilots have a real fear, what's the implications of this? Mortgages, school fees, car payments. What happens if I can't fly?

BALDWIN: John Ransom, final thoughts from you? RANSOM: I do have to say that when you look at that FAA form, the 8500-A that it's called now, there are very definitive questions. Have you suffered from this, this, and this?

And then at the very end, in case you have managed to weasel out and haven't found one the fits what you had going on, it says, have you visited any medical professionals since you have had your last physical? To not put it down there, you consciously have to say I'm going to be a little untruthful on this.

And I believe it's not done nearly as often as you might think.

BALDWIN: OK. John Ransom and Richard Quest, thank you very much. It's a great discussion. Thank you.

Coming up next, we will show you how indestructible these cockpit doors are. Plus, we will show you what the captain of Flight 9525 saw as he was trying to get back in the cockpit.

Do you remember the story? This was a couple years ago? This was a JetBlue pilot that had this meltdown as they were in air. His co- pilot had actually to lock him out of the cockpit. We will talk to one of the passengers that helped take the pilot down.

And happening live in just a couple of minutes, a historic space launch involving Scott Kelly. This is big. This is an experiment involving a human spending an entire year in space. We have the launch straight from Russia live. You're watching CNN's special coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:48] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And this is CNN's breaking news coverage here. Investigators believe the 27-year-old co-pilot of that Germanwings Flight 9525 absolutely locked the captain out of the cockpit before he slammed the plane into the French Alps.

Well, now airlines all around the world, including all German airlines, are adopting the two-person cockpit rule that requires two individuals to be in the cockpit at all times.

CNN's Stephanie Elam gives us more perspective on how strong these cockpit doors are and why it's so tough for anyone to gain access once they have been locked out -- Stephanie.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, we want to take you inside the cockpit so we could show you the pilot's perspective of the door.

Obviously, here's the door. It's a slim door. It's got the peephole so they can look outside, see who is coming down the aisle. But there's more to this door. I want to take you outside and show you a little bit more about this door and introduce you to Captain Ross Aimer, who's going to help us learn more about this door.

First of all, how hard is it to destruct this door?

ROSS AIMER, CEO, MYAVIATIONEXPERT.COM: It's pretty hard. It's been tested with a grenade and it didn't open.

ELAM: And it still didn't open.

AIMER: Still didn't open.

ELAM: It's a reinforced solid door. It's a solid door. I can feel it's heavy even when I'm touching it. But there's more to it, like this lock up here. Tell me about this lock.

AIMER: This is basically a deadbolt. That's the final thing that you could turn on. Once you have this deadbolt on, there's no way anybody can open this door from outside.

ELAM: No matter what?

AIMER: No matter what.

ELAM: How would they get in eventually if they needed to?

AIMER: They may have to break the cockpit windows from the outside to get in.

ELAM: It's a serious lock.

AIMER: It's a serious lock.

ELAM: Let's come outside and just take a look at this door from the outside. There's this key up here. How well does that work?

AIMER: That was originally put in there, but after what -- we had keys initially. TSA took all the keys away from the pilots.

ELAM: No one has access to that?

AIMER: No one has access to that.

ELAM: OK. And then beyond that, there's also this keypad here that I want to show, because that keypad was key to letting a pilot in, but there are other parts to it, right?

AIMER: Yes.

There are obviously codes that are issued periodically. It's changed. And a pilot puts the code in. There's a 30-second delay that he could just get in. After that, again, it's locked.

ELAM: Even if you do know the code, you still could be locked out?

AIMER: You could be locked out, yes.

ELAM: Overall, when you look at what happened with this Germanwings disaster and you look at the door, do you think that the door operated the way it was supposed to? AIMER: Exactly. It operated the way it was designed, except this

time it kept the good guy out.

ELAM: That is so scary -- Brooke, back to you.

BALDWIN: Stephanie Elam, thank you so much.

Three years ago to this day, there was a pilot here in the United States ended up locked out of the cockpit, this very same plane, but under different circumstances. Clayton Osbon, a veteran JetBlue pilot, began acting erratically.

According to court documents, there are details about this pilot told air traffic control to be quiet and said "We're all going down," that leading his co-pilot to lure Osbon out of the cockpit and lock him out.

And to the rescue, one retired NYPD Sergeant Paul Babakitis, who rallied three other passengers actually to tackle and restrain this pilot until they were able to land the plane.

[15:20:10:] And Paul is with me now.

So nice to see you, sir.

PAUL G. BABAKITIS, TACKLED PILOT: Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: What a story. Let's begin with you're on a plane from JFK here in New York to Las Vegas. This is 30 minutes before it lands. What was your first indication something was up?

BABAKITIS: My first indication was that a person had run past me in a uniform appearing to be the pilot of the plane.

He then started proceeding to bang on the door of the cockpit demanding entry. Immediately, there was something wrong there. I got out of my seat, went over to this person, questioned him. And with my training and law enforcement experience and private investigations, I quickly determined there was something wrong with this person.

During my discussion with him, he said, "We're not going to Sin City. I have 130 souls on board." And then through nonverbal communication, I was able to rally support of other members of the passengers, where we physically had to restrain him on the belly of the plane and we held him down there for 20 minutes until the plane made an emergency landing in Amarillo, Texas.

BALDWIN: Oh, my goodness. All of this is happening. Are you just outside the cockpit door when he's saying you're not going to make it to Vegas and you decide that you need to tackle him?

BABAKITIS: Yes. It was a last resort. But he was also restrained in a safe and controlled manner.

And we had no choice. In the case, I have to tell you, when you compare JetBlue Flight 191 to the most current tragic tragedy that occurred, that cockpit door was a blessing and also a savior in our case.

BALDWIN: This is an example of a success story in which the cockpit door worked exactly how it should and it kept this pilot who was saying all these sort of crazy things, kept him out, so this co-pilot could safely land this plane. You all were able to take down this pilot, which is obviously very different from what we saw in France.

BABAKITIS: Absolutely.

That cockpit door, I believe, should be able to be remotely controlled by the air traffic control in some way. And with today's technology, I simply don't understand why planes cannot be controlled as drones are remotely in emergency situations.

BALDWIN: We were talking to experts. We were talking about precisely that, the idea of ground control being able to override. The idea wasn't necessarily even the cockpit door, but even flying the plane.

In this case, we know that this co-pilot deactivated -- activated the descent. And there was this notion that maybe ground control could have realized that and changed that. But there are also problems with that as well. It's not really a perfect scenario either way, it seems.

BABAKITIS: It isn't.

But it's another safeguard in place that could save lives. And to have options like these safeguards that we're discussing I think is a viable option. Anything to save life and preserve life is very important to invest in. In this case, I'm here to tell you that had that cockpit door not done what it should have been doing rather, then I would not be here today. My heart goes out to the families.

BALDWIN: Absolutely.

BABAKITIS: But it's a serious matter that has to be taken much more seriously in today's day and age.

BALDWIN: How many years with the New York Police Department?

BABAKITIS: I was with the New York City Police Department for 22 years.

BALDWIN: Twenty-two years. Thank you so much.

(CROSSTALK)

BABAKITIS: And now 10 years in private investigations with PGB Executive Investigations as a CEO.

BALDWIN: Paul Babakitis, thank you so much for sharing your story.

BABAKITIS: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: You got it. Coming up next, we will take you to the front lines of the crash site in the French Alps, where the search is on for the second black box, that flight data recorder. It could hold critical clues as far as what the co-pilot was doing during those final moments, that 10-minute descent.

Also, what makes a pilot unfit or fit for duty? And who decides that? You actually may be surprised by the answer. We will talk to a former aviation -- Army aviation psychologist.

You're watching CNN's special live coverage. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:03] BALDWIN: OK. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

More stunning news from the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525. We now know that medical documents of this co-pilot show there was something wrong with 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz and confirmation that he knew it before he apparently crashed this plane into the French Alps.

Police raiding Lubitz's flat, his apartment in Dusseldorf found this ripped-up medical note that indicated from a medical professional, from a doctor saying that he was unfit to work and that he should have been on medical leave Tuesday, the day of the crash.

Investigators are also making progress at this crash site, this despite just bad weather and treacherous terrain.

I have senior international correspondent Nic Robertson, who's been there the last couple of days at this site in the French Alps.

Nic, just first to you as far as the operation, the sorting through, the mapping of the remains and the debris, you were saying earlier the wind is actually getting in the way of the operation.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

Each day has been different here, Brooke. It's been bright skies. The clouds have been high. You think, OK, that's perfect for the helicopters. And it is perfect for visibility. But the winds blow through these mountains.

And today there's been a strong wind. And the head of the police operations who is in charge of sort of the security and safety in the mountains, he told us that's slowing operations down. Everyone has to be lifted into the mountains by helicopter, but then winched slowly from the helicopter to the ground. That slowed up that process.

He's described and others have described to us how they're mapping the terrain up there. There's one team that is dedicated to overflights and taking photographs. We have seen a team in a surveillance aircraft, not just helicopters overflying today. They take a lot of photographs of the scene, record exactly where each of the bodies are recovered from -- being discovered.