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Germanwings Flight 9525 Co-Pilot Suicidal Several Years Ago; Finals Moments Described in Chilling Detail; Police Investigation at NSA Headquarters. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 30, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Right now, a new bombshell in the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525. Just minutes ago, a German prosecutor revealing that Andreas Lubitz was far from the smiling, lighthearted man you see here. Years before he became an airline pilot

[10:00:00] and steered his flight into a mountainside, he struggled with thoughts of suicide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPH KUMPA, DUSSELDORF STATE PROSECUTOR: Before he got his pilot's license, being in psychotherapy -- in contact with a doctor about that. He had been -- he had at that time been in treatment of a psychotherapist because of what is documented as being suicidal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. Let's head to Dusseldorf where German Police spoke to reporters just a short time ago. You saw that there.

CNN's Pamela Brown, we saw you right behind that gentleman. Tell us more.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, if anything, Carol, the prosecutor here, the Dusseldorf prosecutor deepened the mystery of exactly what caused Andreas Lubitz to crash that plane into the mountains, according to authorities. He said that before he received his pilot's license that he was suicidal. We know in 2008 he took time off from training but after that he came back, finished training, and got his pilot's license.

The prosecutor today said he continued to get psychotherapy treatment after that, but that there was no evidence that he was suicidal or was acting aggressively or wanted to be aggressive toward anyone else leading up to the crash just a few days ago. He also said that investigators have taken a lot of different evidence, paperwork from his apartment, and that there was no confession, no journal, diary, anything, of him saying that he wanted to do this, that he wanted to crash the plane or commit suicide. He said there was nothing indicating that this was pre-meditated.

The prosecutor did say, though, that he had made several visits to the doctor leading up to the crash. We know a couple of times in February and in March specifically that the doctor deemed him unable to work or fly but that in his trash bin he had ripped up those notes and put them in the trash bin. And the prosecutor says that he was trying to hide his illness from his employer, from Lufthansa and Germanwings.

And we know the company says they never received any indication that he had any sort of mental health issues or anything else. But interesting to note, the medical test pilots have to go through every year to be certified is only physical, not mental -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Pamela Brown reporting live from Dusseldorf, thanks so much.

I want to bring in CNN aviation analyst and former managing director of the NTSB Peter Goelz. I'm also joined by psychologist Jeff Gardere.

Thanks to both of you for joining me.

Jeff, I want to start with you and talk about his suicidal tendencies, when this young man was training to fly. He went to see a psychotherapist. That means he had serious thoughts of killing himself, doesn't it?

JEFF GARDERE, PSYCHOLOGIST: And I thought I heard and I may be wrong here, we'll have to listen to that again, I thought that prosecutor said or that spokesperson said actually made suicide attempts which is even much more severe than just being suicidal.

Suicidal means that you may be thinking about suicide. Either way, this is -- going to see a psychotherapist tells me that he had some mental health issues that he was working through.

COSTELLO: And I ask you that way because a lot of people --

GARDERE: Yes.

COSTELLO: I don't see a lot, but many people have suicidal thoughts, right, in their lives?

GARDERE: And many people -- and many people are depressed, and they manage it. And so even if you're an airline pilot and you have a depression, as long as you're getting treatment and you're not suicidal then that's absolutely OK. Certainly it's different than you or I, god forbid, having suicidal thoughts because we're not responsible for the lives of so many people.

So to have suicidal ideation or perhaps to have made suicide attempts is a real red flag and something that I don't think should be allowed for anyone in that kind of position of responsibility because you don't know when those suicidal thought cans come up again especially if you're in the cockpit of a plane.

COSTELLO: Right.

Peter, what do you make of this?

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I think it's pretty shocking. What you have is a system that is tilted so far in favor of the protection of privacy that it may put passengers in jeopardy. And it's a very vexing problem. I mean I think it's clear that this was a guy -- or it's becoming clearer that that this was a guy who probably should haven't chosen aviation as his career and something that the company and government officials need to review and say, how do we screen for these people and how do we keep them out of the cockpit?

[10:05:02] COSTELLO: So, Peter, had this young man told the airline that he was taking six months off because he was having suicidal thoughts he would have never become a pilot, right?

GOELTZ: That probably would have been a knockout, yes. And that's the problem with aviation. You know, a lot of pilots have dreamed about being in the cockpit. That -- this is their goal. They work at it from their earliest years, it's a hard slog to get into the cockpit and to be a commercial pilot, and there are a number of things that are knockouts. Certain drugs are knockouts and once you -- and you're terrified, as particularly at the early stages of your career, you don't want to do anything that's going to prevent you from fulfilling your life's dream.

And that's a very challenging issue for air carriers and government regulatory agencies to deal with. But I think they've got to start looking at it aggressively again right now.

COSTELLO: And Dr. Jeff, just, you know, in light of what Peter said, and this young man did dream to become a pilot from when he was a young boy. I mean, we have pictures of him on a glider when he was a young teenager so he really wanted this. And you know that there are many prejudices against people who suffer even from depression so it kind of makes sense that he wouldn't want anyone to really know about his problems.

GARDERE: Absolutely. But this is a cyclical thing that just kept building up against him and resulted in the death of 149 other people. This was a person who wanted to fly so badly, to be a pilot so badly. But he had a very unstable personality. He was emotionally in many ways unstable.

We're talking about generalized anxiety disorder, depression, possible psychosis, OCD, psychosomatic. All of those things and with that dream and the pressure that he put on himself to be a pilot but not to reveal his mental health issues all came together, coalesced, and became something that was horrific.

COSTELLO: Do you think that he planned to crash the plane or did he just take the opportunity when it arose?

GARDERE: It's very hard to tell. I'm only using my instinct here, from working with so many people who've had varying issues. And again, let's be very clear, you can live with mental illness and have a very productive life and should not be discriminated against. In this particular case I believe that this was a person in his own mind who just -- his mind just kept churning on and on in a very negative way.

In a very psychotic way, very depressed way, and built himself into this emotional tizzy, if you will, where he felt that if he could not have his dream then he was going to take out everyone else. I mean, that is the immensity of what he was thinking about.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: And I think my final --

GARDERE: Let's be aware, it's mass murder.

COSTELLO: A final question to you, Peter, so is there -- you know, you've investigated lots of crashes, right? Is there any way to really know whether he had planned this over a long period of time or just took the opportunity?

GOELTZ: Well, I think the police investigators will pick up a pattern of his behavior. But from what we've learned from the voice recording, from the leaks of the voice recorder, it was pretty clear that on this flight that he was determined to accomplish that terrible, terrible mission that he was on because he encouraged the pilot to leave the cockpit and then had to take a number of steps to put the plane into that horrific dive. So in this case I think you can say he was planning this from the beginning of the flight at least.

COSTELLO: Peter Goelz, Dr. Jeff Gardere, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

Also this morning, the final moments of the airliner and all aboard are revealed in chilling detail. According to the German newspaper "Bild" the recovered flight voice recorder captures the captain frantically pleading with his co-pilot to unlock the cockpit door.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen has the latest from Cologne, Germany.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Over the weekend, disturbing new details from Flight 9525's mangled cockpit voice recorder, published by German newspaper "Bild."

BILL WALDOCK, PROFESSOR, EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY: The CVR transcript was leaked way too early in the investigation.

PLEITGEN: The leaked transcript, criticized as mere voyeurism by French investigators, captures the steps 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz took to kill all 150 on board.

Around 10 a.m., the plane takes off from Barcelona. The captain then tells Lubitz he didn't go to the bathroom in Barcelona, and Lubitz replies, "Go any time." [10:10:00] Around 10:27, the plane reaches 38,000 feet, cruising

altitude. The captain asks Lubitz to prepare for the landing, and after the check, Lubitz repeats, "You can go now." Then the captain is heard getting up and saying, "You can take over."

Lubitz, now alone with the door locked, reprograms the autopilot from 38,000 feet to 100 feet, sending the jetliner straight towards the alps, dropping around 3,000 feet a minute. Air traffic control tries to contact the plane but receives no answer.

An alarm goes off inside the cockpit warning, "sink rate." Then a loud bang on the door, the captain screaming, "For God's sake, open the door." Passengers are also heard screaming. Five minutes before impact, more bangs can be heard, metallic noises as if someone was trying to knock the door down.

Ninety seconds later, another alarm goes off, warning, "Terrain, pull up." The captain again screams, "Open the damn door." Two minutes before impact, the paper reports Lubitz can be heard breathing. The plane now only 13,000 feet from the ground.

10:40 a.m., investigators believe they hear the plane's right wing scrape a mountaintop then screams once more from the 149 on board. Lubitz apparently stays silent.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: So, Carol, it seems from this transcript that possibly Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot, was trying to set up his captain from even before that flight took off to leave the cockpit at some point in time and there, as we just saw, once that plane reached cruising altitude that's exactly what the captain then did.

Now the French investigating authority, the BAE, has come out and they've criticized the leaking of this information. They say that they are in dismay that this information would have become public. But one of the things they didn't do is they did not question its authenticity -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Frederik Pleitgen reporting live for us this morning.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

COSTELLO: All right, we don't have much information about this but it certainly seems disturbing. You're looking at live pictures from Fort Meade. This is right off the BW Parkway near Washington, D.C. Now this is where the NSA is located, that's the spy agency, as you know. All of this is coming from our local affiliate in Washington, WJLA. They say police are investigating this incident at Fort Meade.

These pictures are from News Chopper 7. It shows police officers and damaged vehicles but the exact cause of the police investigation is still unclear. There was a tweet from Anne Arundel County Police. It initially referenced a report of a shooting. CNN cannot confirm that at this time and no further details about this

incident have been released. But, of course, you can see this is a very serious incident. It is the nation's spy agency. It's well fortified there. Usually cars -- there's an exit off of the BW Parkway that leads into Fort Meade and the NSA. It's heavily guarded there as you can see from those security booths so this is a disturbing incident.

When we get more information, of course, we'll pass it along to you. I'll be back with much more in the NEWSROOM.

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[10:16:49]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

COSTELLO: All right. I just reported that breaking news off the BW Parkway at Fort Meade and the NSA. They're located right off the highway, just about a half hour from Washington, D.C. You can see these two crashed vehicles. Now this exit coming off the highway, you see security gates there. You have to stop at the security gates in order to gain entrance to Fort Meade and the NSA, the nation's spy agencies.

You can see that there are crashed cars at the scene. It appears to me that those cars tried to crash the gates and were stopped.

Our affiliate in Washington WJLA reported there were tweets of shots fired. CNN cannot confirm that, but that would certainly make sense because there's a reason that this area is heavily fortified, not in the least because the spy agency is located here but Fort Meade with its 6,000 military personnel and also there are 29,000 civilians who work on this base, and they want to protect all of these people from whatever harm may come.

Jim Sciutto is in Washington. Have you been able to work your sources to find out any more information -- Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Carol, I've reached out to the NSA a number of times. The NSA is not commenting yet. But just based on those pictures there, clearly an alarming incident right at that security gate. These facilities very secure. They keep the security cordoned quite far from the building on purpose so you will have a gate like this, you know, hundreds of yards from the actual facility.

But still the fact that a car and it looks like got this close, shots were fired, you hear this from the Anne Arundel County Police in Maryland saying -- according to those police, one dead, one critical and one officer, one security officer in transit to a medical facility, that, again, coming from a tweet from police in the area there. But, again, the NSA not commenting regardless, based on the pictures, based on what police are saying at a minimum a serious security incident outside one of the most secure government facilities in the Washington area, as you'd expect.

This is the NSA, one of the most secretive, out of the big five intelligence agencies, and great concern in all these agencies that they are the target potentially for attacks.

You might remember, Carol, a number of years ago there was a shooting outside the CIA headquarters. This is a real concern. Security has been very severe in light of that concern, that threat. And today you -- it appears to see -- it appears that there's been an attack there but again the NSA not commenting or confirming at this point.

COSTELLO: Yes. And just to describe the building for people not familiar with this area, the NSA building is enormous. It's sort of -- I don't know, it has -- as I recall it's glass covered. You can't see into the building but it's huge and I would assume that there are thousands and thousands of employees working inside that building?

SCIUTTO: There are. And it's similar to other intelligence facilities such as the CIA and other of this -- of the most secure intelligence agencies and they have security like this for a reason. They have a big setback from public roads and public access areas. You will have a gate many hundreds of yards, perhaps, from where those buildings are so that if something like this were to happen, assuming that this was an attack, that that would be kept a quite a safe distance from the facility.

[10:20:20] That said, keep in mind, that there are people coming in and out of that gate all the time, employees, there are security officers posted at that gate, they certainly face a risk. And even in those pictures that we're showing right now, that are on the air right now, it appears earlier you could see what appeared to be a body under a white sheet.

Again, no confirmation from the NSA but certainly just based on those pictures, based on comments from Anne Arundel County Police in Maryland which I know you know well, Carol, from being from this area, that there was a shooting, that there was one dead, one injured, one critical and an officer transported to a medical facility.

COSTELLO: I can tell you, I visited the NSA building many times for stories and security is very tight. They keep a close eye on you. And that means just as you exit the highway they know you're coming and you can see by the condition of those cars that it looks to me they tried to ram the gates and that police vehicle tried to stop them but you also said, and I just want to make this clear for our viewers, you saw tweets from police personnel in Maryland and Anne Arundel County Police. One person dead, one injured?

SCIUTTO: That's right, that's coming from Anne Arundel County Police. This is a county in Maryland, but as you know, Carol, our viewers would not -- might know is quite close to the District of Columbia, quite close to D.C. and it says as well that fire department units taking up, going available, it's been clear. So a lot of security and emergency services were called into action in light of this shooting right now. But again, speaking to the NSA, the NSA itself is not confirming an incident at this time.

COSTELLO: Yes. I'm sure it'll take them some time to come out and say something publicly. Anne Arundel County, of course, is home to Annapolis, which is the

state capital of Maryland, just to make clear, so about a half hour from Washington, D.C. and a half hour from Baltimore. So it's in the middle. When we get more information on this breaking story of course we'll pass it along. I've got to take a break right now. We'll be back with much more in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:43] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. I want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world.

I go straight to the breaking news out of -- well, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, that's a half hour from Washington, D.C. There's been a disturbing incident at Fort Meade and at the headquarters of the NSA, the American spy agency.

This is the entrance into those facilities. It's right off the BW Parkway. Apparently some vehicles tried to ram the security gates here. This is according to our affiliate WJLA. We understand from tweets from the Anne Arundel County Police that one person is dead and another injured. Now we don't know who those people are, we don't know if the injured is emergency personnel or security personnel or one of the suspects in this case.

I do know that Jim Sciutto has been working his sources. He just got off the phone.

What have you found out, Jim?

SCIUTTO: Carol, still seeking comment from the NSA. The NSA is not commenting yet on this to CNN. But the latest information coming from police in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and of course as you said earlier this is the county just outside of D.C. About a half hour from downtown Washington, D.C. where the NSA is located.

Anne Arundel County Police are saying that one person killed, one injured. It also says that a security officer is being transferred. You'll also hear from the fire department who said that they responded to this incident right now. And as I'm speaking you can see the pictures there of what clearly was an incident. You see a police SUV there that looks like it has been rammed. You see another civilian vehicle in the foreground that looks to have tried to run the security cordon there.

And, again, this is hard to say but as we zoom in, you see what could be a body under a white sheet there. That is not confirmed, though, by the NSA. But certainly a security incident there as you look at all the debris spread around it looks like there was an impact, a collision between that police vehicle and that civilian vehicle.

As we've been speaking, Carol, just to make clear, an enormous facility, the NSA, That both you and I have visited and that security cordon, that initial gate there, is a number of yards, hundreds of yards away from the main building. That's on purpose. That is the way many facilities around the D.C. area are. Particularly the intelligence agencies like the NSA, the CIA. They keep those gates far from the main buildings to prevent the possibility of what appears to be a security incident like this.

But, again, you see the security forces there reacting around. The question now is what is the NSA going to say about this and they have yet to react to CNN.

COSTELLO: Yes, I'm sure they're going to take their time, too, Jim, because so much conflicting information is coming into us right now.

Not only is the NSA located behind those security gates but Fort Meade is also back there and of course there's 10,000 military personnel and tens of thousands of civilian workers that work in those facilities, too. And that's another reason, of course, why security is so tight here.

SCIUTTO: That's absolutely right. Keep in mind, in the current threat environment, the security level, the security alert level at facilities like this is very high. They are concerned, they know they're a target, the NSA has been in the news and intelligence agencies, government agencies know that for the kinds of people who may carry out attacks like this, that this would be a prime target assuming that is the circumstances of this case.

It is far too early to say. But we do know that this kind of thing is something that they're very much on alert for. We have to allow for the possibility that this was another kind of incident, that it was not tied to terrorism but keep in mind the NSA, like other government agencies, very aware of the current threat level and they have kept their security high and tight as a result of that.

[10:30:04] And, in fact, that's the way they designed these facilities.