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U.S. Military Helicopter Wreckage Found; Amtrak Crash Investigation Focuses on the Engineer; Employee Files First Suit Against Amtrak After Crash; Final Victims Identified; ISIS Raises Flag Over Government Building in Ramadi; Boston Bombing Trial Deliberations Enter 10th Hour. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 15, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:14] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, the wreckage of a missing American helicopter found in Nepal. Six Marines among those onboard. Three bodies have been found so far. We're on the ground near the crash site.

Plus new video and new details about the last 65 seconds before that Amtrak train derailed and now the engineer is agreeing to talk to investigators as his friends rush to defend him.

Then --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please welcome Mitt "The Glove" Romney.

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COSTELLO: Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney gets ready to step in the ring with a former champion but it's 2016 contender Jeb Bush that's taking some hits.

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin this hour in Nepal. A tragic end to the search for U.S. Marines missing on an aid mission in the Nepalese mountains. The U.S. military now confirming the chopper has been found and it's likely that everyone onboard was killed.

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Because of the nature of the wreckage, it is unlikely that there are any survivors at this time. Our prayers are with the Marines and the Nepalese soldiers and their families. We all mourn this tragic loss of life.

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COSTELLO: The wreckage of that Marine chopper was discovered on a steep slope of the mountains east of Kathmandu. The soldiers -- the Marines rather were out delivering supplies to victims of Nepal's two massive earthquake. Will Ripley is in Kathmandu with more.

Hi, Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Within the last hour we got some new information from the Nepali military about how this helicopter was located. According to the Nepal authorities it was actually locals on the ground in this area who spotted the wreckage and alerted the army that they should probably get in the air and take a look.

And so then they launched these helicopters and you heard the U.S. general there in his press conference talk about the fact that Nepal helicopters spotted the wreckage and then they sent in teams on the ground. And that's when they were able to verify that it was indeed the U.S. Marine Huey helicopter and they did identify -- or not identify, but they did find three bodies that are partially burned.

They're still combing the crash site or at least that's the plan to resume tomorrow. Treacherous weather forced them to stop those operations for the day. Keep in mind you're at a very high altitude. 11,200 feet. Subzero temperatures. Very unpredictable weather conditions. It's dangerous for the men on the ground and also for those crews in the air.

This is one of the most dangerous places in the world to fly and General Wissler there saying that he wants to make sure that there are no other lives lost as they try to investigate this crash and bring back those crew members and also try to figure out exactly what happened -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Will Ripley reporting live from Kathmandu this morning.

In Philadelphia, new details are emerging and they just add to the mystery of why an Amtrak train was dangerously barreling into a curve before flying off the tracks. We're learning that at the very time the train should have been slowing down it was actually speeding up to more than double the speed limit in that stretch of tracks.

CNN's Erin McLaughlin is in Philadelphia with more for you.

Good morning.

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The NTSB investigators say that when they sit down with 32-year-old train engineer Brandon Bostian they're going to hand him a piece of white paper and a pen and ask him to paint a picture of exactly what happened to the best of his recollection. But of course the problem with that is his lawyer was saying he's having trouble remembering the crash due to a concussion sustained from that accident.

He says, though, that it is possible that Bostian's memory will return once that concussion subsides. Meanwhile, the NTSB is saying that they now believe that just about a little over minute before the crash, the train was actually accelerating. That Bostian, they believe, applied the emergency break just as the train was beginning to enter the curve but by then it was too late. Seconds later the train crashed.

That based on detailed analysis of video footage captured by a camera at the front of the train. But what that footage does not tell them, of course, is why the reasons for that acceleration. That's why they want to talk to Bostian. They're saying they believe they will be doing that in the next couple of days -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And in the meantime, Erin, friends of this engineer are rushing forward to defend him, right?

[10:05:03] MCLAUGHLIN: Yes. The friends are speaking out in his defense. James Weir, his good friend, says that he was very safety conscious. He took his job very seriously. He does not believe Bostian is at fault. He says he actually spoke with the engineer following the crash. Take a listen.

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JAMES WEIR, ENGINEER BRANDON BOSTIAN'S BEST FRIEND: He's very distraught. He's very upset. He's very sorry. I don't think there's any foul play or anything like that. He was never one to do drugs. There's got to be something else. In fact, when we were driving, he would never go even above five miles an hour in the car. And when I did, when I was driving, he'd fuss at me.

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MCLAUGHLIN: Bostian does seem to be someone who was concerned with safety and blog posts believed to be by Bostian, he starts talking about the need for greater safety systems on trains. Ironically advocating for the very same system that NTSB official say could have prevented this tragedy -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Erin McLaughlin reporting live from Philadelphia. Thank you so much.

In the meantime, an Amtrak employee is the first person to file suit against Amtrak. Bruce Phillips is a dispatcher for the train service. He was seated at the back of the train when it crashed. He suffered head injuries and now accuses Amtrak of negligence. Last hour I spoke to his attorneys.

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ROBERT MYERS, ATTORNEYS FOR AMTRAK EMPLOYEE BRUCE PHILLIPS: He and others were ejected from the seat and literally they were like rag dolls made out of ping-pong material being thrown about the car. They hit the ceiling, luggage racks, the seats. When it finally came to a stop, there was just panic and just a horrible things that everybody saw in that train including our client.

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COSTELLO: All right. Let's talk more about this with transportation accident attorney David Cook. I'm also joined by John Goglia, he's a former member -- he's a former board member of the NTSB. Thanks to both of you for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

JOHN GOGLIA, FORMER BOARD MEMBERS, NTSB: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. John, I want to start with you. So Brandon Bostian will now talk to NTSB investigators. How will that go? What kind of questions will they ask? What would the setting be like?

GOGLIA: Well, the setting will be neutral as possible. And the questions that will be asked will be the questions that we've been talking about for days. You know, just what did he do from the time he left the station? If he can remember, that would be very helpful. But remember the process that the NTSB uses is trust but verify. So they're going to go over every detail, if he gives give up some details then they're going to look for physical evidence to substantiate what this -- what he may be saying.

COSTELLO: So, David, will his attorney be with him?

DAVID COOK, TRANSPORTATION ACCIDENT ATTORNEY: I would assume his attorney will be with him. He's been with him from the very beginning and I assume that he'll continue to be with him.

COSTELLO: So how freely will this engineer be able to speak with investigators with his attorney right there beside him?

COOK: Probably not as freely as the investigators would like. And from the very beginning by making the determination that he's not ready to speak, and now he is ready to speak but what might he really remember? Or what might he not be disclosing that we might otherwise like to hear?

Questions that really can't be answered at this point. Doctors have commented on whether or not his concussion may have affected his memory. Those are all questions as to whether or not there was negligent error that happened in that first car where the train was operated and where the engineer was situated. It appears that the answer to that is obviously yes. But how did it occur and what were factors that went into the occurrence and leading this train at 106 miles an hour to leave the tracks.

COSTELLO: And, you know, there's some strange information coming forward, you know, along those lines. And I want to pose this to you, John. So 65 seconds before the train's black box recording ends, the train was traveling at 70 miles per hour. I have to read it because I don't have it in my memory. So 65 seconds before the train's black box recording ends the train was traveling at 70 miles per hour.

And then it sped up. At 43 seconds before the recording ends, the train was up to 80 miles per hour. Twelve seconds later it hit 90 miles per hour and 15 seconds after that it topped 100 miles per hour, and that's when this engineer, Brandon Bostian, slammed on the brakes.

So, John, what do you make of that? GOGLIA: Well, there's two possible scenarios. At least two. One is

that he actually manipulated the controls to speed the train up and the other is some sort of a mechanical electronical failure that the train became a runaway. And so since this track is among some of the smoothest that we have in the system because it's high speed track, it may not have felt it. He may have been distracted with something in the locomotive. We haven't talked about his cell phone. Was he on the cell phone or not?

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GOGLIA: So there's a --

COSTELLO: He turned over his cell phone and his lawyer said that he wasn't texting. His cell phone was off as is required by Amtrak.

[10:10:09] GOGLIA: That's perfect. I'm glad to hear that. So that eliminates one possibility. And that's what's going to happen. One by one the possibilities are going to be eliminated. I mean, I heard what was saying about all the people that he was a great person and so on but people do make mistakes. I mean, it's very common for people to make mistakes especially if they're fatigues.

I haven't heard anybody talking about what his work schedule was like. Not only this day but the proceeding three days. That's standard protocol for the NTSB so they'll be digging into that. So there's a lot of questions that we have that haven't been addressed yet and they will be addressed over the next couple of days. Some of them will be able to be answered quickly and easily. Others are going to take a tremendous amount of work to get to the bottom of.

COSTELLO: OK. Something else that I'm sure that will be in Mr. Bostian's lawyer's mind, David, you know, this Amtrak employee filed a lawsuit. Within the lawsuit are these allegations. Amtrak failed to provide sufficient personnel to safely operate the train. Also inside that lawsuit, there weren't proper systems in place to slow the train.

So will all that enter into whatever charges may be filed against this engineer?

COOK: I think that the latter that you just discussed which obviously is the positive train control is something that's at the heart of the issue. You have negligence here. Who and exactly where to pin it is really the issue. There's no question that Amtrak is at fault here. Either they could have and should have had the positive train control in effect.

To find out yesterday that it was on the southbound track and not on the northbound track, and coupling that with the Metro North crash it's quite viable, virtually 18 months ago where this is a duplication of the same accident. The activities within the control panel by the engineer may somewhat differ but ultimately the plane -- the train reached a speed that was excessive, far excessive of what was safe.

Went into that turn, flew off the tracks, people were killed, and so many people were injured and the people that have suffered, families, the people who have been fortunate enough to survive it, will live with this for the rest of their lives and it's something that unfortunately it was totally avoidable.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there.

David Cook, John Goglia, thank you so much for being with me today. I appreciate it.

In our next hour here on CNN, we'll hear from the friend that Bostian called from the hospital right after the crash.

Grim milestones, though, in this Amtrak crash. The first funeral and the final identification of those killed.

Let's return to Philadelphia to get more from CNN's Sunlen Serfaty.

Good morning.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, all eight killed by that train crash have now been accounted for and identified including 45-year-old Bob Gildersleeve, he was a father of two from Baltimore, Maryland. His body was just found yesterday at the crash site by a cadaver dog. Also among the killed, 47-year-old Laure Finamore, she was -- Finamore, she was a commercial real estate agent from New York.

Also Giuseppe Piras, an Italian national. He was here visiting the U.S. on business. He was a wine and oil merchant.

Now later this morning will be the first of the funerals for that of a 20-year-old Justin Zemser from U.S. Naval Academy. He was a midshipman, a sophomore there. We know that he will be honored with full military honors from the U.S. Navy. His family will present -- the U.S. Navy will present his family with an American flag and we know that 160 midshipmen from his company will be at his funeral later today in Long Island -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Sunlen Serfaty, many thanks.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, breaking news out of Iraq. Is ISIS gaining ground? Nick Paton Walsh has the latest.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We'll be hearing whether or not ISIS have managed to gain full control of a key province to the west of Baghdad.

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COSTELLO: All right. This just in to CNN. ISIS making gains in Iraq, raising its flag over a government building in Ramadi.

Nick Paton Walsh is live in Beirut, Lebanon to talk more about this.

Nick, General Martin Dempsey wants to downplay the importance of Ramadi but it's really close to Baghdad, right?

WALSH: True. And frankly, I think ISIS at this stage taking control -- not at this stage but taking over significant buildings in a town like that would be a big deal on any day. This is running against the Iraqi government's narrative of Anbar being the next place they want to take on ISIS in and push them out of. They said after taking Tikrit that they weren't going to move on to Mosul necessarily as the next target but it would be Anbar in the focus and now it is ISIS that are gaining ground there.

This seems to spark how early this morning 13 separate suicide bombings around the city. Two of which it seems caused ISIS to have a passage in towards the city center. They've now raised their flag over the provincial headquarters, the police headquarters, and seem to have control of a key mosque there as well.

The fighting is ongoing. People are fleeing and it's a deeply symbolic obviously city because it's the provincial capital of Anbar, yes, but also this was an area in which the government last say had hoped to exert its influence, and push ISIS out, find some of the many Sunnis living there who would welcome their return. Instead now it's ISIS who are raising their flag, Carol. Bad indeed for the Baghdad government's narrative.

COSTELLO: So give us a sense about how things are going within Iraq. Is Iraq or is ISIS in control of too much territory? Are Iraqi forces making progress? What's the story there?

WALSH: Well, certainly it looked like Iraqi Forces were doing well in terms of -- plus Iraqi forces a mixture of Shia militia and Iraqi security forces that took Tikrit in the north. And we saw of course ISIS in Khobani in Syria being pushed out by Kurdish forces there, mixed with coalition airstrikes as well.

It had seemed as though much of the narrative territorially was turning against ISIS. There is all this speculation as to where is ISIS' leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. What instead is happening now, we saw the audio message or heard the audio message from Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi yesterday emerged and seemed to show that he was in good enough spirits, not totally day specific, but he'd certainly made in the last six to eight weeks or so.

[10:20:18] And we're also seeing this move into Ramadi, too, suggesting that ISIS has certainly trying to push back in one direction. We simply don't know full condition of them whether they're experiencing significant wear and tear off the coalition airstrikes, lacking in resources, many reports suggest, but certainly if they manage to retain Ramadi or exercise full control in the days ahead that will be a very significant blow for coalition efforts against them -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Nick Paton Walsh reporting live from Beirut this morning. Thank you.

Coming up in the NEWSROOM, Mitt Romney ready to throw some punches tonight. But Jeb Bush has been dodging all the punches this week. We'll talk about both of those men next.

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COSTELLO: Jury deliberations coming up on 10 hours in Boston. The same men and women who convicted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev last month, they're hashing it out right now, deciding whether he lives or dies.

Something to keep in mind. It only took 11 hours for the jurors to decide what to do about Timothy McVeigh. The jury is now weighing its decision on factors from a 24-page questionnaire, factors that are both aggravating and mitigating.

Deborah Feyerick is covering this in Boston for us.

Good morning.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning there, Carol. And that's right. The jury is now in its 11th hour of deliberating. They began on Wednesday just after closings and the judge even though there was just less than an hour in the day, the judge basically put them in that room and said, you know, start talking.

[10:25:07] And Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in court has really seemed a lot lighter. His mood. His demeanor. You know, we sat through this trial and the guilt trial since March and he was very serious. We don't know whether he was instructed to be that way but yesterday after the jury began deliberating, he seemed much more relaxed. He was writing on a pad. Some people thought he was sketching.

Then another time towards the end of the day during a private conversation with his lawyer there was actually a belly laugh and, you know, all the journalists in the courtroom kind of looked at each other saying, did you hear what I heard, because he has shown so little emotion during this whole period.

He knows he's got two options, Carol. Either dies by execution or he dies after spending every single day for the rest of his life in prison.

Now we have gotten two notes. And it appears that out of these six sections that the jury really has to consider that they made their way into the third section at the very least. That's the aggravating factors. Then they've got to go on to mitigating. It's the mitigating factors that could essentially spare his life -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Deborah Feyerick reporting live from Boston. Thanks so much.

I'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Mitt Romney throwing his hat into a very different ring tomorrow night

preparing for the fight of his life. And knocking down his critics along the way.

[10:30:11]

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MITT ROMNEY, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hi. I'm Mitt Romney. And you may recognize me from television or the --

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