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62 Dead after Boeing Jet Crashes in Russia; Key Suspect from November's Paris Attacks In Custody. Aired 1-1:30a ET

Aired March 19, 2016 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:16] NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I'm Natalie Allen live in Atlanta.

We're following breaking news out of Russia at this hour. All 62 people onboard of Boeing jet that crashed in southern Russia are dead. State media are showing this video which they say is the moment of the crashed there in a distance and the fire that followed.

CNN cannot independently confirm that with this video but the jet did make two attempts to land in snowy rainy windy conditions FlyDubai Flight 9081 was coming from Dubai. We're also told that doctors and phycologists are at the crashed site now and, of course, they are psychologists are meeting -- with the families to really to help them through this tragedy.

Our Matthew Chance is gathering more on the crash. He is live for us at our Moscow Bureau now.

Matthew, we're learning anything more about the number of passenger and crew who tragically die on its flight.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, but in the past, even is -- we've just learned that the casualty figure, the number of dead has been revised. That was by one person, it now seems there was seven crew members onboard, the FlyDubai Boeing 737- 800. Not six scissors was previously reported, bringing the death toll 62 people now.

In terms of detail of who those passengers were, it seems according to local officials, they were mainly from the town, Rostov-on-Don, which is the city in southern Russia where the plane crashed at the airport there. Four of them was said to be children, at least three, but the most of them are Russian nationals but at least three of them according to local officials, apparently had foreign passports, one of course with the crew were foreign nationals as well.

And so, you know, a little bit more detail on the makeup of that passenger list and the crew list, there will be coming to us obviously any hours ahead. What still not clear though, although it the cause of this tragedy. It seems that investigators at the moment, of focusing very much on the weather conditions that were prevailing around Rostov-on-Don in the early hours of this morning when this Boeing 737 came down. Apparently, the wind were very strong coming like 22 to 27 meters per second is what the Meteorological Office is talking about. Now, that translate to about 97 kilometers an hour or 60 miles per hour, something like that, so pretty strong gust.

Visibility also probably a factor according to officials. There was a snow storm underway, there was heavy rain as well in disperse with the snow. It's a very, you know, poor conditions for flying, although not by the conditions that an aircraft like a Boeing 737 wouldn't necessarily be able to handle.

But what's really interesting, looking at the flight path of the air craft and in a web size like flight radar, give us a good indication of what happened It seems that the plane circled for nearly two hours before it attempted it second landing in Rostov-on-Don. And into that point where it crashed, and so there was obviously a lot of awareness of the weather conditions and measures were taken by the flight crew in air traffic controls it seems to try and wait as long as they could before the weather cleared.

It was on that second landing, we understand from emergency officials who are at the scene now in some considerable numbers. It was during that second landing that there was a tail strike, apparently the back of the aircraft struck the ground as it was coming into land. And the aircraft crashed 253 meters from the runway in Rostov-on-Don.

ALLEN: Yeah. That's a tragedy. We thank you Matthew Chance for brining us this latest information, 253 meters from the airport. Thank you.

Also, on top of the stories, our Meteorologist Derek Van Dam, he is following the whether condition at this time, he joins us now with more about that, Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, Natalie. It's becoming more and more apparent that the weather was a factor in this particular crash. We look at the video of the time of the crash, we can see the sheen on the roadway in front, indicating of course there was some sort of weather presence and that sure was the case.

And I want to show this attempted landing that took place, remember we just have the reporter talked about two attempted landings, or at least one prior to the crashed, and you'll able to see that on flight radar 24 -- bring up graphic. And you can see the plane actually circling around the Rostov-on-Don region and, in fact, before making it attempted second landing. But I have someone just off screen helping guide this.

[01:00:00] And we're going to bring up an interesting part of Flightradar 24 because what you're looking at here is a graph that shows the altitude and the speed of the plane through the course of its flight.

This is the first attempted landing. There's altitude in that blue, the speed is the orange. And you can the drop in altitude, and then how it moved up because it tried to make its first attempted landing. But then, realized that the weather condition were an ideal, so it attempted to make its second landing which was roughly two hours later.

But there's an important information here because the reporters just talked about a tail strike, meaning that the back side of the plane actually struck the ground and it wasn't even on the runway, it was roughly 250 meters from the runway.

So what this tells me here is that, as the plane tried to make it second attempted landing, it drop an altitude but then it tried to recorrect itself by accelerating the airplane and maybe perhaps went into some sort of a stalled position allowing for the plane to, the back side of the plane, to reach the ground. It probably encountered some turbulent winds updrafts and downdrafts with the weather that moved through.

It dropped roughly 4000 feet in that last 60 seconds of its flight durations. Well, a lot of information being told particularly by this graph. You can actually see that the current winds into to Rostov-on- Don region are around 29 kilometers per hour. But as we go back in time, there was strong gusty winds across this area, as a significant cold front had just went through right around the time of the air disaster, Natalie?

ALLEN: Certainly, the rather there indicating that these pilots had quite a situation on their hand. And we'll be talking with an analyst about, more about what you just brought us there Derek in just moment.

But right now, we want to go to our producer, Jon Jensen. For more, he is on way to Dubai International Airport where FlyDubai Flight 981 originated. He joins me now on the phone.

Jon, as you make your way there, what is the airline said so far about this crash, this tragedy?

JON JENSEN, CNN PRODUCER: Natalie in the last hour, the airline had confirmed this tragic incident and they have put an emergency respond in place. They've given out several telephone numbers or family members to call them and get latest information.

I want to review just a short piece of their statement from FlyDubai earlier in the past hour. They've said, "We are doing all we can to gather information as quickly as possible. At this moment our thoughts and prayers are with our passengers and our crew who were on board the aircraft. And we will do everything we can to help those who have been affected by this accident."

Natalie, this is a relatively new airline in the region. They started flying in 2009. I've got to say, they have a pretty good safety record in the past five years. No major incident and we're told that from aviation analyst that the 737 that were flying. It's relatively new purchased in 2011. The carrier was established in 2009, and basically route across the Middle East, most mid-range flight medium- haul North Africa, India, Asia and potentially to Eastern Europe.

The only flight 737-800, we're told they have a round 50 of them in their livery. And they have a staff around 500 pilot, 2,000 cabin crew. There's some relatively small airline nut growing and again, fairly safe.

So we will follow this developing story to get the airport and see if we can get more comment from the airline on what they are doing.

ALLEN: All right. Jon, just one question before you go, is this flight, this route to Rostov-on-Don, is that a regular flight that FlyDubai takes?

JENSEN: It is a regular flight. They fly twice a week. And, you know, it is about as five-hour journey from Dubai. So this is something that their pilot would have experience it it's the weather conditions, were snowy and windy. This is certain not new route for them. And they do fly to, you know, as I mentioned, Central Europe and, you know, airport where these conditions prevail, so certainly not anything that you wouldn't have experience in the past. Natalie?

ALLEN: All right, Jon Jensen again, on his way to the airport there. We appreciate our producer there in Abu Dhabi.

Let's discuss this crash now with Alan Diehl. Alan is a former NTSB Investigator and Author of "Air Safety Investigators: Using Science to Save Lives--One Crash at a Time ". Alan joins us from Albuquerque, New Mexico via Skype right now.

Alan, good to have you with us, and thank you for joining us. We just heard our meteorologist talking about the data what we're seeing coming from this plane and these attempts to land. What do you take away from it learning that -- about the weather conditions and the aborted flight -- excuse, the aborted landing?

[01:05:06] ALAN DIEHL, FORMER NTSB INVESTIGATOR: Natalie, very -- and I haven't seen the graphic display that your meteorologist was describing. As you probably know, I'm aviation psychologist and also an airline transport pilot rated individual and I've flown a 737. But to fly around in that kind of weather, they can attempt and spend two hours basically orbiting if you will to the general area. That can certainly increase the psychological stress on the pilot aside from the weather.

Now, I heard Derek correctly that there was a 4,000 for a minute drop rate shortly before landing. Now, you know, that sound like some kind of a bound drop which, you know, can easily lead to a tail strike. Yes, you'd expect the pilots to go full power and nose up, and of course that lowers the tail.

So that's consistent, all of this is very preliminary as you know it, Natalie. But that sure follows up a scary pattern we saw this as the -- 2013 in good weather, there is San Francisco with 777 now, you know, circumstances were totally different given the weather situation.

But that flight I read was schedules to land at 1:20 and I believe the crash occurred something like 3:50 local. So this was, you know, fatigue can also as well as the stress can also be a factor here and I know the human factor specialist, an air safety investigators looking into this will -- certainly want to examine that in a great details to -- by listening to the recorders. They'll have a good idea of just how high the stress was and if already mistakes made.

ALLEN: Yeah. Alan, we'll talk about that because we did also learn that there was another airplane that was attempting to land during this time. And did decide to land at a different airport. So let's talk more about what these pilots are dealing with these conditions.

Yes, they were up there for quite sometime, its fuel and issue at this point. And what the about the decision to land at another airport, is that solely on the shoulders of the flight crew?

DIEHL: Yes it is, Natalie. What pilots have to do is carry enough fuel to fly to their destination, and to go to other airport that has better weather and then have an additional 45 minutes of fuel. Well, if the reports are right about that, orbiting for almost two hours, that said, like you mean that they would really be press (ph) to go to the alternate at that point.

Now, the other aircraft apparently did -- do what's called the missed approach and went to its overnet. But these pilots may have realized that they were running out of options and that, of course, again, can increase stress levels which we know off that leads to pilot air unfortunately.

So, Natalie, this will be something for the psychologist on the team to look at very carefully. And again, when you listen to the cockpit voice recorders, you can hear the stress level, and many times that's a very good clue as to what's going in the mind of those pilots as they realized the fuel situation was getting critical.

ALLEN: What are these are just (ph) terrible tragedy and we really appreciate your analysis, your expertise. Thank you Alan Diehl talking to us from New Mexico, we appreciate it.

DIEHL: Thanks for having me.

ALLEN: Thank you. We'll continue to bring you more on this crash and what we're learning after a break. Also ahead here, a key suspect from the Paris terror attack (inaudible) police for months, the most wanted terrorist in the world has finally captured. We'll have more about that as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:15:28] ALLEN: Again, our top story, breaking out of southern Russia. Boeing 737 crashed while landing at Rostov-on-Don Saturday, killing all 62 people on board, 7 crew members among those who died. State media are reporting FlyDubai Flight 981 made two attempts to land and on the second try, its tail clipped the runway. The plane deep in 4,000 feet in the last 60 seconds of its flight, Russian state media showing this video right here which it says, shows the crash there in the distance. CNN can't independently confirm that though.

We turn to Brussels. Now, a key suspect from November's Paris terror attacks is finally in custody. Salah Abdeslam was captured following a shoot out with police on Friday, 4 other people also arrested at that time. It's the three of them helped hide Abdeslam during his four months on the run. Police have been calling through the Brussels suburb where Abdeslam was detained.

CNN's Nima Elbagir reports finger print, help lead them to Europe's most wanted fugitive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Heavily armed Belgian police, a daring day time raid in a Brussels' neighborhood. Their target, Salah Abdeslam believes to be one of the last Paris attackers alive, the focus of a massive international manhunt.

Abdeslam had been on the run for more than four months, many believe he'd fled to Syria but here he was, cornered in a small apartment just 200 miles from Paris.

So French President Francois Hollande mixed emotions.

FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translation): I'm thinking of the victims right now, ops of the attacks of the 13th of November in Paris and Saint-Denis.

ELBAGIR: Now 13th Paris, teams of attacker descend on the city, armed with heavy weapons, some with suicide belt strap to their bodies targeting bus, restaurants, concert hall and a football stadium. After, a blood bath of terror, 130 people lay dead. Most of the attackers French and Belgian citizens, some with link to terror groups in Syria, those not killed by police died in a suicide attacks.