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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

French BEA Speaks Out on Crash. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 25, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] MARIANO RAJOY, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): A dramatic accident.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

RAJOY: We would like to be together with you in your pain. And we know it's not going to be easy because the worse that could happen to a human being has happened. Know that we are together with you. We would like to support you with all the means available to us in everything you need, and we would like, as Francois has said, to identify the victims, to sending (ph) -- bring home because we know that this is important. We are going to work together and we are going to do all it takes in such a difficult and complex moment as now, that so many people have gone through.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

RAJOY: Many French citizens but also German citizens, Spanish citizens are going to work in order to help the families and the loved ones of the victims. We have seen that our interpreters, psychologists, police officers, firemen, military personnel, many volunteers. So I'd like to say to all of them, thank you very much indeed.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so what you're hearing there is really a strong showing of solidarity between the leaders of France, Germany and Spain coming together. They viewed -- they went to the staging area today. Obviously, all of them, very sobering words, talking about just how horrific the scene is but how emotional they all were in seeing everyone coming together to try to figure out exactly how and why and what happened to the 150 people on board that Germanwings flight.

Let's bring in two of our experts, two of best, Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transpiration, CNN aviation analyst, as well as David Soucie, CNN safety analyst, also author of the new book "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370," to discuss what we see and hear from them and what that means going forward.

One tidbit I did catch, and, of course, we need have to look back, Mary, because we're looking -- we're dealing with translation. One thing we heard from President Francois Hollande was that the flight data recorder, I believe he was talking about, he said the black -- the other black box was -- the outside frame of it was found but not the inside. Does that happen very often?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: No, it doesn't. I mean even in the planes of September 11, 2001, we got the flight data recorder from the Pentagon and the flight data recorder and the voice recorder from Shanksville. So even in those horrific and very ferociously hot fire crashes, they were able to survive. So this is indeed not good news for the investigation. Of course that doesn't mean they couldn't theoretically find the data cards. But it would be very difficult. So let's hope that -- you know, hope against what apparently is evidence that it's been -- might be lost.

BOLDUAN: Because that is some crucial data I know. We've been talking about that with Mary and David.

SCHIAVO: It is.

BOLDUAN: That's crucial data to be coming out. Talk to me about that -- what that means. And also, when you see those three leaders together, talk about the coordination between nations that come together. Obviously France is leading the investigation. But is that difficult when you've got these three nations or 15 nations, really, coming together to try to figure out a crash investigation.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: It's very difficult and it's extraordinary, though, to see the cooperation and to see them come forward and say how much they'll help each other. If you remember in MH-370, between China and the --

BOLDUAN: There was much more tension there.

SOUCIE: There was much more tension there. There was some military information that they needed to share that they weren't very excited about sharing between each other. So to see this and to see this cooperation is incredibly important to the investigators because without that sharing of investigation, you really have nothing.

[12:04:55] BOLDUAN: I was just looking back at some of my notes. All of them saying that -- Francois Hollande saying that he was overtaken by emotion when he saw all the people who were at the staging area, if you will, ready to receive families when they do arrive. I believe there is another press conference, an important press conference, the lead agency of France, the French agency leading this investigation, the BAE or --

SOUCIE: BEA.

BOLDUAN: BEA. They are beginning their update right now. Let's go to this.

REMI JOUTY, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIONS & ANALYSES (through translator): German company and also the aircraft is registered in Germany. The German investigative authority, the CIAIAC, is also taking part in the investigation. In particular, to give us information on how the flight was prepared before leaving Barcelona. As is normal in any kind of investigation like this, the investigators from the various countries are assisted by various technical advisers who have technical data from the organizations they come from to assist. So there are technical advisers from the European safety agency, which is responsible for giving certification to aircraft and saying that they can fly. The manufacturers, Airbus, and also for the engines, CFM Snecma and General Electric, and also Germanwings and its mother company, so to speak, Lufthansa.

With respect to the internal organization for this inquiry, there's Mr. Arnold Desjardins (ph), a designated investigator, who will be the leader, the organizer. There will be an assistant, Omar Defia (ph), and the investigatory work who will be structured around three groups who will look for information on more specific themes. One group will look for aircraft, everything on the history of the aircraft, maintenance and its condition. Another group will work on the systems on board and on the ground. And that's where all the work will be done with the recorders. And then a group for air operation, which will look at the -- the way in which the aircraft was operated.

I've put here on the right a reminder that this organization involves various people who are not from BEA but from our colleagues, the BFU, Germany and CIAIAC Spain. So there are investigators from those two bodies who will be integrated into these investigation groups and also the technical advisers that I mentioned will take part in the investigations.

A few words on the site of the accident. Here's a general photograph. You may have seen others already. What do we see here? Well, mountain, very rugged, very difficult for access because it's a long way from any road. But also very steep ground and quite unstable. It's not possible to even go on foot easily. So this requires precautions both to get there and to move around on the site. So the conditions for investigating on site are very difficult.

And then you can see it here. The aircraft had an impact at high speed, a lot of energy into the flank of the mountains. And most of the pieces are therefore spread in some of the -- spread around -- very -- some very small, most of them.

The work on site started as early as possible. This morning already some BEA investigators with experts from Airbus, the manufacturer, looked at the site initially from the air to get a general view of how the debris were distributed. Some of the investigators were then dropped by helicopter on the site. And this takes us back to the earlier photograph. It's very difficult to be on the ground because they have to work tied one to another, which, of course, doesn't make it easier to look for parts.

The work itself on site -- well, first of all, looking for the parameter recorder. Work is also ongoing to try to identify and localize the main elements of the aircraft and then, according to how the investigation develops and also other information which might be received, for example, from the black boxes, certain choices may or may have to be made to try and get or analyze more specific items of the aircraft. But, of course, given the way the debris are distributed under high energy, we are aware that the analysis, the physical analysis with parts of the aircraft will be difficult and maybe fairly limited in nature.

[12:10:40] To come back to the flight path, to try to show it a bit more in detail, here you have the south of France. The aircraft followed this path, which is in accordance with the planned flight path. And the next reporting point was here, (INAUDIBLE). It's spotting the right direction. It had been, for a little while, at its cruising height, 38,000 feet. And about 9:30, the last message broadcast from the aircraft to the control center with which it was in contact was routine, confirming the instruction given by the control tower saying that there was authorization to go directly to Irmar (ph), the point that you see here.

Roughly one minute later, the path the air radar shows, that the aircraft starts a descent and that continues until impact. The last radar position still continues to send, is very close to the site of impact itself. The descent lasts roughly 10 minutes, a bit less. And the last altitude recorded by radar is a bit more than 6,000 feet, a bit more than the average height of the impact site. In other words, radar was able to follow this aircraft virtually to the point of impact.

So now a presentation for the same flight path vertically. Here we see the altitude and, with time, of course, and also according to distance. So the same points as earlier. The last message sent by the aircraft, the beginning of the descent and the last position, we can see it here clearly. The altitude of the last position point, very close to the actual crash site.

And now, of course, we have no explanation or interpretation for the reasons which might have led this aircraft to descend and continue to descend, unfortunately, onto the mountain. All the reason, well, why it didn't answer the attempts of the air control -- air controller who tried to contact them.

So my last point, the recorders, we -- well, the sound recorder that you can see here, it was found on the site yesterday about 5:00 p.m. and it was quickly sent to the offices of BEA under seal. And it was then handed over to BEA here at Libersa (ph), still sealed, at 9:45 this morning. And this is a photograph of the recorder.

The part that you can see here is the base, the part which contains the memory module with the recorded data. And that part -- or this part is a connecting part, which for the investigation is not indispensable. So the important part containing the data that interests us is this. And here you have the sound sub water beacon, which in the event of an accident in water or on water gives out a sound. But in the event of a land accident, doesn't serve any purpose because the sound doesn't go sufficiently through air to allow us -- to allow localization.

[12:15:00] Well, the work to look at this module, the memory lasted all day, from the morning. There was some problems to read the data. But, nevertheless, that is what I was saying at the beginning, because it was a good news and a relief for us, we have been able to extract an audio file that we can use.

And, well, we know that this is concerning this particular flight, but it's too soon to draw any conclusions with respect to what happened. Following this, with respect to this module, the sound module or file, we'll have to do some work to understand and interpret the sounds and the voices that might be heard on that audio file.

Well, that's it. Thank you for your attention. Forgive me again for being late on doing this. So, now, if you have any questions.

REPORTER (through translator): Artiel (ph), you're speaking -- Pier Juliel Artiel. You said that you were able to extract a usable file. In fact, does the data go up to the moment of impact?

JOUTY: The data contains the flight of the accident, yes, yes. We will be able to work on the accident.

REPORTER: The pilots, do they speak one with another?

JOUTY: I can't give you any more details at the moment. We haven't yet analyzed or established a particular time scale for sounds or words that can be heard on the file. I'll say it again, we've just been able to extract the file. We were able to check that it lasted the time it needed -- we needed and it contains sound. We can use it, yes.

REPORTER (through translator): Teri Jigabo Lupren (ph). How long will you need to be able to fully look at this?

JOUTY: Well, it's difficult to say now and also you have to remember that the CVR, we can seldom do that on its own. We also have to look at the details with respect to departure. But we haven't got that yet. There's some work I was mentioning earlier in terms of understanding sounds, alarms, voices, attributing the voices to the various people. That takes some time. And it's something that takes time. Normally after a few days, we get a rough -- a rough pattern but usually there are mistakes. And then once we understand the flight better, we can understand better and we achieve a transcription or record which leaves us convinced that it's as good as possible. And that takes several weeks, or even months.

REPORTER (through translator): Are they speaking in English or German?

JOUTY: I have no answers.

REPORTER (through translator): So we have the full timing of the flight on the record, that's what you're saying, isn't it? So, from departure to impact?

JOUTY: At the moment I can't give you very precise details on the duration of the beginning or end of the recording.

REPORTER (through translator): Can you say a few more words on the file? How many minutes recording, how much data?

JOUTY: I have no specific data at the moment with respect to the duration of the recording, types of voices, languages, so on. You needn't even ask questions of that kind.

REPORTER (through translator): Will we have to wait until you've analyzed all the sounds from the tape or will there be data on the content of dialogue between pilots? JOUTY: We will try to communicate our progress as soon as we have

information, whether coming from the CVR or elsewhere, which will make it possible for us to say clearly what we know at a given moment.

JOUTY: Hello. Yes, please.

REPORTER (through translator): (INAUDIBLE). There are continuous rumors on the fact that you may have localized the second black box but that it may be broken up into many parts and therefore unusable. Can you say a few words on that second black box?

JOUTY: Those rumors are not at all confirmed. We have not localized the black box. We have not found any debris of the black box and in the history of air accidents, we know about recorders that are very damaged or deformed but I don't remember any recorder broken into little pieces.

REPORTER (through translator): Can I --

JOUTY: Hello.

REPORTER: Can I allow myself to speak to you in English?

JOUTY: Please.

[12:20:00] REPORTER: So can you tell us exactly about the finding which -- what this data that you have found on your first black box shows and when we can expect additional information to be made available to the public?

JOUTY (on camera): As they say in French (INAUDIBLE). We just succeed in getting module file which contains usable sounds and voices. We have not yet fully restored (INAUDIBLE) in order to say, OK, this is (INAUDIBLE) matter of days and (INAUDIBLE).

JOUTY (through translator): Sebastian Yearoper (ph). For the sake of black box, the president, Francois Hollande, said that the outside had been found. I can't confirm that at the moment. We have no information on the box itself.

REPORTER (through translator): Could I come back again? So you are optimistic after all with respect to having already initial data files?

JOUTY: I'm fairly optimistic in terms of first of all we're convinced that we will at least have an audio file that we can use. The accident site is difficult to reach. It has one or two hectares, that's quite a lot, but it's not immense. So if we go through it carefully, we will find the parameter recorder and those recorders are designed to withstand serious crashes. So we are optimistic that we'll get a recorder parameters and those two things should enable us to understand what happened.

REPORTER (through translator): France TV (INAUDIBLE). Do you have any data on depressurization? JOUTY: At the moment, no. Beginning of an idea. And without going into

details, I can't elaborate intellectually and I wouldn't want to do it so as not to go along a path which might be wrong. A depressurization scenario, which might stand in depressurization scenario. I can't elaborate and I refuse to try. A standard depressurization scenario which might tie in with these elements.

REPORTER (through translator): Tim Heath (ph), Reuters. To confirm, you've been able to listen for a first time, even very quickly?

JOUTY: Yes. So, well, I didn't do it. Yes, my teams. My laboratory teams. Yes.

REPORTER (through translator): And you said that you heard voices. Were they conscious?

JOUTY: Well, I can't speak on that. I can't say anything else. I have nothing else to say on that.

REPORTER (through translator): And the curve, according to what you've seen on radar in terms of the descent, does it seem to you behavior which shows an aircraft under pilot control or not?

JOUTY: The curve is compatible with an aircraft controlled by pilots, except for the fact that we can't imagine pilots consciously sending an aircraft into a mountain. But it may also be compatible with an aircraft which is controlled by an automatic pilot. But at the moment, once again, no explanations. And to answer the other gentleman's question why you can't say more. Well, this audio file, we've only had it a few minutes. And in a few minutes, it's not possible, listening to voices -- it's not possible to say it's the crew, it's the captain, co-pilot. We need more time to check that out.

REPORTER (through translator): Can you say if you hear voices up to the moment of impact?

JOUTY: It's not that easy. So I have no other comment on that.

REPORTER (through translator): So you're not closing off the idea of a possible terrorist attack?

JOUTY: Nothing is excluded. I'm not in a position to confirm precisely.

REPORTER (through translator): (INAUDIBLE). In terms of the descent rate, 3,000 feet per minute.

JOUTY: Yes, you saw it on the chart. About 3,000, 3,500 feet per minute with a few variations. Fairly constant. That's what you saw on the chart. Yes, with a constant direction. Let me make clear, that information is not recorded parameters. This is radar data. So the precision is that of radar data.

[12:25:24] REPORTER: Some experts have been hypothesizing about what might have been in the cargo check (ph) of this plane. I wanted to know if you had any information. There was some rumor about lithium batteries being present in this airplane. Do we know at all what was in the cargo check? Do we have any analysis (ph) about what (INAUDIBLE).

JOUTY (on camera): At the present time, we have no information of that. Obviously, (INAUDIBLE) information, which will be collected over the course of the investigation. If there is any doubt that this could have been a factor in the (INAUDIBLE).

REPORTER (through translator): I have another question. So the investigation is taking place here and on site. But there's been a lot of movement of politicians and we saw also heads of companies and others speaking. Well, do you worry about the calm for the unfolding of the investigation? Haven't we today seen a political climate which might be awkward for your investigation?

JOUTY (through translator): Well, we've had a major disaster which triggers all sorts of emotions. And it happens after 2014 when there were throughout the world various accidents which, for various reasons, have affected public opinion. A few weeks ago there was a helicopter accident which also drew a lot of attention, especially in France. So all this creates a context which means that there's been an awful lot of attention focused on this disaster. But any air disaster triggers, it's quite normal, a lot of attention and emotion. And it's understood that we have to work in such a context.

However, the work of the BES is a technical work, independent, and everyone knows that we will take the time it takes to understand and explain independently of any comments or reactions off the cuff which arise from the (INAUDIBLE) emotion that we all feel.

REPORTER (through translator): France 24 (ph). Given the crash site and the way in which the pieces are distributed, are we sure there was no in-flight explosion? Do we have an idea how the aircraft was dismembered?

JOUTY: Well, let me come back to this maybe. The radar path goes to this altitude, given a few hundred meters. And we're here. In fact, we've exaggerated the difference to make it -- to highlight it on the map, within a few kilometers. So that's a first indication -- clear indication that the aircraft flew to the end.

Second indication, when you see this kind of site, the damage -- well, of course, the area seems quite big, but the debris are very small. And that's not at all characteristic of an aircraft that explodes in flight. That would tend to give debris spread out over many kilometers and large debris, several meters in size, which is not at all the case. So this kind of small debris --

REPORTER (through translator): So such small debris, is it normal?

JOUTY: It's something that we do encounter whenever we have impact on a hard surface with an angle between the aircraft and the impact which is fairly open and with high speed. We've seen these kind of small debris also in the case of the accident in Mali last summer.

[12:30:02] REPORTER (through translator): (INAUDIBLE) for MTV (ph). You've explained that you have an audio file that is useable and has been listened to by your technicians. So useable but very deteriorated.