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Lion Air Flight Crashes with 189 on Board; Fans Mourn Leicester City Football Club Owner; Trump's Response to Calls for Toned-Down Rhetoric; Typhoon Yutu Set to Strike the Philippines; Vigil Held To Honor 11 People Killed In Pittsburgh. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired October 29, 2018 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:00:00] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
CYRIL VANIER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: We're following breaking news out of Indonesia this hour. Authorities say a Lion Air passenger plane carrying 189 people has crashed into the sea.
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Lion Air Flight 610 went missing soon after takeoff from Indonesia's capital of Jakarta. The country's search and rescue agency has boats, helicopters and 130 rescuers to the crash site. CNN's Will Ripley joins us from Hong Kong. He's monitoring the story for us from there. What information, Will, do we have about the crash and it looks like they are recovering material from the crash site.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are, Natalie. This is a horrible story on all fronts. There were 181 passengers on board and what was heartbreaking is there was one child and two infants on this plane and the signs at the crash site where the investigators are arriving right now, not good. They finding plane debris, pieces of the plane, a cell phone, life vest, backpack, the kind of things that passengers bring with them on a flight like this. It was a short flight too, about an hour it was supposed to be from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang.
This is the kind of almost commuter flight that people take every day and just don't give it a second thought. But in this case, just minute after takeoff, something went horribly wrong. The plane took off around 6:21 a.m. local time and it lost contact with the control tower and dropped off radar just minutes later. This was a relatively new aircraft. Actually, not even relatively new, it was new, just 800 flight hours. It had been purchased by Lion Air in August of 2018. Brand new Boeing 30 -- 737, a very safe aircraft with a great safety record.
So to have an incident like this with weather conditions that don't indicate turbulent storms in the area. There was thunderstorms but nothing in the area where the plane went down. Obviously, the investigators is going to be looking for things like the black boxes, the flight data recorder, to give them some kind of clues as to what may have happened. The plane never even reached full altitude. It may have gotten up to around 5,000 or so feet.
There was word that the pilots asked to head back to the airport shortly before the plane disappeared which experts tell us this indicates obviously a catastrophic event. It caused the few aircraft with 189 people onboard, those 181 passengers and eight crew to crash into the ocean and they are operating on the assumption right now that the plane sank so they're going to be searching underwater, they'll have divers, they'll have all of the --- all of those votes, 130 rescuers, helicopters just trying to get a sense of the situation and of course, look for the possibility of survivors. Still too early right now to know but things are not looking good at the moment.
ALLEN: Right. I was going to ask you, you talk about the personal items that they recovered, pieces of the plane but no sightings of any people that were on that plane?
RIPLEY: Not right now, no. You know, if it was up even at 5,000 feet and went down, depending on the crash, I mean, if you're seeing pieces of debris, it seems pretty unlikely that there's going to be good outcome here. Lion Air surprisingly has actually really been proving its safety record. Just this year actually, they received a top safety rating from the international civil aviation organization. It wasn't too long ago that they were actually considered a problematic airline. It's a low-cost carrier that was founded in '99.
They were actually banned from flying in the European Union from July of 2007 to June 2016. But now the E.U. does allow them to fly there. They were very popular, fast-growing airline, the second largest discount airline in Southeast Asia just behind Air Asia. They did have another incident in 2013 in April with a Boeing 37 where one of their plane, it was on the process of landing and it crashed in the water just before reaching the runway. In that case, everybody on board survived. There were some injuries but everybody walked away 101 passengers and seven crew members were able to eventually go home after the crash in 2013. Sadly the news does not seem to be as promising this time around but we'll have to see what rescuers find.
ALLEN: All right, Will Ripley for us there in Hong Kong. For more on the investigation, let's go to Cyril.
VANIER: I want to bring in CNN's Safety Analyst David Soucie. He joins us from Denver, Colorado. And I want to bounce off something that Will Ripley was just saying. The Lion Air was for a while known not being great in terms of safety and I know their record has now changed, right, the way that they're looked at, but still --
[01:05:00] DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Most definitely it has. The ICAO did a lot of work with Lon Air to make them back to what they are now and that typically happens with low budget or budget air carriers is they operate and then if there's any issue, the ICAO and the civil authorities in the area there will spend a lot of time making sure that everything is right on that airline. So I do not expect to see that this aircraft was -- that there was a maintenance issue or anything like that. It seems to me that it'd be more likely that it would be something from a flight situation. I've done a lot of these standup of Airlines after they've been taken
off the list and then to put them back on and they are -- they go through every single thing. I mean we had hundreds and hundreds of problems with an airline that we put back on and they became great. They're a great airline now and I can't use names but this is one of those as well that's been brought back on and has been through the entire set of safety of checks that can be done.
VANIER: All right, so David, if I'm -- if I'm reading between the lines a little bit, you're telling us don't focus so much on their past reputation which wasn't great in terms of safety because that's the thing of the past, so look more at the specifics of this flight and what we know is that 20 minutes into the flight the pilots asked actually for authorization to return to Jakarta Airport where they had just taken off from. Where does that tell you?
SOUCIE: A couple of things. One is that they didn't think it was a major enough situation to land the aircraft in the water. They were trying to turn around and come back home. But in looking at the flight radar and the path of the aircraft, in the very last few seconds of this flight you can see that it went from about 5,200 feet down to 3,600 feet very quickly and you can see that the speed of the aircraft increased dramatically during that time, maybe 20 30 knots doesn't seem like much but that is a lot and it indicates that there was something else going on the airplane, a loss of control some sort, not just that the aircraft engines had quit or anything like that because the aircraft would glide much more smoothly at that point. This seems to be in a very abrupt drop so we'll learn more as we -- as we get to know more of course but --
VANIER: David, typically, would they tell the control tower -- I mean if they're asking to return to the airport, would they say why, what the problem is?
SOUCIE: If they declare an emergency they would but they weren't declaring an emergency. They just said that they were going to return back to the airport which indicates to me that it was something that they thought was minor. An on flight fire, they would have reported that. They would have said hey, there's a fire on board. If there was any kind of nefarious activity or something like that and they were still able to make that call, they would have -- there's a code they can use to let the air traffic control center know that there's something going on the aircraft or that they're being forced to turn around. So -- but there was no indication of that in this that I've heard so far in listening to the transmissions.
VANIER: Does anything about this tell you that it might be weather- related or have you -- or are you ruling that out?
SOUCIE: I'm ruling that out because of the fact that there was weather in the area but they had -- they had averted that. They went around if. There were some lightning strikes and some thunderstorms in the area but this specific area where they made this turnaround it's not significant enough to tell -- to decide to turn around. They certainly would have just avoided it so I'm ruling out weather at this point. VANIER: All right, so the rescue teams are going to be looking for
survivors, obviously fingers crossed there, we hope for the very best. I mean, I've covered some of these plane crashes, I was fortunate to be on one where there was one survivor but that is so rare that you know, again fingers crossed. After they've done that, the search-and- rescue will be looking for the black boxes though to try and find some answers. David Soucie, thank you so much for joining us.
ALLEN: Well, Brazilians have elected one of their most polarizing politicians as their next president.
VANIER: Crowds filled the streets of Rio to celebrate the victory of Jair Bolsonaro who's brash far-right proposals earned him the nickname Brazil's Donald Trump. In fact, Bolsonaro says Mr. Trump called him on Sunday to congratulate him.
ALLEN: This nearly all of the votes counted, Bolsonaro 55 percent of the vote leading a leftist opponent Fernando Haddad.
VANIER: After a divisive and sometimes violent campaign, Bolsonaro promises to be a president for every Brazilian.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAIR BOLSONARO, PRESIDENT-ELECT, BRAZIL (through translator): As a defender of freedom, I will lead a government that upholds and protects the rights of the citizens who follow their duties and respect to the laws. The laws are for everyone. This is how it will be during our constitutional and democratic government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: Our CNN Correspondent Rafael Romo joins us now with insight on this election. First of all Rafael, is this a surprise that Mr. Bolsonaro has prevailed?
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: Not necessarily. For the last few weeks, the polls were saying that he was going to win. He was ahead but at least ten percentage points and so it was not necessarily a surprise. People were waiting for a surprise the other way around. They thought that there was still a possibility that Mr. Haddad was going to catch up but it didn't happen in the end.
[01:10:16] VANIER: So what explains his victory? I mean, he's a -- he's a radical candidate he has promoted violence in some settings, why did he win?
ROMO: A voter in a Rio de Janeiro said it best. He said he was the least worse of the two. And you have to think about the context in which this is happening. On the one hand, you have the Workers Party that has been accused of a massive corruption scandal over the last few years. Remember that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, leader of the Workers Party is in jail right now serving a 12-year sentence. His successor Dilma Rousseff and that have been leaving that the
presidency also a result of a corruption scandal. And so people were sick and tired of that. And then, on the other hand, you have a new candidate that even though you wouldn't call him an anti-establishment candidate, his ideas even if they're very criticized and controversial seem fresh to a large portion of the electorate then that's what explains what happened Sunday.
ALLEN: Now, why did it seem fresh, Rafael. He has showed affinity for a military leadership but Brazil bottom line has a horrific crime rate. These are real-world issues for people on the streets of Brazil.
ROMO: That's right, especially when you think about the fact that he's made a very controversial comments, racist comments misogynistic, homophobic. I mean, you name them. But --
ALLEN: He's called the Trump of Brazil.
ROMO: That's right, for a reason, right? And the people were between a rock in a hard place. Do they go back to the Workers Party and face another four years of potential corruptions or do they try something else and in this case something else was the better alternative in a very difficult time for Brazil, economic crisis and economic of trust in public institutions and government figures as well.
VANIER: The fact that he's called it the Trump of Brazil, the Brazilian Trump, that's kind of his tagline, do you think that's fair? I mean, what's the actual parallel?
ROMO: It is fair and as a matter of fact I would agree more with a columnist in Argentina who said that he is a combination of Donald Trump the Marine Le Pen based on the nationalist views that he has and some racist views. And go back to the past let's remember, Brazil lived in the middle of a dictatorship between 1964 and 1985 and he speaks of that era in very flattering terms and for whatever reason, the electorate didn't mind that. They wanted something new. They didn't want to have to deal with the Workers Party again and he seemed like the better alternative.
Another interesting factor was that in April -- I remember this because we've covered it extensively, he was the victim of an attack just a few weeks before the election and in the minds of not everybody but important sector of the electorate, he was seen as a sort of a martyr who was willing to sacrifice everything for Brazilians and so that scored him, in the end, a few points I would say.
ALLEN: I'm going to ask you, Rafael, so what is the best case scenario for Brazil moving forward now?
ROMO: Well, he's got a face reality and the reality is that even though the Workers Party is greatly diminished as a result of this election, they still have a lot of power in Congress. And so Jair Bolsonaro is going to be a president that is going to have to reach consensus with the opposition, a very strong opposition. And so when he takes power, he's going to have to start maneuvering to try to get some of those policies around. It's not going to be easy. He's not going to be able to just go ahead and have the Congress green light to every single proposal that he has so it's going to be interesting to see how much he can get done especially at first.
VANIER: All right, we'll keep an eye on it moving forward. Rafael Romo, thank you so much your insights.
ALLEN: Thank you. Members of different faiths are coming together to honor those killed in Saturday's synagogue shooting in Pennsylvania, United States. We look at how some of the victims are being remembered next.
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[01:16:51] PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN INTERNATIONAL METEOROLOGIST: Good Monday to you. Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri, CNN "WEATHER WATCH". You're watching a disturbance of clipper system, stirred across portions of the Ohio Valley over the last couple of hours. And this will set the stage for some blustery weather across portions of the Appalachians winds locally up to 80 kilometers per hour across some of these areas, so continue through Monday morning before conditions begin to quiet down just a little bit across that region.
High pressure back behind it really sets up shop here in sets of a beautiful pattern over the next couple of days in the southeastern United States, while back towards the northwest, it is an entirely different story.
The Siskiyou's, the Cascades, the Bitterroot Ranger to the Northern Rockies, all of them getting in on a good pout of snow showers across this region, could accumulate generally say, 10 to 15 centimeters, some of the higher elevations as much as 20 to 30 centimeters. But, always a good start here for the ski season into the higher elevations.
Vancouver, B.C., 11 degrees, some showers possible. San Francisco, beautiful time of year, about 20 degrees there, partly cloudy conditions, and notice the warmth that had been in place and will be over the next couple of days does eventually break down and we'll get more shots of reality here into the northern tier of the United States.
At Atlanta, soars up to about 25 degrees, and then drops back down to just below seasonal values into the upper teens over this upcoming weekend. How about the Caribbean, will expect temps in Havana to be around 28 degrees, same score out of Chihuahua. While Mexico City into the lower 20s and a few thunderstorms, we leave you with conditions to the south.
VANIER: An update now in our "BREAKING NEWS", Indonesian authorities, say a passenger plane carrying 189 people has crashed into the sea. Lion Air Flight 610, vanished soon after takeoff from Jakarta, early Monday morning, local time.
ALLEN: Search and rescue teams are at the site where the plane disappear that is just 34 nautical miles from Jakarta. 178 adult passengers, two infants, one child, and eight crew members were on board. We will talk with an aviation expert coming up here in about 15 minutes.
VANIER: Yes, we'll keep you updated on our -- on this story. Our teams are covering this, getting the latest information for you now. Communities across the U.S. are mourning after Saturday's deadly mass shooting at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue. An interfaith vigil was held in Pittsburgh, Sunday, to honor the 11 people who lost their lives.
ALLEN: Memorials like these have also been appearing as we learn more about the victims. The youngest, or the Rosenthal brothers who often welcomed people at the synagogue, they were out front often. The siblings who were both in their 50s have been described as inseparable.
VANIER: The oldest victim was 97-year-old Rose Mallinger. She's being remembered for always offering a friendly greeting, a hug, and a smile.
ALLEN: The alleged gunman, Robert Bowers is in custody. He is due to appear in court in the coming hours.
VANIER: CNN's Miguel Marquez, has more on the suspect from Pittsburgh.
[01:19:54] MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What the more we learn about Robert Bowers' life, the more disturbing it is, not because people are saying that he was this sort of Nazi figure that in their neighborhood, that because what -- they didn't know about him.
This is a person that everybody that we have spoken to whether it was neighbors or people who have known him for many, many years say that this is a person who didn't have a mean bone in his body, never uttered a terrible word about Jews or any other race, and there is just shock. Absolute shock that he could do this sort of deed.
This is a person who had a very difficult life from what we can tell as well. People described him as a lost soul, those who knew him a long time. A lost soul. Somebody who went from job to job, he could never quite figure out life.
This as investigators are going through his home, his computers, his phones, his car, they're looking for surveillance video. They know he had many, many guns registered in his name. Some 21 guns registered in his name. And they are trying to complete that full picture of who this individual was.
What you didn't see on the outside of his life, you know, was sort of this opaque, sort of he didn't even cast a shadow. But underneath was this just deep well of hatred that this man had toward Jews. Posting this on places online, not Twitter, not Facebook, not the obvious places, but posting it online. If you knew where to look, you could find it.
17 days before he opened fire in that synagogue, he posted about one Jewish group, in particular, HIAS. That the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. They have resettled immigrants, not only Jews but other -- from all races, all countries, for many, many years. They have made a video down on the U.S.-Mexico border about the caravan coming up.
Robert Bowers was very, very concerned about that caravan. Hated the idea of it, called them invaders coming to slaughter our people. The day he went into that -- into that synagogue, he posted that. That was one of the last posts, about the last post he made that he didn't care about the optics about what he was about to do, he was going in.
And investigators now trying to collect up every bit of information they can to paint a full picture. Not just for a trial, but try to understand what it was that drove a man like this, to this just horrendous act. Back to you.
ALLEN: Deborah Lipstadt is with me now. She's the author of a book about to be released called Antisemitism: Here and Now. And she has another book called, Denying the Holocaust. She is a professor of Holocaust History at Emory University here in Atlanta. Deborah, we can't thank you enough for coming here in.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT, DOROT PROFESSOR, MODERN JEWISH HISTORY, EMORY UNIVERSITY: You're welcome.
ALLEN: I mean, it's chilling, the timing of your book, Antisemitism here and now, what to what's just happening Pittsburgh.
LIPSTADT: It's amazing. You know, in the introduction to the book I write that this was a hard book to write, but a harder book to finish. Because every day, there seem to be some new piece to be added. I was adding to the last minute until I went to press.
Little did I imagine that there would be something like this that would happen, in such a devastating fashion.
ALLEN: So, how did you finish the book?
LIPSTADT: I finished the book by saying this is a fight that's going to go on that's -- that has to be fought. It has to be fought not just for the welfare of Jews, but this is a fight that has to be fought for the welfare of anybody who cares about a democratic society, as well as the democratic liberal -- small-l liberal society.
That if you care about the welfare of a society, a healthy society can't abide anti-Semitism. A healthy society can't abide racism. If it's there, it must be fought, it must be addressed.
And what I'm afraid of is that in this country in the United States, haters, they weren't created in the past few years, they've been around for a long time. I think they got a sort of surge of growth during the Obama administration, and a bigger surge of growth in recent years.
But, they can't be putting back into the box so easily. Once hate comes out, once this despising of a particular people, once this adoption of the oldest hatred, the longest hatred, the anti-Semitism is legitimized, you can't just put it away.
ALLEN: Right. And this past week, we've seen pipe bombs sent to President Trump's Democratic enemies.
LIPSTADT: Right.
ALLEN: And here at CNN, we've seen two African-Americans gun down in Kentucky because they were black.
LIPSTADT: Shot. Gun down because -- Right.
ALLEN: And now, this, against Jews. The question is I interviewed the director of the Center for Hate and Extremism just a few hours ago. He said, there is data that shows there is a direct correlation between leadership knocking down this hate and keeping the peace.
[01:24:44] LIPSTADT: That's right. That's right. Absolutely. I can't tell you data right now, but I can give you historical data that people who do these kinds of things are motivated. And the motivators may not be anti-Semites or races themselves. But what they do is they give the people who are going to do it the ammunition.
They may not throw the firebombs, but they like being a switch with their words of the firebombs. They ignite it, they make it OK. When you celebrate body slamming a reporter, when you call immigrants' animals, when you do those kind of things --
ALLEN: They're coming -- they're coming back.
LIPSTADT: Their coming --
ALLEN: That caravan is coming -- it's coming --
LIPSTADT: And that's right. And in what we saw in Pittsburgh was a coming together of anti-Semitism and this despising. I want to use a stronger word than hatred. Despising of this immigrant horde that is supposed to be coming which we know is not. And, of course, the idea that George Soros who is the new anti-Semitic boogeyman is making this all happen.
ALLEN: So, the onus is on this administration. Is it not, Deborah, as a professional to -- or no? Tell me.
LIPSTADT: I don't think we can expect that from this administration. I think this administration thinks that when it condemns anti- Semitism, it's done everything possible.
Normally, it would be -- you know, a Ronald Reagan talked about bringing us together, a George W. Bush talk about bring us together, Bill Clinton and Obama. I don't think we can -- we hear those words, but then, right after that, we heard -- we hear divisive words.
That's the frightening part that we can't look to our leaders whether we agree with them politically or not to really say the things that need to be said. So, it's got to be -- it's got to come from people. It's got to come from people, it's got to come from web sites it's got to come from sitting at Thanksgiving when that crazy uncle begins to say racist or anti-Semitic or homophobic things. Not to just say, "Oh its crazy, uncle," whatever, he always does this, but to challenge him.
Because you may not change him but the little kids sitting at the table who will hear him and we'll think it's OK. And they've got to be taught that it's not OK.
ALLEN: Oh, so it comes from the Thanksgiving table all the way up.
LIPSTADT: Right.
ALLEN: It takes all of us -- a village.
LIPSTADT: That's it.
ALLEN: Deborah Lipstadt, with Emory University. Thanks so much. We appreciate.
LIPSTADT: You're welcome, thank you for having me.
ALLEN: All we continue to follow the crash of an Indonesian passenger airplane. The Lion Air Flight lost contact shortly after it took off, and it went down the ocean. We'll have the latest on the investigation and talk with a flight expert, coming up.
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[01:30:52] VANIER: Ok. Welcome back. We continue to follow breaking news.
Indonesian authorities say Lion Air flight 610 has crashed into the sea. The passenger plane went missing soon after take off from Jakarta on its way to Pangkal Pinang on the island of Bangka.
ALLEN: We know that 189 people were onboard including two infants and a child. Rescuers are searching the crash site just 34 nautical miles from Jakarta.
Let's bring in Alan Diehl now. He's a former accident investigator for both the U.S. government and Air Force and is author of the book "Air Safety Investigators". Alan -- thank you for coming on to talk with us. What data is available to indicate what may have happened to this airplane?
ALAN DIEHL, FORMER ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR (via telephone): Well, there's an automatic dependent surveillance broadcast that comes out of the aircraft and that -- that -- they say it -- reached an altitude of about 5,200 feet and speed increased. So it does look like this was a sudden departure from controlled flight.
Now, why that happened obviously the air state (ph) the investigators will be looking for four broad categories -- mechanical, human, weather, criminal. And it appears now that weather was not a factor but other than that everything is on the table -- Natalie.
ALLEN: Yes. And we know that the pilots apparently asked to return back to the airport, to base. Would they have specified -- would they have been able to specify what was the reason or emergency?
DIEHL: Well, clearly if you're having an emergency, you -- you got to focus on troubleshooting first of all and solving the problem. And you probably don't have a lot of time to talk to the controllers.
The fact that they had enough time to tell them that they wanted to return, that is significant. But I'm sure both pilots were very busy at that time. And, you know, they know the controllers really probably can't help them at that point. As they're getting closer to the airport, they'll tell the controllers what they need. But they've got to solve their problem, whatever it was.
ALLEN: And also, Alan -- we know that this -- it was just 34 nautical miles from the airport when it went down. Because it had just cleared the coast, will that help the searchers, perhaps find key pieces of this airplane?
DIEHL: Certainly. And of course, Natalie -- as you know, the other thing is this water is fairly shallow like 30 meters, a hundred feed. That means they'll probably be able to put skin divers. They probably already have skin divers now in that (INAUDIBLE). It doesn't look like there's any chance of -- just from the fragmentation and the floating debris flight fragmentation suggests it's probably not going to be a rescue effort.
But they certainly should be able to recover the critical black boxes and the other components fairly expeditiously because of the proximity to land and the shallow waters.
ALLEN: And also, we know that this airline Lion Air had had a poor safety record but had recently turned itself around. How hard is that to do for an airline?
DIEHL: Well, you know, that's encouraging. Clearly, they were, I'm sure you're aware -- were barred from flying into the European air space for a while. But I think last year the Europeans looked at that and there was an audit -- a safety audit of the airline which gave them high marks.
So, clearly they've -- they've made some efforts to improve. And that you know, at this point we don't know if this is an airline problem, an aircraft problem, a pilot problem, terrorism -- who knows what at this point.
So I don't know that we can -- can condemn -- we don't want to condemn Lion Air with the little later (ph) that we have at this point.
ALLEN: Absolutely. It was a very popular 737 that went down there.
Alan Diehl, we always appreciate your expertise and we will likely talk with you again as we get more information. Thank you.
[01:35:02] DIEHL: Thank you -- Natalie.
VANIER: And here's another story we're following. Fans of the British football club Leicester City are grieving for the team's owner -- Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
ALLEN: The Thai billionaire died when his helicopter crashed and burst into flames in the parking lot just outside the Leicester City Stadium. It happened just after Saturday's premier league match.
VANIER: Four other people aboard the helicopter were also killed. The club didn't confirm his death until nearly 24 hours after the crash. But that did not stop fans and well-wishers from creating a memorial with flowers, scarves, and prayers.
CNN business correspondent Hadas Gold joins us from Leicester. You know Hadas -- Leicester had really adopted Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha. He had become part of the fabric of the city.
Tell us what it's been like on the streets of Leicester since the news of his passing.
HADAS GOLD, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's definitely been a sort of somber silence here ever since that crash first happened. As you noted it took about 24 hours before we got official confirmation.
But people here seemed to know quite soon that what they had feared was actually true. Now what happened was after every home game, Vichai, as what he's called here by his first name, would leave the field from his private helicopter about an hour or so after the game wrapped up.
And what happened was on Saturday night he did so as normal along with four others. But they barely cleared the stadium walls before they crashed in the car park just outside the stadium here behind me -- actually the car park is just on the other side of the stadium behind me. There was a huge fiery explosion.
Officials already on the scene haven't yet explained what exactly caused that crash. But here in the city it is all about the owner. He's a Thai billionaire who bought the team in 2010 when it was struggling financially.
And within six short years they won the Premier League title which was such a huge thing for this underdog team in this city. And it became -- it just became really the pride of the city.
And you can see in this memorial behind me all of the balloons and the jerseys and the scarves and the flowers and there's so many -- so many signs here for Vichai because he really was such a huge part of this community not only when it came to football but also when it came to connecting with the fans.
He would give out beers and season tickets on his birthday. He would give out scarves at away games. And he gave millions to the local hospitals here. So he was really considered part of the community. I want to read to you part of the statement from the Leicester City Football Club. They say "In Vichai, the world has lost a great man. A man of kindness, of generosity, and a man whose life was defined by the love he devoted to his family and those he so successfully led. Leicester City was a family under his leadership. It is as a family that we will grieve his passing and maintain the pursuit of the vision for the club that is now his legacy."
So Leicester right now is a city in mourning as they continue to try to move forward.
VANIER: All right. Hadas Gold, reporting live from Leicester, England this very early morning where you are -- Hadas. Thank you so much for coming out for us.
GOLD: Thank you.
VANIER: That was a grimly familiar scene here in the U.S. -- police arriving at another shooting after getting a call of an active shooter. Coming up -- we have The President's response to three days of deadly hate crimes.
[01:38:22] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ALLEN: Our breaking news -- our update for you. Indonesian authorities say a passenger airplane, a 737 carrying 189 people has crashed into the sea. Lion Air Flight 610 vanished soon after takeoff from Jakarta early Monday morning local time on a short flight less than an hour it was expected to take.
VANIER: Search and rescue teams are at the crash site -- that's just 34 nautical miles from Jakarta -- 178 passengers, two infants, one child and eight crew members were on board the flight.
ALLEN: We'll continue to bring you information as we get it.
Here in the United States, in a 72-hour period, three different hate crimes were committed in addition to the deadly mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Critics of President Donald Trump were targeted with pipe bombs.
VANIER: And a man with a history of racist rants is charged with killing two African-Americans at a Kentucky grocery store.
CNN's Boris Sanchez reports that Mr. Trump responded with familiar anti-media and anti-gun control themes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump was asked multiple times last week about potentially toning down his rhetoric in light of two domestic terror incidents but the President on multiple occasions denied that his rhetoric had anything to do with those cases.
He was asked specifically whether he might tone things down last week and he joked that he might tone them up. In fact before a rally in front of his supporters in southern Illinois, the President told reporters that he would consider toning down his rhetoric if only he didn't have to combat what he called a dishonest media.
At that rally in southern Illinois, the President called on his supporters and all Americans to unite in the face of anti-Semitism. And he condemned the Pittsburgh shooter. I should note that when The President was specifically asked if he would consider gun control legislation as a way to prevent these sort of incidents from happening in the future, he dismissed that idea and he had other thoughts.
Listen to this.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better. This is a dispute that will always exist, I suspect. But if they had some kind of a protection inside the temple maybe it could have been a very much different situation.
SANCHEZ: There you heard President Trump reiterate an idea that we've heard before, previously after that school shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The idea that armed guards at schools or places of worship could potentially deter a shooter from entering the premises.
Aside from that -- whether The President decides to tone down the rhetoric or not, we will be hearing more from President Trump as he continues to crisscross the country stumping for Republican candidates, adding more and more events to his schedule before the November 6th midterm elections.
Boris Sanchez, CNN -- at the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VANIER: And joining me now Ellis Henican, he writes the Trump's America column for the "Metro Papers"; and CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson. Gentlemen -- you know, politics in the U.S. today are aggressive. That's not breaking news. It's just nasty stuff at the moment. It often devolves into attacks.
The one big question as we close out this horrible week frankly is -- has this political violence caused real world violence in your opinion? And if so who is responsible football for this?
Ben -- you first.
BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Look, I don't think it's caused real world violence. I think you can clearly see, just a great example is the individual that decided to sent the pipe bombs. He was threatening to bomb people back in 2002, had a long criminal history of threatening people. This is obviously a very disturbed individual.
[01:44:59] I think there is a part of this that we can take away from it which is that I think everyone has a responsibility to get back to the issues and not so much the rhetoric that has come with the issues of the day going into mid terms.
It has gotten very brutal. Whether it is impeach 45 being chanted over and over again, or lock her up for example -- that's the rhetoric that isn't about the issues. And I hope that the candidates will lead the way on this in the midterms and try to make it a little bit more civil discourse.
But at the end of the day, these are grown adults who are committing heinous crimes. Heinous crimes are being committed in this country unfortunately for as long as we've been a nation. And I think now, people have an easier time finding people to feed those.
I mean we've seen that with terrorism, with ISIS and al-Qaeda being able to recruit people without ever meeting them online. So these people can find -- extremists can find other extremists online and I think that's what really inspires them.
VANIER: Ellis -- are the politics de jure in the U.S. to blame?
ELLIS HENICAN, COLUMNIST, "METRO PAPERS": Cyril -- let us concede that human motivation is complex, right; and especially when you're talking about people who are crazy, right. I mean a bunch of things play into every word --
(CROSSTALK)
HENICAN: No simple straight line from political rhetoric and someone sending bombs. That said -- we have never had a situation that The President of the United States spoke in such exactly (ph) violent terms, calling for the destruction of his political opponents, or urging his rally crowds to commit violence, calling the media the enemy of the people.
This kind of language does absolutely incite otherwise crazy people to do stuff they would not have done. If you don't believe me, then you have to believe that the target list of the bomber is just an accident. No. It was simply a greatest hits of the people that The President has told him he's supposed to hate. And let me tell you, he got this -- you know, you can't say there's no connection.
VANIER: Ben Ferguson --
(CROSSTALK)
VANIER: -- is raising is the importance of context because I understand your argument that you're saying everybody is responsible for their actions and these are crazy people and crazy things happen under any president. You look under Obama, sure crazy things happened too.
But the question this raises is context. Isn't there a context in which this is all happening that could also be responsible?
FERGUSON: Again, I go back to this person's life and look at all of the different things that he had done to be violent.
(CROSSTALK)
VANIER: Well Ben -- if you want to go back --
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: Let me finish real quick. It is the same reason why I didn't blame Democrats a week and a half ago when you had an individual that decided to send ricin to the FBI director and the Secretary of Defense and Donald Trump because I don't think that they're responsible for that.
It's the same reason why I didn't blame Democrats when you had a Bernie Sanders supporter who went out there and literally tried to annihilate an entire party of congressman practicing for baseball practice for charity because I don't believe that any of Democrats were responsible for that.
When Eric Holder says we kick them, when you had Maxine Waters talking about you go wherever these Republicans are and get in their face, they surround the table of Ted Cruz. Yes you could say that maybe that is connected.
But even that I would argue is not violence; it is inappropriate but it wasn't violence there. And so no, I hold the person accountable -- I don't think that -- you have 360 million people in this country.
VANIER: Ok.
FERGUSON: You can't -- one or two or three people that do something on their own accord, you cannot hold a political party, either side accountable for that. It is absurd.
VANIER: Gentlemen -- I'm going to have to leave it there. I suspect this question is going to continue to be raised between now and the midterms.
Ellis -- we've seen your face, Ellis. We see your face. We'll speak to you -- both of you again. Thank you very much.
HENICAN: Nice to see you guys -- thanks.
ALLEN: Next here on CNN NEWSROOM, a typhoon has caused so much trouble across the Pacific and is now poised to strike the Philippines but has it lost some of its strength? We'll get the latest forecast right after this.
[01:48:55] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[CNN SPORT NOW]
VANIER: Welcome back.
We continue to follow breaking news.
Indonesian authorities say Lion Air flight 610 has crashed into the sea. The passenger plane went missing soon after takeoff from Jakarta on its way to Pangkal Pinang, that's on the island of Bangka.
ALLEN: The 737 was carrying 189 people, including two infants and a child. Rescuers are at the site -- dozens and dozens of boats are there investigating, searching for the fuselage -- the crash site just 34 nautical miles from Jakarta.
Well, a typhoon continues its destructive track across the Pacific and this time the Philippines is in its path.
VANIER: Now, the storm is weakening though and it is set to make landfall there on Tuesday.
ALLEN: The storm currently has wind speeds of 165 kilometers per hour -- that's the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane.
Our Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri joins us now with more about it. Hello -- Pedram.
JAVAHERI: Hey -- guys.
Yes, you know, this was a storm system that just a couple of days ago, of course, was the strongest storm we've seen on our planet, one of them in 2018. It was sitting there with Category 5 equivalent winds. And you take a look, beginning to lose some steam.
Some good news with this is it's approaching an area, frankly, that not only has incredibly warm waters but also low environmental sheer above the storm system but the northern fringe of the storm, the outflow there beginning to diminish a little bit. So it's allowing the storm to weaken. We think it will continue to do so.
And you notice a couple of days ago when it was going over Tinian, Saipan across the Northern Mariana Islands. Of course, this storm system was a beast, an absolutely menacing feature here across that region.
In fact it increased from a Category 1 equivalent to a Category 5 equivalent within 36 hours. So again, we're talking about something that certainly has done significant damage in its path. And now beginning to approach portions of Luzon which they've seen of course, a fair share of activity in recent weeks and recent months.
But work your way to the next 24 hours. Sometime Tuesday morning local time, we think landfall possible across the central or northern portion of Luzon. The storm comes ashore with category one equivalent winds. It goes over the Sierra Madre Mountains. Tremendous rainfall becomes the big story with this.
And of course, landslides and flash flooding always a concern, and in fact officials across the Philippines have issued a Signal 3 generally for moderate to heavy damage on the immediate coast where this system makes landfall.
[01:55:00] And then again, rainfall becoming the big story and we think a right turn possible as this shifts off towards the north and eventually threatens portions of Guangdong or Taiwan as a tropical depression with heavy rainfall across that region as well.
ALLEN: Right. We're going to keep a watch on it.
VANIER: Absolutely. Pedram Javaheri -- thank you so much. Pedram joining us from the CNN Weather Center.
Now to sports news -- before we wrap this up, the Boston Red Sox are World Series champions.
Here it is. They beat the Los Angeles Dodgers five to one in game five of this best of seven series. And this crowns the Red Sox as Major League Baseball's best team from start to finish in 2018.
ALLEN: And of course, as you can imagine the city of Boston experiencing total baseball bliss as fans flood the streets to celebrate. They're really getting spoiled these days. It is Boston's fourth World Series title in 15 years.
But prior as, of course, you know this they suffered through an 86- year championship drought. So give them another trophy.
VANIER: Thank you for watching. That does it for us this hour. I'm Cyril Vanier.
ALLEN: I'm Natalie Allen.
Our breaking news coverage of the Lion Air plane crash in Indonesia continues next with Rosemary Church and George Howell.
You're watching CNN.
VANIER: Have a great day.
[01:56:11] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
