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Don Lemon Tonight

Crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 Killed 150 of Its Passengers; Germanwings Crash Involved 24-Year Old Plane; Angelina Jolie Had Ovaries, Fallopian Tubes Surgically Removed. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired March 24, 2015 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:08] DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN TONIGHT, I'm Don Lemon.

Eight minutes. That's how long it took for a routine flight to turn into tragedy. An Airbus A-320 with 150 people on board including two babies slams into a remote area in the French Alps, obliterating the plane and killing everyone onboard.

Besides the crash being called a picture of horror, with wreckage and remains scattered on the mountainside. That's what we know right now. But so much remains a mystery right now.

Tonight, we have top aviation experts standing by to answer these four questions for you. Why wasn't there a distress call? Why does the eight-minute depth plunge tell us? What does it tell us? Was this intentional? And ultimately what went wrong?

We'll try to answer all of that tonight. And CNN reporters are live throughout the region. Nic Robertson is live in the French Alps. Also Fred Pleitgen is in Dusseldorf. Karl Penhaul is in Barcelona and Richard Quest is here with me in New York.

Richard, I want to start with you. Another terrifying aviation mystery that we're reporting on. What went wrong with this plane? Do we know?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: We have absolutely no idea. All we know is that it was -- it had taken off. It was 40-odd minutes into the flight. It was in the cruise. It had actually reached its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet and about two minutes after it did that it suddenly starts to descend.

There is some dispute as to what rate of speed it was descending. Some suggest that it was a very consistent descent at around 3,000 feet a minute. There was one or two reports that suggest it was more erratic. We have no idea what happened at that moment.

LEMON: So even though it was eight-minute plunge.

QUEST: Yes.

LEMON: We don't know right now if it was a steady plunge or if it --

QUEST: Well -- LEMON: -- was erratic.

QUEST: The evidence initially suggested it was going straight down at 3,000 feet a minute give or take. There were one or two people who are now perhaps suggesting that -- that it was more erratic than if you average it out, it looks at 3,000. The range could have been between 1500 to 5,000, we don't know. What is significant in this area is that, was this a controlled gradual descent, albeit steep, by the autopilot under its own steam of the aircraft or was there a manual descent where the plane was almost out of control?

But we don't know at this point and we certainly have got no idea of the event that led to the descent.

LEMON: All right. We do know something happened, obviously it crashed. If there's an emergency situation, then why no distress signal sent?

QUEST: And that is one of the biggest questions. In eight minutes, there's plenty of time to hit the switch and say, mayday, mayday, and not only that, Don. Remember, during that eight minutes, the ground air traffic control was constantly demanding to know what was going on. This isn't MH-370 or any of those other incidents. You're talking about highly controlled air space. The moment that plane left 38,000 feet, and was in danger of going through other airways, air traffic control wanted to know what is happening. What are you doing? Why?

LEMON: Yes.

QUEST: No reply.

LEMON: So is there any -- is there any sign of a deliberate action to take down the plane? Because you might know that if you knew if it was steady, or as you said, controlled or if it was erratic. Was there any sign of a deliberate action to take this plane down?

QUEST: We have no evidence of that at all. But am I going to take it off the table? No. The nature of this particular incident is so peculiar. A top world class airlines, the Lufthansa Group, aircraft, well-maintained planes. Lufthansa technique. Controlled air space, Euro control. Put it all -- and it's in the cruise. The safest part of the flight. You cannot at this point take anything off the table.

LEMON: So they have found one of the black boxes.

QUEST: Excuse me.

LEMON: And we should know pretty soon? We should know pretty soon.

QUEST: It depends which one it is but yes.

LEMON: OK.

QUEST: You will know -- it was the cockpit voice recorder you will know very soon what was leading up to the event that took place and what happened after that. Yes.

LEMON: All right. Richard, I want you to stand by because I want to bring some other folks in but don't go anywhere, Richard, I'll need your help throughout here.

I want to get to CNN's Nic Robertson now live for us in the French Alps.

So, Nic, the site has been described as a picture forest at the opening of the show. The plane is said to be obliterated. Were rescue officials able to recover anything yet? We know they found one black box. But any other thing that they've been able to recover?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They told us that they've only been able to fly over for the recovery teams. They've seen the human remains on the ground, they say, but they haven't been able to recover any of the victims so far. The crash site is about 10 miles into the mountains, seven miles rather into the mountains in this direction from me here.

When the sun comes up in the morning, depending on the weather conditions, that's when the rescue recovery workers are going to be able to get another look at the site to be able to see if there's been a snowfall in the night. That was certainly a concern. It's been raining at this altitude up there. It could well have been snowing.

[22:05:07] One key worry is, will the fog be too low on the mountains for the helicopters to get in there and work effectively. It is a site we're told that really is only accessible by helicopters because you can't really get in there by road, and of course the conditions on the ground make even landing for those helicopters very, very difficult.

And that's why the recovery we're told is going to probably be quite long and quite slow, and very arduous, and that's why none of the victims have been recovered so far -- Don.

LEMON: All right. Nic Robertson, stand by. I want to bring in Fred Pleitgen, CNN's senior international correspondent.

Fred, the flight was on its way to Dusseldorf, Germany. Many of the victims' relatives are there. What are they being told at this hour?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the first thing that they were being told is the airline tried to get some sort of information. I mean, you have to understand that when the people came here initially, shortly after the crash, it really wasn't clear to many of them whether or not the relatives were actually on that plane. It wasn't clearly what had happened to the plane. It wasn't clear when they would actually get any sort of information.

What's going on right now is that a crisis center has been set up here inside of the Dusseldorf Airport. Some of the relatives are still there. They are getting psychological counseling, but of course this is a country right now that is completely in shock. And one thing that keeps coming up is that more and more of the victims' stories are coming out. The identities are coming out. And that of course is something that makes this tragedy all the more real for Germany.

One of the big things that people keep talking about is that a whole Spanish language school class was killed in this -- in this plane crash. It comes from about 1 1/2 hours north of where I am right now in a small town called Haltern. It was 16 high school kids and two of their teachers who are on this plane. And of course, that entire town is absolutely devastated and in shock.

There is other similar stories as well. So it's a nation right now that is very much devastated by this, and at the same time, of course you have the airline trying to come to grips with that. And there's one thing that the airline said today is that apparently some of its pilots have refused to fly today. Some of the pilots who fly the A- 320 aircraft said they did not fly, they didn't feel fit to fly on this day.

It's unclear when they might have had any sort of safety concerns or whether or not that was due to the fact that some of them might have known the pilots who were killed in this incident, but certainly they said they didn't feel they were fit to fly and the airlines said that they respect that -- Don.

LEMON: And 16 of those victims were high school students from that small nearby town, along with two teachers.

Frederik Pleitgen, I want you to stand by.

I want to bring in Karl Penhaul now. Also CNN's international correspondent.

Karl, that flight originated in Barcelona and there is now a crisis center set up. We have seen problems in the past with how airlines deal with these crashes. How is this airlines handling the families?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly the airline is giving the information to family and relatives first before they give it to the press. But right now there are still a number of key questions that the airlines is a little bit slow in coming forward, at circulating that information at least to the news organizations. For example, what nationalities were on board. It seems there was a broad range of nationalities onboard.

We know that there was Germans onboard, we know there was Spaniards onboard. We also understand now there were Latin Americans onboard including Colombians. There was an opera singer from Kazakhstan on the plane. There were Australians on the plane. There may be eight to nine different nationalities there. This is certainly a tragedy that transcends nations. It also transcends generations.

There were babies onboard. There were teenagers onboard. There were adults there. Some people were returning from a vacation. Some, as Fred has mentioned, had been on a school exchange program. Others, opera singers returning to their hometown, others businesspeople going to trade fairs in Germany.

And certainly what Lufthansa is trying to do now is first of all give as clear as information as possible to the families and then pass that to the press. We have been pushing Lufthansa tonight why was that plane delayed by 26 minutes in its departure today to Germany? Lufthansa officials say that that was quite probably an issue with air traffic control, or simply a slot was not available on time.

But also pressing Lufthansa, this aircraft was grounded for several hours yesterday because they had to make repairs to one of the doors that protects the aircraft landing gear in the nose but again Lufthansa officials say there that was now especially a safety concern to them -- Don.

LEMON: All right. All right. Karl Penhaul, stand by as well as the rest of our correspondents.

As you hear from our correspondents -- as a matter of fact we're going to hear from someone who knew two of the opera singers onboard.

What do you make of the assessment? Because you're in the region.

QUEST: What I'm singing is exactly what you always see in an air crash. You'll see an element of confusion.

[22:10:03] LEMON: At the beginning.

QUEST: This is very early. This is less than 24 hours. Lufthansa, first of all, let's think about what Lufthansa has to do. It has to first of all get all the records of the aircraft together as quickly as it can, to give to the investigators. It has to keep the families, it has to make sure the families are given information and those that want to go to the area after. Lufthansa is doing that as well.

It has to keep the press informed. They have to speak to various presidents. Lufthansa is right in the middle of the storm.

LEMON: Yes. But not the least of which is to try to find out what happened and gather the bodies and get them recovered.

QUEST: Absolutely. That's the priority.

LEMON: All right. I want you to stand by because among the passengers onboard this doomed plane, two German opera singers, returning home after performances in Barcelona, Maria Radner and Oleg Bryjak. Bryjak performed at the German Opera on the Rhine in Dusseldorf, and joining me now on the phone, his friend, Stephen Harrison, the opera's artistic director.

We're so sorry for your loss. How are you doing?

STEPHEN HARRISON, VICTIM'S FRIEND: I'm not really doing well at all, I must say, because such a tragic piece of news. (INAUDIBLE) into a state of shock. Such a terrible and sudden loss, and doesn't know how to deal with it.

LEMON: That's understandable. So many lives were lost, Stephen.

HARRISON: Yes. LEMON: Can you tell us about Oleg, as an artist, as a man?

HARRISON: Well, he was -- he was an incredibly warm hearted and generous artist and friend. And he was at home, and he's been with our ensemble since 1996, and sung tremendous part of the repertoire. He's had serious roles. They have such an incredible sense of humor. And he was such a warmhearted and generous man, and he would make sure that every Christmas we got some present from him.

And amazingly enough, there was one Christmas where he was not feeling well, and they haven't been able to get a present to me in the office, made a point of coming on Christmas eve and driving over to my home just to bring me a present of caviar which he had brought back from a visit to Russia. I mean, that just shows what a generous man he was.

LEMON: I understand as well that you had to break this news to the rest of the company. You said he had -- you had worked with him since 1996. How did that -- how hard is this on everyone?

HARRISON: It was very hard indeed. I broke the news to the ensemble, and we had a piano dress rehearsal, and I summoned everyone to the stage and told them the tragic news. And they were stunned. People started crying. So that we just couldn't go on with the rehearsal. I canceled it. Everyone was shocked.

And we've had people in the ensemble who died because they were -- had incurable illnesses, but this, we have never experienced this, someone ripped out of life in such a tragic accident.

LEMON: Stephen Harrison, our thoughts are with you, thank you.

HARRISON: Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed.

LEMON: We've got much more on the deadly crash in the French Alps. When we come back right back, are you taking a risk when you fly a budget airline. Our experts are going to weigh in on that.

Plus Angelina Jolie's life-changing surgery and the controversy over whether her treatment is right for other women.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:17:30] LEMON: The data shows the doomed jet dropped 32,000 feet in eight minutes. What does that tell us?

CNN's Tom Foreman looks at some of the possibilities -- Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, we talked to a pilot experienced in these types of planes and he said this descent was not so fast that it would have been noticed necessarily by any of the passengers until they saw the mountains just outside the windows. That sort of does away with one of the theories here which is that this was a catastrophic failure in flight, a wing tearing off or a tail tearing off, something like that.

If that happened the plane could not have come in the way it did. And it certainly would have had to be spread over much wider area.

So what's another theory here? Another theory is that this plane in fact was being guided down as they try to fix some problem. Many of the analysts we've talked to today suggested that this flight pattern's gradual descent suggest that maybe this crew was trying to deal with something, and they were simply getting closer to the ground without realizing they were trying to bring it in a controlled loss of altitude, and then do something with it.

But if that's the case, if they had that kind of control, then why didn't they turn away from the mountains and go to some of the airports that might have been in striking range.

And that brings us to the third possibility here. Is it possible the crew just didn't know that the plane was losing altitude this way? It happens. There are crews that become so distracted by some problem or maybe they have an instrumentation trouble where they're not getting the right airspeed or the right altitude, and they're so busy dealing with that they simply don't recognize that they deep in trouble until it is far too late -- Don.

LEMON: Tom Foreman, thank you very much.

I want to turn now to our aviation experts, David Soucie, CNN safety analyst and the author of "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370." Dan Duke flew in the Navy for eight years and with United for 35 years before he retired. And he's also flown an Airbus A-320. Les Abend, a CNN aviation analyst, 777 pilot. And Richard Quest is back with us.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining me this evening.

I'm going to go to your first David. They didn't know anything was happening? That's a real possibility?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, it's happened before, in 1972. An L-1011 was en route to Miami, couldn't get the nose wheel down -- at least it was down but when the lights wasn't working, so they went to try to fix that problem. They became so fixated on that problem that they didn't notice that the aircraft had actually descended. The pilot had told the co-pilot go ahead and set it in autopilot. They were supposed to be cruising around at 2,000 feet. That's not what happened. They just continued to focus and then the aircraft descended and eventually impacted the ground. So it's not unheard of.

[22:20:06] However, in this case Richard Quest was mentioning earlier this evening that there was probably some communication or that there was some communication from the air traffic control to the aircraft trying to reach them. So it kind of rules that out in my mind. If they were continuing to try to reach them, there was something else going on up there because that would have gotten their attention.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: But what you mentioned was 1972, with all the redundancy that we have spoken about in tragedies, I mean, come on, Richard, for them not to know? Is that -- is that -- that's a real possibility? They just didn't know what was going on?

QUEST: No, that's not -- no, that's not what he said. What happens is you become fixated, you lose your situational awareness, and you're so focused on just solving that problem, talking amongst yourselves, dealing with it that you don't realize you've begun a process which eventually overwhelms you.

LEMON: But -- one of the possibilities, unless I've read that wrong, was that they just didn't know that they were in trouble at all? No?

QUEST: Well, they may have known they were in trouble. But did they realize they were descending and it just showed at such a rate. And even if they did realize they were descending did they realize that they were over the alps, and that there was a -- such a danger. We don't know, but if they are so fixated on a particular problem, and they are looking at manuals and -- now I happen to say, I don't think this is what actually happened because there were no radio calls out and there was no acknowledgments coming back in. But this concept of becoming fixated out on the instruments within the cockpit is very well known.

LEMON: Dan, you're the expert on this particular plane. With all the redundancy, what's the possibility? What do you think happened in this particular case?

DAN DUKE: It's obviously too early to tell, but I think that what Richard says, what David says kind of points to an incapacitation sort of a situation. Something in my mind made it -- made it so that that crew wasn't capable of reacting. They didn't do several things that I would have expected if they had an emergency.

They would have -- they would have turned the airplane back towards a suitable field if they had a decompression, they would have started down. If they lost consciousness, then they're incapacitated, the airplane would have continued to do what it was they told them to do last.

LEMON: Well, wouldn't there have to be --

DUKES: So they would have flown that stable path.

LEMON: Wouldn't there have to be a whole lot of things going wrong for there not to be some sort of alarm? Something that tells them you're getting too low, Les?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, this is the reason that this descent was initiated. Something happened for them to say we've for to start the airplane down, and the incapacitation may occurred later or as a result of whatever -- if you go into the smoke and fire scenario, this is pure speculation, but if this overwhelmed the crew, they got to the point where they were just not situationally aware about the terrain.

I mean, this is a crew that has flown over the alps on the route numerous times so at some point they had to be aware of the terrain. Whether they're aware of it right at the point where they were at it's hard to say.

LEMON: Because weather doesn't appear to be a factor, so if it is a clear day and you're flying in the alps, and you're used to flying in the alps, you're going to become so fixated on something, something in the instrument panel that you don't notice all these mountains around?

QUEST: It's not quite a straightforward as that. You're dealing with a -- what might have been an extremely difficult problem. We don't know is the short answer. And the other thing to keep in mind is as that plane is flying along, they are getting calls from the ground, and they are not responding. Now we know that -- we've also got to wait and see, of course, I mean, we talked about this many times, you and I, ACARs, you know, the aircraft reporting system.

We haven't yet heard from if there were any warning signs that was sent from the aircraft of systems that were failing. It's very early in this investigation, we're less than 24 hours.

LEMON: Does this -- any of this indicate foul play to you, David Soucie?

SOUCIE: No, it doesn't actually at this point. Again as Richard says, it's a little too soon to know but the only thing that does concern me, as Dan Duke said, if they were incapable of respond in responding. Now that can mean a lot of different things from the incapacitation of the pilots. It can also mean that they were being held at gunpoint, that they were taken from the cockpit itself.

There's a lot of things that could play into that. It would be of course foul play, but there's no indication that there is that foul play element at this point.

LEMON: But, Dan, as they are investigating this, they will compare it to other crashes, probably other recent crashes. Is there one that resembles this most in recent history?

DUKE: You know, I don't really know of one in recent history that does this, but maybe one of the other gentlemen would have something to go on there.

LEMON: Yes.

DUKE: But I don't really know of anything like this at all -- in recent history at all.

QUEST: I know you're talking about a situation where a plane falls out of the sky while it's in the cruise, or descends out of the sky in the cruise. They are so few and far between that they are either bombs and terrorism, and catastrophic failures, and the only ones that you have that aren't the things like AirAsia 8501 and we haven't yet have the final results on that.

[22:25:21] ABEND: We don't. But that was a situation that occurred up at cruise altitude. They were attempting to climb. We don't know why yet but that situation did involve other than takeoff or landing situation because of flight. LEMON: All right, gentlemen, stand by for the budget airlines.

Budget airlines, are they safe? That's the question. They save you a lot of money, but at what cost? Maintenance? Training? Safety possibly? We're going to get some answers next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Are low cost airlines safe? The plane that crashed in the alps today was operated by Germanwings, a budget airline owned by Lufthansa. Germanwings was forced to cancel several flight today because crew members were afraid to fly. AirAsia is another budget airline. Its flight from Indonesia to Singapore crashed into the Java Sea. That was late December. Killing all 162 people on board.

[22:30:05] CNN's Cristina Alesci looks at low-cost carriers for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Budget airlines are booming. About a quarter of passengers are taking flights on them. But the slashing costs means sacrificing training, maintenance and safety?

ABEND: It does not mean that a low-cost carrier is low-cost on safety. Safety is the biggest advertisement for an airline.

ALESCI: Low budget airlines do cut costs by charging for food, luggage and extra leg room. None of that impacts safety. But they also save money by paying pilots less.

ABEND: Low-cost carriers are low-cost because, they don't pay as much to the crew, and it does not attract a higher level of experienced pilot. It does not mean they are unsafe pilot, it means that they may have less experience.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Taking off Kuala Lumpur --

ALESCI: Experts say pilots who work for low-cost airlines may actually fly more days than their counterparts at larger carriers, which increase the likelihood of fatigue. But the planes themselves aren't tired, even when they are old.

ABEND: They are constantly maintained. They have a progressive maintenance program. So whether a low-cost carrier gets one it's new or older, it does not necessarily make ad difference on safety.

ALESCI: And although today, Germanwings crashed involved a 24-year-old plane, most of the low-cost carriers, actually had newer fleets.

SOUCIE: This low budget carriers maybe able to take advantage on the more flexible to take on the newer aircraft that have a better efficiency rating or they can use less fuel or have a less over -- less of a maintenance expense than would a major carrier.

ALESCI: That makes for bigger profits. And although low-cost international airlines had made headlines for crashes, well known cheaper brands here in the U.S., actually have good safety track record. Southwest for instances, have never had a major crash, but many flyers aren't thinking about track records when booking a flight. They are looking for those cheaper fares. Cristina Alesci, CNN Money, New York.

LEMON: Right, you are Cristina, thank you very much. Let's talk about this now, safety on a budget these airlines with Steven Marks, an aviation attorney and aviation correspondent (inaudible). So I have to ask Richard, do think that -- do you think passengers think twice before they fly low-cost airlines?

QUEST: No. Is that simple enough for you? It is up to the regulator in the country to ensure the safety of the industry. And that is why whether it is Southwest, whether it's JetBlue, whether it's easyJet, Ryanair, AirAsia, Scoot, have going forever with this, a goal or whatever. It's up to the regulator, and the regulator's job to make sure that every plane that is going into the air is safe.

LEMON: So, less money, Steven, does it mean, is that necessarily translate into less safe?

STEVEN MARKS, GENERAL COUNSEL FOR THE RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA: No, I think it's really difficult to generalize. I generally agree with Richard. It very much depends upon the environment in which they operate. In Southeast Asia where we have had an unfortunate string of accidents, and there has been historically of many in that region, because it's growing so fast, because they are trying to attract pilots so quickly, they may cut corners on the training, they do hire pilots that have less experience, some of them have on their fringes, the equipment maybe older. It's hard to generalize, I don't think that's fair statement here, because Lufthansa is one of the greatest airlines in the world, and certainly their subsidiary I'm sure is operating very safely, and nothing indicates here that there was anything wrong with the pilots at least at this early stage.

LEMON: But you do say that Germanwings, the plane had a maintenance check yesterday that concerns you, why?

MARKS: Well, that concerns me, because when the planes come out of the main maintenance check, and we have to look at the scope of the maintenance, and I'm sure the authorities are doing that. We have to also look at the sea check that was performed earlier, because that is a much more comprehensive maintenance check and so, they will look into that. But, as the earlier guest said, since you can rule out whether there is no indication that there was a pilot issue per se, there was no terrorism evidence at this stage, as the only things look like at an early stage are product problems. And there could be maintenance, but more likely than not, it is often some other product issue which would explain possibly if the pilots didn't respond, and if they were incapacitated. But there were other instances like this, your earlier guest we're talking about whether there were at alt altitude incidents. MH-370, at least at this stage were still don't have all of the information, wasn't in -- altitude incident, and certainly SilkAir was alt altitude as well, so it is not unprecedented.

LEMON: You want to get in Richard?

[22:34:51] QUEST: No, I think that he makes a perfect point. I mean, this is Germanwings, and Germanwings is Lufthansa and this little subsidiary has be backwards and forward to its role within Lufthansa, but there has never been a moment when Germanwings could be anything other than part of the Lufthansa group. And yes, its pilots are paid less than Lufthansa mainline, they -- that its goal. Its goal is to be a point-to-point carrier like Southwest, and avoiding the hub of Frankfort and Munich with the future cuts in the cost of running the airlines.

LEMON: So we have this 320, and the airbus 3320 operated by AirAsia airbus...

QUEST: Right.

LEMON: That was biggest, the biggest A-320 when a customer crashed in December, 162 people on board died there. 6200 of these planes in service now around the world, but Asia is a fast-growing market. Is there a concern about the growth in Asia from budget airlines?

QUEST: I think that there is a concern in certain countries about the rate of growth...

LEMON: OK.

QUEST: Yes, there has been an issue of that. Whether or not infrastructure is keeping up, whether or not training is keeping up, but the alarms have the ringing and action is being taken.

LEMON: Steven, I know you have worked with victims of many air disasters, once again once -- it's so early on, but once they get over this initial grief, who should families look for help?

MARKS: Well, I think at this early stage, obviously, the focus has to be on the families, primarily and secondarily on trying to figure out what happen to prevent another tragedy if there is something that would be cause the aircraft maintenance procedures or the operational procedures to -- in question. But as far as these families, they don't get over this, this is -- MH-370 families, of course, there has been a scar, it's only gotten worst over time, because there is no answers. I think what helps families, is when the authorities are transparent. And in AF-447 the Air France, and sent the French authorities were relatively good about keeping the families informed, I hope in this case, they are transparent, and release the cockpit video recordings, and also the flight data information, because I think that provides answers to the families, but it is a long and never-ending process of grief for these families.

LEMON: Alright, gentlemen, thank you very much. I want to read this, because Germanwings has cancelled a small number of its flight, because some of the crew members were hesitant to fly. Here's the statement of Germanwings that was released this evening, it said, "Germanwings reports a few flight cancellations following news of the crash due to a reluctance among some of crew members to fly. The airline says, it respects their wishes and has consequently cancelled several flights." It's the official word of Germanwings. Coming up, Angelina Jolie has life changing surgery. I'm gonna talk to her doctor about the risk and benefits for other women.

[22:37:48] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We'll see after a double mastectomy, Angelina Jolie announced that she's had elective surgery to her ovaries. So joining me now is Dr. Kristi Funk, Angelina Jolie's breast cancer surgeon and founder of the Pink Lotus Breast Center. Thank you so much for joining us, very important subject.

DR. KRISTI FUNK, ANGELINA JOLIE'S BREAST CANCER SURGEON: Thanks for having me.

LEMON: Yeah. Good. How are you this evening? You're OK?

FUNK: I'm well.

LEMON: I want to read this -- that was in The New York Times when the op-ed part of it, because she announced that she had her ovaries and the fallopian tubes surgically removed, and she says, "I went through what I imagine thousands of other women have felt. I told myself to stay calm, to be strong and that I had no reason to think I wouldn't live to see my children grow up and meet my grandchildren. I feel feminine and grounded in the choices I'm making for myself and my family. I know my children will never have to say, mom died of ovarian cancer." That -- those are powerful words.

FUNK: They take your breath away. They are powerful and they are true.

LEMON: Yeah. When she told you that she was gonna get this surgery, what was your reaction?

FUNK: I had a moment of internal applause like, yes, you've traveled down this BRCA road with such dignity and generosity to share it with the world and with nothing but proud.

LEMON: You mentioned BRCA, her mom also died with ovarian cancer in her 50's, I believe she was diagnosed in her 40's, died in her 50's. She is the carrier of the BRCA1 cancer gene removal of her ovaries and fallopian tubes reduce the risk of cancer by 80 percent, we were told and overall risk of death by 77 percent. So explain this gene mutation and how it causes breast and ovarian cancer to us?

FUNK: The gene does not somewhat cause cancer as it allows it to the happen. So we all have the BRCA genes, when they function correctly, they are watching the breast and the ovarian DNA. And if something goes array, BRCA's swoops in either fix it that cells or throws it away. If your BRCA is mutated, it's pretty much useless. So now, when a cell goes array, it's allowed to multiply and divide and just become a life threatening cancer.

LEMON: I want to play this for you. It's Kelly Osbourne, she prays Angelina Jolie on the TV show called the Talk, and said, she too carries the BRCA1 gene and will eventually take action. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY OSBOURNE, SINGER: I actually so have the cancer gene, my mom made fool of us going to get tested after she had -- she found out that she had it and go had double mastectomy. I agree with this 100 percent that I know that one day I will eventually do it too, because, if I have children I want to be there to bring them all. I want to be there to support them to support them in everywhere I can. I have been a child of a cancer survivor, so being -- on that end of it as well, it is really -- really, really hard to deal with.

(APPLAUSE)

OSBOUORNE: I applaud Angelina for it, because she is bringing attention to this and people are now gonna out and get tested for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And when she speaks, people listen, in fact, because of Angelina's announcement, and your work two years ago with her. BRCA testing rates have increased nearly 40 percent, how important it is for women to be tested for this gene, doctor?

FUNK: How important?

LEMON: Yes.

[22:44:58] FUNK: It could be the most important thing that a woman ever does in her entire life in order to preserve her life. If you think about it, in these BRCA families, generation after generation of women and men will die from cancers, and until recently, no one really understood it but, now we get it. There is a gene, it's called BRCA, you can test for it, pretty easily and you can save your life.

LEMON: Are there any other steps, short of this, of taking this serious, and some say drastic surgery?

FUNK: Certainly. There's surveillance. So that is not prevention, but you can embark on a really rigorous path of imaging and exams and blood tests so that if cancer occurs, hopefully we are finding it at a very early curable stage. There are also some risks reducing intervention, sure of surgery, mostly revolving around medications and some alternative interventions.

LEMON: Downside though, is that, now Angelina Jolie is in a menopausal state, she can no longer have children. So, what side effects will she, should she expect from this?

FUNK: Well, Angie chose to go on some hormone replacement. So hopefully, her side effects will be rather minimal, and her body will let her know with hot flashes or night sweat, vaginal dryness, changing mood, you know you have to tight trained (ph) these hormones, but she'll find the rhythm and the right dosing and hopefully, sail through the rest of her life relatively undisturbed by these side effects.

LEMON: Dr. Kristi Funk, our thanks again, and our best to Angelina Jolie. We appreciate it.

FUNK: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you. When we come right back, some cancer experts appraising into Angelina Jolie's example but, is her treatment right for other women? We will gonna get into that controversy, next.

[22:46:45] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Angelina Jolie's drastic surgery is stirring up controversy over whether other women at risk should do the same. I want you to listen to Kathie Lee and Hoda earlier on Today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HODA KOTB, TODAY SHOW CO-HOST: There are people on different sides of the issues who talk about whether or not you should remove healthy body parts at the time --

KATHIE LEE GIFFORD, TODAY SHOW CO-HOST: None of their business.

KOTB: Right.

GIFFORD: It is her body. We talk all about feminism don't we about it, our right to choose for ourselves what we want.

KOTB: Yeah.

GIFFORD: That was such a personal, and I think brave decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Let's talk about this now. Dr. Lisa Masterson, she specializes in obstetrics, gynecology and infertility. And also Dr. Anita Gupta, a leader in the field of anesthesiology and pain medicine, she treats women who have the same surgery that Angelina Jolie underwent. Thank you, doctors for joining me this evening.

DR. ANITA GUPTA, BOARD CERTIFIED ANESTHESIOLOGIST, PAIN SPECILAIST, PHARMACIST AND EDITOR: Thank you.

LEMON: Can I call you Dr. Lisa? I want to go to you first. Everyone on the doctors called you Dr. Elisa, so I'll call Dr. Lisa. Your mother died of breast cancer, so this story is really close to you, close to your heart. What was your reaction when you heard this latest announcement?

DR. LISA MASTERSON, SPECIALIZES IN OBSTETRICS, GYNECOLOGY AND INFERTILITY: Well, as a physician, I thought it was really good that she sort of went back and explain why she did everything. Because again, this is her decision, and I think we very much have to respect women's decisions, based on their history, their family history, their experiences and every women's gonna make a different decision, but again, we have to respect a woman's decision. Now, as a physician, I think there are other alternatives to go to, but also, as a woman who did have a mother who died of breast cancer, I may do something completely opposite of what Angelina Jolie did. But what I think we have to guard against is what they started to call the Angelina Jolie effect, and doing something just because a movie star did it. It has to be your individual decision, because there are a lot of decisions out there to be made, and women needed to be guided through them.

LEMON: Dr. Gupta, understand that you've said that you think it brings awareness, but you are also concerned and you caution people to the look at, to consider at least a negative side of taking this what you call an extreme measure.

GUPTA: Absolutely. I have patients in my own practice that deal with chronic pain after such surgeries, and what happens in these patients is that, they have debilitating pain. They end up living with pain that can also lead to prescription drug use that, that as you know has serious consequences. By all means, I agree with her decision, but there are serious consequences related to the invasive surgeries that need to be understood buy patients and informed consent needs to be in place and physicians and patients need to be fully aware that these surgeries cannot be taken lightly, and it is certainly a personal decision.

LEMON: OK. So what -- what are the alternatives? Let's talk a little bit more. Dr. Lisa, you have mentioned some of them so that you don't have to possibly -- you know, go this route of surgery, what would you recommend to your patients --

MASTERSON: Well, people --

LEMON: For observation, right?

MASTERSON: People minimize -- Yes, people minimize lifestyle choices as far as exercising, decreasing the alcohol in their lifestyle and making sure they have a really healthy diet, full of fruits and vegetables, but also there is a medication that they can take. Selective estrogen receptive modulators that they can actually help to decrease their risk of breast cancer as well, I don't think women are given that information that they don't have to do something as drastic as altering their bodies, just like Dr. Gupta says, you know, and maybe regretting those decisions afterwards and not even taking menopause seriously, because that, that even though those, those symptoms can seem very minor, they can affect a whole woman's sexual esteem, her self-esteem, and there are very, very important. I think you Angelina Jolie has made an educated decision, but it is important that women know all of their options and all these things that seem to be -- you know, taken so lightly. And mastectomy again, not just with the pain, but also you may not get the breasts that you like afterwards, in the reconstructive surgery. So it is very, very important that women weigh all of the information, and do what Angelina said in her op-ed piece, is making informed decision. Get the east-western medicine, all of your options and do what's right for you, and I think that is what she is trying to say.

LEMON: I want to ask Dr. Gupta this, because some wonder if the procedure was even necessary because, it show that there was this latest procedure, show that there was a small benign tumor on one ovary, but no signs of cancer in any of the tissues with her procedure. Was it even necessary, Dr. Gupta?

[22:55:03] GUPTA: So, these surgeries, absolutely maybe necessary in particular individuals but, when there is a benign tumor there, even the surgical procedure in itself has much controversy right now. As you may know, the laparoscopic approach to this surgery currently has significant of risk related to it, and the FDA is examining the products that are being used for that procedure, and that is in itself is a controversy. And in addition to that, the massive open procedure that's related this, the recovery for that can tremendous, and certainly those conversations need to occur before surgery. I ought to often have to deal with these patients after surgery that have uncontrolled pain require extensive hospitalization and require amounts of medications that can sometimes be astronomical.

LEMON: Yeah. Let's talk about the elective surgeries, right? And because there are inherent risks with that, we saw that with Joan Rivers, who went in for elective surgery. Angelina Jolie is younger then she died from a surgery. What should women weigh, Dr. Lisa, before having an elective surgery?

MASTERSON: So definitely, it should -- you know, weigh the risk to make sure that the benefits outweigh the risk, because you undergo general anesthesia, you can risk at injuries to adjacent organs like bile and bladder and things like that. So you can hemorrhage and required transfusion. So there are real risks to surgeries. So when it is elective, you have to really make sure that the risks very much outweigh the advances (ph)

LEMON: DR. Lisa --

MASTERSON: Having sense in that way (ph)

LEMON: Dr. Gupta -- yes, we understand. Thank you very much. We appreciate both of you joining us.

GUPTA: Thank you very much.

LEMON: We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:00:17] LEMON: That's it for us. Thanks for watching.

"AC360" starts right now.