Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump Unfavorable Among Female Voters; Maureen Dowd: Beau Told Father to Run for President; How MH370 Findings Impact Families' Legal Cases; 2 Planes in Close Contact with Drones over JFK; Found Airplane Part Arrives in France; Boeing, NTSB Experts To Join Investigation; New Bill Aims To Prevent Palmer From Importing His Trophy; Exotic Animal Trade Exposed. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired August 01, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:48] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. It is 5:00 Eastern, 2:00 p.m. Pacific. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you this afternoon from New York. And we begin with a possible breakthrough in the search for flight MH-370. The focus right now is on a laboratory in Toulouse, France. That's where a piece of debris is at this moment. A police escort for a barnacle-covered wing part, that investigators are all but certain comes from a Boeing 777, but is that plane MH-370? Here's what we know right now. Among those analyzing the part, experts from Boeing and also from the NTSB, they are headed to France at this hour. Many believe the piece is the first real solid evidence from the flight that vanished from ground contact nearly a year and a half ago. Experts believe it is part of the wing, the plane's wing. It is a part, technically described as a flaperon. People cleaning the beach found it on the French-controlled island of Reunion, on the opposite side of the Indian Ocean, from where MH-370 was last known to be.

CNN's Saima Mohsin is near Toulouse, France this evening.

SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, This plane's part is delivered to the land behind me which is ram by the ministry of dispense under police escort. It was in a sealed box and it will stay here until Monday morning. This is now shut for the weekend. When scientists and forensic teams and experts will first arrive at these laboratories, to take a look at it. Now, of course, all eyes are on every single development, as far as this is concerned, not least for the families of the 239 passengers onboard flight MH-370. A lot of people saying that this may, perhaps, finally give them some kind of closure. But, you know, I've met so many of them, when I was in Kuala Lumpur, when the plane first went missing last year. And for many of them, until they find the entire plane, or, perhaps, the bodies of the passengers onboard, many of them say they won't give up hope.

So what's going to happen here, Poppy, as I say, it's closed for the time being. It's a bit of a lengthy procedure now. A couple of days. Experts are flying in from right across the world, including the NTSB, from the United States, members from Boeing, Malaysian officials, and of course French investigators, too. Now, they'll meet at the beginning of next week and then they'll start analyzing what we believe to be or experts have said is a flaperon from a 777 aircraft. They will take a close-up look at it and see where this has pulled away from the main body of the aircraft and do some tests, which should determine, did it come away mid-flight in the air? Did it come away from the force of the plane potentially hitting the Indian Ocean? Was there an explosion involved, although a lot of experts looking at the pictures we've seen so far say that they don't believe that is the case. A lot of questions to be asked, a lot of analysis, and this laboratory here is the best place to do it -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Saima, thank you very much, reporting there right near Toulouse, France. I want to talk about what big questions remain with our experts. Clive Irving is with me. He is the author of "Jumbo: The Making of The 747," also a Daily Beast contributor. And also with us, CNN contributor David Gallo, he is director of special projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Thank you gentlemen for being with me.

Clive, to you first. Walk me through what the experts are going to do as they analyze the debris. Do they take this piece apart? I mean, they have to be incredibly careful, though, looking for serial numbers, what else?

CLIVE IRVING, AUTHOR, "JUMBO: THE MAKING OF THE 747": The first thing they'll look at is what the piece tells them about the impact. They'll get some clues as to why it came off the wing and they will get some clues about what forces struck it when it came from the plane. We already know something about that, because if you look at the pictures of the piece, at the rear end, which is called the trailing edge, it's broken, it's sort of serrated at the end. It's uneven.

HARLOW: Right.

IRVING: So some parts of that broke off. The actual complete piece is a very sharp-ended piece, and that sharp end is missing. So we already know from that piece of information alone, that the impact was on the rear end of the flaperon. The people in Toulouse who are looking at this, the French in particular, who have had a lot of experience looking at the wreckage from Air France flight 447, which went down in the South Atlantic, they're very good looking at the tale tell signs. As you say, there's no signs on this particular piece of there having been a fire. But there could have been a fire out of the plane. But there's no sign of that here. So, I think this is -- this single piece, although it's not very much of the plane, has a story of its own to tell.

[17:05:30] HARLOW: David, when you look very closely, and maybe we can take it full screen for a moment, so people can see, but there are these barnacles, right, that have attached themselves. And those can actually tell us a lot, can't they, about where, perhaps, this piece was first in the ocean, the drift patterns and they have taken it here to the Island of Reunion. How critical are what those barnacles tell us?

DAVID GALLO, WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION: Well, I think once biologists get their hands on it, they will try to tell whether these barnacles are from the northern-more latitudes, near the equator, where it's been found, or do they, in fact, come from further away. They'll look at the size of the barnacles, plus any other animals or residue on the skin of that piece. I don't think it's going to help much or change the present-day search area.

HARLOW: Right.

GALLO: But it will at least help confirm that the piece has been in the water for months and months.

HARLOW: David, to you, what will this plane? If this is part of MH- 370, how much help does it give investigators in locating the rest of the plane?

GALLO: I think the greatest impact, Poppy, is going to be the emotional one, because they've been out there for months already, looking back and forth, in horrible weather conditions, three or four ships. The crews are exhausted and they're about halfway done. And without knowing, now they know for the first time, in fact, that there's tangible evidence that a plane actually went down in the Indian Ocean. So it will give them a big emotional boost. And that will help quite a bit. I don't think, again, it's going to help much with the actual survey itself. They've got their plans pretty well made up about where they'll survey next.

HARLOW: Clive, to you, the head the Australian search for MH-370 says even if this piece is confirmed, they're not changing the search area. The main search area for the wreckage, which is in the southern Indian Ocean. Is that the right call?

IRVING: Yes, that's the right thing. Because if you, as David knows, if you reverse engineer this and track back from Reunion to back to the eastern part of the Indian Ocean, you end up roughly where they're searching. Now, it still is an enormous area to search, and nobody knows better than David, I think, how challenging it is, because it goes down, I think, as far as 2.9 miles. It's an extraordinary landscape under there. It's like a miniature Alps, with mountains and valleys.

HARLOW: Right.

IRVING: They've got very good sonar to scan that. But I would point out that we really won't know the final answer to this until we get hold of the flight data recorder and the flight voice recorder. And in the case of 447, they were down there for two years, and yet when they pulled it up, they were still able to show their story and that's an encouraging sign.

HARLOW: Yes. It's a very good point and an important comparison to make. Clive, also, before the debris appeared, there was this preliminary assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies that was not made public before our reporter, Evan Perez, sort of bringing it to the public eye this week. And what it shows us is that U.S. intelligence believes that someone deliberately brought this plane down. Someone in the cockpit. And you point out in your article that, so far, nothing threatening has turned up against the captain, the co-pilot, any of the passengers onboard, et cetera. What do you make of the assessment from U.S. intelligence that was made ahead of this piece being located?

IRVING: Well, I think it's interesting, the theories about what happened to this plane vary according to the interest groups involved. For example, the airline chiefs generally tend to think that there was some kind of human action involved, some maligned human action. I think it's also true that the National Security Agencies, including those who produced this report, think that there was some kind of terrorist involvement, possibly. The Malaysians wanted right from the beginning to put suspicion on the pilots. They weighed heavily on that, but then FBI looked at the whole record of what was in the pilots' computer and cleared the pilots completely. Another group, the pilots' community, themselves, obviously pushed back hard against that. So I think you have to take everything here with a pinch of salt and I certainly do. I'm not prepared to accept any of this various (INAUDIBLE) my job as a journalist is to remain as independent as possible and to look at whatever the scientific evidence that's available can tell us. And the whole truth is that nobody really knows.

HARLOW: And it's what's owed to all of the families of the 239 people onboard, is not jumping to any conclusions at all. Clive Irving, David Gallo, thank you both.

[17:10:00] Coming up next, the story that has taken the world by storm. The death of this beautiful creature, Cecil the Lion. Could this be the end of trophy hunting? We'll talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:13:20] HARLOW: International anger continues over the death of Cecil the Lion at the hands of an American dentist, Dr. Walter Palmer. What we know is that Palmer paid $55,000 to kill the lion during a hunting excursion. He said he thought it was legal. Authorities in Zimbabwe say, no, it wasn't, and they say he committed a crime and they want him to face charges. And now U.S. lawmakers, four U.S. senators on Friday introducing a bill that would stop people from importing so-called trophies that are earned from hunting these large animals.

Let's talk about it with Jeff Flocken, he joins me now. He is the North American regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Also with us, CNN legal analyst and criminal defense Attorney Danny Cevallos, who penned a fascinating piece on the potential extradition of this doctor to Zimbabwe. So, Danny, first, when you look at the extradition possibility here, you ultimately write, yes, legally, there are grounds to extradite Dr. Palmer, but it really is up to the politics of it and if the U.S. wants to.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Legally, extradition would almost be a forgone conclusion, because the only thing that needs to be shown in court is that there is dual criminality. That there is -- the crime alleged in Zimbabwe has a parallel crime here, which might be as simple as hunting without a license, which can be a crime at the federal level and at the state level. Once that's established, then extradition is supposed to happen. And I say "Supposed To," because it really becomes a political question. The Department of State and the United States of America can simply choose not to extradite if they don't feel like it. Because ultimately, at their core, all extradition treaties are all contracts that can be breached with almost impunity.

HARLOW: Right. And when you look at the other side of this, Jeff, and that is the fact that, you know, there's a lot of talk about the money that is paid, $55,000, in this case, to kill these animals. A lot of people say, yes, but it goes to conservation, it goes to protecting these animals and that's what it's all about. What's your take on that?

JEFF FLOCKEN, INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE: Well, it's kind of thing, a pay-to-play scheme is okay. In this case, somebody is paying large amounts of money and calling it for conservation because they're giving it to conservation causes and doing something that's an antithesis of that. Killing an impaired species for sports. It's a bad analogy. Most people believe that this is just the wrong way to go. And certainly myself and my organization I thought agree. Killing something for sport is not conservation, no matter how much money you pour towards the cause.

HARLOW: All the intention going to this, do you think that it will, Jeff, change, you know, the big question is will this sort of hunting is and killing be allowed? Do you think that this will change anything? I mean, you've got this White House petition that 200,000 people have signed, calling for Dr. Palmer to be extradited to Zimbabwe and face trial there.

FLOCKEN: Well, hopefully there will be some long-term change. Senator Menendez produced that bill along with three other original co-sponsors that would suspend the imports of lion trophies and other animals while they're being reviewed for petition to list them, for protections under the U.S. endangered species act. And that's actually pretty good move. I was one of the original authors of the petitions to list lions as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, and we submitted that technical petition back in 2011. Four years have passed and the government is still reviewing that petition. In that interim time, about 440 lions every year have been killed for sport. With a bill like this, that could stop that during that period whether they're deciding whether or not to give them more protections.

HARLOW: Danny, when you also look at the extradition issue here, you have got human rights violations in Zimbabwe, you have a government run by, you know, Robert Mugabe, and there are going to be concerns among U.S. officials about whether they want a U.S. citizen to stand trial in that system. How much do you think that that weighs in?

CEVALLOS: Legally, not at all. And here's what I mean. Under a rule of non-inquiry, courts in holding an extradition hearing and the U.S. attorneys and on the judicial level, they may not look into the adequacy of the requesting country, into Zimbabwe's legal system. They can't demand that he gets due process or the right to an attorney. They are not allowed. It is prohibited to look into the adequacy of the legal system. That's why this is ultimately a political question. It may be the United States and the citizens who will be more concerned about those due process rights, and that may ultimately be more of a diplomatic challenge and less of a judicial challenge.

HARLOW: Jeff, how important do you think it is that Dr. Palmer is tried somewhere, whether it's here in the United States or in Zimbabwe?

[17:18:04] FLOCKEN: Honestly, what makes this interesting is that for the most part, what he appears to have done would be legal if he had gotten the right permits and followed the laws of Zimbabwe.

HARLOW: Right.

FLOCKEN: But it brings into question this huge question. Why are we killing over 400 of these animals legally every year if we know they're in peril? And you can say the same thing about rhinos, elephants, and species in decline like leopards and giraffes. Are we going to continue letting people kill for fun animals that we know are in decline? Hopefully not.

HARLOW: It certainly brought the debate to the fore. And it will continue. Danny Cevallos, Jeff Flocken, thank you both.

FLOCKEN: Thank you.

HARLOW: Well, as outrage grows over Cecil's killing, other less maybe famous animals, they're not in the headlines right now but many many are being slaughtered by poachers in Africa.

Here's CNN's senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Step into this grotesque, macabre warehouse on the outskirts of Denver --

(on camera): Wow!

(voice-over): And you'll soon grasp just how endangered this world's endangered species really are.

(on camera): This is an animal that's about to go extinct, really.

COLLEEN SCHAEFER, SUPERINTENDENT, NATIONAL WILDFIRE REPOSITORY: It's the same plight for the rhino and tiger and the elephant. They could all go extinct within our lifetime.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Colleen Schaefer runs the wildlife repository for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And this is just a fraction of what wildlife officials recover. Just enough to see how repulsive the trade in endangered dead animals can be.

(on camera): You get shipments every day?

SCHAEFER: Every single day. It depends the size of the shipment, sometimes it will be one box full of, you know, 50 different items. Sometimes it's 50 of these smaller boxes, maybe a jewelry of some type or another. So, it's really variable on what we get from day to day.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Shelf after shelf after shelf of endangered tiger heads, even a stuffed tiger fetus, tons of elephant ivory, bizarre and worthless medicines made from illegally poached animals. And, of course, the extremely endangered black rhinos. Whole horns, horns crushed into medicine, carved into statuettes.

(on camera): This is a baby rhino foot. It's turned into a pencil holder.

(voice-over): There are just 2,500 of these black rhinos left in the wild, protected now by armed soldiers. This animal alive, but its horn cut off by poachers. Most are not so lucky. Their carcasses left to rot while their valuable horn is smuggled across the globe. The U.S. Department of Justice says, illegal species trade is driven by mostly Asian buyers, willing to pay up to $60,000 per kilo.

SCHAEFER: We also have, basically, the full snout, of which you can feel, still the skin.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): According to Schaefer, wealthy hosts in Vietnam have even used ground up rhino horns as a party favor, said to cure a hangover.

SCHAEFER: Not only their status symbol, but of their wealth and their ability to provide this to their guests.

GRIFFIN (on camera): And of course it doesn't work for --

SCHAEFER: Right, it doesn't work.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): To stop the killing, the U.S. government has targeted people who deal in the illegal animal trade. And according to the U.S. government, that includes an antique dealer in South Florida named Chris Hayes.

(on camera): Do you have anything to say?

(voice-over): For two-and-a-half years, Hayes and his internet auction site sold black rhino horns, some for as much as $80,000. His cut, he admitted in court documents, 31 percent of every sale. Hayes pleaded guilty and on May 20th, was sentenced to three years in prison. In court he told the judge, he made a terrible mistake. Leaving court, shielded by friends, he said almost nothing.

(on camera): Can you explain to us why you were selling these horns? You obviously knew, for two-and-a-half years, according to prosecutors, that you were selling these horns?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn't matter.

GRIFFIN: According to the government, Chris Hayes and his elite art companies were involved in the selling of more than 19 pounds of rare, endangered black rhinoceros horns, worth about $400,000. And while the government says there was no human victim involved, each horn represented a dead, engaged animal, smuggling, poaching, bribery, and even organized crime.

(voice-over): Government estimates have put the global trade in illegal animal products as high as $10 billion. Hayes was caught trying to arrange sales to Asian buyers in Canada, Texas, even Milan, Italy. The buyers and the sellers, willing to force an animal into extinction for a worthless cure or a trinket.

Drew Griffin, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Drew, thank you very much for that report.

Coming up next, to politics we go, and the countdown to the first republican debate is on. But who will be standing on that stage? The final people have not been determined yet. Tuesday's polling numbers are the cutoff. There will be the top ten contenders debating on Thursday night and will they take turns going after Donald Trump or will they focus on their plans? We'll have a preview, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:26:52] HARLOW: In just five days, the top ten polling republican candidates will square off in the first presidential debate. A lot of people are wondering how the hopeful will treat the person at the top of the polls right now, Donald Trump.

Let's talk about with Ryan Lizza, Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker." He recently penned an article titled "Trump To GOP: You Are Fired." Ryan, thank you for being here.

One of the issues that hasn't gotten a lot of attention is Trump really changing positions. You have got someone who was once a democrat who have given money to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, someone who's recently changed their physicians on immigration, on abortion in recent years really hasn't got that much attention. How big a focus do you think that will be at the debate?

RYAN LIZZA, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORKER: You know, I think each candidates going to have to decide whether they're the one that has to point out some of these things that they know will not be popular with Trump's base right now. And so that's the strategy, if you're Jeb Bush, or Huckabee or Carson or one of these candidates that you're trying to promote yourself, you're trying to introduce yourself to the electorate.

HARLOW: Right.

LIZZA: On the one hand, do you want to be the guy that spends all the time pointing out like, hey, Donald Trump is not one of us, he's not really a conservative. He's been all over the place. That's the tension you have there going in.

HARLOW: Well, and then he says, yes, you're right, I'm not part of the establishment, and that's why, you know, you're going to want to vote for me. At the same time, when you look at the rules of these debates, the more time his opponents spend criticizing him, the more time Donald Trump is going to get to respond. So, that's sort of the correct political calculation if you're a Trump opponent?

LIZZA: That's a great point. The rule says, you get to respond if someone goes after you. So I think, this debate may not be all it's cracked up to be. You know, you're going to have ten candidates on stage. It's only an hour and a half, with breaks. You chop that up, that's not a lot per person.

HARLOW: Right.

LIZZA: And as you point out, if you just spend all of your time attacking Donald Trump, the voters out there are not really going to know what you stand for, necessarily. So, I think a lot of the candidates are hoping someone else goes after Trump and that they can ignore him and have more of a positive agenda.

HARLOW: Really interesting thing, also, if you look at some of the polling on how Trump is polling with women, there was this recent CNN/ORC poll, it shows more than six in ten women view Trump unfavorably, right? That's national. Then you look at some of those critical swing states, like in Iowa and New Hampshire. It's nearly seven in ten feeling that way in Iowa, similar number in New Hampshire, two very critical states. What does the women's vote mean nor Trump's big picture?

LIZZA: Those numbers are terrible, obviously. And look, if you go back to 2012, when Mitt Romney lost to President Obama, the RNC studied why did Republicans lose at the presidential level? And they looked at two demographics that they need to improve with here in 2016. Hispanics and women. And Poppy, one of the two groups that Donald Trump is doing the best job alienating right now, as you point out on those polls, one is women, and with his remarks on immigration, number two is Hispanics. So from the RNC's perspective, in terms of what they have described as an ideal candidate in a national election, Trump so far is the opposite.

[17:31:] And that's why you have a lot of establishment Republicans just worrying about this and wondering how much damage he's going to do. You can't find a single Republican in Washington who believes he's actually going to be the nominee, but many people believe he can do a lot of damage on the way to the primaries here.

HARLOW: Yeah, but at the end of the day, he doesn't care what the establishment thinks, and it doesn't matter what they think. It matters what the voters think in this primary.

Let's talk about his money, right? He's come out with his financials, a lot of information on just how rich he is. And you wrote in your piece, these campaigns end when they run out of money. That's not going to be the case for Trump.

LIZZA: He said he's worth $10 billion. Bloomberg did a very thorough review of everything that's been released and they concluded that he's probably worth less than $3 billion, not $10 billion. Whatever it is, $3 billion or $10 billion, or somewhere in between, he has enough money to sell fun, right? And look at the candidates who had polling bursts in 2012, they ran out of steam when they ran out of money. Campaigns end when they run out of money. He will not have that problem. And if he creates in the polls or pushed aside in the Republican primaries, also of Republicans worry he will set up a third party and run against the Democratic nominee and the Republican nominee in the general election, which is truly the nightmare scenario for Republicans, because everyone assumes he would take votes more from the Republicans than the Democrats.

HARLOW: Which is, ala, 1992, they don't want to see that again.

While I have you, I want to switch gears here. A lot of attention on Maureen Dowd's column today in "The New York Times," talking about sort of what would Beau Biden do, right? Talking about Vice President Joe Biden and losing his son, Beau, and what Beau, according to Maureen Dowd's reporting, told his father about potentially running in 2016. What do you make of it?

LIZZA: I mean, it's an absolutely poignant, incredible piece of journalism. The Maureen Dowd column essentially has a scene of Beau Biden on his deathbed, telling his father to run for president, because he didn't want to see the White House handed over to the Clintons again. You know, I haven't done my own reporting about this. I don't know what her sourcing on this is, but it's an incredibly poignant piece, and if it's true, it has to make you think that Joe Biden is going to be looking at this a lot more seriously than people thought. And we're in the summer here, we're in this point where there's a little bit of doubt setting in about Hillary Clinton. There's a lot in the news, some tough pieces about her. And, you know, wing you have to see if any Democrats start to get skittish and sort of start encouraging him to run. That will be the sign. I have to say, up until this point, though, Poppy, she has more of a lock on the Democratic nomination than any previous Democratic nominee -- person running in the primaries. It's the whole party has organized itself around Hillary Clinton's nomination. So the thing to look for is, who are the first brand-name Democrats, who say, you know, Biden should get in the race, too, as a backup.

HARLOW: And what position does it put President Obama in.

LIZZA: Very tough.

HARLOW: I will also say, CNN's own reporting, CNN's Jeff Zeleny reporting yesterday that Vice President Joe Biden is still considering a run for 2016. So we'll be watching.

Ryan Lizza, thank you, as always.

LIZZA: Thanks, Poppy. See you soon.

HARLOW: Well, it is one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time, but with possible news and possible debris from flight MH370 being found, it is certainly reopening old wounds for the loved ones of those 239 people onboard. Next, how a discovery like this impacts them and their legal case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:31:53] HARLOW: All right. The latest now on Malaysia Airlines flight 370 and the airplane part that washed ashore just a few days ago. Today, that part of an airplane wing arrived in a French laboratory. Experts will closely examine it to see if it belonged to the long-missing airplane. They will try to find clues that might help researchers find the rest of MH370.

As authorities determine whether or not the debris is from MH370, not much has changed for the families of those on that airline. The 239 people onboard have been missing for some 500 days now.

With me now, aviation and maritime lawyer, Daniel Rose, whose firm represents about 50 of the families on that flight.

Thank you for being here.

DANIEL ROSE, AVIATION & MARITIME ATTORNEY: Sure.

HARLOW: Have you heard from them since this discovery?

ROSE: We have. We have. It's, as you can imagine, a very difficult time. It's really a tragic milestone in the 16-month saga that they've had to endure so far. And almost to a last one of them, their hope has been in a miracle, that their loved ones are still alive somewhere. And the reality is just around the corner here that that may not be the case and that they're going to have to deal with really the next phase, which is the realization that their loved ones perished in the Indian Ocean.

HARLOW: You know, one good thing that has come of this, I think, is that everyone has been very slow to say anything definitive, right? Which is so important, because these families have been just whipped around, far too much, in terms of false leads, et cetera, and misinformation from the government there. Are they confident that the time and care is being taken to be sure on this?

ROSE: Well, yes. I think the families are concerned that that happens, first and foremost. I think the authorities, as you point out, learn the lesson that we can't run willy-nilly, coming to some conclusions that later on they're going to have to back off on, because it's devastating to the families.

HARLOW: What about legally? Because there is a timeline here. Under some of these international treaties and laws, these families have two years, from the plane going missing to file any lawsuit, right? I mean, are they feeling pressure to file a lawsuit sooner rather than later?

ROSE: Well, there's certainly that pressure that's been there all along. As we get closer, it gets exacerbated. And certainly, with the finding of this additional piece of information, you know, the hopes are that it will lead to additional evidence that will be useful and enable the families to have more than just the option of filing a lawsuit, which at the end of the day, is what they'll do if they have to. HARLOW: Can you walk me through some of the steps that your clients

have taken in terms of, as family members, have some of them sought death certificates? Have some of them laid their loved ones to rest? What have they done?

ROSE: Everybody deals with a tragedy like this differently, as you can imagine. Some have not wanted to do anything for the sole purpose of holding on to the belief that they're still going to find their loved ones. But the reality is, as we come to the two-year anniversary, that you do have to prepare if you want to maintain your legal rights and part of that is getting a death certificate. Part of that is coming to the realization that you need to get one, because your loved ones are not here. It's a very difficult process. Each family deals with it a little bit differently. But at the end of the day, it's the same tragedy.

[17:40:24] HARLOW: All right. Daniel Rose, thank you very much. Stay with me.

Because on the other side, we're going to talk about this shocking event over the skies of New York City's JFK Airport, a drone a hundred feet away from two commercial airliners as they were trying to land yesterday at JFK. How big of a threat to commercial airplanes are these drones and is the regulation where it needs to be on this? That's next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just two months left until the Fit Nation Fit Pack takes on the Malibu Nautica Triathlon.

(SHOUTING)

GUPTA: They've been training hard, swimming, biking and running.

But Fit Pack member, Robert Latta, says time has been his biggest hurdle.

ROBERT LATTA, MALIBU NAUTICA TRIATHLON PARTICIPANT: Consistency in training. It's rough, you know? You work a full-time gig and then plus all the other stuff that comes along and somewhere in there you've got to cram in an hour of workout every other day. That's rough.

GUPTA: Despite that, he's managed to get the workouts in, learned to cook healthier foods.

LATTA: So the weeks I do put the work into cook, my life is a lot better, a lot more structured.

(SHOUTING)

GUPTA: And inspire people along the way.

LATTA: I've never been someone I thought that would inspire people to go work out. I think that's a by-product of what we try to do.

GUPTA: The change he's most proud of, his type-2 diabetes seems to be improving.

LATTA: The numbers are totally different now than they were when I started. The blood sugar's lower, blood pressure's lower, everything's different. So that's a good thing.

GUPTA: And Latta says, for him, it's been more about the journey than the end result.

LATTA: Most people who are athletes and try to be competitive, they know that they can't climb Mr. Mountain without climbing a bunch of hills first. I think that's where we're at.

(SHOUTING)

GUPTA: And at least until September --

LATTA: Do what April tells you to do and really do it and that's it.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:46:08] HARLOW: An unnerving few moments in the sky over JFK Airport. At least two commercial airliners on Friday, just a few hours apart, coming in close contact with a drone. Both planes were approaching landing when they reported seeing the drones just about a hundred feet away.

CNN's Nick Valencia has the details.

Hi, Nick.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, two incidents at the same airport, just hours apart. The FAA tells us close calls between drones and commercial airplanes have more than doubled since last year.

(voice-over): Two incidents in one day, at the same airport. CNN has now learned of a second close call between a drone and a commercial airline in the skies above New York City. Around the 2:30 Friday afternoon, JetBlue flight 1834 reports seeing an unmanned aircraft on approach to JFK. Less than three hours later, a second encounter with a drone, this time, by a separate airliner. Delta flight 407 prepares to land at JFK Airport, with 154 people onboard, when the pilot spots a drone on the southwest side of the plane, just about 100 feet below. The pilot immediately contacts air traffic control.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

TOWER: 407, did you by any chance get the color or type?

PILOT: No, it was not close enough to be able to tell.

(END VIDEO FEED)

VALENCIA: Then JFK tower warned other pilots of the possible danger flying around them.

(BEGIN VIDEO FEED)

TOWER: JetBlue, use caution, the one ahead of you reported a drone at the Floyd Bennett Field over there. So you might see that.

PILOT: Yeah, we're on (INAUDIBLE) so we're probably considerably higher than he was, but we're watching out for it.

(END AUDIO FEED)

VALENCIA: Phil Derner, of NYCAviation.com, weighed in. Derner said, without a doubt, this was a close call. He explains a drone flying within 100 feet of a plane can easily get sucked into an engine or worse.

PHIL DERNER, NYCAVIATION.COM: These drones are made of aircraft aluminum, similar parts with the aircraft they're about to strike. Going into an engine can destroy an engine. Going into the cockpit window can injure a pilot or even kill a pilot.

VALENCIA: Scares like the one at JFK happen more often than you think. The FAA reports at least two drone incidents each day. That's an average of 60 close calls each month. In the cases of Delta flight 407 and JetBlue flight 1834, both the planes landed safely. The FAA tells CNN, it's investigating both incidents.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: It's unclear if the same drone was involved in both incidents. The FAA tells CNN that they are looking for whoever operated one or both of the drones -- Poppy?

HARLOW: Nick, thank you very much for that.

Back with me, aviation attorney, Daniel Rose, also a pilot himself.

And you have some unique perspective here. You fly for pleasure, not commercial planes, but you actually had a close encounter with a drone right around Chicago?

ROSE: Right. I was. It was last weekend, I was coming back from Oshkosh, which is the annual --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Wisconsin.

ROSE: Yeah, Wisconsin, which is the actual fly-in. And I was coming back right by the Chicago skyline, right along the shore of Lake Michigan, at a low altitude, underneath all the planes that are coming into O'Hare and Midway, and the plane ahead of me reported a drone 100 feet away from his plane. And I was probably, you know, a mile behind that plane. And as I came into the same air space that he had reported the drone, I looked down and I saw the drone kind of floating away and down towards what was like a pier area, off of the Chicago city area. And it seemed to me that somebody was just out having fun with a drone, perhaps, you know, trying to challenge some of the planes that were flying overhead.

HARLOW: So what needs to happen? That has to be unnerving, to say the least.

ROSE: Absolutely. It's almost like it becomes sport with some of these hobbyists, and they are clearly violating the law, which is you can't fly above 400 feet. It seems like they're looking to engage in aircrafts, especially since you see all of this around airports like JFK. It's potentially lethal. The regulations are there. They really need to be enforced. And the criminality aspect of it really needs to be enforced.

[17:50:16] HARLOW: And penalties, right, even if it is just joking around.

All right, Daniel, thank you very much as always.

ROSE: My pleasure.

HARLOW: Coming up next, tragedy in drought-stricken California. A firefighter losing his life battling a blaze. The details on this man next.

But first, "CNN Heroes."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROCHELLE RIPLEY, CNN HERO: My grandmother was full-blood Lakota. My grandma was my world. She asked me if I would promise to go home and help our people when I grew up.

The Lakota reservations are very isolated. The spirit of the people, it's alive, but they struggle with the conditions tremendously. We have extremely high rates of suicide, addictions. Food often is in very short supply. Unemployment. Health issues are another huge challenge.

I formed a group to keep a promise to my Lakota grandmother to go home and help our people.

And we're almost to the front door. There you go. You're at the front door.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At first, I was traumatized because I was blind. All my electricity outlets and stuff were no good and there could have been a house fire.

RIPLEY: We're doing as much as we can to make her house safe for her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels newer in here. I can't see it, but I feel it.

RIPLEY: We've been teaching how to eat healthy on a limited budget.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to give you a couple of these.

We have a medical team. We work collaboratively with the tribe wherever we go.

So we'll take you, obviously, the toys and the new clothing.

We get in everything from beds to food.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's a blessing to our reservation. We call her Waoke N'wiah. Waoke means you're helping people.

RIPLEY: We're children of the earth and we're working together so that everyone has a chance of the having a decent life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:56:08] HARLOW: Checking top stories this evening, hours ago a piece of wreckage found in a remote island in the Indian Ocean arrived in France. Investigators trying to determine if it belonged to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370. Boeing and the NTSB also sending experts to France to analyze the wing part.

And more tragedy in fire-stricken California. A firefighter battling one of almost two dozen wildfire in the Golden State has died. David Ruehl was 38 years old. Rescuers found his body at the scene of the Frog Fire in the Modoc National Forest. Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in California, saying it is so dry there, it is a tinder box.

A reminder, get the latest breaking news all the time with CNN.com and also on our mobile app.

I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. Thank you for being with me. Have a great Saturday evening.

"Smerconish" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)