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Germanwings Aircraft Crash in French Alps; Flight Data Recorders Hold Key to Germanwings Crash; Afghan President Wants Obama to Reconsider Timetable for Troop Pullout; Secret Service Director Grilled on Capitol Hill. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 24, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:33:29] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

We're following the breaking news, a horrible plane crash. The Germanwings Airbus A320 went down in the French Alps earlier this morning. Take a look at these pictures, new pictures we're getting. This is the area where this plane went down. The elevation around 6,000 feet. The French interior minister says the flight data recorder has been found at the crash site. They're still looking for the cockpit voice recorder, those two so-called black boxes.

Meanwhile, officials are telling us the plane is obliterated and there is no sign of life. 144 passengers, six crew members were on board. Helicopters have been flying over the crash site but they have not been able, we're told, to land. Crews are in this zone of the crash. But the terrain, as you can see from these pictures, extremely difficult to reach. Some of the searchers may have to ski to the site, we're told.

Let's go to CNN's Hala Gorani. She's in London and watching what's going on.

Hala, I understand you've spoken to officials in France. What are you learning, first of all, about the recovery effort?

[13:34:36] HALA GORANI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I spoke to a very high- level French official in the region who is being briefed on the rescue operation. He was with the interior minister. Essentially, he told me the plane has been obliterated, there's no piece of the debris larger than a small car, that there's no sign of life, that all 148 people on board, crew and passengers, are feared dead.

He also told me that at this stage -- this was about 45 minutes ago -- that no helicopters have been able to land. This is important because it is very difficult terrain. You can't drive to this. You can't drive ambulances. You can't drive rescue vehicles to this site. So really you can only chopper there. We saw some rescue workers there on the side of one of those mountainous areas there. And the deduction there and the implication is they may have been lowered. There's no way at this stage we're being told that helicopters have been able to land.

Also importantly, I was told that human remains are scattered as far as 100 meters from the wreckage. You can imagine just the grim task now of having to go through hundreds and hundreds of yards of wreckage and try to gather as much as they can right now of some of those bodies, those unfortunate passengers that lost their lives.

And complicating the rescue effort, Wolf, is the fact that the ground is frozen. This means that rescue workers are going to have to wear special gear. And snow is forecast for tomorrow. This is making it all the harder for the operation that is high up in the mountain, about 2,000 meters, we're told -- Wolf?

BLITZER: 6,000 feet or so. It's a real disaster.

Hala Gorani, reporting for us.

Thank you, Hala, very much.

The flight data recorders, the cockpit voice recorders, those black boxes, will likely hold the key to what happened.

Let's bring in our aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh. She's here with me watching what's going on.

Tell us a little bit about what we know. First of all, about the aircraft.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: We know this is an Airbus A320, very, very good safety record. We know more than 6,000 of them off the assembly line.

But just to put this all in context of what happened here is still a mystery. Remains a mystery. That's why it's a breakthrough that they found at least one of the black boxes. When you look at what we know so far, we know this aircraft did go through its last routine maintenance check just yesterday. We know it had its last big check just last summer of 2013.

We also know a bit about the captain. The captain at the controls had over ten years of experience with Lufthansa and Germanwings. So not, by any means, a rookie here. But still, though, we know that something went terribly wrong, something happened so fast that these pilots did not have a chance to communicate with air traffic control before this plane went down.

A little bit about the path of the plane that we know, it did take off, it was able to get to more than 30,000 feet. Flight tracking websites are saying about 38,000 feet. And it was at that cruising altitude, I would say for roughly, based on the flight tracking websites, about three minutes before it started to make a rather rapid but steady descent. You're looking at that. That's the blue line, which is the altitude.

So at this point, Wolf, the cockpit voice recorder, which is still missing, that's going to be critical because we will be able to hear on that recording, what were the pilots saying, were they saying anything, was it total silence? That could be an indication of something, as well, if they were incapacitated or were they discussing with each other difficulties that were happening in the cockpit at that moment.

BLITZER: The last six, seven minutes, there was no communication coming from the cockpit to ground control.

MARSH: Absolutely. What we know from officials is that they did not make a distress call. The emergency call came from air traffic control because they were not able to reach the pilots on the radio. So we do know -- in talking with a lot of pilots and unfortunately we've covered a lot of these instances. But their focus is on getting control of the aircraft, aviating, navigating and then communicating. So communicating is their last option. And one pilot told me today, the fact that they did not speak to air traffic control may indicate, again, we say may indicate that they were still struggling to get control of the aircraft until the very end.

[13:39:08] BLITZER: A mystery. Huge mystery.

Rene, thanks very much.

Rene Marsh, reporting.

Just ahead, we know when the Germanwings plane started to descend. But that's raising a lot of questions about why it crashed. We have expert analysis coming up.

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BLITZER: Crews have recovered one of those so-called black boxes from the Germanwings passenger plane that crashed in the French Alps. 150 people were on board. Officials say it's unlikely anyone survived.

Let's bring in David Soucie, CNN safety analyst, former FAA safety inspector; and CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers.

David, does it help the investigation -- I assume it does -- that they've found at least one of those black boxes, the flight data recorder, we're told, not the cockpit voice recorder?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: The flight data recorder is going to tell you exactly what the position of the aircraft controls were and whether or not the engines were producing full power or not. There's a lot of information in that. What it won't tell you is what was going on in the cockpit, which is the cockpit voice recorder as opposed to the flight data recorder. So that is very useful, of course. But it's going to be a challenge going forward just trying to figure out what happened to this airplane in that area.

BLITZER: And the fact that the last several minutes as it was descending, it was relatively smooth descent, David. There was no communication coming from that cockpit to ground control. What does that say to you? SOUCIE: It's very perplexing, Wolf, because the other thing that's a

critical factor in this is that it continued to maintain that 26- degree flight path. It didn't try to vary or look for an area. Earlier, I had thought that perhaps that indicated that he had identified an area to land. But obviously at this point looking at that terrain that you see there, there was not a lot of choices for him. He probably just kept going forward and tried to keep as much altitude and air speed as long as he could.

BLITZER: Chad, you've been taking a closer look at when the plane started to descend. What stands out as you investigate?

[13:44:15] CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Equally curious that the pilots, had they known they had a problem, had plenty of time, in my opinion, to get to Marseilles, only 32 miles away. Wolf, the plane continued to fly for 102 miles after the dip right there, after the plane left 38,000 feet and started to come back down. Marseilles, the airport, 11,000 feet long, plenty of distance, not that far away as the plane continued to go down and down and downhill.

Here's what it looks like minute by minute from our friends at flightwise.com. Up here, straight and level flight for about three or four minutes. And then all of a sudden, the drop-off and the steady decline and the steady amount of air speed as well until the very last and final minutes, just very curious as to why something else didn't take place, especially a mayday call or something. And I know it's -- I get it. But you get on the radio and say something, don't you? What we could see is the cloud cover covering the ground. They honestly had no idea where the ground was.

And I just don't understand how this doesn't go out -- David, tell me, if the plane's engines are out and they don't have any power, can this plane fly for 102 miles?

SOUCIE: Well, actually, it can.

MYERS: Yeah.

SOUCIE: But I don't think that's the situation here. As you pointed out, the air speed continued to maintain the same. You can do that by putting the nose down and continuing that descent and controlling that descent. It's a very controlled descent. But it has a good glide ratio, this airplane. But it's very curious like you said about this Marseilles Airport that was nearby. If he recognized that he was in imminent danger of crash, most certainly he would have turned around and gone back that way. And the fact that there wasn't an emergency radio call until the last seconds of the flight is very confusing to me. As you said, it's a controlled flight, it's a controlled descent, it's not these radical ones we've seen in previous accidents where they're panicking literally trying to just control that aircraft. This is a controlled descent. There's something going on here. I'm very anxious to find out exactly what certainly.

BLITZER: When you say, David, there was an emergency communication at the very, very end, was that coming from the cockpit or from ground control? SOUCIE: That was coming from the cockpit from what we understand from

the president of Spain. He made a statement earlier that they said "emergency, emergency" towards the end of the flight. Of course, there's some confusion as to when that actually occurred because he said it was at 10: 45 which was after the aircraft reportedly had already crashed.

BLITZER: Hold on for a moment, guys. The CEO of Germanwings, the operator, is speaking now. I want to listen in.

THOMAS WINKELMANN, CEO, GERMANWINGS (through translation): -- as soon as possible about the next steps. Thank you very much.

We will now try to get more details and information and we'll then update you tomorrow morning.

Thank you.

BLITZER: Well, he was speaking. But that's it.

Very quickly, David Soucie, this investigation, I guess it's going to be not only French, German, Spanish, but the U.S. is now volunteering to cooperate. I assume others will as well. This could take a while to figure out, though, what happened.

SOUCIE: It very well could, especially this time of year there. I've done a lot of accidents in the middle of the winter and some in the summer. But this is right between where there's some snow but there's not enough. So you can't just take snow cats out there and try to get to the aircraft accident. This is going to be a very, very difficult recovery and trying to analyze what happened.

BLITZER: A huge mystery still continuing.

David Soucie, Chad Myers, guys, thanks very much.

To our viewers, for a list of ways to help those affected by this plane crash, visit our website, CNN.com/impact. You can impact your world.

We'll have much more ahead on the breaking news, the plane crash in France.

Also coming up, the new Afghan president, he's here in Washington, over at the White House, meeting with President Obama today. Why he wants the president to reconsider the U.S. timetable for pulling out American troops from Afghanistan.

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[13:52:03] BLITZER: We'll get back to the plane crash, breaking news coverage, shortly.

Also happening right now, over at the White House, the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, he is continuing his first official visit to Washington since taking office in January. He's having a series of meetings with the president, the vice president. Yesterday, he met with the secretary of state.

But President Ghani began the day at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

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UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: Present!

UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: Present.

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BLITZER: This marks real foreign relations with Afghanistan. President Ghani has already signed a new security agreement with the United States, something his predecessor refused to do.

Let's go to our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, joining us from the White House.

President Ghani, no stranger to the U.S. He studied and was taught here. He was even a U.S. citizen until running for office. Is that being reflected in the tone we're seeing in the new conversations between the U.S. and Afghani leaders?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think that's part of it, Wolf. He knows Washington. Washington knows Ashraf Ghani. He worked at the World Bank a couple blocks from the White House, where we're standing now. The people at the White House here know him well. They have high hopes for him. Obviously the relationship was very different with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who would not sign that bilateral security agreement. Ashraf Ghani comes in, he signs that security agreement.

The question is whether or not, Wolf, he gets something in return. One thing he wants is a slow down in this reduction of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. There are roughly 10,000 right now. The president announced a plan to have that by the end of this year. Now that is on the negotiating table. The president may decide and we may hear about this coming up at this news conference within the next hour that he has decided to slow down that withdraw of U.S. forces.

One thing that has been made clear to me, Wolf, is by the end of his presidency, by the end of 2016, heading into 2017, the president still does intend to pretty much pull all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan with the exception of a small residual force of around 1,000 to 2,000 troops that would be there for diplomatic security and provide security for other counterterrorism missions but the combat mission would end. I think it will be interesting to watch how well versed Ashraf Ghani is. He speaks very good English. I think we'll hear that at this news conference within the next hour.

BLITZER: So basically, what we're going to be standing by for, the news conference starting in 20, 25 minutes. We'll have live coverage on CNN. They'll both make opening statements. And what you're hearing -- I just want to be precise -- is the possibility that the president of the United States and the president of Afghanistan may announce that they're expanding the U.S. troop commitment presence in Afghanistan beyond earlier agreements. Is that right?

[13:55:04] ACOSTA: I think, Wolf, what we're going to hear -- and that is what Ashraf Ghani has been pushing for -- is that instead of the president trying to cut by half, by the end of 2015, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 10,000 to roughly 5,500, that may be slowed down a bit. It won't go down to one half of where they are right now by the end of this year, and that process will be slowed down a touch and that will continue over 2016. That's something the White House has been indicating in terms of something we'll hear from the president today. It's something they've been talking about behind the scenes.

Keep in mind, there's a political context for all of this, Wolf. Remember that the president -- and you know this all too well. The president decided on a full pullout of U.S. forces from Iraq three years ago. A lot of people in this town believe the president is paying the price for that now with what is happening with ISIS. Does all of that weigh on the president and his deliberations, his considerations as to whether or not he should do the same thing in Afghanistan? There's a lot of people who think he should be taking that under consideration.

BLITZER: Yeah, they certainly are. All right. We'll have live coverage coming up. Jim Acosta will be with me. Our special coverage of President Obama and the Afghan President Ghani's joint news conference scheduled for about 2:20 p.m. eastern, about 20, 25 minutes from now.

There's other breaking news we're following here in Washington right now. The head of the U.S. Secret Service has been getting grilled on Capitol Hill today. The director, Jim Clancy, is being asked to explain what happened about three weeks ago involving two allegedly intoxicated agents driving into a barrier outside the White House.

We're also getting the first look at a video of the incident today. It appears to show the car making its way into the White House grounds by going around what turned out to be a bomb threat investigation.

CNN's Chris Frates has been looking into this story for us.

It's pretty dramatic, the latest news coming out of Capitol Hill.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's real dramatic. And this e-mail says that two Secret Service agents drove through crime tape and around an active bomb scene investigation. And, Wolf, it gives us our first look at the allegations that drinking was involved. The e-mail says, quote, "Officers at the scene said they were both extremely intoxicated. Officers were going to arrest both of them, but the watch commander said not to."

So I want to take a listen to Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on this committee. Here's what he had to say after he read this e-mail at the committee this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS, (D), MARYLAND: But you know what really bothers me is I read this, I kept reading this e-mail this morning over and over and over, and you know what I concluded? It appears that we have an agency at war against itself. We're better than that. In some kind of way, we have to take advantage of this transformative moment. If we don't, it could only get worse.

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FRATES: So Cummings' frustration palpable there, Wolf. It was shared by a lot of other people on the committee as well.

BLITZER: They're concerned. Elijah Cummings and all the members of that committee overseeing the U.S. Secret Service, they're concerned that security could of the president of the United States, the first family, everyone, basically, in the White House, that that security be undermined.

FRATES: That's exactly right. They asked him, they said, what are you going to do, what changes are you going to make? Clancy said, one of the changes he's going to make is he's going to change the -- how they keep their video. Right now, as you know, they keep video around the White House grounds for about three days and then it gets overwritten. He says he's going to extend that to seven days, look at keeping it even longer, because, in this incident, what we had was video that was overwritten. They're unsure if there's anymore angles to what happened that night. That has lawmakers very, very upset. And he's already making changes based on what he's learned in this incident.

BLITZER: They know they only keep the video for three days. Then it disappears as they roll over that video. But here's a case that was controversial. There was a bomb investigation. You would think they would make an exception and say, you know what, we're going to keep this video to make sure we learn lessons from this.

FRATES: That's exactly right. Lawmakers asked Clancy that exact question. Why did you not keep this video? He did not have an answer at this point. He said that's something the independent inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security is looking into. However, I'm trying to get back as much of that video and work with forensics experts and computers to do it.

[13:59:34] BLITZER: Chris, shocking stuff coming out of that hearing on Capitol Hill. You saw how angry Elijah Cummings was, for good reason.

Chris, thanks very, very much.

That's it for me. I'll be back, though, in about 15 minutes or so for CNN's special coverage of President Obama's joint news conference with the visiting president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani. It's supposed to start around 2:15 p.m. Eastern, about 15, 20 minutes from now. In the meantime, thanks very much for watching.

"NEWSROOM" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.