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International Tragedy; American Victims Were Mother and Daughter; Nationals of at Least 15 Countries on Flight; German Town Mourning Loss of Students and Teachers; Outer Shell of Second Black Box Found; Investigators Working on Voice Recorder Now; Plane Crashed in Very Rugged Area; Explosion in Kabul. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 25, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 pm here in Washington, 5:00 pm in London, 6:00 pm in Paris and Berlin. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: Up first, the breaking new: The German plane crash mystery becomes an international tragedy as we get more details. They are emerging about the passengers. We've learned two Americans were among those on board. The crash victims were from at least 15 countries, most were from Germany and Spain. But there were others there from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Iran, Japan, Australia, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and here in the United States.

A French official says investigators have begun the pain staking process of identifying the remains of the victims. He says that will take days and DNA comparisons could take weeks. The French president, Francois Hollande, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy arrived in the crash zone today. They were met by the search teams at the staging area.

And investigators, they are now working to retrieve information from the plane's cockpit voice recorder. After removing the damaged casing, they say they have found what they described as usable audio files. We're getting details about the identities of the two Americans on board Flight 9525. Let's go to our Aviation Correspondent Rene Marsh. Rene, what have you learned?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we now have the names of the two Americans who were killed on board this aircraft. The first one, Yvonne Selke and her daughter, Emily Selke. We also know a little bit more about these victims as well. Emily Selke was a student at Drexel University and the university has confirmed to CNN, they are aware of the death.

You are looking at a picture of Emily Selke on your screen right now. Her sorority, Gamma Sigma, posting on their Facebook page their regards and memory for her saying, quote, "They are mourning the loss of their beautiful alumni." We know the two are from Nokesville, Virginia which is about 45 minutes outside of Washington, D.C.

They leave behind Raymond Selke who is the father of Emily and the husband of Yvonne. He spoke to CNN today and as you can imagine, Wolf, he says he is too distraught to talk. But the family will be issuing a statement later on today.

Wolf, we also know that Emily Selke worked in the Washington, D.C. area, and we have been in touch with her employer. They, too, are mourning the loss of this young woman as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: What a tragedy. Only two of those 150 souls on board that plane, all presumed lost. We're going to have much more on the other victims. That's coming up. Rene, stand by.

Let's talk a little bit about some of those other victims of Germanwings Flight 9525. They include two German opera singers, 54- year-old Bria -- Oleg Bryjak and a 34-year-old Maria Radner. Both fresh off a performance at Barcelona.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

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BLITZER: Bryjak, a renowned bass-baritone, a rising star, was flying with her husband and baby at the time. Also on board, the Australian nurse, Carol Friday, and her 29-year-old son, Greig. The two were on a European vacation together. And on the day before the crash, the two had celebrated Carol's 68th birthday. Here's the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott.

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TONY ABBOTT, PRIME MINISTER, AUSTRALIA: Our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families of all those killed but, particularly, with the loved ones of the two Australians who have lost their lives.

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BLITZER: The U.K. also is mourning 28-year-old Andrew Bramley. He spent a few days with friends in Barcelona after finishing his first year of studying hospitality and management. His mother is quoted as saying, "He was the best son. He was my world."

And one high school in Germany dealing with the unimaginable loss of 16 students and two teachers. The community gathering at a memorial outside the school. Let's go there. CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in the hometown there in Germany. What can you tell us about those students and those two teachers, Fred?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, it's an absolutely devastating scene here outside this school. You've got people coming here basically throughout the entire day, laying down flowers, lighting candles. Most of them are standing in silence. Some of them, however, are breaking out into tears. That's how much all of this has hurt this community. This is a fairly small town, about 37,000 to 38,000 people live here. So, virtually, everybody who lives here knows someone who has been affected by all this.

Now, a little bit earlier today, I managed to speak to one young lady who said that she knew every single one of the 16 students who were killed on that flight. And she said she was friends with many of them. And it really shows the agony that many of these young people are going through right now.

[13:05:04] She said, you know, they had been making plans for the time when they returned. They had been making plans for the time after they graduate from high school and go to college. So, these were clearly young people who still had their entire futures ahead of them. And it really shows how deeply this entire community, this entire town has been hurt by all this.

There's a crisis center here, Wolf, in this town. And it's being managed by the mayor. But even he is feeling very, very emotional about what's going on. Just have a look at what happened to him when I asked him about how things are going right now.

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BODO KLIMPEL, MAYOR, HALTERN, GERMANY: I'm here and I can talk with people and with the parents and the brothers and sisters. And the only thing that I can do is to be here.

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PLEITGEN: So, we've been able to speak to some of the psychological counselors, Wolf, who are also here on the scene. And they said, in most cases, it's just very important for the folks who have been affected by this to have a shoulder to lean on, to have someone that they can talk to. And that's one of the reasons why those words from the mayor were so very important.

But one thing that we're hearing more and more from folks that we're speaking to here is they want information. They want to know exactly how this could happen and how it could that these many young people and these two teachers were killed on that flight coming back, of course, from a language exchange there in Spain which lasted about a week -- Wolf.

BLITZER: What can you tell us, because I know you've been covering this story from the beginning, Fred, about the other Lufthansa and Germanwings pilots and flight attendants and others who are now refusing to work today because of, what, --

PLEITGEN: Yes.

BLITZER: They're concerned about their -- the losses, obviously, but they're also concerned about safety, is that right?

PLEITGEN: Well, it's really unclear, at this point in time. It's a very interesting topic because it is one that is being talked a lot about here in Germany and internationally as well. There were indeed several crews on the day that this happened who said that they didn't want to fly airplanes. Apparently, all of those crews were crews of A320 aircraft.

Now, the way that Germanwings puts it, they say that these people were crew members who most probably knew the pilots who were killed in this incident. Again, we don't know the identities of the pilots that were killed yet. But they say it was just that these pilots felt unfit to fly because of the emotional trauma they were going through. Whether or not they felt that their aircraft might not be safe is something that the airline itself has rejected. It's something that the German Pilot Union has rejected as well. But it's certainly something that's still being speculated on here in the German media and, of course, internationally as well.

And Germanwings, for its part, put out a statement that, today again, there were flights that needed to be canceled because they simply didn't have enough pilots available. They also needed to charter some aircraft from other airlines here in Germany to make sure that they actually managed to conduct most of the flights that they were scheduled to do.

So, it certainly is something that is an issue. It's something that's being talked about but it is really very much unclear whether or not it is, indeed, only the fact that these people feel like they have so much on their mind right now, that they don't want to be piloting an aircraft or whether they might indeed have a bigger security concern about the planes that they're actually flying -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes. These planes, these airbus -- this particular model, there are several thousand of them flying around right now. I'm sure there's plenty of concern as they try to investigate what happened. Fred, we're going to get back to you in Germany. Thanks very much.

Coming up, we have much more on the investigation into the crash, including new information on those two so-called black boxes and what may or may not be still left in those black boxes.

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[13:11:56] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: Let's get back to the breaking news. Recovery crews at the site of the Germanwings plane crash, they are facing extremely tough challenges right now, steep mountain slopes, tiny pieces of debris and the grim search for the remains of the victims of -- from at least 15 countries. A hundred and fifty people were on board that plane.

Our Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson is joining us now from the staging area in the French Alps. Nic, give us an update on the search and the recovery effort. I take it they're trying to recover debris and, obviously, they're looking for bodies.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, they are. And it does appear as if -- you know, night is about to fall here. And it appears as if the teams are coming back in after their day on the mountain. What we know from the head of -- head of the teams putting the recovery teams on the ground, he told us earlier in the day that the helicopters cannot actually land in the area, that the only way they can put the recovery teams on the ground is to winch them down. So, it's a slow operation. It's a laborious operation. It means you cannot put in a lot of people all at one time.

The recovery teams on the ground, we understand at the moment, today, have been marking the positions of the bodies as they find them on the mountainside. What they have to do before they can remove them from the mountainside, we're told, is record their location. And there seem to -- and there is some kind of medical certification that needs to be -- that needs to be given at the site in the mountain.

So, what we were told is, do not expect any of the victims' bodies to be recovered today. That does seem to be the case. It does speak to the difficulty of the terrain there. And we heard from the air accident investigation team. They're saying that actually their teams have really been working from the air, that they've -- that they're trying to locate that second data recorder, the data recorder that's broken free of the outside frame. That's somewhere on the ground.

But they're not putting their teams down. The investigation teams are still flying over the area. Again, we cannot stress enough how difficult the terrain here is, Wolf. There's a couple more helicopters coming in from the recovery site right now. You'll hear them coming in in a second. One coming in over my head. Right now, already dark enough for them to have their lights on here -- Wolf.

BLITZER: So, I just want to be precise, Nic, on these -- the two so- called black boxes. They've got the cockpit voice recorder, right, that the outside was damaged. But they're now trying to get the files, at least, so they can listen to what was happening in those final eight minutes or so. But they don't necessarily have the flight data recorder? That's -- they have the exterior of that but the internal, all the files, that's still missing, right?

ROBERTSON: That's right, Wolf. This is what we heard from the French president when he came here today. He said the voice recorder -- the cockpit voice recorder has been recovered. It is damaged but they do expect, over a period of time, to be able to recover the voices that are on there. The data recorder that records the data in the aircraft prior to the crash, they found the outside casing for that but not the -- not the actual recorder itself.

[13:15:16] The investigation teams say they're still searching for that recorder. Experts believe that even if it's broken free of this outside frame, the data on it could still be usable. But the investigation, the man heading the investigation said that he may not release, in the short term, details of what's on the voice recorder perhaps until they can get more information and get their hands on the data recorder.

So this just tells us again the slow nature of the process. What we've been told. Not only is this terrain steep, but it's unstable. So it's not even a case of being able to wench people in, as they've been doing, but it's when they get on the ground, they don't have freedom of movement. They can't scramble over the rocks to search a piece of debris that they see on one side of the hill. They have to go very carefully. The hillside itself, unstable in the first place, made less stable again because of the impact of the aircraft, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Nic, thanks very much. Nic's over at the staging ground in the French Alps.

At this point, questions clearly swirling around the mysterious last minutes, eight or 10 minutes, shall we say, where an airplane full of passengers drops 32,000 feet. We don't know why. We also don't know if the passengers were even aware of what was going on during those final minutes or if they were even conscious during that slow, relatively slow drop. Let's discuss what we do know.

Joining us here in Washington is Peter Goelz, he's the CNN aviation analyst, a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board here in the United States. And joining us from London, Mary Schiavo, the aviation analyst for CNN, former inspector general for the Department of Transportation here in Washington as well.

What's your bottom line conclusion based on what we know, Mary, right now, about those final eight minutes and that relatively slow descent? What does this sound like to you?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, to me - and this is based on prior crashes and accidents that I've worked on - I mean it does sound like some sort of a decompression or some other event that incapacitated the pilots. I thought that the BEA representative, the French investigator, was extremely careful with his words, but then he really has to be because of all the families that I've worked with over the years, they hang on every word from the investigators. But it was clear that he said from the two - roughly of two hour - about two hour and 10 minute tape on the cockpit voice recorder that he does have voices. But what they're doing now is sorting them out. And it almost looks like a movie script when they're done because they will put into the, into the final transcript, they'll put in the - the radar information that they have and any kind of recordings from the - from the air traffic control tower and flow control and flight control and all that, Euro control, if you will.

And so even if they don't have the data recorder, they will at least have a running transcript and they will only release it in writing. So he does have a lot of work to do, but you could tell he's heard something and they have been able to listen to it and they have gotten at least some of the voices.

BLITZER: Because he was a little unclear. I was listening to that news conference, Mary. Did he say specifically that they heard voices during the final eight or 10 minutes?

SCHIAVO: No, he would not say that. He said they heard voices, but, again, he's got two hours, not he, all of his investigators, they've got two hours, a little over two hours, to sift through and then they have to put the time stamps on it and they have to put in any other data that they know. And when we do this in reconstruction and, you know, for private purposes for aircraft reconstruction to take to court, you know, we have to hire acoustic experts and experts who listen for particular sounds in a cockpit, et cetera. Now, the voice recordings are identified by the pilot and the co-pilot. There's two mikes. And so they will know which one is speaking. But he would not comment at all on those last eight minutes.

BLITZER: Yes, that was mysterious to me, Peter Goelz, that he wouldn't even say if they heard anything in those final eight or 10 minutes once that plane went from 38,000 feet, began a relatively disciplined descent, until it crashed into the French Alps.

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes, he was very cautious and I thought the - you know, and very reserved. He was not going to get out in front of the investigatory process at all. And the French are like that. They run a very disciplined investigation. We'll hear more later today, perhaps tomorrow morning. But there is still a big mystery about what was going on those last 10 minutes.

BLITZER: Well, what if there's total silence those last 10 minutes of the cockpit voice recorder, Peter, and they don't hear anything - they hear a conversation going for the hour before, the half hour when they're getting ready to take off, then the hour they were actually in the air before that plane began to descend?

GOELZ: Well, if you have silence, you still have the overhead mike that will pick up sounds of what's going on in the cockpit. It will hear click. It will hear warnings. It will hear, you know, other potential sounds. They may be able to get some better understanding. But it would indicate that the flight crew perhaps was incapacitated.

[13:20:13] BLITZER: That's what it sounds like to me. And, Peter, you know, you've been involved in a lot of these investigations after crashes. Do you believe - right now they're looking for the interior part of that - of the flight data recorder. They found the box but they didn't find the inside. Is that unusual, first of all? And, secondly, let's say they find it. Will it be so damaged that it might not be usable?

GOELZ: Well, from looking at the voice recorder, that was very damaged --

BLITZER: The exterior?

GOELZ: That's right. I mean I -

BLITZER: But they think they can still retrieve the interior.

GOELZ: Yes. They can get the inside. On the digital, they could pull out the necessary information from the digital boards, even if they're cracked and broken. But it will make the investigation more time consuming because you've got to find those pieces. If the protective coverings have been torn off, it's going to be very difficult to find them.

BLITZER: And they're relatively small in a huge area with snow in the alps and rocks and debris. GOELZ: Exactly.

BLITZER: Who knows if they'll even find it. I hope they do.

GOELZ: Yes, this is going to be a tough investigation.

BLITZER: All right, Peter Goelz, Mary Schiavo, I want both of you to stand by. We're going to have much more on the mystery surrounding this plane crash in the French Alps. Much more coming up this hour.

There's other news we're following as well. We're going to get the latest on an explosion - yes, an explosion - that just occurred near government buildings, major government buildings in the Afghan capital of Kabul. That attack comes as Afghanistan's president has been addressing a joint meeting of the United States Congress here in Washington. You're going to find out what he has to say about a continued U.S. military presence in his country.

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[13:25:11] BLITZER: We're continuing to follow the breaking news. More on that horrible plane crash in the French Alps. We're now told to expect a joint news conference by the CEOs of Germanwings, that's the plane - the airliner that crashed, obviously, yesterday, and the parent company, Lufthansa. We're going to have live coverage of that news conference. We presume they're going to be offering more information, new information on what they have learned about what's going on. Stand by. We'll have live coverage of the news conference. The CEOs of Lufthansa and Germanwings, that's coming up.

Other news we're following, a new chapter in U.S. relations with Afghanistan. Ashraf Ghani, the new Afghan president, has just wrapped up an address before a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. He thanked the United States for what he called America's tremendous sacrifices.

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PRESIDENT ASHRAF GHANI, AFGHANISTAN: We owe a profound debt to the 2,315 service men and women killed and the more than 20,000 who have been wounded in service to your country and ours.

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BLITZER: The speech comes on the heels of President Obama's announcement that the U.S. will now keep nearly 10,000 U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan through the end of this year at the request of President Ghani. Originally, half of those troops were supposed to be returning to the United States by the end of this year.

Let's go to our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh. He's joining us from Kabul right now.

Nick, all this is happening as, what, more terror explosions where you are in Kabul today. What happened?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, a few hours ago now, Wolf, over in this direction, about 300, 400 meters or so near two key finance and defense ministry buildings, there was a substantial explosion which we understand was in fact a suicide bomber in a Toyota car detonating, killing seven, including one child, injuring 36. Of course, that reminds people here about the extraordinary volatile security situation. That is, of course, why the Afghan administration wanted to see more U.S. troops stay behind, to train up the Afghan security forces here.

Ashraf Ghani, himself, in that speech just now to Congress, referred to ISIS, who are trying to get a foothold here, as a terrible threat, saying that they were here trying to find and exploit vulnerabilities in Afghanistan. Those vulnerabilities are a myriad, frankly. The Taliban resurgent here, yes. The Afghan security forces receiving great casualties against them. And, of course, there are domestic political problems here too for Ashraf Ghani. He's sharing the government with a man that he fought an election against and they've yet to appoint a defense minister. So, severe hurdles here, Wolf.

BLITZER: And what's been the reaction there in Afghanistan to President Obama's decision to keep all the U.S. troops, 9,800 U.S. troops there, through the end of this year? Start withdrawing them next year and have them all out. He says the complete withdrawal will occur by the end of 2016, early 2017, the latest. He's got an end date when all U.S. troops will be out of Afghanistan. What's the reaction?

WALSH: Well, certainly it's the Afghan government that wanted to see a slower drawdown. You see ordinary Afghans here, well, the American combat role has more or less completely ended at this stage and there's much less of a foreign presence on the streets here. And certainly that extra 4,300 you won't be seeing out and about in Afghanistan, if you're a normal Afghan.

They're training the Afghan security forces. That helps potentially allay the White House being accused of cutting and running. They can say, well, we've delayed the drawdown. What are you talking about? And at the same time too, they're also keeping that key tenet Barack Obama had in his foreign policy, I'll be the president that ends the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Well, he can still say he brought the troops home potentially. That final return to the embassy by the remaining troops that will be left maybe down to his successor. But certainly I think there's a bid by the White House here to have their cake and eat it. They want to be seen to support Afghanistan because of what ISIS did in Iraq. But at the same time they still want to be the ones that ended the war in Afghanistan.

Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Nick Paton Walsh, be careful over there in Kabul, as I say to you all the time. Thanks very much.

We're awaiting a news conference, a joint news conference. The CEOs of Lufthansa and Germanwings. They're about to provide, we're told, new information about what happened. Stand by. We'll have live coverage of that news conference.

Also coming up, reports of a bounty now on the head of Yemen's president as rebel forces cut the country literally in half, taking over a base formerly used by the United States. The worsening crisis in Yemen. That country seems to be falling apart right now. Stand by.

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