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At This Hour

Remains, Debris Found in Java Sea; Java Sea Search Won't Be Easy; Knowing Fate of Plane Helps in Search; Grimm Pleads Guilty, Resigning House Seat; House Whip Steve Scalise Spoke to KKK Group

Aired December 30, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Three bodies have been recovered along with debris floating in the Java Sea. AirAsia says it has been told that the debris is indeed from flight 8501. Search planes located the wreckage floating about six miles from the plane's last known location where it essentially fell off radar. An Indonesian navy official tells CNN that one of the bodies that was recovered was that of a female. We're showing you the location. The goal is to locate the bodies of all 162 passengers who were on that jetliner when it vanished early Sunday during stormy weather.

AirAsia's CEO says he is confident that searchers will find the cockpit recorders and the full wreckage of the flight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY FERNANDES, CEO, AIRASIA: I am confident because they know more or less the position of the aircraft so we should be able to locate it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: That was AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes.

I want to look at the area where the debris has been found. We want to turn to Tom Foreman.

Good to have you @THISHOUR, Tom.

We just heard the CEO, Tony Fernandes, say they know the position of the aircraft so that makes everyone think they can recover it quickly and determine what brought the plane down. Not as simple as that necessarily, is it?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The biggest trouble in that is the word "quickly." Even if they know where everything is, this is can be a very involved process. What they have found so far gives them an area to look. The fact that it's only about 100 miles offshore makes it more accessible in many ways. We also know when you about that six-mile difference just a matter of math in case people are interested, if the plane, in fact, was traveling 100 miles an hour as some people anticipated and it flew to this point before hitting the water, that would be about three and a half minutes of flying, a little under four minutes of flying before it hit the water. If it was going at 480 miles an hour, cruising speed for a plane like, this it would have covered that distance in about 45 seconds. So those are just some reference points. This is one of the reasons they have some confidence they will find everything. Look at this. This is TWA 800. TWA 800 went down in about a hundred feet of water like what we're talking about here. It was recovered about 95 percent of the plane was pulled out and all of the victims were found. However, the final body was discovered ten months after the search began so this can be a very long involved process, Michaela, even if it proves to be a very successful process in this relatively limited amount of water out there -- Michaela?

PEREIRA: I remember going through this exact process with you when we were searching and we still are, obviously, for MH-370, and what a contrast that is. The Southern Indian Ocean, unmapped essentially, very, very deep, very foreboding kind of climate there. This is a very different scenario but it's still not without its challenges.

FOREMAN: Sure. The weather is a thing we're hearing about right now. That's a huge challenge. If you have bad weather, choppy water, it makes it all a lot harder. By the way, the reports we're hearing right now that in the exact area they're looking at right now the water level is about 100 feet, so a better area. The sea bottom is helpful in some ways. It's not full of giant peaks and valleys like in the Indian Ocean. This is part of a raised plateau that's been there for many centuries. So all of that works in favor of this. The water is generally clear this is within reachable range for divers like this. The most important people in this whole equation right now at this point, Michaela, in fact, will be the people who get in the water who control the devices that go in the water to listen, to gather all of the evidence. That is the critical part right now and that could go on for a long time. Then it gets handed to the other people who have to analyze it. That can take time, too. Remember, in the case of TWA 800, the final report didn't come out for four years so we may have an indication on what happened. But final evidence, it could still take a long time.

PEREIRA: It could. Well, we hope at least the recovery of the bodies will happen sooner rather than later to give some of these families a measure of closure. They can begin the mourning process.

Tom Foreman, thanks for taking a look at this with us.

FOREMAN: You're welcome.

PEREIRA: Ahead, we'll have a more definitive look at the weather factor in terms of the search for the plane. Monsoon conditions are threatening search efforts.

Also ahead, back here, state side, he planned on staying in office after admitting to tax evasion, but now he's resigning. How Congressman Grimm's resignation will impact the GOP?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PEREIRA: @THISHOUR, divers and ships with sonar equipment are being sent to the area where degree from flight 8501 has been spotted. The Pentagon says the U.S. Navy destroyer "USS Sampson" is among the vessels that have arrived on site in the search area. Another, the "USS Fort Worth" is preparing to deploy from Singapore. The AirAsia wreckage is in a shallow part of the Java Sea. Officials believe the water is less than a hundred feet deep in some places. That doesn't necessarily mean the search is going to be easy, as we just talked about with Tom Foreman.

Joining me to explain the difficulties are sea operations specialist, Tim Taylor; and our meteorologist, Chad Myers.

But, Chad, I think I want to start with you because we know weather was such a factor, we believe it was a factor in this plane coming down. We know that it's a major factor in that area. At this time of year, what are we talking about weather wise?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's kind of ironic. I can show you this graphically, but the weather gets bad in the morning at sunrise and it gets better at sunset, exactly opposite of what you'd like. Typically in America we think of the weather getting bad at 4:00, 5:00, that's when the storms build. Let me take you back 24 hours and show you the storms again, just like yesterday, built last night. They got bad again in a big long line across the same area that the plane was lost in the same area that they're looking if all these guys and women are out there looking for the plane. So 11:00 at night in the dark, there's very little rain fall. In the morning hours, things pop up and there you go. Storms in the middle of the search area. Tomorrow night, clear. The next morning, stormy. It's just an exact opposite of what we would love here. What we'd like to see is clear skies, no wind. Because if you get wind on the ocean surface, even 15, 20 miles per hour, what happens? White caps. What are we looking for? White things. So you get white caps and the sea becomes confused and it's a very difficult situation out there -- Michaela?

PEREIRA: Chad, yeah, that certainly complicates it.

Tim, you've been in these operations in less-than-ideal situations. You want calm skies and blue seas. That's never the case, is it?

TIM TAYLOR, SEA OPERATIONS SPECIALIST & PRESIDENT, TIBURON SUBSEA RESEARCH: You want to do something on the water, prepare for it to take 10 times longer.

PEREIRA: But they're prepared when you go into these situations. They are as well. They have the gear, the equipment, the training, but then you need the tools.

TAYLOR: Correct. Correct. You're on location and you have to do the best you can. But weather is a major issue. They're in our summertime, late summer, where hurricanes just form on top of you. Not that that these are hurricanes but they're big thunderstorms.

PEREIRA: How does it affect the search? We know, obviously, it will affect aerial searches but in term of what's going on underneath when you have submersibles, the AUVs and the ROVs, talk to us about the tools and their capabilities.

TAYLOR: This particular site because it's show lower will use similar tools to flight 370 but they won't be as -- they don't need to be as robust. They need to carry bigger payloads, bigger battery come parents. When you're shallower you don't to. Plus there's an added element of this step that they can apply divers to recovery. So you take AUVs or side scan sonars, you can map out the whole area, once they use pinger, they can map out the area and get good sound images which look like pictures of the wreckage and then they can make dive plans or ROV plans, which are remote operated vehicles to manipulate with arms.

PEREIRA: There is such an advantage that this is less than 100 feet deep in some areas because, as you said, enough marriage of technology and then the human factor because those human eyes on some of this is going to be -- you can make judgment calls and it goes faster.

TAYLOR: Divers are still limited. They only have a certain amount of time underwater they can work, so augmenting that with machinery by scanning, have been a map of the area that we create with you are a AUVs and sound sonar images, then having cameras on ROVs go ahead of them and do the looking, they can do go down there and be surgical about their work. They can recover the black box and, in this case, bodies.

PEREIRA: Chad, quickly to you, maybe I'm throwing you under the bus by asking you this but currents are an issue here, too, right? You've got those currents that can take debris that's floating and can even pull things under the water.

MYERS: And I think we find that in this situation. There was a lot of wind from the last-known location to where that was found. Wind can push things around. There's a small current, one or two knots. Not a lot, but enough to move it just that enough. So there we go with that. But something else. When you talk about the side scan sonar or about the pinger, the ping locator, you're talking about if it's only 100 feet down, that pinger mower -- you know they talk about mowing the lawn -- you can mow farther apart because the pinger locator can hear farther to the side compared to trying to hear 15,000 feet down. It doesn't have the depth, doesn't have the real attenuation at that three-mile depth. You only had 100 feet, so that's much, much better.

PEREIRA: Tim Taylor, Chad Myers, we appreciate your expertise. Thanks for joining us.

Ahead @THISHOUR, the next 24 hours is essential to preserving the data that is held on those black boxes. The search for answers continues after a quick break.

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PEREIRA: Now that we know the fate of AirAsia flight 8501, crews can narrow their search for other parts of that plane, notably the main fuselage and that all-important data recorder, the devices known as black boxes. Earlier this morning, I spoke with two former NTSB chairmen, Jim Hall

and Deborah Hersman, who is now the president of the National Safety Council.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBORAH HERSMAN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL & FORMER NTSB CHAIRMAN: For sure the next 24, 48 hours really belong to the recovery operations, looking for those bodies to be able to support the families, but the investigators are going to be looking for the location of those recorders. We're looking for really redundant recorders, making sure that we have good data both on the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. We're looking for two hours on the cockpit voice recorder and potentially hundreds of parameters on the flight data recorder. They pull those out, the most important thing is really to preserve that evidence, to not damage it as you're removing it and then you're getting it out of the water, making sure you keep it wet so that you don't lose the so that it can be dried in an appropriate manner to be read.

PEREIRA: I know it's conjecture, Jim, but when we know where the debris was spotted, the troubles the pilot was said to be trying to get around in terms of those incredibly large thunderstorms, some 50 kilometers wide in some estimates, did it seem to you that that was a dangerous area or time to be flying or did there seem to you that there was something else that went wrong with this flight?

JIM HALL, FORMER NTSB CHAIRMAN: Well, we really don't know. And the recorders hopefully will tell most of the story. But that's why cameras in the cockpit are so important. It will give us an idea, a visual idea of the conditions the crew was facing. And the actions that they took in regard to trying to safely maneuver the aircraft. And of course, again, I underscore the fact that this is an unacceptable amount of time for a rescue to hope to have survivors alive. And that's why I'm so for and have always been for these deployable recorders that are used in the military.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Jim Hall and Deborah Hersman, both former NTSB chairmen earlier with us on "NEW DAY."

It's interesting, in a world where there's an app to find your phone, a GPS to track down your car, many wonder why it's not easier to find a plane. We know it's not a direct comparison but it's a notion worth considering. The technology exists. Why hasn't it been implemented? Some experts say it comes down to cost.

Would you pay for a safer flight? Tweet me. We'll talk more about your passenger rights tomorrow on our program.

Ahead @THISHOUR, passengers likened it to being aboard the "Titanic." Hundreds of people trapped on a burning ferry. A survivor speaks out about that nightmare next.

Also, two Republicans in a whole lot of hot water. Ahead, we'll examine what their actions could mean for the Republicans in the New Year.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Passengers rescued from a fiery ferry in the Adriatic Sea say there were no fire alarms, no warnings from the crew. 10 people died in that ferry disaster. Survivors say it was chaos on board. People trampling over one another to get to the lifeboats. One tells CNN it was simply a nightmare.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FERRY PASSENGER: We did not where could be the best place to stay. So you stand there. We were wet and cold and the rain was like needles, hard wind. There was always these explosions and this feeling you have under your feet. It goes through your body.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Rescuers were able to get to more than 400 people and get them off the boat to safety before it sank. There is now a formal criminal investigation to determine exactly what went wrong.

Back here at home, just weeks after the party's stunning success in the midterm elections, turmoil for the GOP. New York Congressman Michael Grimm made a U-turn, saying he's going to resign after pleading guilty to tax evasion last week. Earlier this year, you might recall Grimm made news by threatening a reporter who asked him about the investigation into his campaign finances.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MICHAEL GRIMM, (R), NEW YORK: Let me be clear to you. (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why, why?

GRIMM: If you ever do that to me again --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why, why? It's a valid question?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Who could forget that?

Not only the troubles for the GOP. House majority whip, Steve Scalise, admitting that he spoke to a white supremacist group back in 2002. It happened back in 2002 when he was serving in the Louisiana state house. One of his sources says the Congressman didn't know the makeup of the group he was speaking to. Here's what he told a newspaper in New Orleans, quote, "I detest any kind of hate group. For anyone to suggest that I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous."

Athena Jones is in Washington. We'll start with Michael Grimm. It's an about-face from the New York

Congressman. Why the change of heart for him?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela. That's right. It comes less than a week after entering that guilty plea. He insisted he would stay on even after pleading guilty. But this decision was announced last night after Congressman Grimm had a conversation with House Speaker John Boehner. That could have something to do with this. The Republicans would like to have a clean slate as they prepare to take over in this new Congress. This is possibly one less headache for them.

PEREIRA: Speaking of headaches, let's discuss the case of Steve Scalise, third-ranking member of the House, said to have spoken before a white supremacist group back in 2002. How on earth can he defend this and say that he wasn't in the know of who made up the group that he was speaking to and, more importantly, can he stay in the position as majority whip?

JONES: I'll get to both of those answers. The first answer is that he said, at the time -- or one of his sources told us at this time, he didn't have many staffers. He had one staffer. He was speaking to whatever group would hear him to tout his opposition to a tax increase and other issues on the state level. So he says he appeared before this group, wasn't aware of their link to David Duke, wasn't aware that Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, was the leader of this group. He said his staff needs to vet these groups better.

PEREIRA: But one has to wonder what kind of affect this will have on the GOP. They are working to make the party more inclusive to all. This flies in the face of that, and it's going to be a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow.

JONES: Well, it certainly could be. Right now, the big question is, will Representative Scalise remain in his leadership position. That's the question we're trying to have answered. So far, no one in House leadership, on the Republican or Democratic side, has commented on this issue. I will say he does have defenders. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal saying that he's not racist. And Cedric Richmond, the Democratic Congressman, the only Democrat from Louisiana, and the only black member of Congress from Louisiana, also defending Scalise, saying he doesn't have a racist bone in his body, and this is just about politics.

PEREIRA: We'll watch it.

Athena, thanks so much for that.

And thank you for watching @THISHOUR. John Berman will be back tomorrow. I will not be. I will be. Instead, I'm hanging out with those two, Anderson and Kathy Griffin, preparing for our New Year's Eve coverage. Make sure to tune in Wednesday night to ring in the new year with us starting at 9:00 p.m. I'm essentially there to monitor the behavior of the two of them, I believe. Bring in the new year with CNN.

But for now, keep it right here. "LEGAL VIEW" with Jake Tapper starts now.