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At Least Two Passengers Had Stolen Passports; Search Intensifies For Airliner With 239 Aboard; 6.9 Quake Strikes Off North California Coast; Pistorius Breaks Down In Court; Sandy Hook Shooter's Dad Speaks Out; Snowden Speaks At SXSW Festival Today; Blood Test Predicts Alzheimer's Risk

Aired March 10, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, the Malaysia Airline mystery at sea.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a report today we just received that an aircraft see something like an inverted life raft.

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COSTELLO: New information coming in every hour as the families of more than 200 people wait for word.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is pretty fresh. We are processing it and we've just had a little bit of time to be together as a family.

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COSTELLO: Investigators now trying to figure out how two of the passengers boarded the plane with stolen passports.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stolen passports can be repurposed and used. They would be doctored up.

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COSTELLO: Key questions this morning, who were they? Did the plane disintegrate at 35,000 feet? You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. This morning, desperation grows by the hour. Potential leads seem to crumble just as fast. A second U.S. Navy ship joins the massive international effort to search for any signs of the Malaysia Airlines jet that's missing and presumed crash.

A short time ago, investigators confirmed that an oil slick, that had raised hopes for a possible clue, did not come from the missing airliner. CNN justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, live in Washington with more. Good morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. Many more questions than answers. Right now, authorities are working to figure out what the intent of those two passengers who boarded Flight 370 with stolen passports may have been and whether they were associated in any way with a terrorist organization. The fact that this could have happened is raising questions about security on international flights.

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BROWN (voice-over): It's one of the biggest mysteries in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. How did in a post-9/11 world did two passengers board an international flight with stolen passports? Even more surprising, they were in plane site, among the names listed in Interpol's lost and stolen travel documents database.

One since last year, the other since 2012, both stolen in Thailand and it appears the two passengers who used the passports of an Italian and an Austrian citizen bought their tickets together.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: When you book your ticket, the airline is not able to make an inquiry with Interpol about whether you're wanted or whether the passport has been reported stolen. The country -- the government does.

BROWN: And according to Interpol, last year alone, passengers were able to board planes without having their passports screened against Interpol databases more than 1 billion times. The database at Interpol headquarters in France contains an astounding 40 million records of stolen travel documents.

FUENTES: You know, the member countries, the 190 members that belong to Interpol, are not charged a fee for accessing any of those databases. So if the country has sufficient resources and technical capability to wire into Interpol's virtual private network that's running 24 hours a day, they certainly would be able to access that database and check it. It's up to the will of the country to set it up and do it.

BROWN: Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said now we have a real case where the world is speculating whether the stolen passport holders were terrorists, while Interpol is asking why only a handful of countries worldwide are taking care to make sure that persons possessing stolen passports are not boarding international flights.

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BROWN: And Carol, important to note here, officials say people use stolen passports for a variety of reasons, such as drug smuggling, human trafficking, and at this point, there is no credible link to terrorism though it hasn't been ruled out yet.

Just looking at some other numbers here from Interpol. The U.S. searches in Interpol database at 250 million times a year. Get this, Carol, out of 800 million searches a year worldwide in Interpol's database, there are 60,000 hits of people using lost or stolen passports. That says a lot.

COSTELLO: It does. Pamela Brown, thanks so much.

So terrorism could have brought down that plane, but pilot error or mechanical failure could be to blame too. With me now, Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the Federal Department of Transportation and Dr. Alan Diehl, an air safety investigator and consultant. Welcome to both of you. Thanks for being here.

Mary, I want to start with you, stolen passports. No distress call. No sign of wreckage. It's dangerous to make assumptions, but you are an expert. What do you think?

MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: I look back to previous accidents. It has similarity to a couple different accidents. It is very similar to Air France 447. In that case, it was a situation where an aircraft entered bad weather. The pilots let the air speed deteriorated. They lost lift, stalled and literally spiraled into the ocean.

The other similarity is a Philippine airline case where a terrorist group used that as a practice run in advance of the Bojinka plot. Now the Bojinka plot was to take out 12 U.S. jetliners over the Pacific Ocean in advanced of September 11, 2001. They used fake passports. They planted the explosives. They didn't want to be detected because it was a trial run. So two very different possible outcomes.

COSTELLO: And Alan, everybody is searching for a clue like that proverbial black box that could help investigators figure out what exactly happened. But there has been no transmission. Why?

ALAN DIEHL, AIR SAFETY INVESTIGATOR: Well, Mary mentioned Air France 447. There was no transmission there. They spiraled in for several minutes. Mary might have mentioned also the Air India loss of the 747 a couple decades ago over the Atlantic. There is not always communications whether it's pilot error or mechanical failure. These pilots are very busy. We certainly can't rule out some kind of accident or event.

COSTELLO: Well, Mary, if the pilot did try to turn back and investigators say he might have, why wouldn't he have told air traffic controllers he was having mechanical problems.

SCHIAVO: Well, for a couple of reasons. If there was a mechanical problem such they took out the communications. Now, on a 777, that would be very difficult because it is not just redundant. It has triple redundancies. So whatever happened to caused him to turn back would have had serious impact on the plane.

There are other situations where one could turn back and envision a hijacking event. A hijacking event, you have some other options. You can send computer messages. You can squawk a certain code that is secret. You can squawk a certain code saying that you are being hijacked. So there are other clues.

The lack of information from this plane. Remember this plane, itself, sends messages. It sends system status update messages, electronic messages from the plane basically checking on the health of the plane. Now of those either which leads most people to conclude there was a catastrophic event at 35,000 feet.

COSTELLO: So Alan, is it possible Malaysia Airlines could have received some sort of transmission from this 777 if it had different technology?

DIEHL: Well, that's one of the things that is certainly been advocated over the years starting decades ago. People have talked about on board transmitters. Once an aircraft gets into any kind of distress, recorded data for say the last 10 minutes is instantly transferred. That technology exists and I'm sure we're going to have to revisit this.

I would also say that if they had some minor mechanical situations, I'm speculating here, I'm not suggesting this happened, but let's say a windshield crack. That's the kind of thing where they know they are not going to go on to Beijing. They are probably going to go back to Kuala Lumpur for maintenance. They may have started a turn and the windshield failed.

Now that's the kind of scenario according to the radar data that there was a turn. Obviously the pilots until they knew they had a major problem would probably focus on flying the airplane and getting their oxygen mask on. You can envision mechanical failures in this situation also.

COSTELLO: Well, the investigation goes on. Mary Schiavo, Dr. Alan Diehl, thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Edward Snowden will be back in the United States this morning, sort of. The fugitive and whistle blower, scheduled to speak at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin. It is kind of controversial, Laurie Segall.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: Lots of buzz around Edward Snowden. He will be appearing via teleconference from Russia where he is seeking asylum. I will have some insight into what he is going to say. Coming up after the break -- Carol.

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COSTELLO: Checking our top stories at 12 minutes past the hour, a series of earthquakes shook the northern California coast late last night. The strongest was a magnitude 6.9 quake. It struck about 50 miles west of Eureka and Humboldt County. County officials say there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. No tsunami warning was ever issued.

Oscar Pistorius broke down and got sick in court today while hearing the pathologist describe the graphic injuries his girlfriend suffered after he shot her to death last year. The testimony was interrupted by Pistorius sobbing. He admits to killing Reeva Steenkamp, but says it was a case of mistaken identity. Trial is expected to last at least another week.

Peruvian officials say they will extradite Joran Van Der Sloot to the United States in 26 years. He of course was the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba. She's been legally death and her body has never found. Van Der Sloot is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence for killing another woman in his Lima hotel room.

The father of Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza is finally speaking out and it is heart breaking. Peter Lanza told "The New Yorker," quote, "With hindsight, I know Adam would have killed me in a heartbeat if he had the chance." Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six staff members in December of 2012. Along with the article, "The New Yorker" printed this picture of Adam with his father years ago.

Our national correspondent, Susan Candiotti, live in New York. She is following the story. Tell us more.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is heart breaking, Carol, as you said. Peter Lanza says, he doesn't think anyone would have predicted his son, Adam, would become a mass murderer, not even his ex-wife, Nancy, who was Adam's first victim. Describing his own son, Adam, he says, you can't get any more evil.

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CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Peter Lanza, the father of Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, has broken his silence saying, "With hindsight, I know Adam would have killed me in a heartbeat if he had the chance." In his first interview since the horrific shooting in New Town, Connecticut, nearly 15 months ago, Lanza tells "The New Yorker" magazine he has met with two families of his son's victims saying, a victim's family member told me that they had forgave Adam after we spent three hours talking. I didn't even know how to respond.

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, CNN'S "AC 360": Twenty little children, six adults.

WOLF BLITZER, HOST, CNN'S "THE SITUATION ROOM": Unimaginable horror grips the nation.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Police have now identified the school shooter as Adam Lanza.

CANDIOTTI: Lanza say when he realized what happened, he called his wife at work telling her over and over, I think it's Adam. It's Adam. Lanza said he knew his son had problems, but he was difficult to treat. In his words, he did not want to talk about problems and didn't even admit he had Asperger's. Lanza also describes changes he saw in his son. It was crystal clear something was wrong. Asperger's makes people unusual, but it doesn't make people like this.

Authorities later found that Adam had holed up in his room. Windows covered by black garbage bags seen in these photos. Peter Lanza says, as things got worse with his son, Adam's mother, Lanza's ex-wife, Nancy, cared for him primarily. In his words, she wanted everyone to think everyone was OK. He adds, she didn't fear her son. She slept with her bedroom door unlocked and she kept guns in the house, which she would not have done if she were frightened.

These photos released late last year by the Connecticut state police show an open gun locker, several firearms, and lots of ammunition inside the home. Andrew Solomon interviewed Lanza for "The New Yorker" and gave his take on Adam's mother, Nancy, on the "Today" show.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nancy Lanza was always trying to give Adam a good day. She didn't think enough about giving him a good life.

CANDIOTTI: Peter Lanza says he is haunted by his son, dreaming about him nightly. Detailing one nightmare being hunted like one of his son's victims.

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CANDIOTTI: Lanza also says he wishes his son, Adam, was never born. Lanza chose to tell this story with writer, Andrew Solomon, who has written extensively about mental illness. Lanza's spokesman tells me Peter Lanza does not intend to say another word publicly about his son -- Carol.

COSTELLO: It is just really sad, something that's a bit confusing. So Mr. Lanza, he knew his son was dangerous, but Mrs. Lanza, Mr. Lanza's ex-wife, wasn't frightened and kept guns in the house. Didn't she realize that Adam Lanza could hurt someone?

CANDIOTTI: You know, according to peter, he did not think that his wife could have foreseen what happened. He believes that she did her very best as he puts it and certainly even Peter himself did not think that his son was dangerous -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Susan Candiotti, reporting live, thanks so much.

He can't set foot in the United States for fear of arrest, but in less than two hours, NSA whistle blower, Edward Snowden, is on the schedule to speak at the annual South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. He of course won't be there in person, but live via teleconference from Russia.

CNN's Money Laurie Segall is live in Austin and will be ringside today. Good morning.

SEGALL: Good morning. Well, people are very excited about this, Carol, because they are already heading up to the convention center to line up to see this video conference. What Snowden is expected to say, he is supposed to talk about the impact of the surveillance that it has had on the tech community. He is expected to do a bit of a call to arms to the tech people. You need to build out better tools to protect user privacy. This is an audience full of technologists, full of entrepreneurs. Congressmen are in town. He is expected to take Q and A. It is a big deal. This is the first time we are hearing from him with this kind of audience.

COSTELLO: Are people excited to hear from him?

SEGALL: Absolutely. People are lining up right now. This is the talk of south by Southwest. This is the conference about what's next in technology, what are the conversations we need to be having. Snowden is the guest of honor when all is said. A certain representative wrote a note to the organizers saying, you need to rescind this invitation for Snowden. They don't want him speaking. So what we're really seeing is that there is also a growing tension between Silicon Valley and Washington.

COSTELLO: Laurie Segall, we'll be anxiously awaiting your next report. Thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's disease. CNN's medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen has details on a new blood test.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, doctors call this game-changing. They said this could hopefully be the key to someday preventing Alzheimer's disease. We'll be back.

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COSTELLO: Researchers have reported a medical breakthrough as doctors struggle to understand Alzheimer's disease. Now a blood test can accurately predict whether a patient will develop the illness. Senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, has the story.

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COHEN (voice-over): There hasn't been a good way to predict who will get Alzheimer's disease, whose brains will get the plaques and tangles that destroy memory and concentration and who will be spared. In a first of its kind study, a simple blood test was able to predict who would get Alzheimer's.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a wonderful piece of science, the most significant observation we have been able to report in my entire scientific career.

COHEN: The researchers looked at the blood of healthy elderly people checking for 10 fatty molecules, called lipids. Those with lower levels were more likely to develop Alzheimer's. On average, the change from healthy to sick took just two years. The test was over 90 percent accurate. The researchers and the Alzheimer's Association point out that more studies need to be done to check and see if this test really works.

If even all goes well, the test won't be in doctor's offices for several years. So who would want a test to predict Alzheimer's? After all, there is nothing you can do to stop it. Dr. Howard Federoff, a researcher, says he would want to know.

DR. HOWARD FEDEROFF, NEUROLOGIST, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: I would want to plan and work with my family and attend to the issues that are important to us.

COHEN: But some people might not want to know that they are destined for a devastating disease.

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COSTELLO: I would want to know for my family's sake so that I could prepare for them so they don't have to deal with it.

COHEN: I might want to know a year before, but if this test works like in 40-year-olds. I don't want to know now. Not that I'm 40. I'm older than 40. Just to be clear. I wouldn't want to know at this stage of my life. I feel like it would be in the back of my head. It would depress me. Actually a psychotherapist said to me, I'd be worried that people would commit suicide.

You know, it's possible. I mean, maybe she is being a little dramatic, but maybe not, maybe not. Maybe that would happen to some people if they knew in the back of their minds this was going to happen to them.

COSTELLO: Let's look at the glass half full. This could actually lead to some sort of effective treatment.

COHEN: Yes. That is the exciting thing about it. So right now, if you want to test out a drug to see if it prevents Alzheimer's, it is really hard to do because you give it to 100 people. Most of them aren't going to get Alzheimer's anyhow so you're not preventing anything. If you had 100 people that you knew were pretty much destined to get Alzheimer's. What a great study population. You give them a drug and see whether it prevented the disease. That's really exciting. That could make a big difference.

COSTELLO: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, experts are puzzled by the sudden disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. What about the so-called black boxes. Up next, why some argue airplane technology desperately needs to be updated.

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COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. This morning, a second U.S. Navy ship joins the massive international hunt for any signs of that Malaysia Airlines jet that's missing and presumed crashed. The 239 people, including three Americans, were aboard when the 777 vanished from radar Saturday morning. Dozens of planes and ships are scouring the Gulf of Thailand for debris.

Investigators now say an oil slick is not connected to the airliner. Whatever struck that flight was so catastrophic though, neither the pilots nor the electronics issued a distressed signal. There was word that two passengers used stolen passports to board the plane. Investigators are desperately trying to figure out how the plane vanished and where it is now.

Joining me now, pilot and aviation attorney, Daniel Rose. Welcome. DANIEL ROSE, PILOT AND AVIATION ATTORNEY: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about the so-called black box.