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Mystery of Flight 370

Aired March 11, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Of course, the breaking news here on CNN is the mystery of Flight 370, information that we have now learned, that the plane was way off course when it disappeared.

This information is coming to us from a senior Malaysian air force official. They have traced the last signs of the plane to a very small island in the Straits of Malacca. This was when they lost contact with that plane's transponder right through the Straits of Malacca, OK? If the air force information is correct, this is huge information.

It means that the plane had almost done a complete U-turn and was flying in the opposite direction from its scheduled destination and was last seen in the Malacca Straits at about 2:40 a.m., two hours after it took off from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

The question now is why. And another big question, of course, is where. Where is this plane? One expert telling CNN that while mechanical explanations are still possible, those explanations are narrowing very quickly, opening the possibility that someone turned off the transponder deliberately inside the cockpit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER GOELZ, FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: If this report is true, it means a couple of things. One is, was there someone unauthorized in the cockpit, ordered the transponder turned off, ordered the plane to fly a 90-degree turn off course? Second is, did one of the pilots do it themselves?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Joining me now, an expert, and I really value his opinion here, Jim Tilmon, retired commercial pilot.

Jim, thank you so much for joining us here on CNN.

We just heard from the National Transportation Safety Board managing director. He told CNN that it is possible to turn off the transponders. How difficult or easy is it to turn off a transponder?

JIM TILMON, FORMER AMERICAN AIRLINES PILOT: Oh, it's not difficult at all.

But my question, Don, goes a little bit further. What was going on from the ground controllers? Where were the air traffic controllers that tracked this airplane for everything it does and doesn't do? They should know right away that this airplane is not on course. They should be querying the airplane to find out, what are your intentions?

And I don't have any reports that there was any inkling made from air traffic controllers in any place. It happened that the transponders were turned off just before he entered the Vietnamese airspace. That means that that was a critical point. That's where the air traffic controllers from one country should be handing them off to the next country.

If they didn't (INAUDIBLE) then there are questions that go back and forth between air traffic controllers. They should have been terribly alarmed that they have lost this airplane and not making contact with it.

LEMON: Yes.

And this latest bit of animation that we have, I think, is very telling, if we can run that again, because it shows the plane taking off in Kuala Lumpur. And, just as you said, Jim -- and we will watch it as it goes here -- it gets to Vietnamese airspace, or to the airspace in Vietnam.

And just as it's about to approach land, according to the information that we have from this Malaysian official, it makes that U-turn. And then it goes back over land, and then heads across the Straits of Malacca again. And that's the last anyone has heard of it.

Can you think of any reason that anyone would turn a transponder off or for a transponder just to stop working?

TILMON: All right, two things.

One, I can't think of any plausible reason for anyone to turn both of those transponders off. That's the first thing, unless it was something deliberately being done or whatever. Two, it's hard for me to imagine an electrical failure on that airplane, with all of its redundancy and everything else, to have total electrical failure.

That's just something like out of the blue. The airplane is designed so it really needs to have electrical power. And it's designed that way. That means also that there are all kinds of redundancy built into the system so you don't end up flying blind, so to speak.

So I think that we are dealing with a situation here where the questions still are looming large -- largely over this whole atmosphere. Did the airplane actually crash, or did it land someplace? And we don't know any of that.

LEMON: That's a big question, because the airplane could have landed and there could be no communications, or people could be unconscious. One never knows.

TILMON: That's right.

I mean, if the airplane was truly hijacked, they could have ducked underneath the radar over that little island and ended up landing someplace. So these people may still be alive. Who knows? I hate to say that, because I don't want to mislead anybody and give them false hope.

But let me tell you, we have a 360-degree panorama of ideas and sequences and scenarios. It has made this thing really, really difficult to deal with.

LEMON: Yes. Jim Tilmon, listen, no one knows what happened and we are only gathering the information that we have from experts like you to try to figure it out.

And what you said was, there's redundancy built into that 777, which is one of the most, if not the most sophisticated airplane in this -- commercial aircraft in the sky right now. So we appreciate it. Again, we don't know exactly what happened. And there are a number of different scenarios that could have happened. I'm sure we will find out in the coming days.

Jim Tilmon, appreciate it.

I want to go now to Clive Irving, joins me now from London. He's a contributor to The Daily Beast and a senior consulting editor for Conde Nast Traveler.

Clive, is there a legitimate reason why this transponder would be shut off, and how troubling is this to you to hear that information?

CLIVE IRVING, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, it's just another piece of very troubling information, very confusing information in this fog of people trying to imagine what happened, because we are imagining it. We're trying to imagine it.

I think it's a bridge too far to talk about the plane landing somewhere. That's a bit too James Bond-ish for my idea that there's some kind of Dr. No figure who is having it on his private island. But there are several things here that are really puzzling.

This transponder thing is puzzling, but the most important and strangest thing of all is this left turn, and then that it proceeded for quite a distance in that new direction. And why only now do we know this from the radar? And, then again, there's the whole issue of what the ground controllers would do during the time, which is reminiscent of what happened in the case of Air France 447, which disappeared over the South Atlantic, where there was a lot of fumbling and inattention going on, because it was -- people say because it was 2:00 in the morning, but I think that's ridiculous, because they work in shifts.

They're always supposed to be alert. They don't take the night shift to go to sleep.

LEMON: Clive, can we draw any conclusions from its path, the fact that it was so severely off course?

IRVING: Well, I think there are a number of things that could have gone wrong with this flight, being steadily reduced in number, so that you have to then look very seriously at the options that are left.

What I have been looking at is this issue of decompression, of loss of pressure, and what the effect of that is on the state of mind of the crew and the passengers and whether the people pass out. There was a case where a 737 flew across the Mediterranean with everybody on board passed out until it ran out of gas and crashed in Greece.

So that flew for a very long while. We don't know how long this plane flew beyond this point because the transponders were off.

LEMON: Clive Irving, thank you. Appreciate it.

IRVING: You're welcome.

LEMON: We can only imagine the agony facing the families of the missing passengers and the crew of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Even a story this big is more about individual sadness and loss.

It's also about the frustration of not knowing and anger. Here's an example as anguished family members press an airline executive for help. It's just awful. You can't imagine what those families are going through.

Andrew Stevens joins us from Kuala Lumpur.

What are families -- are they reacting to this latest news?

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's 3:00 in the morning here, Don, so we haven't heard any reaction.

And, also, the Malaysia Airlines are keeping the family members quite a long way from the media, as they were in Beijing. I have just come now from Beijing, very much a similar situation there.

We saw that conference there organized by Malaysia Airlines and those distraught passengers there. That man you heard screaming out, sort of, what are you doing? Time is going by. Why aren't you finding anything? Why aren't you telling us anything? There's this real frustration that they're just not getting information timely enough.

And if you think about the information we have just been talking about, about the fact that there was this U-turn of the plane, this is -- now we're actually into the -- we're actually now officially in the fifth day since this plane went down. And we are now only getting this confirmation that there was an apparent U-turn and the actual plane was last seen hundreds of miles away from where it was supposed to be.

Now, what's interesting here, dots are being joined, because, initially, in the first reports, the Malaysians were saying that this plane disappeared from the radar at 2:40.

They then scaled that back and said it actually disappeared about an hour earlier. Now, what's happened is that those transponders we have been talking about, they're the ones that switched off about an hour into the flight and then the plane turned, flew across Malaysia and was last seen at 2:40 over this small island called Pulau Perak.

These dots are now being joined. Now, whether we're going to get any official confirmation, because our information is coming to us from an unnamed source. He's a very senior source in the Malaysian air force. But they're still not saying officially what's happened. This theory, this turn-back theory has been around for a couple of days, but it's only been a theory.

But they would have known because they would have seen it in real time.

LEMON: Hey, Andrew, I want to ask you something. I'm not familiar with that area, just from vacationing in that area, I'm not that familiar.

But someone is asking me here -- they said -- someone made the point that the plane lost contact near Royal Malaysian Air Force Base Gong Kedak. There is a suitable runway there. If it made it back over to the west coast, it would have flown over to -- over at least three airfields -- over at least three airfields suitable -- with suitable runways to land.

STEVENS: Absolutely.

There's a very big airfield at a resort island called Langkawi, which is probably about 200 kilometers, 300 kilometers, say 200 miles away from where this plane was last sighted. There's also a big commercial runway at Penang, on the island of Penang.

So there are plenty of alternatives. The thing is, though, this was 2:40 in the morning. If they did not have communications, access to communications, they had no way of knowing exactly where they were, depending on how catastrophic the electronics failure was. They may not have known exactly where they were. At this stage, obviously all conjecture, Don, but certainly, you're right. There were plenty of alternative airstrips to put down in.

LEMON: Andrew Stevens in Kuala Lumpur. Andrew, we're going to need you, so stand by. Thank you very much.

CIA not ruling out terrorism here. We're talking live to a former FBI agent about what could have happened aboard that plane.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: While teams desperately search for any sign of Flight 370, the CIA says anything is possible. Officials with the spy agency won't rule out terrorism in the plane's disappearance, even as other officials downplay that possibility.

I want to go to our Jim Sciutto. He joins us now from Washington with the very latest.

So, Jim, some mixed messages out of Washington. We do know why the CIA won't -- do we know, I should say, why the CIA won't rule out terrorism? JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I understand why it's confusing. They're not actually contradictory.

And I think the bottom line is here they don't know what happened to this plane. You had the CIA director, Brennan, making public comments today, asked about this. In fact, I asked him about this, this new information about the transponder being turned off. And in answer to that question, he said, listen, we can't eliminate any possibility here. We are still checking out these leads. It's too early to say.

I have been speaking to intelligence officials over the last several days. They say that they have nothing to this point to indicate a connection to terrorism. I went back to them later this morning after Brennan's comments. They say that has not changed. They don't have an indication. But they're still checking out leads.

Remember, there is this curiosity about these two passengers on board with stolen passports. That's a lead they checked out, the fingerprint, the thumbprints of those two men, those two men that we now know, were Iranians were sent and checked against a U.S. terror database to make sure they didn't have any ties to terrorism, found out they do not have ties to terrorism.

And now this other explanation has come forward, that they were just simply trying to emigrate on false passports. The bottom line is they don't know for sure. They're going to be loathe to say they have eliminated anything as new information comes out. But, to this point, they don't have anything hard to say that this has a tie to terrorism.

LEMON: All right, Jim, so let's talk about the information about the transponder.

What do you make of the latest information? Why would the transponder be shut off, or I don't know if someone shut it off intentionally, or go off?

SCIUTTO: Well, it's truly an incredible morning, because you have these two pieces of information, the transponder turned off and then the plane flying level flight or descending flight for such a long period of time, which at least starts to eliminate some possibilities, right?

Because one of the first things we were talking about early on, was there an explosion, a sudden explosion that made this plane disappear? It doesn't appear that that happened because it went on flying for another hour. Something could have happened later, but it certainly didn't happen hat that point when contact was lost.

Transponder, two possible explanations. Either someone turned it off,, a pilot turned it off, which is possible, or there was a massive mechanical failure that caused it to turn off. Those are still the two possible explanations. And it's just such a mystery.

I think one of the biggest confusing things and frustrating things is that it appears that the Malaysian authorities had this information from very early on, because if the military was tracking this plane, that wouldn't just suddenly turn up 72-96 hours later. They would have known that when it happened. Why didn't it come out? And, you know, this raises another question.

Are the Malaysian authorities sharing the best information with all the international partners who are helping? Because you and I have talked about this. You have got the world navy on the other side of that Malay Peninsula searching where they thought the plane disappeared, when, in fact, the Malaysian air force has information that the plane continued to the other side, to the western side of the peninsula.

LEMON: Right. Yes.

SCIUTTO: It's crazy. It's nuts.

LEMON: And given what you just said, is there a sense, Jim, from officials that they are making progress on this case? Or are they spinning their wheels here?

SCIUTTO: That's a good question.

I think -- I haven't heard anybody say they're spinning their wheels. I think that they're loathe to say -- they're always reluctant to say, we know anything for sure. And they will make the point, we haven't found a plane. A lot of this will be a forensic investigation.

Remember, when they found TWA 800, they started looking to see if there was evidence of an explosion in the cargo hold, this kind of thing. You have got to see parts and start testing those parts for explosive residue, or also see how intact the plane was when it hit the water. Was it level flight, controlled flight into water? Was it something else? So I think they're just saying they don't know. That's their bottom line. They don't know yet.

LEMON: Hey, Jim, can I ask you something real quick, because I have got to get to a break? But I want to ask you, why -- you were mentioning the withholding of evidence, if the Malaysian officials knew this information early on. Why withhold that evidence?

SCIUTTO: No idea. And I think that's a very key point now.

And it's one thing I'm asking officials here. Were they frustrated with the sharing of information from the Malaysian side? I haven't been told that yet, but it's something I'm asking around. When I hear it, I will let you know.

LEMON: Thank you. Jim Sciutto, appreciate that.

CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes -- is Tom now or is he after the break? He's next after the break, after the break. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Back now to the breaking news here on CNN, that plane, Flight 370, way off course. New information from Malaysian officials saying that it had made a U-turn and went back in the direction that it came from.

Right now, I want to get to Tom Fuentes, CNN law enforcement analyst. He's joining us now from Washington, D.C.

The latest information about this missing airliner, what do you make of this?

TOM FUENTES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Don, I think it raises almost as many questions as it answers.

It does narrow down an area to look for that aircraft that might be -- have a greater opportunity, let's say, to find it. So, as soon as it's daylight there in the next three or four hours, they should be able to start a better search in a more likely area to find it. So that's one piece of good news.

But as far as why that airplane got changed or why the direction was changed, why the transponders were shut off and it still flew, whether there was mechanical problems, whether there was human problems, whether it was hijacked, all of those questions are still unanswered.

And a lot of that will stay unanswered until the aircraft is located one way or the other and analyzed.

LEMON: And I said officials. It's one official that has given us this information.

So, Tom, listen, if we can look at the path of this flight again, because they were -- it appears that they -- the search for the most part has been in the wrong body of water, that it indeed had made itself -- made its way back across that peninsula and it was in another body of water that they had not been searching for, at least a large amount of rescue workers.

They have been searching pretty much in the entire area. But the bulk of the search had been in a completely different body of water.

FUENTES: That's right. And a question I would raise is that an aircraft that flies at about 500 miles an hour or more, if it had 90 more minutes of flight time, it could be 750 miles away from where that point was that it turned.

When it arrived over that island to the west of the Malay Peninsula, was it getting to that end of the Malaysian radar system? So it was about to go off their radar going north. Now that it's going southwest, did it go off their radar at the other end? That's a question I don't know. It would be a technical question for the authorities. What was the extent of radar coverage when it was on its way toward Indonesia?

LEMON: Yes. And that is a big question.

I gave this question earlier to our Andrew Stevens, and he said this is indeed a good point. Someone makes a point here, and they wrote to me, Tom, and they said, the plane lost contact near Royal Malaysian Air Force Base Gong Kedak. There is a suitable runway there. If it made it back over to the West Coast, would have flown over at least three airfields with suitable runways to land.

FUENTES: Right. I know. That's just -- that's part of the mystery.

It was the dead of night. We don't know what kind of navigational equipment was still functioning, if any. And, again, we don't know if we have had some type or some partial mechanical failure that cut off the electric systems, but the plane could still stay in the air because the engines kept running.

We don't know that, or we don't know the other side, which is that the plane was flown in that direction on purpose, whether it was by the pilots or whether the pilots were ordered to do it under duress. That's the part we don't know yet.

LEMON: I know you don't want to speculate, but I have been asking people, when you look at this new information from this Malaysian official and you look at the route of that plane, what do you think happened? Do you think it was catastrophic electrical failure? Do you think it was possibly a hijacking or terrorism? What do you make of it?

FUENTES: I think it doesn't answer either question.

You don't have the catastrophic mechanical failure that blew it out of the sky, like TWA 800 had, but -- because it still stayed in the air another hour-and-a-half after whatever happened. But if those transponders and all communications in that plane were shut off deliberately, then that plane is able to go not just 750 miles, but whatever direction they take it.

It was ready and fueled to go all the way to Beijing, and it only got about 20 or 30 percent of the way there. So it certainly could have stayed in the air, I think, if it wasn't for mechanical problems, three, four more hours at least, you would think.

LEMON: You know, I want to ask -- I forget the flight, the exact flight, but I remember there was one not too long ago that has been studied that flew over a volcano. No one knew what was going on. All the engines went out. Right?

FUENTES: Right.

LEMON: No one had any idea. And that had never really happened before to a commercial aircraft. Is this possibly something that is untested, unheard of from a commercial air flight, and this will be the beginning of changes to be made for commercial air travel?

FUENTES: Right.

There have been a number of flight where that kind of damage has been done because of the small glass particles contained in volcanic smoke. But, in that case, you would think the engines would go out first before the rest of the plane had problems. The engines would jam up with that material in the engines.

And I think in one of the flights that was bound for Australia, as the plane descended, they were able to get enough of those particles out of the engine and restart the engines and land it.

LEMON: Right. Right.

Tom Fuentes, thank you. I appreciate it.

FUENTES: Sure, Don.

LEMON: Coming up, more on that missing flight. As I mentioned, the CIA is not ruling out terrorism, but why haven't searchers found the plane yet? Could it be because of outdated technology? That is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)