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Standoff Between Russian, Ukrainian Forces; Anger Grows as Malaysia Expands Search; Malaysian Officials Seek FAA, NTSB Help; Angers, Tears For Families to Flight 370; Missing Plane Conspiracy Theories Abound

Aired March 12, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Have a great day.

NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, anger. Outrage. And the sea of frustration.

REP. MIKE ROGERS: The Malaysians have not been fully cooperative.

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: They've basically done nothing right so far. They seemed to have dropped the ball.

COSTELLO: This morning Vietnam fed up and pulling back from the operation. The size of the search and questions about it almost doubling overnight. Using the latest technology.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can see doors or wings or engines or something like that.

COSTELLO: Trying to connect the dots and clear the clouds of confusion over Flight 370.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. We'll have the latest on the missing Malaysia Airlines jet in just a minute but we begin this hour with breaking news on the crisis in Ukraine where tensions are rising between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is on the phone from western Crimea.

Bring us up to date -- Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, we just moved away from a Ukraine naval base, a town called Novo-Ozerne, where we witnessed in the last few hours a pretty tense standoff between clearly Russian troops there, they don't have markings but they have the weaponry, discipline and vehicles you'd associate with thousands of Russian troops the U.S. government says are here.

And Ukrainian naval soldiers who -- it's the first time I've seen here actually armed, their weapons loaded taking up defensive positions -- training their weapons on the Russian soldiers who are training their weapons on them.

One point until the Russians moved towards the base down the side of it trying to intimidate those Ukrainians inside (INAUDIBLE) itself, Ukrainians sounded the alarm. Everyone ran to their stations preparing to defend the base and then the Russians moved into the street just straight down in front of the front entrance from the Ukrainian base, lay a heavy machine gun on the floor in order to intimidate Ukrainian soldiers inside. And then quickly the instant de-escalated. They moved -- the Russians moved back inside and pulled back.

But then strangely, Carol, while we thought things had ended, we saw one, possibly two Russian attack helicopters in the sky circling that particular town. Remarkable tension there. Actually seeing the two sides here with their weapons loaded trained on each other for a brief period. There the Ukrainian soldiers clearly very worried. Some locals sympathetic about what they see as the Russian forces trying to protect their way of life and ability to speak Russian, and now an often anti-Russian Ukraine main land.

But really a tense moment here. Many worst fears realized that actually pushed the remaining thousands of Ukrainian troops out of their bases. They may end up in some sort of force used by the Russian soldiers here. But today, purely intimidation -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. We'll check back. Nick Paton Walsh reporting live for us this morning.

Now let's turn to the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Few clues, a puzzling level of confusion and bitter heartbreak for the families of the 239 people on board.

Here's the latest reason for their anguish. After spending five days searching the area beneath the intended path of a Beijing bound flight, Malaysia's military now says it may have radically changed course popping up as a blip on radar more than an hour later and hundreds of miles away. That means the search area doubles today as developments so baffling Vietnam is scaling back search efforts until Malaysia gets its act together.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're getting increasing criticism now. You're searching east, you're searching west. You don't seem to know what you're seeing on a radar and it's taking you until now five days later.

HISHAMMUDDIN TUN HUSSEIN, MALAYSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: I think that's not true.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ask you, this is utter confusion now. HUSSEIN: I don't think so. I think it's far from it. It's only confusion if you want it to be seemed to be confusion. We are being -- we are being very clear. We have been very consistent in our --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have no clue where you need to search.

HUSSEIN: Yes, in these two areas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: How desperate have things become? Well, a shaman or witch doctor says one Malaysian leader enlisted this spiritual ceremony to uncover any clues. The witch doctor wasn't able to help Malaysia's beleaguered government either.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So far they seemed to have dropped the ball at every level. And I hate to be, you know, the Monday morning quarterback, but it appears as if they've basically done nothing right so far. And even if the -- you know, the Navy was told about it yesterday, that's 48 hours after the fact. To me, every minute counts here. And that was such a key point. The plane actually reversed course and was flying back over Malaysia towards Indonesia.

I mean, why wasn't that made known? Why weren't jets scrambled? Why wasn't an alert put out on that immediately?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So there's chaos, confusion and anger. There's no way to effectively find 239 missing people.

So let's talk more about that. Our Nic Robertson is in London. And CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes is in Washington.

Tom, I want to start with you. Is it even clear who's in charge of this investigation? Is it the military? Is it civilian authorities?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, right now in Malaysia the -- I think it's a combination of both that appear to be in charge and both control different radar systems which they're trying to match up and figure out from the two systems which is the most accurate and I think that's why they're now asking for NTSB experts from the United States to come in and give them help, try and analyze their own radar data.

But, again, as far as the investigation goes, it's still real important if there's any clue to find out if that plane was under the control of the captain with a mechanical problem trying to return to Kuala Lumpur airport and maybe they just couldn't find it because they didn't have the navigation lanes or if the plane had been taken and the transponder shut off deliberately but it was still in perfect functioning condition.

If you can fly 560 miles an hour and if it can fly with enough fuel to go to Beijing, the search radius could be 3,000 miles, not just a couple of hundred miles. They could take that plane probably to Hawaii if the pilots wanted to go there.

COSTELLO: I know. The area, the search area has expanded now to 27,000 nautical miles. That's the size of Indiana.

Nic, let me ask you this. Vietnam's vice minister of transportation says, quote, "Up until now we've only had one meeting with a Malaysian military attache. However, the information that attache provided is insufficient."

Vietnam is now scaling back on its search efforts for and on behalf of Malaysia which kind of says to me Malaysia has no idea where to search, right?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There's confusion and that's undoubtedly why they really need the help of the NTSB and the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority who are going to be there and giving them assistance. Their problem appears to be interpreting the data that the military has. And I have to say looking at that press conference today, the body language of the two military officials really showed that they were perhaps the lesser party at the table.

You had the -- you had the minister of transport in the middle and the head of -- the head of the civilian aviation on his other side who seemed pretty comfortable with what he was saying. There were many questions concerning the military and what they've done and what they know. And one of the things is -- the question is, have they really seen Flight MH-370 on their radar or is it something else?

Then, of course, there's the elephant in the room that won't be discussed here publicly by Malaysian officials and that's the extent of their radar. So where they see this plane, they get the last ping from the plane they say at 2:15 a.m. in the morning on the trajectory they are at the moment estimating it was on. It doesn't mean the plane stopped there, it means potentially, potentially we have to say, that's where they lost track of it and it could have passed out and continued as an unidentified aircraft across the sea as you say for up to 4,000 miles.

So the focus is really going to be specifically, are they right? Is the military right on what it thinks was that flight? And the confusion we can see on the ground. They're still searching two wildly different areas, one to the east and one to the west of Malaysia -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Well, I want to ask you both about something else so stand by for just a minute. The co-pilot of that missing jet is also in the spotlight this morning. Now that a woman has come forward to say she and a friend entered the cockpit during a flight in 2011 at the request of the same co-pilot. She told CNN's Piers Morgan how it happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST, "PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT": Tell me exactly what happened. You were on this flight and the co-pilot's name is Farek Abdul Hamid. What happened?

JONTI ROOS, FLEW IN COCKPIT IN 2011 WITH MISSING CO-PILOT: We were standing in line at the boarding gate with all the other passengers waiting to board and the -- the co-pilot and pilot walked passed us and then came back, and asked us if we would like to sit with them in the cockpit during the flight and so we said, yes.

We boarded the plane normally with all the other passengers and went to our seat. And a short while after taking our seats (INAUDIBLE) asked us if we wanted to meet with the pilot and after which we did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Now Malaysia Airlines says it has not been able to confirm this woman's story but it is raising questions about one of them at the controls of the flight. The co-pilot.

So, Tom, I'll ask you this. After 9/11, cockpit doors are locked on U.S. flights. Are they on international flights, too?

FUENTES: I think most of the aircraft have that in place even though this was not a plane that made a normal route to the United States. But what's interesting here is that if -- not necessarily just these ladies but if the crews of Malaysian Airlines allow visitors, let's just say they allow a visitor to enter into the cockpit during flight time, then that means one of the other passengers on this flight could have been invited in and then took over and then locked everybody else out.

So that just raises the problem that, you know, if you build a fortress around the cockpit, it doesn't do you any good if you open the door and let people in.

COSTELLO: That is true. So, Nic, this co-pilot is 27 years old. Some say he's known as a playboy in the skies. What more do we know about him?

ROBERTSON: Well, Jonti Roos there also said that she kind of found the whole thing a bit sleazy, that they invited -- the co-pilot invited the two young girls to stay a few extra nights in Kuala Lumpur so that the pilots could entertain them. You know, their assessment of him is they kind of felt that he had sort of a professional control and he knew what he was doing in the cockpit yet the behavior they found, he wasn't at all times looking out at the front of the cockpit.

And it absolutely raises very, very serious questions about the security of the cabin and who could have been let in. I think we need to be clear of one thing here. Certainly if the aircraft turned around as is being indicated at the moment by the military and Malaysia, that whoever was flying the plane knew what they were doing, that they knew how to fly a plane.

And this seems to be one of the certainties apart from was the plane essentially on an auto pilot at that time? Had the plane taken over? Were the people in the cabin incapacitated in some way? So whether or not he acts and follows around like a playboy, somebody in that cabin was able to control the aircraft for a considerable amount of time it appears at least -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. We'll discuss the -- all of this much more later on in the NEWSROOM. Thanks to you both, Nic Robertson and Tom Fuentes.

As you heard Tom say, the Malaysian government is now reaching out to experts at the FAA and the NTSB asking for help analyzing radar information.

Rene Marsh is in Washington with more on that side of the story.

Good morning.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You know, it's day five and still nothing and today the Malaysian authorities acknowledged that they need more help from the experts. Take a listen to a press briefing that just happened just a few hours ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUSSEIN: The way forward, ladies and gentlemen, is to bring more experts to analyze both the civilian and the military data in the east or in the west, on land or in the water, and this is exactly what we are doing today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right. Well, we do know there are three NTSB investigators in the region. They've been there since Monday, but there wasn't a whole lot that they've been able to do since the plane is still missing.

The FAA, which has expertise in air traffic control, is also there. We also know Boeing, the manufacturer of this 777, is there to answer any questions about the plane's technology, how it works, the capability of the plane, but to be very clear, Carol, they are asking -- they are not asking, I should say, the NTSB to lead the investigation because the investigation hasn't officially started yet and it will not until they find the plane.

If the plane is found in international waters, then Malaysia will take the lead since the plane is -- since the plane belongs to them. However, if the plane is found in waters under another country's jurisdiction, that country will take the lead. But we won't cross that bridge until they find the plane -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And that just may add more confusion, Rene Marsh, thanks so much.

MARSH: Sure. COSTELLO: As the Malaysian government faces sharp criticism for its handling of the search, the prime minister is asking relatives of the missing to remain calm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER (Through Translator): What we want to tell the families is that we must, indeed, consider their feelings. The families involved have to understand that this is something unexpected. The families must understand more efforts have been made with all our capabilities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: David McKenzie spoke with some of those families. He joins me now live from Beijing.

David, I'm not so sure that I would find the words from the prime minister comforting.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, that's exactly right. The families here in Beijing, more than two-thirds on that plane from China. The families are holdup in a hotel here near the airport. They've been waiting for hours, then days. Frustration, sadness. It's all now boiling up and becoming anger. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE (voice-over): In the hours turning into days, the pain spills out. "I can still call my son's mobile phone", this man cries out. "You need to search for him quickly."

Meetings with airline officials are tense. At times angry. Hundreds of family members want answers. But there are few to give.

PAUL YIN, GRIEF COUNSELOR: When there's not the final closure, I think any ray of hope, even -- however remote or however improbable, many of these people are still hold on to it.

MCKENZIE: Airline officials have pledged to send close family members to the staging ground of the search in Malaysia. But few of them want to go. Not until the plane is found.

FATHER OF YAN LING, DAUGHTER WAS ON FLIGHT 370 (through translator): I'm not going home until I know what happened. We've lost loved ones, and they need to answer our questions. When are you going to tell us? And what are you going to do? We still don't know if they are alive or dead.

MCKENZIE: As the extraordinary search effort continues, dozens of planes, boats and nations haven't been able to give these family members what they want to know, an answer of any kind.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE: While the search for this plane is a big mystery to all of us, it's less theoretical and more very real for these families, Carol. They just want answers. They're not getting them. We even spoke to one woman who says she hopes the plane was hijacked because she thinks maybe her son is alive and many are still trying to call cell phones, call mobile phones saying that they can get through, though that's just a quirk of technology, we believe.

It shows the desperate need of these families. We did try to interview one family later this evening here in China, but the police, in fact, stopped us from talking to them. So this is all still very sensitive here in China, and pointed criticism even from the Chinese government towards the search and rescue efforts -- Carol.

COSTELLO: David McKenzie reporting live from Beijing.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it's been five days since Malaysia flight 370 vanished. As the mystery continues, conspiracy theories are still flooding the Internet.

Pamela Brown live in Washington.

Good morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol.

That's right. From the plausible to the outlandish, people are coming up with all kinds of theories as to what may have happened to Flight 370. We'll take a look right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: As the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues, the mystery is growing and so are the conspiracy theories. From a meteor hitting the plane, to alien abduction, the web is full of absurd notion about what happened to that missing jet.

Justice correspondent Pamela Brown joins me now from Washington to tell us more.

Good morning.

BROWN: Good morning to you, Carol.

That's right. All the unknowns are sort of fueling the fire. And with this mystery continuing into yet another day, people are cooking up all kinds of theories and they're spreading like wild fire over the Internet. This as family members desperately search for answers and cling to hope.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The agonizing wait taking a terrible toll on hundreds of families who still have no idea what happened to their loved ones and with the wreckage still missing, speculation is swirling -- outlandish theories about Flight 370 surfacing all over the Internet and media. Aliens? An international kidnapping? A Hollywood stunt for the remake of "Lost?" JONATHAN KAY, JOURNALIST: It's accelerated because of the Internet and because in this case, with the international aspect of the story, where you have people piping in with their conspiracy theories literally from all around the world.

BROWN: Another theory, a meteor took the plane down. There was a known meteor in the area at the time the plane took off. Could it have hit the plane? Given what we know about the erratic flight path, highly unlikely.

And then, there's the idea the miraculous might have happened, that the plane somehow landed near the rocky outcrop of an island called Palau Perak, and the passengers are still alive. The hope fueled by so-called "phantom phone calls", family members saying their missing loved one's cell phones are still ringing.

Is there anyone on the other end of those calls? Doubtful, but it does give the loved ones of the vanished plane's passengers a place to put their hope.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And, Carol, conflicting information coming out of Malaysia seems to be spurring some of these conspiracy theories. You know, people often hone in on the irregularities and oddities in any disaster to weave a larger theory that would help them make sense of it.

And when you have a dearth of information, like in this information, people want to fill that vacuum with their own theories, just like they did in so many other historical tragedies like 9/11, the JFK assassination and other plane crashes -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about the ringing cell phones. Kind of -- I know everybody keeps saying it's a technical glitch, but what is the technical glitch?

BROWN: Well, I'm not an expert with technology, but as we heard David McKenzie say it could be a fluke. I've been overseas (AUDIO GAP) ring, but people can call and the phone will ring. It doesn't mean I can answer my phone or hear it.

So it's sort of just a technical fluke, if you will, it appears to be, or it could be something else. We simply don't know. As you heard in the piece, that's what family members are really trying to -- they're clinging to hope and they're sort of looking for answers and your heart really goes out to them.

COSTELLO: That it does. Pamela Brown reporting live from Washington.

An airliner drops off the radar, dozens of nations scramble to search for it. So, why in this age of high tech gadgets has the search turned up absolutely nothing?

Brian Todd is in Washington with that side of the story. BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, we're going to take a look at why some of the high tech gadgets on that plane are of little use in this search. But we're also going to look at some of the technology, the incredible technology that is being deployed in the effort to find this plane. That story is just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning, everyone. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, dozens of ships and planes are canvassing almost 30,000 square miles. There are no solid leads, and with the search now in day five, we're kicking around a pretty simple question.

In today's electronic age, how does an airliner of that size simply disappear?

CNN's Brian Todd is in Washington.

Good morning.

TODD: Good morning, Carol.

You know, given that plane's technology, that is a critical question right now. There's also some incredible technology being deployed to find this plane, from military aircraft with infrared capability to a Web site that you and I can go on to help in this search. This effort is very high tech and has global reach and that's crucial now since the plane's own technology seems to have shut down completely.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (voice-over): In the digital age when we've got GPS and our cell phones in cars, how do you lose an airplane? Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 also had GPS and a transponder sending signals from the cockpit to air traffic control.

The jet was tracked by radar, but now that we know the transponder signal was not operational when the plane disappeared --

BILL MCCABE, AVIATION SAFETY CONSULTANT: It's not going to do anything anymore. Once it's gone off, it's not going to come back on. From the GPS standpoint, all that is is mainly for the aircraft to know where it is, for the pilots to know where they are. There's not something inherent in the GPS that says, here I am over here.

TODD: This is now a high tech search. Pentagon officials tell CNN the Navy is using MH-60 helicopters, at least one P3 Orion plane in the air, along with 34 planes and 40 ships from 10 other countries.

The U.S. aircraft have electro-optical infrared sensors that can detect movement. The Pentagon won't say if it's using military satellites but safety consultant William McCabe believes they are using those satellites taking some very high res photos. MCCABE: They can be very precise right down to the size of a car or less than that if they need be. So, you can see doors, or wings, or engines, or something like that. They also have the capability of using the maritime or the Navy assets using sonar.